Legend: The Arthurian Study Group - The Moon

RedMaple

Wardi said:
I know what you mean by the raven. I have always thought about the raven as the messenger from the Divine. Sometimes the Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. So the raven can have a good meaning, like, look for the unseen messages of life from a Higher Power. I really don't like the "A Keeper of Words" meaning for the raven which is a rather sinister one.

Yes, all these meanings are definitely there, and I think Morgan is in touch with them in the moon card. But the sinister meanings are there, also. The Morgan, or Morrigan definitely was related to the death aspect of the Goddess.
 

Lyones

The Moon

Hi RedMaple

I missed you.

What is so scary about Morgan is that she is not bound by the Christian view of women that was coming into Britain at this time, women as weak, as nurturers, as daughters of Eve. Morgan can call on the power of the Goddess not only as creator and nurturer, but as destroyer -- a power that only men are supposed to have (as kings, knights, soldiers, etc.)

That's what makes her so interesting, and adored, yes? :) Living by her own laws ... and in the end of the legends she seems to be the only one of the 'important people' in the tale left standing.
 

Sophie-David

Moon & Judgement

I bought Legend just before Christmas and I am currently working through a study/dream discipline with the deck. Each night the last thing I do is to look at a specific card, read the appropriate text from A Keeper of Words and then go to sleep. This is somewhat like guided dreaming: if the unconscious wishes to comment on the card during dream time it does so. I am not concerned if there is no remembered dream, in this case I feel that it is simply that there is no need for a commentary to emerge, not that the card has been somehow "wasted". I am using the card order as it came to me, which is the same as the order in the book, starting with the Fool and ending at the King of Shields.

I had thought I was drawn to this deck for an expression of masculine energy, but I find the card images very ethereal, the colours subdued and the people's complexions spectral, as if the scenes were viewed under the light of the full moon. So in fact this deck seems to serve the needs of the internal expression of the High Priestess, the entity I call Sophie. The discipline of using the cards to stimulate archetypal dreams was not consciously planned but just "seemed to happen" - but how appropriate for a deck which seems so lunar!

I have been enjoying your profound and poetic commentary on the Fives and Pages from the Legend deck - Lyones, RedMaple and WalesWoman - but since I literally "am not there yet" I haven't felt able to comment. But when I discovered today that Lyones was introducing Judgement, which is my card for tonight, well then I couldn't resist. :)

In the Moon card, I personally identified with the web symbolism in the card, the trees, the reflection of the trees, and the web tracery on the moon, all focused in Morgan, her hands reaching into the web of the trees, her dress dipping into the web reflection in the pool. I see this web as extending from the pool of the unconscious, to the consciousness of the land, to the super-conscious or divine of the moon. This is a web of integration, a matrix of feminine connectness and relatedness conjured up by Morgan. All things in the three realms are accessed by her, or as the book says (page 101) "the combined energies of intuition, imagination, and intellect".

In the Judgement card, I would like to add that figurehead on the front of the boat seems to be raising her arms in exultation, a prayerful ecstasy, and the goldwork at the bow is like an extension of the figurehead, expressing golden mystic and spiritual flames emerging in transfiguration. Together the flames and the figurehead lead the boat forward to meet Morgan, also dressed in gold: transformative, pure and touched by the divine. In the Fool's Journey there are many deaths and rebirths, but this one represents the last and most exalted in the cycle, the gateway to The Universe.
 

WalesWoman

Sophie-David-
Your insights are so wonderfully descriptive...totally blew me away. I'm so glad you decided to post and look forward to hearing more from you. If studying the cards and meanings before going to sleep has given you this kind of understanding, with such eloquence...I think I'm going to have to try this myself.

I loved your tracery of spiderweb description. Actually your whole post!

Red Maple, I'm so glad to see you back too. You always have such good stories and backgrounds to offer depth and breadth to this deck. I'm sorry to hear of your loss and offer my sympathies.
 

RedMaple

Lyones said:
Hi RedMaple

I missed you.



That's what makes her so interesting, and adored, yes? :) Living by her own laws ... and in the end of the legends she seems to be the only one of the 'important people' in the tale left standing.

Thanks, Lyones, It's good to be back.

Yes. When I was a girl, the only stories I heard about Morgan were that she was evil. But her name, Morgan le Fay, and her presence told me she was so very powerful. I'm glad she's been reclaimed.
 

RedMaple

Beautiful, deep insights, eloquently told. Thank you so much for posting. I wondered about your name, Sophie-David. Is David the singer?

Sophie-David said:
I had thought I was drawn to this deck for an expression of masculine energy, but I find the card images very ethereal, the colours subdued and the people's complexions spectral, as if the scenes were viewed under the light of the full moon. So in fact this deck seems to serve the needs of the internal expression of the High Priestess, the entity I call Sophie. The discipline of using the cards to stimulate archetypal dreams was not consciously planned but just "seemed to happen" - but how appropriate for a deck which seems so lunar!

Thanks for this insight. I've been struggling with the silvery-grayness of the cards. There is something in me that still responds to the deep colors we love as children. But yes, under moonlight, a lunar deck. Thanks for helping me to see!

