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All Hail the King!

For today’s topic, we turn toward the leaves of a book dating from the early 14th century, the Tarot. For those of you familiar with the tarot, I’ll be discussion one of the court cards. For those of you unfamiliar with this book*, I’ll presenting a brief comparison of two different personality types. Not scary at all, right?
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The King of Wands

Let’s start with four pieces of background information first.

There are four suits in the traditional tarot deck. The King, as the tarot relates to our workaday world, is the President, CEO, boss, or supervisor of his related suit, or company if you will.

The suit of wands is associated with elemental Fire. The other elemental forces are Air, Water, and Earth.

There are four court cards; these are typically the King, Queen, Knight and Page.

Each of the court cards is associated with its own elemental force, regardless of its respective suit. This is important for our discussion today.

Alright, let's begin.

Before you, a King on his throne. His raiment and his throne reflect a rich splendor, and you can tell he’s worked hard to get where he is today. Indeed, this is a man who values work and action. He has engaged in many adventures on his way to the throne, and although he chooses to rule, he yearns for new challenges. Hopefully the wisdom he has attained over the years makes him better at dealing with challenges now than when he was younger. And I think this must be so. Someone who has not learned will only seek to avoid new learning experiences. The King of Wands, by contrast, yearns for new opportunities to apply his wisdom, and gain more. Although some references indicate that this King displays a manner of dissatisfaction as a result of impending change, I feel that he is unsatisfied because of stagnation. He wants adventure and opportunity! Consider a fire. It cannot burn the same piece of wood forever. The fuel is consumed and the fire burns out. New logs, new fuel must consistently be introduced for the fire to maintain itself.

Earth or Fire?

In the tarot, the King, regardless of suit, is associated with either the elemental force of Earth or Air. Now, if we consider the King’s energy to be the energy of Earth, then the King of Wands represents Earth of Fire, or the practical use of fire energy, the pragmatic will, and the practical steps necessary to exercise one’s will and attain one’s desires.

If we consider the King’s energy to be the energy of Air, then we have Air of Fire, the intellectual side of fire, with ideas of how one’s desires might be attained by engaging one’s will.

Either one of these approaches might be correct in a given situation, but each must be considered carefully.

The King as Earth is interesting for Wands, because as a businessman, this King of Wands acts on his desires, often relying on the ideas and input of others for guidance.

The King as Air is equally intriguing. This King of Wands comes up with his own ideas, or his own synthesis of other ideas. He then directs these ideas to the people best suited (pardon the pun) to execute his will and bring forth his desires.

One is a man of action, the other is a man of direction.
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Neither King is a solitary unit; neither man is an island. Each relies on those around him, and this is as it should be. After all, a King without subjects is just another man.

What's this got to do with me?

Where is all this leading to? It leads to you. If you take on the role of the King of Wands, are you King as Earth, or King as Air? You do indeed get to choose, and you must choose. Sometimes we must be forceful and act on our own accord, and sometimes we must stop and listen to the counsel of others. The role you choose, and when you choose it, is up to you.

May your choices be blessed.
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* The reference to the tarot as a book may be surprising to some. Rachael Pollock, celebrated tarot scholar, describes the tarot as a book whose story changes every time the cards are shuffled.

The Robyn Wood Tarot deck shows the King of Wands standing in a desert, representing the heat of fire. This is King as Air energy, because he is surrounded by nothing but air. In the Halloween Tarot, Kipling West is more obvious with her King as Air stance, as each King has a bat (the Halloween Tarot representatives of Air) somewhere on his garments or on his throne. In the book accompanying the Universal Tarot, the authors specify the King as Earth paradigm. The reader should note that either way, the King of Wands is associated with the will, desire, and creation, among other things.

Fearlessness.

What is it?

It’s a great word, a powerful word. It conjures ideas of doing anything, everything, without fear. Without hesitation. Not without knowledge, mind you, but with life and with gusto! The tarot deck represents the concept of Fearlessness by card zero, The Fool. This poor character is so often maligned. His name is The Fool, so he must be foolish, and no one wants to associate with that! But this isn’t quite so. You see, The Fool has knowledge, but no wisdom. The Fool in the tarot deck is like someone who has lots of book smarts, but no street smarts; someone who is really intelligent, but has no common sense.

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But it’s because of this that he has absolute Fearlessness!

What is the source of this lack? It’s because The Fool has no experience. But this is part of his gift. Since he does not have experience, he is not afraid of anything. He doesn’t know from experience that something can hurt him. He knows the stove is hot, but he’s never touched it.

This fearlessness enables him to do anything. He is off on adventures; he does things that he thinks are interesting or fun. He goes with it. He falls off his bike. He encounters rejection. He gets burned touching the stove. And he learns. He learns about himself. Click here now and learn about yourself!

He learns!

Does this mean that he’ll be The Fool forever? No. Nothing stays stagnant. The sapling becomes the mighty oak. Like all things that live, he will evolve, grow and change. The challenge through learning is that he not let his lessons inhibit him. Just because the stove burns him, it shouldn’t stop him from cooking. It should teach him to use a potholder. And maybe even have a fire extinguisher nearby.

