Sabbats, Seasons, and Tarot Spreads

Today I’ve drawn the Artisan of Winter Wands. Artisan? Huh? And yesterday we saw the Master of Winter Pentacles. What? Golly gee, aren’t “court cards” confusing enough without deck creators coming up with new names for these folks?

Before we go on, let’s just take a look at this “Artisan”.

If you’ve read tarot for any length of time, you can probably figure out that this is the traditional Queen of Wands. If nothing else, the cat at her feet should give it away.

But why give her a new title? Why not just call her the Queen? To be perfectly blunt about it, and no offense to deck creators around the world, but I agree. It would be so much easier if Kings were always Kings, Queens were always Queens, and Knights and Pages were always who they’re supposed to be.

A quick note of advice. When you do open a new deck, checking the court cards is a good practice. Do they bear traditional names? Or do you need a guidebook to tell you who’s who? Before you do any reading with a new deck, be sure you know the names and ranks for the court cards.

Now, how do we interpret this Queen or Artisan or whatever we want to call her? In fact, how are we supposed to interpret any court card? Do they represent who we are? Are they people we know? Are they just general ideas and concepts?

In many years of teaching tarot, I’ve learned that the 16 court cards of the deck are by far the most difficult for readers to understand. Why? Because they don’t have highly-specific roles. They can definitely be aspects of our own personalities. Yet at other times, they can represent actual individuals we know. And yes, sometimes a court card is just like a divine figure offering a timely reminder of something we should or should not do.

Another point to mention here is that we’ve seen two court cards already in this reading. What does that mean? Or does it mean anything at all? As a general rule, yes, the presence of several court cards in a spread can be significant. It can mean that the situation you’re dealing with involves a lot of people, so keep that in mind in your readings.

Certainly the holiday season is “a situation involving a lot of people.” Over the last few days, we’ve all probably been in touch with more friends and family than we might normally see in weeks or months! That’s all good, but maybe now it’s time for the guests to go home, time for us to start thinking about getting back to our normal routines.

Not yet, says the Queen of Wands. Here, in this collective reading, she appears to us as a sort of “gentle voice”, a spiritual guide sent to tap us on the shoulder and whisper “We’re not ready to move on yet.”

Yesterday we reflected on our experiences, looking back over the times and places and people who have shaped us. Today this lovely Queen of Wands urges us to continue this personal reflection, but with a very positive approach.

The guidebook for this deck describes the Artisan of Wands as the one who lights up the room, the one who brings warmth and comfort. This card asks us to see our own light and to let it shine brightly. We see the Queen carefully placing bright baubles on the tree, but her message isn’t about arranging things or making things look pretty. It goes beyond that.

Her message is to BE THE LIGHT, be the brightness, the spark, the beauty. Today, get out there and glow. Shine for all the world to see.