The Archetype and The Tarot: The Healer and Ace of Wands
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The Healer Archetype
In order to understand The Healer, we have to understand what it means to heal. And that is very tricky territory.
In terms of physical ailments, sometimes healing looks like a cessation of symptoms, and sometimes it looks more like managing symptoms and re-organizing life. Sometimes healing means an integration of wounds—a return to wholeness—rather than an erasure of wounds. The specifics of healing depend entirely upon the situation and the beings involved.
For the sake of simplicity in writing this post, I’m going to say that healing means moving from a non-preferred to a more-preferred state. The Healer is the one who can provide the means by which someone can make this move.
On the light side, The Healer remedies suffering. They are able to understand the non-preferred state; see what the more-preferred state is; and know how to transport someone (including themselves) to that state. They are aware of the amount of trust placed on them and would never make choices to betray that trust. With a mindset of service, they act as channels for healing energy to come through and do not involve their own agendas in the process.
The Healer in the shadow capitalizes on the power dynamic inherent in the healer/patient relationship. This can look a number of ways. They might provide false or inferior healing (aka snake oil salesmen); or they might allow their own sense of self to depend on someone being sick/injured. More commonly, however, the shadow Healer has trouble with healthy boundaries and cannot clearly see what is theirs to do. They might fail to see the need to heal themselves first, or perhaps not have a clear understanding of what is their responsibility and what is the patient’s. One sneaky way this comes up for some of us is when we police another’s lifestyles choices.
Some questions to consider this week:
How do I define healing?
Are we truly providing healing when we take another’s power of choice away?
Do I push away any avenues to healing?
How can I learn to better trust those who function as healers in my life (including myself)?
Ace of wands
The Aces in the tarot are symbols of receiving the gift of the tool of the suit (wands, cups, swords or pentacles). For me personally, I think of wands as the tool that connects us with the spiritual aspect of ourselves and life. (Cups are the tool that connects us with the emotional aspect, Swords with the mental aspect, and Pentacles with the physical aspect.) I find myself moving away from the idea that the suits are locked into any particular correspondences with the elements, but that’s a topic for another day.
Given all of that, in this card, we see a giant hand floating in the sky, holding a big, leafy wand. This is the hand of the Universe gifting us the potent tool for connecting with the spiritual realms. The wand is a channel, a conduit of spiritual power. When this spiritual power is channeled into us, it lights us up on the inside, igniting our passions and sense of purpose. (The etymology of the word enthusiasm is “god inside” and that’s a fairly apt description of what the wand can do for us.) The wand can also act like a sort of torch or flashlight, helping us see the path that our souls most want to take.
[Optional side story: Years ago, we were caretakers for a small country church. Every night, we’d go around and make sure everything was turned off in the buildings and the doors were locked, etc. It was our habit to take our dog with us so that she could get her evening walk in at the same time. As we walked through the various yards and classroom buildings, she’d behave like her normal, calm self. But when we’d reach the sanctuary in the main church building, it was as though someone had pressed her ‘on’ button. She’d tuck her butt under and take off at 100mph, zooming up and down the aisles with a giant dog grin on her face. We laughed and said that she’d been filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the exact energy I associate with the Ace of Wands…getting filled and overtaken by Spirit until all you can do is zoom around.]
How do these two work together?
I see an image of The Healer trying to guide us out of the dungeon of a non-preferred state, but they can’t seem to find the right tunnel. Every option they’ve tried leads us right back to the non-preferred state.
But then! The Ace of Wands arrives.
Burning like a torch of desire, it lights the way to our more-preferred state so, at last, The Healer can help us get there.
Ultimately, I think this is a call to recognize how Spirit within us—or enthusiasm—can remind us what we’re passionate about, what lights us up and gives us that juice of living. (This feels a lot like a part two for last week’s guidance, doesn’t it?)
Once we remember what it is that we most desire—what our more-preferred state really looks like—we can open up and allow The Healer to guide the way.
This one feels particularly potent for me this week as my focus recently has been more on my non-preferred state. I can’t wait to hear from all of you about what your more-preferred states look like! Let me know in the comments below.
Oh yes, this has sparked something Jenna! We cannot define healing by what we traditionally see, because at any given time we might need an alternative. It can be easy to take the pill, close our eyes and wish it all away. What we are being called to do is deepen the relationship with ourselves and our own healing abilities. To seek out external guidance only when we have first got to the bottom of what we need. Physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Otherwise we are trying to 'fix' ourselves blindly. You've switched the light on. Thank you beautiful soul! 🙏
Jenna, you are a gifted word master. Your description of a healer blew me away. As a clinician, I was reading it asking myself if you too were once a healer. Well, I know you are but you nailed it in the physical, emotional, and mental sense. Well done.
I agree these cards dovetail perfectly with last week but I also got a strong sense of them being about THE WORLD. Perhaps we are being told that our world is in a state of healing and the Wands indicate that it will be healed through Spirit and elevated consciousness, rather than the physical, emotional or mental. It seems the swell of elevated frequency is on the rise (or I choose to believe it is) and this is what will shift the current chaos.