Pamela Colman Smith · RWS deck
The Minor Arcana
Ace of Wands
Kether in Atziluth
- Suit
- wands
- Rank
- Ace
- World
- Atziluth
- Station
- Kether
- Verb
- I receive
Each Ace is the Yechidah point of its world: the soul before it wears a face, and Kether of that world's Tree. That is why Smith draws a hand out of a cloud and never a person. An Ace does not describe a situation. It says which world is lit.
Upright
Flowing. This is the Voice before it has a hearer. A call or an opening arrives from beyond you, before there are words for it and before you know what it asks. Atziluth is the world of meaning, and its verb is the first one from below: I receive. Nothing has to be done with it yet. The gift is the arriving.
Misdirected. The gift refused, or taken as one's own.
Reversed
Blocked. The Voice is not getting through, or is heard and not received.
Flooded. More call than can be taken in, with no ground to hold it.
The image
A hand reaches out of a cloud holding a wand that is still alive, leaves sprouting along it and a few drifting away. Far below, a river runs through green country towards a castle on a distant hill. No one in the picture is there to take it.
Learn how to read Ace of Wands in a spread
This page shows you what Ace of Wands means. Knowing how to read it — how it shifts next to the other cards, what the reversal is really telling you, and how to turn a spread into a clear answer — is what the RWS Decoded course and book teach, card by card.
