Part 1 of 3
By Wayne Limberger
From Wikipedia: “A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.”
I find this definition to be a workable analogy for outlining the “movie”of a querent’s future through the cards in a tarot reading. Of all the tarot decks on the market, the Waite-Smith (aka RWS) Tarot and its numerous faithful clones arguably lend themselves best to this purpose. First, a bit of disclosure: as a Thoth aficionado of many years’ standing, I’m no great fan of the RWS deck and its captive story-lines; I think the prosaic images in the “pip” cards too often hijack the reader’s attention at the cost of more nuanced interpretation. When considered in light of the underlying esoteric principles (with which Waite was fully conversant), many of them are certainly cringe-worthy. But put them together in a spread sequence (a “storyboard,” if you will) and a little magic manages to find its way out. All but one of the court cards (the King of Swords, although his sword does tilt slightly toward the viewer’s left) exhibit “facing” or directionality that adds a past-and-future inflection; the minor cards furnish hints of narrative detail that can be synthesized with more intuitive impressions while not slavishly buying into their anecdotal thrust (I get a lot of mileage out of the 6 of Swords); and the trumps, with a few exceptions, follow the medieval “blueprint” closely enough to provide a sound rendering of the archetypes involved.
Of these, I find deciphering the minor arcana to be the most fun. Although I view some of them (or at least the folklore that has grown up around them) as misguided from an esoteric standpoint (the 6 of Pentacles and the 6 of Cups come to mind), for the most part they offer almost endless inspiration and entertainment in terms of imaginative storytelling fodder. One of the best examples of this is the 10 of Cups, which I can’t help but think of as the “Ob-La-Di, Ob La-Da” card, with Desmond and Molly Jones in their home-sweet-home, with a couple of kids running in the yard (if you are too young to have been a Beatles fan, look it up). I often describe the 8 of Cups as the “poisoned well” card; the retreating man has looked in the cups and found their contents toxic, so he is trudging away in discouragement. The 10 of Swords is the “scorched earth” card; there is nothing worth saving so it’s time to move on without looking back. The 8 of Swords is a sensory-deprivation card that urges “Follow your heart, not your head.” These are just four examples of how I choose to work with the RWS images from a narrative perspective. Each of the RWS suits is analyzed from this angle in the following essays. I have also developed a full set of metaphorical euphemisms for the minor cards and have appended them to this article.
The “Barbarians at the Gate” RWS Storyboard
RWS Tarot
This is the first in a series of “storyboard” studies of the Minor Arcana cards of the Waite-Smith deck, this time examining the Wands. The quote in the title originated in Roman times, although modern readers will connect it more readily to the story of rapacious corporate greed portrayed in the book and movie of the same name.
The suit of Wands in the RWS deck is a schizophrenic beast. After the initial, enthusiastic spark of the Ace it takes a detour into more measured contemplation and deliberation, – the Two and Three, which exhibit little of the trademark vigor associated with Fire – then turns celebratory with the Four and Six; the contentious Five seems antithetical to the overall benign mood of these cards, but some writers view it as showing a youthful “mock battle” or children at play. The Golden Dawn and later Aleister Crowley associated the suit with work and business, probably due to its demonstration of ambition, initiative and enterprise, while French writer Joseph Maxwell related it to the industrious element of Earth. Waite retained the connection with Fire, but the early cards suggest more of a cautiously “banked” blaze than one in its full, fierce prime as we might expect from their proximity to the “root” of the elemental power.
The last four cards descend into conflict and difficulty, seemingly as a reaction and sobering corrective to the overconfident assumption of victory displayed in the Six. Here is a play-by-play narrative of the “story in the cards” as I see it. Note that the 19th Century tarot writers invariably described the querent with the pronouns “he, him and his,” so I will use that convention here for simplicity; I staunchly refuse to employ “they, them and their” as singular pronouns for grammatical reasons.
Ace of Wands: Man yearns for action (like a “burr under the
saddle” that goads him).
Two of Wands: Man hesitates, with one
foot in the past and one in the future, considering his
options.
Three of Wands: Man launches his initiative and patiently
waits for it to yield its rewards. (Note, however, that he has his
back turned to the world and is so absorbed in his own affairs that
he is vulnerable to “blind-siding.”
Four of Wands: Man revels
in early success (but he has yet to venture outside the boundaries of
entrepreneurial prudence and needs a challenge to continue
advancing).
Five of Wands: Man tests his strength in the fray of
competing ambitions. (Here is the stimulation he has been
craving).
Six of Wands: Man sees nothing standing in his way and
basks in the acclaim of his (perhaps envious) peers.
As an aside, I see the next four cards as a plot shift that ultimately derails the protagonist’s apparently assured “train to glory.”
Seven of Wands: The victorious hero sallies forth on a new
campaign, perhaps without sufficient advance mapping of the contested
territory. It suggests a military scout who has encountered more
resistance than he bargained for and is hard-pressed to extricate
himself. (But he’s holding the high ground in the skirmish, giving
him a “fighting chance.”)
Eight of Wands: The scout rapidly
“beats feet” back to the main camp, barely ahead of the “slings
and arrows” of the outraged – and markedly superior –
foe.
Nine of Wands: The erstwhile hero takes a stand at the
perimeter, valiantly defying the first wave of the assault but not
entirely unbloodied in the onslaught. (The battle may have been won,
but not the war.)
Ten of Wands: The distraught survivor of the
conflict gathers up his possessions and trudges away from the
battleground in defeat, a refugee in his own land. (Is that salvation
in the distance or only a marginally secure way-station in his
flight? I’ve never been convinced that he will be able to lay his
burden down just yet.)
The upshot of this scenario is that what started out with
unfettered optimism winds up in considerable distress, presenting a
cautionary tale that reflects overweening pride going before a fall.
Wands is sometimes described as the suit of Spirit, and here we see
spiritual innocence losing its virtue in the often brutal
give-and-take of adversarial competition. Waite and Smith give this
ostensibly most positive suit in the deck a decidedly morose
undertone.
Part 2 appears in the February Issue and Part 3 will appear in the March issue of Tarot Reflections.