Backbone and Flame

Seven of Wands ~ Wild Unknown Tarot

My card for this month from my year ahead spread is the Seven of Wands. A lone flame shines brightly in the darkness creating a halo of brilliance around it lighting up the sky nearest to it. The flame is the one area of color on the card. It looks human, the flame, with its fiery head and dark body, arm out to the side, shining its light. It stands out, black and manifest, the other Wands just outlines, intimations, retreating from it through the strength of its sheer brilliance. 

As I looked further at it the flame figure began to take on a runic quality to it. I knew I'd seen that runic shape before but the runes in the Elder Furthark alphabet didn't line up. So I pulled out my Haindl Rune Oracle and there it was, top left corner, Kan as he calls it, the sixth rune, more commonly known as Kenaz in the Norse system.

Rune Kan/Kenaz ~ Haindl Rune Oracle

As it turns out Kan/Kenaz is the rune of illumination, strength and power through knowledge. It brings light to us in the darkness. It allows us to see what is really there, what has long been hidden and by seeing transformation can occur. There is an alchemical quality to this rune, a kind of base metals into gold, ignorance to awareness, shadow to light. When I look at this depiction of the Seven of Wands I feel that, the flame rising out of the blackness at the bottom of the card to shine fully on everything that surrounds it. And in the depiction below, too, the figure holding his own against the unknown.

Seven of Wands ~ Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

Traditionally it is the card of standing one’s ground as we see in this depiction by Pamela Coleman Smith from the Rider-Waite deck but there is more to it than that. It has to do with showing up for your life with conviction and the strength to uphold those convictions when your own inner critic or outer influences try to unseat you. The Seven of Wands says now is not the time for rhetoric or verbal sparring, now is the time to shine without apology, shine without disclaimer. It’s about inner vision and the courage to forge your own path, go against the current from that inner knowing. 

The Thoth deck speaks to this courage calling the card, Valor. Valor, another name for audacity, boldness, strength in the face of adversity. Backbone is another word for valor and I like the somatic quality this brings to the card. Sitting straight I can allow my breath to run up and down my spine, my body a beacon of stillness while my light shines, illuminates every cell, bone, ligament, muscle. If I imagine my breath as a slender torch, brilliant and beautiful, forging a path up and down my central channel I can access more of this Seven of Wands energy, it expands my lungs, creates space, opens and centers at the same time, my backbone as inner wand supporting me.

Seven of Wands - Valor ~ Hermetic Tarot & Thoth Tarot

Since this is the suit of Wands we’re looking at the areas of ambition, creativity, ambition, drive, desire. As an Aries I’ve got loads of that…and also as an Aries it tends to peter out quickly as I get bored and want the challenge of something new. I might look at the Seven of Wands as guidance to stay the course with some of that ambition and drive, to resist the impulse to give in to all the other ideas and creativity brimming over in my psyche and instead stick to one thing only and see it through, bring all my creative power and focus to that. This card is suggesting that I bring the strength of my will into the picture and allow it to work with me, to support me, to defend the part of me that wants a less scattered creative life.

Starchild Tarot ~ Seven of Wands

As this is a seven it also correlates to the major arcana card, The Chariot. It is interesting to note that it's called The Chariot and not The Charioteer. The emphasis is on the vehicle not the personality and when I get this card in a reading I sense I'm being asked to find the place where my will and the divine will are one, the place where they are yoked. Looking at the Seven of Wands there is a similar feeling of finding balance, of knowing what kind of movement and stillness is required to maintain equilibrium  I like the version above. It gives that feeling of partnership, of harnessing strength and instinct with skill and wisdom to move forwards, to shine, to create, to grow and expand.