my description:
cool blue and silver, subtle flashes of violet on the reversed figure. Upright: A silver figure is sitting or standing calmly, eyes forward and possibly closed, and arms crossed. There are pale gold bands on the figures right side of the body (face, chest, arm) and the figure is wearing a white toga-like sash over its right shoulder. The background is a oval pattern emanating outward from the figure, composed of blue and silver squares that look like patterns of light, and seven white outline pentacle shapes are traveling outward with the squares - some of them are not fully formed pentacles yet.
Reversed, the figure has a violet sheen and the pale gold bands are on both sides of the body, along with a check covering in a mosaic pattern. The toga looks as if it's pulled taut (like it may be caught on something). This figure's right hand is held over its head, palm open, while the left is balled into a fist and drawn back as if ready to punch something. The facial expression is one of angry protest. The overall posture seems to be saying "Get out of here!" and waving the growing pentacles off.
At last, a non-Wands card to share. This is a good example of how this deck handles imagery I'd normally expect to reflect organic symbolism. Rather than showing the pentacles as growing plantlife, here they are seen as half-developed light patterns or perhaps smoke rings. And while I expressed the inorganic nature of this deck as a troubling feature for me, today this image is working for me.
The cool blue with very few muddying colors highlights the approach of this card - calm, and as much cerebral as material - it's not simply doing nothing as an activity, but stilling the mind to allow things to develop at their own speed.
The Pentacles here are mostly reminding me of photographs developing. When I was young, my father occasionally earned extra money as a freelance photographer (among several other things - he was quite the Jack of All Trades, my dad), but our house had no extra room he could use as a darkroom, so when he needed to develop pictures, he'd take over our one bathroom (windowless) and hang a sign on the door warning us away.
I never learned anything about developing pictures from him (the room was too small, I was too rambunctious and materials were too dear to risk a child's explorations with them), but I learned a lot about the kind of waiting where impatience does nothing to speed up the process. Children's bladders seem to have a built in sensor about when there is no bathroom available to use - while he did his mysterious darkroom magic, I'd be outside saying "Is it done yet? Is is done yet??" There's no point in saying "Hurry up!" - it takes the time it takes, and if you rush the process the only result is you have either wasted the time and resources put into it already and give up, or you have to start all over - impatience actually increases the time it takes to get what you want.
We sometimes seem to be hardwired to feel the urge to Do Something in the face of this kind of waiting. I'd play games with myself... I will count to 100 two times and then he'll be done. (It filled the time, but I doubt the magic of getting to 100 twice is what made him get done!)
We take Poloroid pictures that we know good and well will develop in a few minutes and shake them to speed up the process, in spite of the warning that if you do that, it not only won't develop faster but will end up streaky and not properly developed at all.
We apply nailpolish and shake our hands to dry them, putting in air-bubbles and ruining the whole thing or impatiently do just one thing while waiting for them to dry and wind up smudging them irrepairably.
We know we have to wait.. but if we don't develop a mental calm about act of doing nothing, our very impatience will lead to the sort of pointless activity that destroys the very thing we are so impatient to have.
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