Eight of Wands: tarot meaning, upright and reversed

Eight staffs fly across an open sky above a river.

Upright

swiftness · movement

Events or messages gather pace and call for timely response.

Reversed

delay · misdirected haste

Speed may become confusion, or movement may meet an obstruction.

In a reading

The position gives this card a particular task: a description of the situation, a challenge, or guidance. Read its image and meaning alongside the other cards and the question that brought them together.

Golden Dawn correspondence

Mercury in Sagittarius, 0–10 degrees. This is the attribution in Book T.

Sources

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. These notes are original interpretations of the Waite–Smith imagery, informed by that text.