"After taking some personal risks, you may be feeling the need to put intense energy into being with yourself and discovering your self.  You're so committed to your own growth and direction that you may be unaware of the rest of the world.  You may be strongly introverted now, or you may be exploring a part of your personality in a secret or hidden manner." Gail Fairfield

Knights symbolize protection, strength, ambition and questing.  Fire is associated with inspiration, energy, passion, feeling, enterprise, ambition, matters pertaining to the "spark of life", and the element of fire.  Typically this card refers to someone who is energetic and enthusiastic about life, heedlessly charging ahead in search of adventure and excitement.  The Knight of Wands can either represent qualities you possess or someone else in your life who possesses these qualities. 

My Knight (or Prince) has come again.  This time he is represented by the Warrior of Skill in the Celtic Wisdom deck and the Prince of Wands in the Zerner-Farber.  This is Gwydion of Welsh myth and the Mabinogion.  He is a bit of a trickster and a magician.  He seems to regularly get himself into difficulties as a result of his magical workings.  He and his brother (Gilfaethwy) conspire to seduce their uncle Math's foot bearer (Gowein) and set off a chain of events that results in his sister Arianrhod giving birth of two sons (Dylan and an unnamed blog) and causes them to be shapeshifted into mating pairs of various animals (stag/hind, sow/boar and wolf/she-wolf).  In each shape the pair give birth to offspring that is sent back to Math.  Gwydion starts a war with Pryderi and conspires to get his nephew (formerly an unnamed blob) named by his mother Arianrhod (she has sworn he will have no name, no weapons and no wife except by her hand and she does not intend to award his these things).  Gwydion succeeds at achieving the first two goals and his nephew is named Lleu Llaw Gyffes and armed.  Finding him a mate is another matter.  With the help of Math, Gwydion eventually creates a wife for Lleu out of flowers and names her Blodeuwedd.  She eventually betrays Lleu and is turned into an owl.  So quite honestly it seems as though all Gwydion's magical abilities don't exactly result in happy endings for all concerned.  It is as though his desire to overcome a challenge (as Jim Kirk would say he doesn't believe in a "no win" scenario) makes him reckless.  He doesn't consider the consequences of his victory.  Again we see a character with charisma, strength of will and determination but it is offset by a recklessness and disregard that makes him dangerous.

On the Zerner-Farber we once again see the troubadour prince.  That charismatic and charming man who sings songs of love and devotion all the while plotting to seduce you out of your lingerie.  This Prince or Knight may be passionate and exciting to be around but he is not likely to settle down any time soon.  Rachel Pollack tells a story about a client whose lover gave her the gift of herself and when the client ask if he sleeps with anyone other than her and his wife the response was a card meaning "many, many gifts".  I think that man may have been channeling his Knight of Wands energy.  Think of how phallic those wands are.  That makes me think that at least one of the gifts offered by the Knight or Prince of Wands is fabulous sex. 

Of course I keep referring to the Knight as male.  That doesn't necessarily have to be.  Females (especially today) can channel this energy quite easily.  Look at the ladies of Sex in the City.  They are certainly exhibiting traits one might associate with the Knight of Wands (especially Samantha).  We might like to believe that women aren't as immature and unable to commit as men but the truth is that both those perceptions are stereotypes.  We perpetuate them because we just can't believe our preferred partner does not want to bond with us.  I think the truth is that there may be some people who never find that special partner and others who don't care but the majority of us are so busy giving our many gifts that we don't give ourselves enough time to actually establish a relationship with anyone else.  If we engage with others on an immature level - seeking passion and excitement and always seeking to charge ahead at warp speed, we aren't giving ourselves enough time to get to know each other during the down time, the slow time.  If all you do is go out, wine, dine and dance and then end up home in bed together when is there time to talk.  I think that's the downside of the Knight of Wands.  There is still a touch of immaturity because he is always seeking a new adventure or new experience that he thinks awaits over the next horizon.

Of course I drew him reversed once again.  So I am certainly not scattering my "gifts" hither and yon.  And maybe that's the problem.  If Wands are creative energy then I am not giving myself enough exposure.  I am not sharing my creative gifts with enough people.  It's like the old Faberge Organics shampoo commercial used to say - I need to tell two friends and they'll tell two friends and so on and so on.  Maybe I'm trying so hard not to seem over-confident, arrogant and pompous that I'm muting my natural energy and enthusiasm.  I need to let that creative energy blaze forth a bit otherwise I'm at risk for becoming a boring, bitter hollow shell of a person who never took a chance.  It's time to sally forth and see what lies over that horizon.