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Ten of Wands

The Lord of Oppression

Wands, 10

Saturn in Sagittarius. We see a man carrying heavy sticks toward a distant city. He is bent under the weight and the city seems so very far away. He is drawn as a simple stick figure to imply that he himself has lost all pretense to three-dimensionality and is not so different from the wands he carries. He has lost all traces of his own humanity as he has submerged himself deeper and deeper in his job.

I have chosen to set the scene deep in the twilight, where other people have decided to call it a day and go home. The man in the card still has such a very long way to go. He probably won't make it home until late at night. I like the fact that the man seems to be walking through empty country side: it emphasises the loneliness of the figure.

The other thing I find interesting about the figure is that even though he's carrying such a lot of wands, he seems to have derived no benefit whatsoever from them: without even a hint of irony on my part, he is a meaningless, anonymous stick figure, who looks as if he hasn't eaten in days.

Meaning

Work has become an obsession, it is no longer enjoyable and we are slowly becoming more and more alone and isolated. Becoming workaholics, in other words. Work takes all our time away from us, leaving us nothing but money.

Reversed

One is always trying to show up the next guy. Where the card is "right-side up" (Dignified), we can at least say that we come by the work honestly. In this case we are just overworking ourselves to make the next guy look bad. Could represent a lack of faith in our colleagues. Maybe through an unnecessary "Superman complex".