AUTHOR’S NOTE: I once wrote that, with his nose buried in his bundle of sticks, the man in the Waite-Smith 10 of Wands could just as easily walk off a cliff as reach the village shown in the distance. From a practical divination perspective, he has too much on his plate and doesn’t know where, when or even if he will be able to unburden himself so he just trudges ahead blindly, neglectful of where he is placing his feet. The environment is charged with a forlorn “keep on keepin’ on” dreariness; somewhere up ahead there may be salvation but he certainly can’t see it.

The Golden Dawn defined this card as the “Lord of Oppression” and Aleister Crowley retained the title of “Oppression” for his Thoth variant. Here we have the restless, irrepressible energy of Fire rudely jammed into a concrete box; the Pythagorean premise that the Four is concealed in the Ten is quite illuminating (i.e. 1+2+3+4=10, the basis for his four-tiered tetractys model). In this supposition there are echoes of the Emperor (IV) ruthlessly enforcing Cosmic Law but also irrevocably bound to it as symbolized by the Wheel of Fortune (X), on which he has a seat (at the bottom). Here the Emperor has been disenfranchised after being “steamrollered” by the turning of the Wheel and must find a new gig.

In the RWS card the idea of oppressive conditions arises from the overbearing weight the man is shouldering. It’s unclear where he picked up his load, but I was previously struck by the notion that the image is a continuation of the “combat” narrative that began with the 7 of Wands; here the warrior has now been forced to abandon his defensive position as shown in the 9 of Wands and flee with all of his possessions on his back, seeking refuge behind the front lines. I find that, with a nod to the Golden Dawn’s obvious influence, this is another instance where the RWS card “gets it right.”

Although the “Oppression” of the Thoth version follows the blueprint of the “Descent of Spirit into Matter” because it represents the logical outcome of an unwise wielding of the magisterial power imparted by the 9 of Wands, I tend to see this state of duress as self-imposed through negligence, either unintentional or willful. The individual so challenged has lost his way by failing to keep his eyes on the road as he blunders onward with no clear sense of where he is going. As befits the headstrong element of Fire, the nature of Wands is notoriously immune to forbearance (self-ordained or dictated by reality) as it pursues its agenda, so overreaching in the form of “getting more than one bargained for” is not uncommon.

As with all the Tens, this one represents being crowded into a corner by the degradation of the original energy of its element; it is no longer able to get out of its own way and must be purged of this slackness by surrendering to the tender mercies of the Ace of Cups. Because Fire can be recklessly self-indulgent, there could be a resolve to stay the course long past the point where a reasonable person would retire from the field, so there is also a whiff of “beating one’s head against the wall” in its obstinate, single-minded posture.

I’m not an unrestrained Fire sign (more of a self-regulating Water-and-Earth type), so I will reluctantly quote an embarrassment of random, semi-relevant cliches that envision a “pressure-cooker” scenario in which the victim is all wound-up with no outlet; in the words of the Pure Prairie League song Jazzman, he was “red-hot and ready” in the 9 of Wands but in the following card he is forced to cool his ardor or risk running full-tilt into the proverbial “brick wall.” He will just have to: a) “stew in his own juices” because: b) progress has been stalled by the frustration of: c) having to “go through the motions” when all it does is: d) yield “diminishing returns” for the effort expended.

I can picture a child in the back seat of a car whining miserably “Are we there yet?” The formative pressure of denial that builds character in response to an exercise of Will ultimately becomes the perverse over-pressurization (or “oppression”) that deforms it. When receiving this card in a reading, a querent would be advised to re-think the long-range plan and perhaps lighten the load by laying down all or some of the “dead weight” before attempting to carry on. Letting go of a perceived (and onerously lingering) obligation is never easy but it can be tremendously liberating.