The Queen of April

The Queen of Wands was the Card for April in my New Year reading and it's time to see how she influenced me.

Or, how I used her.

Wands is the suit of our ambition, drive, passion and creativity. It’s connected to fire energy which gives us the steam to push ahead with our goals, our dreams, our ambitions.

Rider Waite Smith Tarot

In the traditional card, we see a red headed woman seated on a throne. Yet, she is not seated in a manner befitting a queen, with her knees and ankles together. Her pose suggests she is ready to jump into action to pursue her ambitions. She is dressed in a yellow tunic, holding a sunflower in her left hand and a wand in her right. Three sunflowers also adorn the tapestry behind her throne. There are two orange lions rampant between the sunflowers. Yellow and orange are the colors of the sun and fire suggesting the heat and passion of the suit as well as fire energy.

In the Grimalkin deck, by MJ Cullinane, we see a beautiful orange colored cat standing on a throne, gazing fixedly off into the distance as is the queen in the traditional card. She obviously spies something. We also see a bright sun and a few sunflowers as well as a couple of flames reminding us of the energies of the suit. 

The Grimalkin Tarot,
(C) 2020, MJ Cullinane

With all this passion and fire energy, the Queen of Wands is one passionate woman. She is a woman driven to succeed. Nothing, or no one, stands in her way when she sets her mind to achieve something. She is adventurous, bold and daring. 

This past month was a most lackluster month. The lethargy that overcame me was so heavy, it was all I could do to take my walks in the mornings. I think I’d fallen into a pandemic depression. I kept waiting for the Queen of Wands to show up, for some creative spark, some passion to drive me forward. But, I could not find her. I did decide to get my first vaccination and took the closest appointment location near me, but I don’t think it was the Queen’s energy that pushed me into making the decision.

But, I did finally decide to do something I’d been contemplating for years; begin some major home projects. So, I strolled, masked and sanitized, into Home Depot to begin the process of new flooring for my upstairs rooms and some new countertops in the kitchen and three bathrooms. The carpeting was still the original from when I bought the house in 2003 and had seen some much better days. I wasn’t ready to tackle a complete kitchen remodel but was definitely in need of some new countertops which were also the original white tile but now with some cracks and broken tiles in the kitchen. The appliances were in decent shape and I believe if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Unless, it’s time to sell the house.

The salespersons in each department were very helpful, patient with all my questions and quite knowledgeable of their products and procedures. I was going to start with the flooring and then move to the countertops after. I set up the appointment for the flooring measurements and was given a worksheet to sketch my counters and get my preliminary measurements for the estimate. Upon returning to the store with the countertop measurements, one of the granite patterns I wanted was on sale, but only for the next week. Needless to say, I decided to reverse my plan and the flooring would wait.

The process was seamless and went without a hitch. Someone came out to take the official measurements and sketch the plan. He suggested that I should have new sinks on hand in case the existing ones were damaged upon removal. So, I traipsed back to Home Depot and selected five sinks. I found my way to the stone works store to select the actual slabs that would become my new countertops. Now to wait for the installation.

The receptionist in the main office of the installers tried to tell me it would be a one day job, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, one kitchen, and three bathrooms in one day? Puhleeease. I knew it would be two and then one more day for the plumbers to show up and reconnect my new sinks. The crews, both the installers and plumbers, were dedicated workers and did excellent work. The old countertops were demolished and the new ones were installed in two days and the plumbers showed up the next day and connected all five sinks within about three hours.

With the flooring, which is almost ready to go, I ran into some more challenges. I now know what a stair nose is. I had planned to put laminate in the upstairs rooms (4 bedrooms and their closets, two bathrooms, and a linen closet) but to carpet the stairs to eliminate possible slippage. Well, as I was putting laminate on the top landing, it needed a stair nose to finish the connection between the riser and the landing. It seemed every color of laminate I was considering did not have the matching stair nose. I’d take a few samples home, find one I liked, go back to the store and have the salesperson make the adjustment in the preliminary quote. We’d make the call to pay for it, only to discover, it had no matching stair nose. The salesperson suggested I could buy a very plain stair nose and try to find a matching, or comparable, stain. Somehow, that sounded easier than I felt it would be. After my third or fourth try and by now I even knew how to search for stair noses, I thought I’d found the one only to find out that by the time I went in to make the purchase, there were no more matching stair noses. But, I took it all in stride. What more could I do? 

A Stair Nose

I then figured it out, I was going about this the wrong way. I looked for available stair noses, then would go back to the store and get the samples that appealed to me. Lo and behold, the eighth time was the charm. As of this writing, the materials are being ordered, I’m packing everything in my upstairs (alone, because of COVID restrictions and all my friends are back at work anyway) and am aiming for an end of May deadline which is not fixed in granite. 

I guess the Queen’s energy was what I needed to light my fire to get these projects going, to kick my ambition into gear. I’m ecstatic with how the counters turned out. I still have some work to do in the bathrooms; prep the walls for painting, deciding on the colors, shopping for new mirrors and then hanging them. Maybe the Queen's energy was there all along waiting for me to seize it. Carpe Regina!

