Ace of Wands

CreationInventionEnterpriseBeginning

Upright

Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, and in a sense the virility which is behind them; the starting point of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance.

Reversed

Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish; also a certain clouded joy.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

The picture

A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §2

Older readings

Calamities of all kinds. Reversed: A sign of birth.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Part III §4. Waite collected these and says they often disagree with the main meanings.

Waite wrote in 1911 and some of his meanings show it. Tarot is a tradition of reflection, not a prediction, and no card decides anything for you.