Ten Of Wands

and it started with a skeleton
a structure made of code
an architecture, a paper destination
and the dark clouds are gathering
and the city is so far.

no one else lifts for you
and you're tired but you're still lifting
still not there
you never will be
there is no time to stop and stare
because it's out there, it's real, and all you do
is try to pad the words around it
try to put flesh on the skeleton
seventy-eight bones
and the words are never perfect
can't be exhausted
you're never right
you'll never say it all
you'll never reach the end

and your words will rot
will be forgotten
your lifting lost, yet those bones will last
and centuries hence, a girl will take her deck
her seventy-eight shards of information
will shuffle, will draw the ten of wands
and she'll nod her head
and feel tired of words,
and you and she
will have the same old bones.


This is a great card for being irritatingly close to finished with your tarot project, for srs. I have, idk, maybe 18 more to go after this one and at the pace I started off at I'd've been done in under a week but now I'm out of focus and only adding one every so often and I planned to be done before this time last year and and oh come on we've all felt like this and that's why there's a goddamn card for it. Hello. I am Thene, and this is the Ten of Wands. It's heavy, but that's the point - some things are, especially things that are very close to payoff. Drawing it is like a promise. Just think of what you can do, how free you'll be, if you can just lug it around the next corner.

I really like the Intuitive Tarot version of it, too - it's a person building the frame of a house, far from the city, and so the burden is also going to give them lasting shelter - but it's a huge and lonely burden, and the clouds are coming. It's still seemingly less pointless than the RWS et al. It's more than just firewood. Some things we labour over can last longer than our lifetimes - our words are still there even if they have no more readers, our homes will last on even if they stand abandoned and empty - and I've posted scans here of the Visconti tarot, drawn hundreds of years ago. Whatever time you put into anything becomes part of the landscape of the world - doesn't matter how little or how much it means, because its presence is enough for the Wands. You dreamed and you did and you're tired and they're done with numbers, they're happy.

And you put down your deck, and tarot goes on.


Images of the Ten of Wands

The Osho Zen deck is going with a Freudian word, 'Suppression', and its character is roped-up and weighed down by a box full of cloudy nothing. It's showing the illusory nature of the Ten of Wands; you really can just up sticks and leave at any time. Nothing's stopping you from freeing yourself from the burden. But sometimes, you want to keep holding them up until you're through.

Scapini's is a long road with many people on it. I'm not up enough on the whole Catholic thing to really know, but I think it might be reflecting one of the Stations of the Cross. Not that Wands are into hyperbole or anything like that.

The Roots of Asia is a sky blotted out by wings, and the feeling I have about what's going on there is that they've built their own trap and fallen into it.

Ten Of Pentacles

one and stepping from the dark to light and
two so have a spine a vector, fire and
three curls into form, a vessel, frame and
four has mercy, offers blessing, love and
five cuts the crap and builds the wall and
six sacrifices balances rewards and
seven decorates with verve and passion
eight does the math and learns the words and
nine opens up the trapdoor in the roof and
ten brings you to the root the end the whole.


We're done. There's this huge ongoing process and we've reached the top of it. We're fulfilled; we're complete. This is about the work we do with our hands and our minds, not about anything more subjective. It's about turning the last page and reading/writing THE END.

(Where does anything end? You could say it doesn't, ever. But, me, whenever I've finished a bit of fiction - a story, a chapter, a difficult scene - I like to give thanks, even if there's more to come, more polishing to do, even if it's never over...it's still good to take a moment to be quiet, look at what you've done, and let it go.)

The Intuitive Tarot makes this card look really damn interesting - it shows a long chain of pairs of people, huge discs in the backdrop giving it the feel of a production line in a factory...and at the vanishing point at the top of the card, that line curves, and we see not human figures like those at the end, but our ancient ancestors; crayfish, curled things, long-necked dinosaurs, mammoths. The road was there a long time before we stepped foot on it, and will remain a long time after we get off. (More on this when I finally pull down the Moon).


Images of the Ten of Pentacles

The RWS, and some other decks that are in love with Western qabalism, like to array the ten coins in the form of the Tree of Life; a triangle, two inverted triangles, and then Malkuth alone at the root. I like this because it shows the Ten as being not just part of a process but also as being the process itself, the entire road and not just the final step. The other thing about this road is that it zigzags, veers from one extreme to another before finding balance and losing it again - you won't find perfect here, only whole. The image itself, behind all that, is of three generations of a family, home, garden and pets, crest and tower, an entirely practical state of comfort and fulfilment.

The image in the Scapini deck is colder but fairly similar in scope; we have our high castle and the tall tree outside it. No people here. This Ten of Coins is not about the people in your life, but about the strong walls and strong roots that you've built up over time.

The Osho Zen Tarot has a Ten of Pentacles that's all about people; I'm unavoidably reminded of my very favourite Edward Monkton cartoon. This is how we make worlds, and how our world is made.

Ten Of Cups

you could be my reflection
in the waters of life
you could be part of the same weather
share my rainbow
share my body

we can be the things we make together
with no separate goals,
no clambering over each other to avoid
looking into eyes
share our burdens

I could stand by the sea
With you beside me.
I could see family in you, trust
caring and care
love overflowing.


Happy card. Ten full glasses, and more often than not, a rainbow. One could almost forgive it for being the most heteronormative thing ever. Tens of Cups tend to show idealised pictures of family life, as if to say love and be loved; care and be cared for. It works for most people; the rest are left to extrapolate the message to other forms of shared responsibility.

I don't think the Ten of Cups is something you can do alone; that would be the Nine at work. The Ten flows, from one person to another; it has work to do, in spaces between people. Sadly, it can be seen as an end in itself, which it isn't (and kids grow up, and when they do, it usually annoys someone Hit me again). Especially if you're relying on an external situation to create your joys, they won't last forever. Carrying your responsibilities on the inside, the way this young couple in the Intuitive deck does, may make it last.


Images of the Ten of Cups:

The Intuitive pic, which I find just slightly creepy on the one hand, and pleasantly egalitarian on the other. It's part of the same chain of events as the RWS Ten Of Cups, but the message of shared responsibility is just that little bit blunter. Not only that, but because the drawing can't possibly be literal, it's easier to look past its literal meaning.

Scapini has no rainbow, but has made this card into a fortress.

The Osho Zen is all about Harmony. It is about listening to your heart, and about the end of the difficult struggle to attain simplicity. It's rare in that few Tens of Cups contain only one character, but I guess that's the Zen worldview for you.