I learned a lot about myself in this process. I can only control my reaction to situations that don’t go according to plan. And quite a lot didn’t go to plan. I had wanted a different color of granite than what I ended up with, but it was no longer available and hadn’t been for quite some time. I am quite happy with what I did end up with. I learned not to take the receptionist’s word for how long a job will take. I’ll see how this holds up once the flooring begins. I also learned that sometimes what we think we want might not be the best in the long run. I also learned to be more like water and less like rock. It’s best to go with the flow in the beginning because the water will eventually erode the rock away. Besides, going with the flow is better on the blood pressure.

On to May and the Seven of Cups. It already seems appropriate.

Radiant Rider Waite Smith Tarot

For more info on MJ Cullinane and her decks, please click here

One August Queen

Bianco Nero Tarot,
Marco Proietto, (C)2018 US Games, Inc.

After the last four months of reversed cards in my New Year Reading; The Magician, The Wheel of Fortune, the 8 of Swords and the 7 of Swords, I finally get to an upright card for the month of August.

And what an upright card it is.

The Queen of Wands!

One of my fellow readers calls this Queen, “One bad a$s b*tch!”

I don’t think of her quite that reverently though I do admire her energy and outlook. I should say my friend’s comment about this Queen comes with great admiration and she uses the energies of the Queen as a role model, or in tarot-speak, as a significator; meaning when this Queen pops up in a reading for my friend, she pays more attention to where the Queen falls and the message she conveys in the reading.

Rider Waite Tarot

When looking at the traditional card for the Queen of Wands, the color yellow pops out. We see it in her robe, her crown, the desert in the lower left, the sunflowers and in her hair. Yellow reminds me of the sun which is also connected with the sunflowers, as it's in the name, after all. The back of her throne has a bit of orange in it which is next to yellow on the color wheel. Wands is the suit connected with fire energy and as we know, fire cannot be still. Like air, fire is never calm as even the flame of a candle dances. This is one Queen who is on the go.

This suit is also connected to our passions, to that spark (See. Fire again!) that drives us, that motivates us to get on with life, to live life to the fullest.

Wands is also considered one of the Masculine, or Yang, suits as the drive to succeed is considered a masculine trait. Traditionally, women have been seen less ambitious, more emotional, staying at home, taking care of the children and household. So here we have a woman trying to be taken seriously in a man's world, breaking with tradition. Think of the suffragettes fighting for their rights. Think of the Women's Lib movement. Think of HM Elizabeth I.

The Queen of Wands is one determined woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t let anyone stand in her way. She will not bulldoze over you if you give her room to pursue her passions but, get in her way and she might step on you like a cockroach. Especially if she is reversed! I also like to think of her as a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” woman who helps others achieve their goals as long as you don’t impede her. Just don’t stab her in the back while scratching it. Hell hath no fury like this Queen scorned.

Being she is so determined to accomplish her goals, she is also confident in herself. She knows she will succeed. She also knows she’s quite charming and can use her charms to assist her in her queenly quest. When she walks into the room, all eyes turn to her and many are captivated by her presence and aura. 

When we compare her to the other Queens, we see she is the only one facing forward, even though she is glancing off to her left, somewhat dispassionately. She is also sitting with her legs apart somewhat suggestively, not a very royal posture. I like to view this posture as one that suggests she tackles life head on doing what she feels might be necessary to succeed.

The Four Queens
Rider Waite Tarot

I could feel her energy around me this month. I’d been in an emotional slump. With those four reversed cards, two of them being pointy swords, who could blame me? But, something turned around for me, besides just this month's card.

I’ve been writing more, mostly for the blog, but not my other projects though I can feel the itch to do so. I’d been exploring another project and taking more steps into solidifying that. I’d stepped out safely with a friend for an invigorating walk and planned more with her. I’d started an art project and hope to hang it soon.

Perhaps the Queen of Wands has a message for us all. With the world in this current situation, I feel we need to live life to the fullest as safely as possible. Sometimes that means staying home and finding enjoyable things to do around the house, maybe some creative endeavors. Sometimes, that means stepping out, masked and distanced, and enjoying someone’s company. For me, it means avoiding indoor places for extended periods of time, e.g., planes, trains, busses and restaurants. It also means avoiding crowds.

Sadly, I have come to believe this virus will be with us indefinitely. We have not eliminated other coronaviruses which cause the common cold as they tend to mutate. I believe it will eventually be managed, like the common flu. I feel our medical and scientific communities will get a better understanding of it, eventually. Until then, it is up to us to help slow the virus to give them a chance to do so, ultimately for our benefit.

Yes, we all could benefit by channelling the energy of the Queen of Wands to live life to the fullest yet as safely as possible. After all, a healthy economy thrives on healthy, living workers and consumers.

So, let’s hear it for this august Queen.

On to September and the Three of Cups.