[QUOTOE]In the Moon card, I personally identified with the web symbolism in the card, the trees, the reflection of the trees, and the web tracery on the moon, all focused in Morgan, her hands reaching into the web of the trees, her dress dipping into the web reflection in the pool. I see this web as extending from the pool of the unconscious, to the consciousness of the land, to the super-conscious or divine of the moon. This is a web of integration, a matrix of feminine connectness and relatedness conjured up by Morgan. All things in the three realms are accessed by her, or as the book says (page 101) "the combined energies of intuition, imagination, and intellect".[/QUOTE]

Yes,yes, yes! Beautiful! There is a storytelling tradition from Africa that I am reminded of. The storyteller says, "I have a story." The listeners say, "See, so that we may see!" That's how I feel about your descriptions -- See, so that we may see!

In the Judgement card, I would like to add that figurehead on the front of the boat seems to be raising her arms in exultation, a prayerful ecstasy, and the goldwork at the bow is like an extension of the figurehead, expressing golden mystic and spiritual flames emerging in transfiguration. Together the flames and the figurehead lead the boat forward to meet Morgan, also dressed in gold: transformative, pure and touched by the divine. In the Fool's Journey there are many deaths and rebirths, but this one represents the last and most exalted in the cycle, the gateway to The Universe.

The ecstatic pose, of head thrown back and arms raised, is common to both grief and joy, and works well in this card, for there is an element of both, I think.

Are we all agreed that this is Morgan on the shore, for she is also one of the Queens in the boat. Is she Crone and Maiden at once here? Or is this a young priestess welcoming the dying king to Avalon?

WalesWoman, Thank you. It is good to be back studying this beautiful deck with such good people.
 

Sophie-David

WalesWoman said:
Sophie-David-
Your insights are so wonderfully descriptive...totally blew me away. I'm so glad you decided to post and look forward to hearing more from you. If studying the cards and meanings before going to sleep has given you this kind of understanding, with such eloquence...I think I'm going to have to try this myself.

I loved your tracery of spiderweb description. Actually your whole post!.
Hi WalesWoman

Thank you for your generous encouragement. The web interpretation actually came from a meditational Fool's Journey which began on the September 30 and lasted 22 days. I was using the Connolly Tarot and Eileen's Connolly's Tarot: An New Handbook for the Apprentice as a guide. However, the Moon card in that deck has almost nothing to do with the meditation - this was not uncommon - but when I saw Legend's Moon card I thought, "Yes, there's the web!" I am no longer surprised at these "coincidences" since Tarot is dealing with archetypal imagery.

This meditation was unique in being a guided visioning: guided by Sophie but a journey into goddess consciousness, an experiential induction into the web of interconnectedness which is our physical reality. All matter is connected by bonds that yearn for unity, for completion in the other, abiding in the pentagram of perfect harmony that is the binding matrix of all matter.

This meditation was also somewhat unusual in that my senses remained partly in my room, rather than being completely entranced. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major was playing: now I have only to think of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to see and feel this web, "the heaven of the Mother". There was nothing particularly personal in the meditation and I suppose could post it on AT, but it is rather long.

The Legend Moon card did stimulate dreams of connectedness and relatedness, but nothing that I could definitely remember.
 

Sophie-David

Hello Lyones

Thank you for your welcome.
Lyones said:
Perhaps it's the misty, dream-like colours that get the intuitive juices flowing and that's why we're drawn to this deck for reading. Although I love bright colours, I find them a little 'jarring'. With this deck, everything seems to mould and flow so nicely into everything else.
Yes, I agree, Legend definitely stimulates the intuition.

Lyones said:
Oh, I really like that idea! It reminds me a little of a card from the Sacred Circle deck, litterally called The Web - the definition states that everything we do in life reverberates along the web we weave in life, each decision and action have a reaction "like ripples moving out from a stone thrown into a pond", and with Morgan, that would certainly be the case - what she is doing is going to be felt somewhere else and affect her and those around her.
I found a picture of the Sacred Circle Web, which is equivelent to Justice, here:
http://www.tarotpassages.com/sacredcircdw.htm
That deck looks intriguing...
 

magpie9

Sophie-David said:
I found a picture of the Sacred Circle Web, which is equivelent to Justice, here:
http://www.tarotpassages.com/sacredcircdw.htm
That deck looks intriguing...
Hello, All,
Just popping in to your very interesting thread to say that there is a Sacred Circle study group on the general forum, complete with scans of the cards andother related places and ideas. 'The Web' is one of the cards we have done. Please do take a look--and do feel free to post any comments you have about it. It's a very loose, rule-free group.
Best to you all,
Magpie9 :)
 

Lyones

Originally posted by Magpie9
Just popping in to your very interesting thread to say that there is a Sacred Circle study group on the general forum, complete with scans of the cards andother related places and ideas. 'The Web' is one of the cards we have done. Please do take a look--and do feel free to post any comments you have about it. It's a very loose, rule-free group.

Thanks for the information and the invitation Magpie9 :)