Upright Meaning
In a reading, the Knight of Wand’s qualities are usually translated to signify movement, action, and, often, many things happening at the same time. The card can point to opportunities for travel or a desire for these to materialize.
Sometimes, the Knight can suggest a personality that likes to be in the middle of a whirlwind of activity and action, possibly one that, while reveling in the hustle and bustle, doesn’t tend to make clear strategies to bring these plans to fruition. The person may, like the Knight himself, be prone to making wild charges without a clear course of action. Where this is the case, the card advises that we do not repress the Wands’ fire that generates such energy, but use it to focus our intentions and ensure that we resist rushing headlong into too many things at once.
Reversed Meaning
With his eagerness and speed, the Knight can be easily thrown from his horse during a blind charge, and this is the essential message of the reversed card. Reversed, the Knight of Wands gently advises us that, should we meet obstacles in our path we do not let confusion or doubt overwhelm us and detract from our optimistic spirit. We may need to alter our course or be more considered in our actions, but this need not mean that we allow our plans to be sabotaged by opposition or unexpected problems that we meet along the way.
In a reading, the reversed Knight, as with the other court cards, can indicate elements of our own personality or situation, or that of an individual that has a bearing on our lives or on the situation regarding which we are consulting the cards.
In the Knight of Wands, we see the essence of the Fire personality: speed, movement, a joyful rush towards excitement, and adventure. The tails and mouth of the salamanders - symbolic of fire - on the Knight’s tunic do not meet, as they do on the robes of the suit’s King; this symbolizes journeys and projects that have not been completed; the path before us is full of wonders that we have yet to experience.