Two cards in conversation
Strength + Queen of Wands
People often bring two cards with a question about what will happen. Olivia reads a pair as a conversation instead: what each card brings, and what appears between them.
What links them
- A Major and a Minor
Carved on both cards
- The thin crescent moon · Full moon and two crescents
- The lapis lion · Four lions of the throne
Five ways to read this pair
Try one lens at a time. Write a sentence for each before you read anyone else’s version.
Story
Read Strength first, then Queen of Wands, as two scenes of one story. What changes between them?
Contrast
Where do Strength and Queen of Wands pull in different directions, and what does each ask of you?
One colours the other
Let Queen of Wands describe the way of Strength, as an adjective describes a noun. Then swap them.
A shared symbol
The same symbol is carved on both: “The thin crescent moon” and “Full moon and two crescents”; “The lapis lion” and “Four lions of the throne”. Follow it from one image to the other: what stays the same, what changes?
Number, suit and element
A Major and a Minor: the Major can name the theme, the Minor shows where it turns up in ordinary days.
One reader’s version
Strength also sets a calm figure beside a lion. With the Queen of Wands, the two cards draw attention to courage that works through gentleness, and to fire that is guided with patience rather than forced into shape.