Knight of Wands & Affirming Our Own Aliveness

Knight of Wands' encounter with Death

Reflections on Knight of Wands as a response to Scorpio season below, but first: Tarot Poetry Circle is tomorrow, Wednesday Nov 1 at 7 PM Central. Sign up info here. I would love to have you for this contemplative group practice that truly feels like a little oasis in the middle of the week.

Photo by Sabina Music Rich on Unsplash

Death feels close this time of year. There are 20-foot skeletons around every suburban corner; tombstones have sprouted from the lawns. Brightly colored Day of the Dead skulls grin at us from shop windows and adorn grocery store cookies. The leaves are falling. And the dark is closing in. The veil feels thin; perhaps it wouldn’t surprise you at all to run into a ghost. You may be building an altar to those who have passed on, and communing with your ancestors.

This is Scorpio season. The card that corresponds to Scorpio is Death, which is obviously quite fitting for this time of year. It is an invitation to contemplate our own mortality. The Scorpio court card is King of Cups, the perfect companion to teach us compassion for the Big Feels that encounters with Death (literal or metaphorical) elicit.

But today, I want to talk a bit about Knight of Wands. This is the Sagittarius court card, which is the astrological season that comes after Scorpio. I’ve enjoyed thinking about the court cards as they fall along the zodiac, in order from Aries (the first sign) to Pisces (the twelfth), and imagining each one not only as an embodiment of their own sign, but as an energetic response to the sign that came before.

So, in this example, Knight of Wands is not only an embodiment of Sagittarius energy but a response to Scorpio energy, and in particular for this thought experiment, Knight of Wands is a response to an encounter with Death.

Knight of Wands has an unabashed and vigorous appetite for life. And I think that’s because of this intimate knowledge they have of their own mortality. Having passed through a long season with Death, Knight of Wands is all too aware of the temporary nature of their own being. They respond not by falling into despair; they don’t go to great lengths to prolong the inevitable. Instead, Knight of Wands seeks and creates opportunities to feel fully alive They pursue joy. They want to feel the blood moving in their veins. They want to dance.

I was thinking about Knight of Wands because I drew it just recently for this beautiful poem by Victoria Chang, called ‘Passage’.

I think it perfectly encapsulates the energy of Knight of Wands: going from place to place, looking to be alive.

We have a long Scorpio season still ahead of us. There is Halloween, Samhain, and Day of the Dead to celebrate. We continue to witness the shift from leafy branches to barren ones. The energy is around preparation for winter, which necessitates a heightened awareness of death. The energy is reflective, pensive, perhaps heavy with grief or melancholy.

But, Knight of Wands energy is there like an ember within us, ready to keep us warm throughout the coming cold. It will remind us that we are alive, when the world is grey and the days are short. Knight of Wands is our strong and defiant spirit, that doesn’t stand in denial of death, but in gratitude to it. Death has taught Knight of Wands how important it is to be fully here, fully present, fully alive, while we have the chance.

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