Tarot of the Sidhe - The Hosting of the Sidhe

Sophie

[size=+2]THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

THE host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na bare;
Caolte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.

The host is rushing ’twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caolte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away

William Butler Yeats
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So - our wild chase begins! With the host of the Sidhe, with the quiet Sidhe of the mounds, with those that walk in the fields at sunset, we'll explore the three worlds. One card at a time, one dream at a time, let's plunge through the glyph of the Sidhe and meet them, hear their wisdom, their sad and happy stories, learn to walk this earth in a different way, stronger, more loving, more secure, energised by their presence and their magic.

But remember, remember - [size=+2]Empty your heart of its mortal dream![/size]

Since only the Majors are published, we'll start with those - hoping that the full 78 will be available before too long. Time, perhaps, for some Sidhe spell... but that is down the road! The Majors will give us the strong top notes of the voices of the Sidhe.

In the introductory thread to this study, I mentioned that Em had made the deck a balance of dark and light, deliberately building in such a notion of balance and integration. But it's more than "dark and light": there is in this deck a strong vision of thresholds - between dark and light, night and day, below and above - the in-between state, the becoming. The Sidhe strike me as beings that are constantly becoming, constantly created and re-created - as forces active in all worlds but most of all at the borders; in songs and tales, in Faery mounds, in transmission from old to young, from young to old, in the visions of shamans and poets. We catch sight of them in our own shadows, in the light that plays through the trees, in the whispering branch. We feel their energy strongest at the in-between times, dawn, dusk, eclipses, equinoxes. This comes through very obviously in the Major Arcana of the deck. There are 4 cards I'd classify as predominantly dark, 7 as predominantly light, but the 11 others are in-between cards, weighted towards one or the other, but playing along with the whole notion of balance, meeting and threshold. Yeats captured that essence of the Sidhe in words in his poem, and Em did in imagery and the play of light and shadows in the Sidhe Majors.

Looking through all 22 cards, it seems obvious to me that the Sidhe knew long before us that one light particle can go through two slits at the same time... easy, they take the in-between way, where anything can happen, where particles become waves and are everywhere and nowhere at once.

We'll examine this aspect in detail as we go through each card - but we need to be comfortable spending time at borders, at thresholds, in order to do so well.

As well as a balance of light and the in-between state, there is a strong balance of elements running through the cards, and another in-between state - the 5th element that exists within and between all the others - Spirit, which is just that wild, unbalancing factor that puts everything upside-down and inside out for a while - is this a moon or my own face? A fish or a bird? Are you hanging down - or up?

So though the Sidhe dwell in mounds and fly in hosts, it is truly the thresholds they have invested and enriched - the threshold between this world and the others, between our reality and imagination, between magic and science, between your truth and my truth - and nowhere more than in Em's Major Arcana can we study that: if we can stand watching them without being carried away into the borderlands ourselves. In which case, anything is possible, but study might be moot, because:

[size=+2]...if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart
[/size]

In the next thread, dare to come along to meet the craziest of crazy loons, The Sidhe Fool, and fall straight through the glyph on his heart, into the land of - where?

[size=+3]Away, come away![/size]
 

Sophie

Yes, and reading the poem - out loud, several times like a mantra - then going through your cards slowly and laying them out all around, works very well to open the first gate to the Sidhe, by creating a kind of in-between state of consciousness.

One thing I was thinking of last night in bed - in the in-between time between waking and sleeping - was the position of the glyph in all the cards. It varies from card to card, and seeing all the cards together, with the glyph reappearing and moving about, gives me the impression of advancing through a passageway with doorways that guide me ever deeper, wider, more into the borderlands world of the Sidhe, and into the centre of myself. Except that the "passageway" doesn't feel narrow - it is wider than the whole world.

I look forward to exploring that aspect of the cards more fully as we get to the card-by-card study.
 

