Knight of Wands upright
The Knight of Wands shows the drive in you that sets itself in motion: action, adventure, travel. It represents fire at its liveliest and is linked to the fire signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. You act in an active, generous, ardent, quick and proud way, and you tend toward impulse. You love movement for its own sake, action and adventure. You need to prove your courage and strength, to yourself and to others. You are at the start of your adventures: your plans are not yet formed and your action is not yet complete.
You need freedom of action and to explore new areas, and nothing stands between you and what you want. You rebel against what is old-fashioned or rigid, and so you can change a system or a way of doing things. You push others to be more spontaneous and to try things. You tend to clown around, to amuse and entertain. In love, you are ardent, impulsive and thrilling, but you avoid commitment. This card goes with departure, travel and a change of home.
Your strengths
- When you have a goal and you plan, you have the drive and self-confidence needed for great achievements.
- Faced with a challenge, you invent or improvise a way to meet it.
- You look toward the future and know how to motivate people around new causes and quests.
- You are good at selling ideas rather than objects, and you look for new approaches and new challenges.
What holds you back
- You scatter yourself: you want to set off in every direction at once.
- You struggle with details, routines and follow-through: you start projects with enthusiasm and finish few of them.
- You can come across as flamboyant, arrogant, unpredictable or impatient.
- You do not know how to adapt your action to circumstances: if your first attempt fails, you are left without resources.
- Until you have proven yourself, you are fragile: opposition unsettles you and can bring your big plans down, and you may find yourself at odds with people or situations.
- When this drive is misused, you can become malicious, cruel, sectarian and brutal.
What helps
- Giving yourself a goal and a plan: with a sense of purpose and an organizing mind, your drive produces great achievements.
- Finding an anchor point: without it, your enthusiasm dissipates.
- Keeping your calm and your determination, being wary of acting too early, and moving forward with confidence in your abilities.
- Aiming and measuring your drive well: badly aimed, it misses its goal, with no reserve it falls away, too strong it overwhelms you; well regulated, it gives a brilliant success.
- Accepting help, support and protection when they come from an unexpected source.
Careers
commercial campaigns, competitive sports, theater, selling ideas.
Knight of Wands reversed
The Knight of Wands stands for drive, action and a taste for adventure. Reversed, that drive goes off course. You may scatter yourself, with no goal or no energy to get there, or you may rush ahead too fast without thinking. Through impatience, recklessness or carelessness, you can bring discord and division into a situation, and leave breaks behind you when you move on. You may also hunt for thrills, draw attention to yourself, or turn quarrelsome.
An intense desire simmers in you with no aim and no outlet, or comes up at random, without your being able to predict it. Your temper sharpens: you flare up when things move too slowly and you feel frustrated. Disagreements then turn into quarrels, endless arguments and jealousy. You may feel unsettled and ill at ease. In love, this shows up as light affairs where you take and then leave, where seduction is a game or a contest, with enthusiasm that is faked or does not last.
This card also describes what happens when you expect everything to give way before you. You meet opposition, it throws you off, and big projects collapse. Your good nature ends up at odds with the people and situations around you. The meaning of the reversed card is therefore confusion, interrupted projects, breakdown and disagreement. Its traditional meanings point the same way: disunion, quarrel, misunderstanding, estrangement, interruption, broken ties.
The opposite is possible too: the fire does not catch. You may then resist chances for change and enthusiasm, deny them, and hold back your new projects.
Your strengths
The energy and self-confidence are there: with a clear goal and a little method for planning, they can carry you to great achievements. When you slow down, you can become more effective and have deeper experiences. When the drive is well directed, success can be spectacular.
What holds you back
- You launch too fast or no longer know where you are going, and your drive scatters in every direction.
- You are impatient, reckless or careless, and you cause conflicts and breaks without meaning to.
- You flare up quickly when you feel frustrated.
- You are fragile in the face of opposition: it confuses you and brings your projects down.
- You have no way of adapting your action to circumstances, and if the first attempt fails, you are left without resources.
- Misdirected, this energy can make you spiteful, narrow-minded, cruel and brutal.
- You put things off, and that keeps you from moving forward.
What helps
- Slowing down: "make haste slowly" may suit you.
- Holding back your impulses and urges, and stopping to enjoy the moment instead of thinking only of what comes next.
- Giving your energy a goal and relying on a plan.
- Staying alert while keeping your calm, your determination and your energy; being wary of premature acts and moving ahead with confidence in your abilities.
What the card shows
He holds a flaming staff in his hand, closer to a club or a torch, and a red cloak flies out behind him. In another version of the card, he is on the road with a short staff, in armor but on no war mission, and he passes by mounds. On his tunic, the salamanders have tails that do not touch their mouths: this shows incomplete action and projects not yet formed. He is only beginning his adventures.
Each Knight sets the quality of his suit in motion, and since fire is movement, the Knight of Wands expresses it to the highest degree: he stands for eagerness, action, movement for its own sake, adventure and travel. His energy bursts out earlier than the King's and the Queen's, but he has less certainty and stability than they do. He has the potential to be the strongest of the court figures. He stands for the fire signs: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.
What this card says about you: you are active, generous, spirited and impetuous. You are proud and impulsive, and you act fast, sometimes unpredictably. You want freedom of action and you like exploring new fields. You look toward the future. You need to prove your courage and strength, to yourself and to others.
Your strengths
Faced with a challenge, you invent or improvise a way to meet it. You know how to motivate others for a cause or a quest. You shake up what is old-fashioned or too rigid, and so you can renew a method or a system. You invite others to be more spontaneous and more daring. When your drive has a goal and comes with a little planning, it can lead to great successes. When everything goes well, your drive gives a spectacular success.
What holds you back
- You risk scattering yourself: without a point of support, your excitement spreads in every direction at once.
- You launch into projects with high expectations and a lot of flash, but you finish few of them.
- You have trouble with details, routines and follow-up.
- You can be flashy, hasty, arrogant, unpredictable or impatient.
- You avoid commitment.
- You do not know how to adapt your action to circumstances, and if your first attempt fails, you are left without resources.
- If your drive is badly aimed, you miss your target.
- Opposition unsettles you and can bring your big projects down. You may find yourself at odds with the people or situations around you.
- When this energy is misused, you become malicious, cruel, stubborn and brutal.
- When it turns back on itself, you can become a messy jack-of-all-trades, a daredevil or a rebel without a cause, who seeks thrills or wants to be noticed. Through impatience or recklessness, you can sow discord and leave breakups behind you. Your temper can flare if things go too slowly, and disagreements then lead to quarrels and jealousy.
- Sometimes the fire does not catch: you resist chances for change and hold back your new projects.
What helps
- Stay attentive to what is happening, while keeping your calm, your determination and your energy.
- Be wary of premature moves and go forward with firm confidence in your abilities.
Careers
sales campaigns, competitive sports, theater. You prefer selling ideas to selling objects, and you look for new approaches and challenges.
Love
You are an ardent, impulsive and exhilarating lover: you make sparks fly, but you avoid commitment. When this energy turns back on itself, passions can be feigned or fleeting.
