Sometimes it helps to make an association when describing a court card. I will often use analogies to famous people or stories in giving a description of someone in a reading. I should mention too, that I don’t always necessarily pay attention to physical reversals of a card. In other words it’s not necessarily that the card itself is reversed, it’s more whether the energy of it feels “stuck” or muted.
When a Knight is reversed energetically it’s like the quest has become misdirected, the person is forever seeking and not allowing for real fulfillment, or in some instances the struggle of the reversal is an indication of a strength not yet mastered (particularly with those younger). Either way there is a lesson in getting unstuck. In some instances it may be a conscious or unconscious resistance to the learning. A person continually questing for answers, but resisting them when offered would also fit with this.
I often find that the reversal or stuck aspect of an element is where a genuine ability or strength has come to be misused. For cups it is like the helping aspect has gotten out of hand and become smothering or, in a sort of self delusion, the sort of giving to get mode. Pentacles reversed would be strategic thinking turned into manipulation or a distortion of values. Reversals are like the gift turned into addiction and are part of what we have to work through.
The Knight of Wands in this reversed mode is a lot like the Eagle’s song “Desperado” – “out ridin‘ fences for so long now“. There are card references (curiously enough) in the song too; “Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds (pentacles) boy, she’ll beat you if she’s able, the queen of hearts (cups) is always your best bet. It seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table, but you only want the things that you can’t get“.
Here’s a link to the song on youtube with the lyrics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqnlJzT9bs
If you’ve seen the movie, “The Wrestler” with Mickey Rourke, it’s a classic expression of what happens when the Knight’s pursuit of challenge has gone on in one mode too long, to the exclusion of all else.