Sidhe-Ra

There are oftensymbolic significances in the placing of the Glyph, which inturn resonate with the chakras each card may activate and work through...For instance, the Fool has an open heart, you enetr through the Glyph there. The Magician rules communication, so it is over the throat chakra...and so on ;)

Looking forward to this very much.

In advance, I would like to know if it would be okay to note down other's insights to mention in the book?

Blessings,

Em xxx
 

Sophie

I'd be glad for you to pick any idea and insight I might have that resonates with you for the book, Em. I'll let others reply for their own thoughts, but I think that the coming together of various viewpoints and experiences might be rich material for you.
 

Nina*

Fudugazi said:
One thing I was thinking of last night in bed - in the in-between time between waking and sleeping - was the position of the glyph in all the cards. It varies from card to card, and seeing all the cards together, with the glyph reappearing and moving about, gives me the impression of advancing through a passageway with doorways that guide me ever deeper, wider, more into the borderlands world of the Sidhe, and into the centre of myself. Except that the "passageway" doesn't feel narrow - it is wider than the whole world.
Just a thought... it sounds as if this ''passageway'' you mention here is somewhere similar to the state of consciousness Eckhart Tolle describes in The Power of Now. The awareness beyond mind.
 

Sophie

Nina* said:
Just a thought... it sounds as if this ''passageway'' you mention here is somewhere similar to the state of consciousness Eckhart Tolle describes in The Power of Now. The awareness beyond mind.
Nina - is there anyway you can quote more of that description to illustrate what you mean? The Power of Now is not to hand and others might not have read it.
 

Nina*

Argh... damn..... it's not that I can exactly quote anything.. my book is in Danish. What he says is that we are not our thoughts/our mind, but far more than that... awareness which includes our mind, but which also includes everything else. Some would call it God, some Light, some Enlightment; either way it's an awareness you can only get a glimpse of by ''turning off'' your mind and then go deeper and deeper into your inner self.

Does that make sense?
 

Sophie

It makes sense, Nina. So - with your work with the Sidhe Majors in general, so far - have you experienced moments of this awareness, this light?

It's interesting that you used the word "light" because to me, the Sidhe are light, dark and in-between, which they integrate seemlessly. They have brought light to the underground world of the mounds, and they have brought some of the darkness of the mounds to the flying host above. Humans, who live only on the surface, can access their own darkness and light within with the help of the Sidhe.

I wonder how anyone else who has this deck works with these notions of darkness and light through it, or with it, and in what way it changes and intensifies their awareness?
 

Sidhe-Ra

I've been musing on this theme of dark and light. This balance is something that recurs throughout not only this deck, but my work in general- it tends to always dominate, and will often surface even if it is not the intended theme. And yet, (as I am currently doing), I struggle to portray this balance in black and white and shades of grey. The space in between dark and light is filled not with bland grey, but with all the colours of the rainbow. When sun and rain meet, this is our gift.

All of us live inbetween to an extent- I doubt if anyone is entirely dark or light, but we often struggle with accepting one side or the other, or the true power of both. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, and many brilliant and loving souls will often touch the depths of depression. Life is like a pendulum that swings from one to the other, or a rollercoaster that touches both the heights and depths- yet how often we shy away from them!

The Sidhe can help us to uncover the true power that lies in balance, but that balance will often come from exploration of both extremes. If we can face these within ourselves without fear, we can be free to discover and live the rainbow of our full potential as souls. When the balance is touched truly for a moment, we can sing our true note and not only touch, but be the universe.

In the chariot card there is a solar eclipse. In an eclipse, it is the shadow that allows us to see the hidden beauty of the corona that otherwise blinds us and is drowned in the daylight sky. On all levels, there is no depth without light or shadow. How else will will see the crown of our own royalty?

Remember this though too...the Sidhe live long lives that would seem immortal to us, and time is very different for them- fluid, malleable, and still, all at once. They learn from us, too, what it is to truly live, breathe and experience the rollercoaster...

Blessings to all,

Em xx