MISSIVE 47
The Decans of Aries in Tarot
Though I cannot recall where, I have heard it said before that the character being followed in the Two and Three of Wands is intended to be Alexander the Great, and that the scene depicted in the Three is the legendary moment when he looked out over the ocean and “wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.”
Despite its prevalent use, this quote cannot be found anywhere in literature, and there does not appear to be an original author to attribute it to. The Paris Review covered its history in detail, and determined the most likely origin to be from a translation of Plutarch’s Moralia, which shifts away from the tone of grandeur:
“Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, ‘Is it not worthy of tears,’ he said, ‘that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?’”
It is not a statement born of victory; rather, of fear of eternity, and of being less than a god. It should be no surprise, then, that the Emperor is the Major that corresponds to Aries: the part of us that wants to remake our surroundings in our own image.
Wands, like Swords, and unlike Cups and Coins, is a tragic suit. It ends with a far more humble figure than the regent we see towards the beginning: a lonely survivor carrying the weapons of his presumably fallen comrades:
This detail is often lost; the question of why he is carrying so many wands is missing from most interpretations, which simply focus on the physical difficult of the task, but it is not hard to infer their origin. We spend the Five through Nine watching young men sent off to war (no women appear in these cards), and the odds of survival growing worse and worse against them. We never see the enemy, and we never see the dead, but their presence can be implied.
The beginnings of Wands cannot be fully understood without the final Ten, the Lord of Oppression: holistically, it can be described as a story about the price of empire. While we are in Aries (as we are now), we pass through the following rulerships:
II of Wands: Mars in Aries (Dominion, he peak of martial strength)
III of Wands: Sun in Aries (Virtue, gold and iron unified)
IV of Wands: Venus (Empress) in Aries (Completion, map and territory unified)
Under these auspices, one can make the world in their own image, but it is easy to slip into simply thinking of them as “good cards.” All material projects of belief, no matter how well intentioned, must be maintained. Just as there is no eternal empire, there is no perpetual motion machine. Things made through conflict are generally sustained through conflict. Take care when determining how to move forward from these positions; just because a kingdom has been gained, does not mean it has been paid for.