Wands · Fire
Ten of Wandsfor Aquarius · Work and Career
"Burden isn't the question. What you do next is."
Six quick picks first, then your reading
A man oppressed by the weight of the ten wands which he is carrying. Wands represents passion and ten represents family/endings. Together this card represents having an abundance of passions to the point that it becomes a burden. A true labor of love; this card is overworked and not yet in harmony. The journey of completing the task is done, but the journey of maintaining the task has just started.
You have completed your task and are carrying all of the fruits of your labor-- instead of a feeling of satisfaction and ease, you feel physically/mentally/psychically exhausted and are wondering if you can bear it all. Perhaps you promised a loved one something that has now become a burden (maybe a financial promise or a household task you took on alone). Maybe a project at work that felt like a promotion actually just means you now have two jobs. Either way, ask for help and delegate.
Instead of others demanding too much of you; you are demanding too much of yourself. The inner critique adds a lot of weight-- especially for pursuits involving creativity and passion. Perhaps you have over committed to avoid your emotions (you are too busy to feel). This behavior has caught up with you-- you need rest and balance. Practice saying no to things and accepting that no one can be perfect all the time.
Its place in the deck.
Where it shows up.
Ten of Wands for Aquarius in Work and Career
The Visionary
Wands are the fire suit, so the Ten of Wands sits in Aries. Aries sextiles Aquarius, which is help that has to be taken up rather than help that arrives. What it asks for is this: spend the energy on one thing today. Aquarius is perfectly capable of that, which is exactly why not doing it needs a better excuse. Upright, it is complete, which is not automatically the same as good.
When reading about work through an Aquarius lens, the Ten of Wands says that you feel like work is where you prove the system wrong, a problem you solve from thirty thousand feet, and something you will leave the second it stops being interesting. This has either led to you building something no one else could see, or to leaving before anyone could build it with you. You have not asked yourself what you actually want from this work, only what you think you should want from it. The Aquarius blind spot in it is being ordinary, or worse, being needed in a way that pins them down.
In practice that can look like wanting to quit. Whatever form it takes, it is completing, possibly past the point it was useful.
Somewhere else?
Keep the thread
Artemis remembers what you asked, and tells you when something comes back around.
Get Artemis Tarot