Beltane, fire, and the Wands suit

Today is Beltane, the cross-quarter day halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. The old fire festival. The night, in some traditions, when two fires were lit and the cattle were driven between them, so the smoke would carry off the winter that was still clinging to them. The night of pairing, of risk, of starting things you'd have to live with later.

It is also the day, every year, when I do a Wands reading for myself. Not because I'm performing some kind of seasonal calendar, although you can read it that way if you want. I do it because I trust the Wands suit on Beltane in a way I don't trust it the rest of the year. The fire is closer to the surface. The cards know it.

This is the post I usually write in May, although I haven't written it before in this form. A note on what the Wands actually teach, and a small Beltane spread that has done more for me, and for my clients, than almost any other three cards I lay down.

The misread the Wands keep getting

If you've read any popular tarot writing in the last ten years, you've absorbed a version of the Wands suit that goes something like this. The Wands are about action. The Wands are about boldness. The Wands are about getting out of your own way. Pulled in a reading, a Wand is supposedly a green light. Go, move, ignite, build, be passionate.

This isn't wrong, exactly. It's just shallow. It's the kind of reading that treats fire like a motivational poster.

Anyone who has actually lived with fire knows fire is more complicated than that. Fire warms the room. Fire burns the house down. Fire cooks the meal. Fire eats the forest. Fire keeps you alive in a winter you wouldn't otherwise survive. Fire ends a marriage that should have ended five years ago, and fire ends a marriage that wasn't supposed to end at all.

The Wands suit, read seriously, is about which fire. Not whether to act. Not whether you have permission. Not whether the universe is rooting for you. The question is which of the several fires in your life right now you are going to feed, and which you are going to let go out, and which you are going to actively put out before they take more than they were meant to take.

That's a much harder teaching than "be bold." It's also the actual teaching of the suit.

What the four pip cards are really saying

Look at the small cards in the Wands suit and you'll see this if you let yourself.

The Ace of Wands is the moment of ignition. A hand from a cloud, a single staff, leaves coming off it. The card is rarely about whether to start. It's about the fact that you already have. The fire is in your hand. The question the card is asking is, do you know what you're holding.

The Two of Wands is the figure on the cliff with a globe in their hand, looking out over the land. They're not acting. They're choosing where to look. The Wands aren't moving yet. They're aiming.

The Three of Wands, the figure with their back to us, watching ships come in. The Wands have been planted. The work of the fire now is patience. You will not believe how much of the Wands suit is patience. The fire you started is travelling.

The Five of Wands is what happens when too many fires are in the same room. People often read it as conflict. That's part of it. The deeper read is, you have five things you're trying to keep lit and you don't have the oxygen for all of them. Something will go out. The card is asking you to choose, before the choosing is made for you.

The Eight of Wands, the card of speed, of the wands flying through the air. The card looks like motion. What it's actually depicting is the moment when the fire has gone past your ability to control it. The Wands are no longer asking permission. They're in flight.

The Ten of Wands, the figure bent over carrying ten staffs toward a town in the distance. The Wands you couldn't put down. The fires you couldn't stop tending. The cost of feeding every flame you ever lit.

If you read the suit that way, as a long meditation on which fire to feed and which to let go out, the Wands stop being a cheerleading suit and start being a serious one. Beltane is the day to take it seriously.

A Beltane spread, three cards, one decision

Here's the spread. Use only the Wands and the major arcana if you want it to be strict and fire-coloured, or use the full deck if you want it wider. I've done both. The full deck is more honest. The fire-only version is more poetic. Choose.

Card one: what is lighting up in me right now.

This is the Ace card of the spread. The fire that's already started. Don't argue with it. The card will point at the thing. It might be a project. It might be a person. It might be a small undertone of anger you've been pretending isn't there. It might be a longing for a place you used to live. The card names it. You sit with it for one minute without trying to decide anything.

Card two: what needs more air.

This is the Two and Three card of the spread. The fire that's lit but is being smothered. The thing you've been keeping small because you weren't ready, or weren't allowed, or weren't sure. The card will often suggest something embarrassingly obvious. The book. The conversation. The application. The card isn't being clever. It's pointing at the candle behind the cup of water and asking you to move the cup.

Card three: what could burn down well.

This is the hardest card. The Beltane card, really. The night of the fire wasn't only ignition. It was also clearing. The card is asking what in your life would benefit, on balance, from being allowed to end. A habit. A commitment you said yes to in February that you've been dreading since March. A version of yourself you've outgrown but keep performing because you don't know who you'd be without it.

The phrase "burn down well" matters. Some things should burn down because they're done. Not all endings are wounds. Some endings are kindnesses. The Wands know this. The Wands have always known this. Beltane is the day to ask.

The Wand I let go out, and the one I kept

I told a client once that I'd let a fire go out the year before and that I'd been better since. She asked what fire. I told her, because she asked, that I had been writing a novel for four years and that I had stopped, and that the stopping was a small grief and a much bigger relief, and that the relief was the part the Wands had been trying to tell me about for two years before I listened.

She looked at me for a long minute and said, that's the answer I came here for. I haven't seen her since. I hope the fire she let go out is one she's better without.

I want to be honest, because the rule of this blog is honesty. I was wrong about that novel for two years. The Wands had been pointing at it. I had been reading the Wands the way most popular tarot writing taught me to read them. Boldness. Action. Passion. Push through. Keep going. Be brave. So I kept feeding a fire whose only product, by year three, was my own exhaustion.

What I should have read, and didn't, was the Ten of Wands appearing in three readings in a row, each time in the present position. The figure bent over with their arms full of staffs they couldn't put down. The cards were not telling me to be more passionate. They were telling me I was holding too many fires, and the novel was one of them, and the suit I respected the least had been trying to tell me which fire to release for months.

The Wands suit forgave me. The Wands suit is more patient than its reputation suggests. But I had to stop reading them as a motivational deck and start reading them as a suit that takes fire seriously.

What to do tonight if you're doing nothing else

If you're not in a tradition that celebrates Beltane, you don't need to put on a robe or build an altar. You can just do this.

Light one candle. Just one. Sit with it for ten minutes. Pull three cards. Ask the three questions above. Write the answers down somewhere you'll find them later. Blow the candle out.

That's a Beltane reading. The fire was there for ten minutes. The questions were asked. The answers were yours. The Wands suit, properly respected, didn't need fireworks. It needed a candle, three cards, and ten minutes of attention from someone willing to hear which fire to feed and which to let go.

Tomorrow, you'll know more than you knew this morning. That's all the Wands ever promise.