Seeds of Today

From the Victoria Regina Tarot, the Prince (Knight) of Wands; from the Alchemist's Oracle, "You are exactly where you need to be:"

I can resist everything except temptation.

―Oscar Wilde

Playwright and poet Oscar Wilde is used to illustrate this Knight of Wands. Wilde lived life at full tilt, both shocking and exciting Victorian society. Talented, funny and confident, he was accustomed to getting what he wanted. Yet his lack of awareness and bravado would be his undoing, as he was eventually arrested and incarcerated for two years. The Alchemist's card reminds me of a proverb: "All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today." In other words, it warns us to pay attention to the seeds we are presently planting with our actions - they will eventually bear fruit. Rather than chasing the next pleasure, it is important to recognize the impact we have on others, good or ill. In a letter Wilde wrote in prison, it seems even he came to recognize reality requires more of us than simply a constant quest of desires.

I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world ... And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.

―Oscar Wilde