Sophie-David
There are many beautiful cards in Legend, but this is perhaps my favourite, the one which captured my heart and made me decide that I really would buy the deck. There are many symbols of balance in the card, of balance achieved through the practice of art, a favourite theme of mine.
The cauldron itself appears to be suspended by three golden chains, balanced above the sacred pool of the fay. It is a richly powerful vessel, trimmed in gold and coloured a deep mystic blue. Inset below where the chain meets the cauldron, a round gold medallion is embossed with three roses. The waters of the feminine cauldron are supplied from the mouth of the masculine stone head: from his mouth flow the living waters of wisdom. From Proverbs 18:4:
Anna-Marie tells us that the Cauldron of Annwn was a symbol of the arts of the bards, connecting and balancing the seen with the unseen, passion with reason, the spiritual with the mundane, the psychic with the physical, the conscious with the unconscious, the masculine with the feminine.
From the point of view of the male statue, the nine female fay priestesses are the muses of his creative unconscious, together his active energy flow and their inspiration balance in the creation of art. From the point of view of the fay priestesses, the masculine stone head in the background of their consciousness provides form and authority to their free flowing creative imaginations, and they structure the distillations of the unconscious using the forms of the gilded vessels, again achieving balance in the creation of art.
From #8 of Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching, trans. Gia-Fu Feng:
The cauldron itself appears to be suspended by three golden chains, balanced above the sacred pool of the fay. It is a richly powerful vessel, trimmed in gold and coloured a deep mystic blue. Inset below where the chain meets the cauldron, a round gold medallion is embossed with three roses. The waters of the feminine cauldron are supplied from the mouth of the masculine stone head: from his mouth flow the living waters of wisdom. From Proverbs 18:4:
Nine fay priestesses, like the nine Greek muses, tend the sacred cauldron. One mixes the waters of the cauldron, and by the pool below another holds a flaming torch, while two more decant the holy water into a gold trimmed jar.The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.
Anna-Marie tells us that the Cauldron of Annwn was a symbol of the arts of the bards, connecting and balancing the seen with the unseen, passion with reason, the spiritual with the mundane, the psychic with the physical, the conscious with the unconscious, the masculine with the feminine.
From the point of view of the male statue, the nine female fay priestesses are the muses of his creative unconscious, together his active energy flow and their inspiration balance in the creation of art. From the point of view of the fay priestesses, the masculine stone head in the background of their consciousness provides form and authority to their free flowing creative imaginations, and they structure the distillations of the unconscious using the forms of the gilded vessels, again achieving balance in the creation of art.
From #8 of Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching, trans. Gia-Fu Feng:
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.