What does it mean to me?

What does all this mean to you? How can you incorporate the energy of Fearlessness into your life?

Think about this. What have you wanted to do, but have put off because you weren’t sure if you had the skills? Or the strength? Or the gusto? What have you kept on the back burner because you were afraid of what your family might think? Or your friends? Or your coworkers?

Do it! Whatever it is, you will only know if you can do it if you try. Now I’m not suggesting that you see if you can fly without wings. We’ve obviously been around the block a few times, and left the skid marks to show for it. But you only get one lifetime, one time around as Bob Smith or Carolyn Jones, and at the end of it, do you really want to left with a bunch of “If I had onlies…” or “I should haves?” As Jim Rohn used to say, when the final score is tallied, let it show your wins and losses, but don’t let it show that you didn’t play!

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Can You Do it? Yes! Be Fearless! Use the energy of The Fool. Find out who you are and what you can do!

Successful People

Success always reveals itself. It cannot be hidden. If you study successful people, you will learn what makes them tick. You can’t help it; it becomes apparent.
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Successful people have different avenues to success, but there are always a few core values that seem to ring true, no matter what kind of business or discipline they are engaged in. Here are a few.

Successful People are Always Learning

Successful people are always learning! They can’t seem to stop. They know that when you stop, you atrophy and die. But they do more than just learn. They apply what they learn. It’s amazing to watch successful people who have a little success learn something new and then grow even more successful. It’s like watching a flower grow. Every day you look for a new bud, and then you wait in anticipation for it to blossom. It’s fascinating!

Successful People are Hard Workers

Successful people are very hard workers! They make a plan and they stick to it. Periodically, they will review their results, and if their progress isn’t on track with their plan, they will make adjustments and keep working hard! Success may come from doing simple things the right way over and over, but it doesn’t come overnight, and it’s not easy. The farmer has to work to get the field planted before he can ever expect to see a crop. Then he has to keep the problems of life from choking out his plants. Only after he has done all this can he expect to have a successful harvest.
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Successful People have a sense of humor

Successful people have a sense of humor! They know that what they are doing is important, but they also know that they have to bring a sense of lightness and joy to their work. Having a good humor about doing a job very well is healthy. It relieves stress and lets you take a step back and look at what you’ve done and actually see if it’s working. Being too serious about a job puts your ego on the line. Now you have your entire self esteem locked into how well something turns out and if it goes poorly, you are crushed. Lighten up! If something doesn’t go well, you step back, you learn, you make adjustments and you move on!

No matter what you decide to do or be, bring these three core values into your practice and you’ll be able to make your plan soar!
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Be the Successful People you were meant to be!

Being Positive

Picture it! I was driving in Washington D.C., on the section of the beltway that connects Suitland, MD with Alexandria, VA, when my front driver's side tire went flat. At first, I pulled off on the right hand shoulder, as far as I could, and added a can of fix-a-flat, and tried to keep driving, but the product was spewing from around the valve stem. Knowing that I wouldn't be driving long on the flattening tire, I made my way to the left lane. When the tire gave way, I pulled off on the left shoulder and began the process of replacing the tire with the donut spare.

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At the time, I was stationed in D.C., and active duty Navy service members who were stationed in the National Capitol Region were mandated to wear their service blues or service white uniforms, depending on the season. As it was summer, I was in my white uniform.

Being positive in these situations is important, so I thought of all the positive quotes I knew.

Then I just set about doing what I knew how to do. Set jack, loosen lugnuts, jack up car, remove tire. Check, check, check and check.

I could feel the wind as cars were passing me by, drivers zooming home to their families, to dinner, to whatever was important in their lives. I was on the left hand side of the road and working on the left side of the car, so I was safe.

Here’s where my being positive first made a difference.

I got the donut lugged on and was inflating it when someone spoke up behind me. A service member from the U.S. Coast Guard had stopped to ask if I needed help. But this guy didn't just stop. He had driven past, as so many others had, but he had noticed that I was working in my white uniform and that no one was helping. So he had taken the next exit, turned around, and come back to see if I needed assistance. I was floored by his gesture. I was almost done, and I hadn't even gotten so much as a smudge on my uniform (go me!), but the fact that someone, and especially one of my fellow service members, had stopped to see if I need help was very touching.

I made my way to Firestone and got the tire replaced, then went back to my apartment. Meeting with some friends for dinner that evening, I relayed the events. Sara, one of my best friends, said, "You were stuck on the road, in your uniform, and all the people with 'God Bless America' and 'We Support Our Troops' bumper stickers were just passing you by?" This seemed like quite a negative correlation, and I hadn't thought of it that way, but it struck me as incredibly ironic and funny.

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What I did take away from that experience was two things. One, there are people in this world who are willing to help you, and sometimes you don't even have to ask, but you do have to be in the right place, at the right time. The second thing was that, at the time, there were sections of the beltway that were jersey walled on the left side, and if my tire had gone flat in one of those regions, I would have been obligated to drive on a flat tire all the way to Virginia. So, the tire, having to go flat, did so at a reasonably safe location, and I counted that as a blessing.
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Being positive! It really helped!