Legend: 8 of Wands: The White Hart

Lyones

The Keeper of Words says that "The white hart was believed to be a messanger of the gods. Matters of great importance were thought to follow a sighting of the graceful creature." The Hart is a herald of information and events.

Apart from the obvious speed with which the Hart races through the forest, it causes a bit of a disturbance along the way, as well as seemingly unrelated experiences being part and parcel of the chaos.

However, it's also good to remember that rushing headlong into a situation does not give us time to evaluate the consequences, whether out of impatience, fright or excitement ... this Hart knows it's surroundings in the forest, knows the path ... running through the water will delay the hounds and knights chasing it, as they will have to pick up it's scent again on the opposite bank.

There is a spiritual lesson equated with the Hart, one of retaining honour, a test, an opportunity to prove ones worth.
 

WalesWoman

How odd, but I've never thought of what the White Harts motivations or thoughts or drives are, but have always looked at it, like I am looking at the White Hart. More of the elusive nature, that just out of grasp feeling when I see this card, it's like a quest that has no real end. I hadn't given a real thought to the wiley nature, to leave no trail, to outsmart and outfox the competition.

This is like trying to prove scientifically the properties of tarot or that there really is a Yetti, that UFO's actually exist or anything else that might be covered on X-Files. An idea or belief that has yet to be made concrete or proven.
 

WalesWoman

Stagant water, the water has to be pretty still for that thick green pond scum or algae or whatever it is to grow. Well, that's not true, there's some sort of green water plant that grows in some streams I know of that is almost a type of kelp, but it really goes to town when the creek runs low and the weather is warm. Maybe it's watercress, maybe it's that foamy looking green slime stuff. But whatever, it's one of those stagnation things when it completely obscures emotions, keeps them hidden under something less than desirable. Major boredom.

Anyway, I was thinking that the White Hart would be that thing that gets your mind racing, especially after a period of stagnation and feeling like you are getting nowhere. It is something totally out of the norm stirring things up and adding excitement. Actually I was thinking something more like a Wild Hare, but that is something else entirely, but maybe not...Harts and Hares aren't that far apart on the evolutionary chain...and have a common ancestor. Deer are sort of rabbits with longer legs.
 

Lyones

Originally posted by WalesWoman
Anyway, I was thinking that the White Hart would be that thing that gets your mind racing, especially after a period of stagnation and feeling like you are getting nowhere. It is something totally out of the norm stirring things up and adding excitement.

Yeah, I like that - like a little whirlwind or dust-devil - where do they come from, where do they go? ... except the Hart is more graceful than that ... and seems more purposeful too. It makes me think sometimes that the message being delivered could be missed if we don't listen carefully to what is being said - like a poster saying "watch out for it! it's coming!" Something that gets the heart racing :)
 

WalesWoman

Brainstorms...once thought to create brain fever, especially in women who thought too much! LOL

But I can see this too, as a good defination for this card, coming up with new ideas/solutions for old problems. The wild hair...going off on a tangent and then there is the tangible and intangible elements of this card. Is this something that needs to be accomplished or something that sidetracks us off the beaten path?
 

Sophie-David

"A Journey or Experience Which Entails a Spiritual Lesson"

This is a well-defined card with clear and beautiful imagery. I think of a peaceful setting in the deep woods. I have drifted into a reverie, the forest is quite still, there is a symphony of greens, highlighted with bright flowers in their vibrant solos. The air is heavy and rich with vegetative life. The subtle movement of water beneath the green algae whispers with exquisite joy, reinforces the growing trance. Just when it seems the scene has taken on an ultimate perfection, definite hoof beats and an intermittent rustling is heard from the right. A sudden ethereal presence, a white stag appears with startling solidity. He slows and carefully picks his way through the water, heading upstream a little. Then with a bound he is gone. It seems that my whole life had waited for this one moment, that my whole life is in this moment, and so it remains, in the now. In this one glimpse of naked eternity I know all that I need to know.
 

WalesWoman

Here is 8 Spears
 

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inanna_tarot

Sophie David! That post was just beautiful! Got a tear in my eye, thinking of that moment - that moment of eternity, of perfection. I recently saw a episode of StarTrek Vogager were Seven of Nine sees the Borg idea of 'divine' at how this element stabilises and forms the most organised and totally co-operative structure. This moment lasts with her for a life time but of course the element thingy is extremely volitile and the whole ship will explode but it doesn't and everyone is happy in the end. There is a quote about if you had the opportunity of seeing God, would you do everything in your power to seize that opportunity? Or something like that. It was a memorable StarTrek :p But again made me get teary like your post SD so well done! Truly beautiful.
Seeing the Hart as a message of the Gods or as Divinity itself, could be that the stagnation of the water -emotion and spirituality will no longer be. The image of Posiden striking the ground and causing a spring comes to mind. There is a flurry of activity to accomany the sight of the Hart! Great ideas WalesWoman and Lyones!

The quickness of the legend, of the intrusion to the court and then the rashness of Gawain to kill the woman and not rescue the Hart - could it be that because he didn't rescue the Hart the court was doomed to be dishonourable and so Guenivere and Lancelot started to seek eachother, or did they seek each other anyway? (Really a seperate issue and not related to the card, but I thought it fitted here more than the other threads). There a few pubs called the White Hart, so maybe they are carrying on the dishonour of the court ;)

Sezo
x
 

Sophie-David

Thank you for your encouragement Sezo. Your reactivating of this thread has brought me an interesting discovery. By comparing my journals to the date of this post I see that the meditation on the White Hart, in which I experienced the now, "a glimpse of naked eternity", was a precursor to a greater revelation of the illusory nature of time.

Four days later I experienced a day in which a sense of wholeness grew into a hint of a new consciousness. It was like the "Eirian consciousness" that I have experienced before. But this time it was very powerful and lasted until I went to sleep. The Eirian consciousness, being "in Eirian", is characterized by a great sense of interconnectedness. As I went shopping I had this real sense that each person I saw, whether I knew them or not, I really did know - they were in me and I was in them. This Eirian consciousness extends to inaminate objects and other creatures too.

What made it different was that the Eirian consciousness also extended into time - or more accurately, around it. I started to think about how I had dreamed about the wasteland (as in the Five of Shields) before I had seen it in waking reality, and I realized what an illusion time was. Its one thing to think about this as a philosophical concept, but another to experience it. I knew and felt the part of me which always stands outside of time: the eternal part knows the future and the past equally. I realized that is how the Tarot and other divination works, by drawing on this.

In my conscious awareness of the fourth dimension I could see that there really was no contradiction between divination and free will. That eternal part of me knew the best path, but that path was not certain. It actually increased my desire to choose correctly in this current time field, to know that there was a best path to strive for, and that the eternal part of me already knew it.

And I realized that Sophie's constant drive for me to grow, to extend consciousness within her, really was aimed at extending consciousness into the Eirian field. I had realized already from my meditational cycle that each card is the gatekeeper to the next, but I also knew that I was on a slower paced Fool's Journey which takes place on a higher level than the meditational one which took only 22 days to complete. In this slower outer journey, I was still in the High Priestess, and she was still preparing me for Eirian the Empress.

So, in a sense, this Eight of Spears, "a journey or experience which entails a spiritual lesson", was lived through from the day of this post over the next week or two, as I returned to this extended Eirian consciousness on several occasions. Similar to the Strength card, I also find the Keeper of Words story somewhat distracting in that it seems to describe the negative chaos aspect of the reversed Eight. But by focusing primarily on the card itself, the very positive upright meaning is clear.