Seven of Batons: Patterns on the Beach

(This post was written last year, 2024, on a gorgeous beach near Lombok, Indonesia. There are all sorts of things you can do with a tarot card.)

Three sticks cross another set of three, creating a thick cross, like most of the Batons (Wands) in the Marseille Tarot. A seventh stick runs vertically down the centre of the cross, with large leaves growing horizontally from the sides.

Above: Seven of Batons from the Philippe Vachier Marseille Tarot of 1639, the oldest known complete Marseille Tarot deck.

I am called to create you on the beach, Seven of Wands. I want to know what it is like to see you live before me, created from nothing but Nature’s elements.

At first, I use a tiny pink shell as my tool, over near the palm trees. I carve your stark lines in the white sand and, in my face, I feel the concentration of a master painter (although I have the skills of a drunken lizard). Lines form in the sand like claw marks from a grizzly bear, creating a criss cross. It’s not pretty, but I don’t mind. It is the Seven of Batons, and I am on a tropical beach. The Sun is beaming down. The water laps on the turquoise shore; its soft lashing calms my muscles. I give up on the grizzly criss-cross and walk towards ‘the Instagram swing’ which hangs from a tree near the shoreline. We call it ‘the Instagram swing’ because, although all the tourists stop at this paradise spot to pose for a holiday snap, nobody actually stays to enjoy it.

I have decided to buck the trend and enjoy the spot, no photo required. As I sit and sway, watching the coral reef sea, I hear a gecko calling over the waves. How strange it is to hear it’s famous nocturnal ‘up-ooh’ now, in the daytime.

I lean down to create my second Seven of Batons on the beach. This time, I simply trace the sand with my finger; the swing is so near the sand that I can lean down and reach. It is even messier than the first creation, but I enjoy the feeling of sand grains jamming into my fingernail as I scrape the Batons into the shore. I gently sway as I design, looking up at the turquoise sea from time to time. The occasional boat dashes from one green island to another. I think about how these sand grains once formed shell debris and coral skeletons, now transformed by time, spending a few minutes jammed into my body before returning to the whole again. I look at my ugly Seven of Batons in the sand, a lattice slash which will no doubt disappear within the hour. It becomes a symbol of impermanence, something spoken by the sand granules themselves. I sway from left to right on the swing again; I tilt my head back to feel the hot Sun on my face, lulled by tranquility. 

Above: Seven of Batons from the gorgeous Metanoia Marseille Tarot by Bouchette Design.

I try the Seven of Batons two more times: once using the stems of tree leaves (they are big here!) to represent the batons, and then a final time with seashells and stones to create the baton shapes. Their solid formations are creamy white with stripes of orange and red that pop against the brilliant white sand. (I have to leave the idyllic swing to collect enough materials for this one, but no Insta-happy tourist pinches it whilst I am gone.) As with my other attempts to recreate this Tarot card with nothing but natural objects, I am aware that this, too – my favourite design –  will be gone by tomorrow. I reflect on how I, too, will be gone one day, and all of my card decks, which I adore so much, will have decomposed or burned up or floated away on water. The shoreline has much to teach.

Tarot cards don’t really ‘mean’ anything on their own. Their meaning comes into being when we interact with them, and we can interact with them in all sorts of ways. The Batons in the Marseille are like jagged mandalas: simple geometric shapes that ask us to spend time with them, meditate with them, sketch them, experience them. To feel their energy, rather than logically recalling ‘keywords’. Today, I have created four impermanent versions of the Seven of Batons in the sand, and here … now  … right now, actually, the last traces of them are drifting away into the tropical sea.

Today, this is what the Seven of Batons ‘means’.

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature 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.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen