This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Knight of Wands

It's been very Knightly around here recently. This is not a surprising turn of events, considering that we are just now moving from one calendar year to another (a man-made happening, true enough, but one fraught with letting go and cleaning slates and galloping forward, quintessential Knight activities). It's also the first Mercury retrograde of 2016, and nobody in the tarot does mercurial like a Knight.

So welcome Knight of Wands! We've been expecting you!

Now normally, I'd be telling you all about this Knight's proclivity for rushing into frays, charging forward, lance upraised. This is especially true of the Knight of Wands, whose lance is actually a tool of creation, not destruction. See those little green leaves, those tender twiggy shoots? His lance is a live thing, the archetypal staff of fertility and creativity. It channels the creative impulse into direct energy. It is a powerful tool.

But this Knight comes to us during a time of retrograde — a time of return and re-visioning and remembering — even as the calendar impels us forward. It's a contradictory impulse, looking back, especially for Knights, who are all about the "tally ho." But I think that's what we creative sorts are being asked to do as 2016 rolls out the welcome mat.

Go back a little to 2015. I'm sure there are many things you're releasing — the decluttering of life is practically a religion now — but the Universe is asking you and all the knightly parts of you to chill for a second. Take stock of the treasure chest that is the past, especially the recent past. It's a rich tapestry, your past, the warp and woof that makes you who you are. Find something here that matters to you, and tuck it next to your heart. And then ride forward with this memory, this blessing, as a talisman.

Like the knights who carried their Lady's Favour into battle, you now have a reminder that your work is a sacred, matter-full thing. That you are on a mission of the highest valor and importance. And that somebody up there loves you.