After the immediate gut reaction about this being yet another angel subsides I am really looking at the card= What is on there – NOT what I know from the book:
The predominant color is red. Alarm!!! Huuuuuge red wings – waaaay too big for that scrawny lad…. But red wings none the less…
Is THAT, why I had that instant = before thinking reaction? Red is also Blood and guts but also heat and sun and lust and fire…..
There is a rather puny looking red haired teenager guiding 2 younger kids, that could be his younger siblings – or smaller kids from the playground. This guy certainly poses no threat to anybody, he is malnourished and pale, nerdy looking. His hand is also kindly , protectively petting the neck of a medium sized Dog – a hunting Dog maybe…(I am not good with the names of breeds…)
Hands.
Hands are predominant as well.
The hand on the Dog’s neck, the older girl holding hands with the younger boy,interweaving their fingers.
With an open hand the skinny teen points the way ahead, up some flight of stairs, while also with his thumb holding a strange long stick around which a black Snake-like ribbon is curled. This staff somehow reminds me of the caduceus – and right, I am finding out, that Raphael is in charge of healing and guiding the soul towards harmony and integration by dispelling fear, ignorance and – as in my case - oooold hang-ups!
See!
That was not sooo bad.
Looking at a christian angel in a new way and actually finding out, what they think he is for, instead of shutting down by the first sight of it
In wikipedia I find out that he too is a patron of physicians, so that is, what the blood and guts wings are for…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archangel_Raphael
In the RWS system the 6 of Swords is often shown as a person in a boat, embarking on a journey, the boat filled with the 6 swords – the thoughts, the mind, Dark clouds in the distance speaking of past troubles, perils, hard times and hurts….
So this guy is the boat for the journey forward.
Into seeing things differently
taking off some old blinders
and let in some light and tolerance.
Day 2 with this card:
However, a second look at the card a day later revealed my un-ease with this impish pan like creature leading away these children. To where? Is he using the Dog to lure them?
Also to me the strange anatomy of the Beings in the cards in general is quite distracting, when trying to make sense of a Tarot image. In this card deciding ifff this is just a bad try at drawing human hand intertwining – or do I have to include this unnatural holding pose into a reading?
Day 3 with this card:
Somehow, This morning, looking yet again at this image I had the sad and creepy feeling, this impish angel is leading away 2 kids, that just died…. Somehow I had the feeling, the darker hand folded into the boy’s hand is not his sister’s but his mother’s and she is still on the side of the living. For a fleeting flash I had an image of a car crash in my peripheral vision…..