Queen of Wands · Wands · Fire

Alone among the four queens, she faces you straight on. Behind her hangs a flat orange panel where two red lions rear toward each other, a red bloom on a stem between them, two more level with her face. Each throne arm ends in a yellow lion’s head, facing out of the card. One hand holds a staff planted at her side, a knotted red-brown branch taller than she is, still in green leaf. The other holds a sunflower, petals yellow, seed-head red, the way you hold a thing you grew and see no reason to hide. She wears yellow under a white mantle, a red stone at the throat, leaves in her gold crown. Her knees are set apart beneath the gown, one red shoe at the hem. At the front of the step a black cat sits upright, looking out at whoever looks in.

She does not lean forward. The room comes to her.

A Queen keeps what her suit is made of; this one keeps fire. The tradition reads her as warmth with authority inside it: charm that costs nothing, confidence that never asked permission. The lions are Strength’s lion sat down and made into furniture. The cat is hers alone, the animal that keeps its own counsel while she receives.

Upright: nerve, generosity, a heat other people can warm their hands at.

Reversed, the same fire turns on the room. Warmth spent on holding attention instead of giving it, jealousy where the confidence was, the sunflower kept back until it is admired. Or the heat goes out and only the watching is left. Nothing in the picture moves. What changes is what the fire is for.