ARCANALOGUE: tenofwands

Showing posts with label tenofwands. Show all posts

2.22.2010

Sketchbook - Ten of Wands

I brought paper to work today so I could work on a sketch if I had time -- but once I got there, I realized I'd forgotten to pick a card to work on. So I called my friend Chris, and he drew one for me, and I knew what I'd be drawing the moment I heard what it was.

I work a few days a week at a restaurant around the corner from my house. My work schedule is really wonderful for my creative life (not to mention this blog), but on the days I work, I work insanely hard for hours and hours. And while today was certainly one of those days, I stole a few moments here and there to sketch it as it happened.

The Ten of Wands is all about work and he humility it imposes, even upon the successful. Most decks seem to have taken their inspiration for this card from Pamela Coleman-Smith's version. I merely adapted its message to my actual job, showing some of the complications that I deal with from one moment to the next, or even all at once. It's a burden that I bear gladly right now because of what it allows me to do, and it's one that I've deliberately engineered, but still -- yikes. It can be physically and mentally ruinous.

The Ten card in any suit represents fulfillment of some earlier idea -- at this point, you've gone about as far as you can on the track you're on. If you stay on it you're just going to keep going in circles. Some might consider them victory laps, others might say it's a holding pattern. Some are just building up the courage to launch themselves into the next challenge, and some are just killing time and waiting for the future to reveal itself to them.

In my case it's all of the above. It's getting me where I need to go. So I'll continue to serve brunch and wipe down tables and take phone orders. I'll continue to spend that first quiet hour setting up the dining room as if I'm throwing a huge party, and to spend the seven hours after that scrambling around like a whole hill of ants. At the very least, being embroiled in all this is a constant reminder of what I originally set out to do. If I was able to pick it up in the first place, I must be strong enough to carry it just a little bit further.

PS: Our phone totally doesn't have one of those old-fashioned receivers like the one in the picture, but cordless phones aren't interesting to draw in the slightest. And the flowers are carnations, they're for the bud vases on our tables.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Ten Of Wands

7.24.2009

"All That Remains Are The Responsibilities..."

You think you have a lot to live up to? Imagine being the guy who gets to date Lois Lane after she and Superman break up. Or consider the Man of Steel himself, admired and depended on by all, but secretly succumbing to existential crises as he roams the cosmos in search of God. These are the variables in motion within Jonathan Goldstein's short story Man Not Superman, vividly illustrated on yellow Post-It Notes in black marker.

Ten is as high as it goes in the Tarot's four minor suits, and so you'd think that they would represent the very best those suits have to offer. In fact, it's the Nines that have a stranglehold on that title, and the Tens -- while certainly grandiose -- leave us with unexpected (and sometimes unwelcome) realities to stagger under. If you look back over the number cards in the suit of Wands, you see youthful energy and ambition bursting forth into the world and blazing through a series of trials, skirmishes, and victories. Along the way this energy can't help but cool off a bit, becoming tempered by experience and discipline. Which is wonderful -- and downright necessary, if one is to really learn and grow instead of vainly trying to leap from peak to peak -- but by the final card the initial thrill is gone, and all that remains are the responsibilities you've accumulated along the way.

Don't despair: in a suit as dynamic and irrepressible as the Wands, nothing stays still for very long. The same curious or enterprising spirit that gradually got you into this jam can get you out of it too. On Ginny Hunt's constantly illuminating Tarot blog 78 Notes To Self, she has this to say about the Ten of Wands:

"As a ten, this card signals that something is going to break, something will end this insanity, and if you don't choose to put some of those wands down, something will force you to. I'm always struck by the way the figure's face is buried in the stack of wands and it reminds me of someone burying their head either in the sand or up their arse, depending on the attitude. It's as if this person thinks they are the only one who can do what it is they do and the world will just collapse if they don't do it. Not. More likely he will be the one collapsing. Though the card often seems to be saying, 'Press on, you're almost there,' I see it more often showing someone putting too much on their own shoulders that causes them to lose focus on what is truly important."

Rather than groan under the pressure of trying to articulate it any better than this, I'm downright relieved to lay my own sticks down and let someone else get all the credit. Which means that now I'm free to go play outside and take a well-deserved break after a long week of writing and editing, hopefully becoming a walking target for inspiration to strike. See how easy that was? Here's hoping you can get yourself similarly unstuck on your own terms -- after all, unlike a certain Brylcreemed crime-fighter I could mention, you're only human. [Via]