Twinn Swan

No period of struggle and hardship ever lasts forever. Failure can, indeed, teach us a lot, but then again, so can success. A ‘success’ may not taste as sweet as we thought it would and a failure may well not feel as terrible as we thought it would. You live and you learn. How do we move past the black-and-white binaries of failure and success when we learn as much from our successes as we do from our failures?

When it comes to the 8s in the tarot, the greatest lesson is that life is neither about victory nor defeat, but rather, about progress. If you have been feeling down and out, do not despair. Whenever the 8 of Wands appears, expect to see progress. If you have been feeling stuck, stagnant and unhappy in your life–be it in love, relationships or in business-related matters–the 8 of Wands foretells a period when you will suddenly make great progress and great strides in your life. This is due to happen much faster than you expected.

Life will suddenly accelerate and you will have no idea where this momentum came from. Even if life has been tremendously slow for a significant period of time, expect things to move fast when the 8 of Wands appears.

The days of the snail are finally over.

Opportunism

When the 8 of Wands appears, the advise is to seize all the opportunities that will allow you to make progress. This is not a card of new beginnings, but rather, restarting something that was either incomplete or left unfinished.

For instance, many writers I know have half-finished novels collecting dust under their beds. Business owners have a business plan that they tried, but for some reason, they were unsuccessful at the time. The 8 of Wands represents a new beginning, but not necessarily a clean slate. It comes up to remind us that we must start again, especially if we gave up due to circumstances that were beyond our control.

The 8 of Wands can appear to let us know that something we set into motion a long time ago or even a short while back is about to be resurrected in someway that is extremely unexpected. One of the ways in which we can ‘start again’ is to return to where we started in the first place. Given the wisdom of hindsight and the passing of time, we will look at our old lives with new eyes. Perhaps the dream that you are meant to pursue is not the most practical one, but the one that your soul feels most connected to.

This time, it will not only feel different, it will also be different!

TRY AGAIN

If you want to leave it all behind and start over, you are, of course, more than welcome to. It takes self-confidence to start anew. It reminds us that we are free to strike out in a new direction. We should not cling to our past successes and our previous accomplishments. If you have to leave it all behind, you must have the self-confidence to believe that not only can you start all over again, you will succeed this time around.

Is there just one passion that you have or is there a passion that you once had but it got buried due to an oversight, a shortcoming, a hidden enemy, unfavourable circumstances and so on? When the 8 of Wands appears, the advise is to try again. You will unexpectedly grow in a way that you never thought possible.

Try to remember why you failed. Try to understand why things didn’t work out. The 8s are not about starting over so much as they are about starting again. If you gave up on something because you didn’t succeed, the time has come to give it another shot.

When the 8 of Wands appears, it is an indicator that something was already set in motion a while back. And now, the time has come to pick up where you left off. Anything that you are passionate about will eventually come back into your life, even after a long hiatus. One thing I believe for certain is that no one should ever let a dream die.

Perhaps you have big dreams and perhaps all you have are small dreams. Perhaps your dream includes a crowd of hundreds of thousands or perhaps all your dream includes are two people who love you and care about. If there’s someone you’re meant to be with or if there’s someone who is meant to be in your life, give that person the time and the energy that they deserve. Get it right, this time.

Appreciate and honour the new opportunity that you have been given, yet again. If someone or something is meant to be in your life, a delay is not a big deal. You know that eventually they will show up at your doorstep. It is just a matter of time.

When 8s appear, expect progress. Expect, not so much success, but rather, a chance to try again… And do it differently this time.

Good luck. May Lord Murugan be with you every step of the way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024, FOLKS!