Ten of Wands

The image

A man walks away from the viewer toward a house and some trees in the middle distance, bent almost double under ten wands that he clutches in a bundle against his chest. The staves fan out in front of his face so that he cannot see where he is going. The country around him is open farmland, and the house is not far off — which readers take as a sign that the struggle is close to its end, if he can bear it a little longer. The awkwardness of his grip, arms wrapped round the whole bundle rather than carrying it on a shoulder, is part of the card's message.

History

In the Tarot de Marseille the Ten of Batons is a decorative arrangement of crossed staves, anonymous and symmetrical. Waite's book admits that the card has many significances, some of which cannot be harmonised, and says that he deliberately set aside an older reading connecting it with honour and good faith in order to concentrate on oppression. Smith's picture of 1909 follows his preferred sense. Students of the Waite–Smith deck have noted parallels between a few of her compositions and the Sola Busca tarot of around 1490, the only earlier pack with fully illustrated pip cards; whatever her models, this burdened walker became one of the most quoted images in modern tarot.

Symbolism

The Golden Dawn titled the Ten of Wands the Lord of Oppression and gave it Saturn in Sagittarius, the planet of limitation in the expansive sign of the archer, placed in Malkuth, the tenth sefirah, the kingdom of matter. Crowley's card has the same title and draws the wands as heavy bars. In every suit the ten carries the element to its fullest, often excessive, conclusion; here fire, which by nature rises and radiates, is gathered into dead weight. The hidden face suggests a person who has lost sight of purpose in the effort, and the nearby house the purpose that remains within reach.

In a reading

It frequently appears with the Nine of Wands and the Seven of Wands in readings about long struggles. Next to the Four of Swords or the Hermit it asks for rest; with the Three of Pentacles it suggests sharing the work. In a future position it is a warning about overcommitment rather than a fixed sentence, and in an advice position it often means: let something go.

Readers sometimes note that every wand in the bundle is still in leaf: the burden is made of living projects and real commitments, not of mere drudgery. That is why the card's remedy is rarely to throw everything away, but to carry less, carry it differently, or share the load.