The spark of fire was here from the beginning. He takes all sorts of forms – some that are inconspicuous and gentle, some that are absurd, and others that are raging, horrifying – but it is always him, that same essence.

I met him somewhere far away from here. I don’t remember which planet it was, or even if I was on a planet at the time, but the landscape was vast and open, the ground unlike anything I had seen before.

I recall yellow grass that bordered on orange, like tangerine hair. One bright yellow plant, wild and unruly, like a fern that had been spray-painted gold, sprang up near my feet. But the rest of the scene was just yellowy, orangey earth meeting white sky. It was so hot that the sweat dripped down the back of my neck, tickling my spine through my retro Prodigy Firestarter t-shirt. (I always loved that song, but never really followed the band.)

And then, he was there. I don’t remember him approaching, he was just there, the way that people appear in a dream without warning and you accept the apparition as rational. The spark of fire – it was that guy!

In some ways, he could have stepped out of a cheesy old Wild West film, his foot in the stirrup of his horse, his comically large cowboy hat as large as an umbrella head, but he was far more European than that, and psychedelic to boot. His white horse had a mane of hair more orange than the earth I stood upon. The man’s suit was made of so many colours that my eyes hurt; primary colours like blood red, deep blue and forest green met in ragged patches as if there had been a shortage of fabric when it was created, all of which came from a nursery school’s craft box.

He handed me the wand, his face serious but kind. Oh, right! Is this the thing that I need to make the fires inside of me burn? Having the creative drive isn’t enough on its own, I knew that. I needed the drive to take action, I needed to take the baton and to run with it – and so that’s what I did! Cheeky, eh?

I took the wand, I nodded in some sort of gratitude, and then I ran like hell. It was a magical tool. I wrote songs with the baton, I magicked up festivals from nowhere, watching people dancing to strange musicians who crooned gently or screamed like banshees.

I got bored of that. But the problem with the boredom was that I still had this wand by my side, and whenever I put it down to rest, it burned whatever it touched. It wanted to create. I had to pick it up, do more creating, keep it active, or things  that I loved would burn to a crisp.

So I learned to keep on creating with the wand, whatever I needed to do, I did it. I still do it. Sometimes I spent years writing books, other times I scribbled sketches on paper and then threw the results away. It didn’t really matter to me as long as I created something.

But now, I meet this new phase. All I want to do with this wand is to stoke a fire, to bring people around it, to tell stories. To be outdoors in a woodland somewhere (oh, I arrived back on planet Earth a long time ago, friend, did I not mention that?) feeling a breeze against my skin as the sky darkens; watching a community of friends gaze upon the flame I have created with the wand, eyes lit up with enchantment as we speak of faeries, shapeshifters, dragons.

The fire does not need to be wild and taxing, I realise that now. It just needs to burn. And so, join me, friend, at the fireside. Place your wand in the centre, and do something with that spark. Open yourself up and set yourself free: your Knight of Wands demands it.

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Tarot Therapy Sessions if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.