Two of Wands · Wands · Fire

Under the numeral II, a man stands on a grey stone battlement, his back to us, head turned in profile toward the water on the left. He wears a red cap and a long crimson cloak; his legs are striped orange. In one open hand, a globe, its continents inked green and red. The other closes around a rust-colored staff, sprouting green leaves, rising nearly to the card’s top. A second staff, also sprouting, stands at the right, clamped to the stone by a black iron bracket. Roses and lilies are carved crossed on the block at his left, red and white. Beyond the parapet: pale blue water and a far shore, green hills with a red roof among the trees, violet mountains, a bare sky.

The whole world fits in his palm. What he wants is the part he cannot reach.

The Golden Dawn gives this decan to Mars in Aries: fire at its most forward, will arriving before the deed. The Ace was the branch offered. The Two is the moment the branch becomes a plan, and therefore a choice: the stone under him and the water he is looking at cannot both be had.

Upright, the tradition reads deliberate scope. A person surveying, weighing, taking the measure of a distance before crossing it. Ambition with a map.

Reversed, the same dial turns back toward the wall and stays there. The globe becomes an ornament, the horizon becomes a mood, and planning becomes the thing done in place of going.

The card asks only that you notice which staff is in your hand: the one bolted to the stone, or the one that can be lifted.