The Sun.....

Dexter

TA;

The sun is not one of my favorite cards either. The feeling I get from it is that old saying "Make hay while the sun shines because it isn't always shining." Since the sun is in the background and the child is riding away from it over the wall, I always feel that the child is leaving the safety of that light and moving on to other areas that aren't going to be so enjoyable. But they are going with a smile and with youthful exuberance and optimism that things will continue to be bright and shiny and that they can conqueor anything.

Dexter
 

TemperanceAngel

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Sun.....

Vincent said:


There is also a connection to the Fool card, signified by the red feather worn by both the child, and the Fool.
So there would have to be a connection to Death as well, seeing as Death wears the red feather (slightly tattered) on their helmet.

The Fool, Death and the Sun...

Beginnings and ends, cycles, transitions....
Just rolling with my thoughts here, is the Sun a breakthrough in this?
Or is the Sun nothing to do with breakthrough?
XTAX
Edited to add my friends' thought about the Sun: Don't get to complacent...
 

mac22

TemperanceAngel said:
So there would have to be a connection to Death as well, seeing as Death wears the red feather (slightly tattered) on their helmet.

The Fool, Death and the Sun...

Beginnings and ends, cycles, transitions....
Just rolling with my thoughts here, is the Sun a breakthrough in this?
Or is the Sun nothing to do with breakthrough?
XTAX
Edited to add my friends' thought about the Sun: Don't get to complacent...

Re: the Red Feather - Waite may be hinting that the Fool has been transformed through the mystical Death and now appears as an innocent small child.

As for the single child - Waite seems to suggest that, at this late stage in the journey, the mystic must be transformed into a small child. The source may be the New Testament: “Suffer the little children to come unto me”. See Mark 10:15 (and Luke 18:17): “...anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

The red banner represents action, and bravery - the pointed staff is concentration. The child holds the banner in the left hand, showing mastery.

And to add to my earlier exegesis of the sunflowers they also represent the four Jungian "functions": Sensation, Feeling, Thinking, and Intuition.
 

TemperanceAngel

OK OK, what about this: The Sun follows The Moon, and I know this is not a discussion about the Moon, but it is the inner, feminine and the unconscious.
The Sun being the outer, masculine and conscious.
One feels like a child, young and free, things are moving into the consciousness.
On the other side of the wall we find the Moon, and we need to walk away from it to feel freedom. A renewal of sorts, transcending into Judgement and then the World...phew....
XTAX
 

HudsonGray

I looked through the archives here but didn't see anyone talking about this particular item regarding the Sun.

There's a site that shows the old 1909 printing of the Sun card next to the more recent 1970's version of the Sun card, reproduced line for line (though the eyebrow on the left side of the older card has a break in it, whereas the newer one has a straight line).

Is there any significance to the superflius line on the top of the Sun? That ray that goes off the top of it, there's no reason for it to be there, but it's faithfully reproduced on the later printings, just as it looks on the original.

Here's a URL to see it at, side by side:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/tcc/tcc03.htm
 

noby

The Sun is a card that makes me think of William Blake. In his most famous work, the Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake explored how the open state of innocence we have as children transforms into the wisdom of experience as we are exposed to the world's sufferings. Yet in Blake's vision, these two states were not the only possibilities... there was also the possibility of returning to a state of innocence, except it would not be the pure innocence of childhood, but a wise innocence. Like this guy in the Osho Zen Tarot. Wrinkled and grey with age, but with the twinkling eye and delighted joy of a child to whom the world is an endless fount of wonder.

from "The Voice of the Ancient Bard"
by Wm. Blake

Youth of delight come hither,
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new-born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason.


This state of wise innocence can only be reached through the road of experience. I cannot look at the Sun card in isolation - when I see it, I see it as part of a sequence of four cards, from the Tower to the Sun.

First, there must be the shattering of the illusions and defenses, the ego walls, we have built up around ourselves in the Tower. When the walls come down, there is the utter nudity and openness to the flow of things in the Star. But we are not finished with the process. The Star is only a temporary respite as we experience the initial glow and relief of release from our "mind-forg'd manacles."

The demolishing of the ego armor we used to protect ourselves from unpleasant truths lets all of the monsters and creepy crawlies in the basements of our subconscious emerge. Fear and panic all can rush through us as we get a glimpse into our own madness. We can only finish the work of the Moon if we face and surrender to all of the creatures of our shadow sides, releasing all the ugly and frightening things we have locked away inside ourselves.

Only then can we experience the rising of the Sun and a fresh new state of wise innocence. We have experienced the totality of ourselves and let it go, and now can experience the world as it is in itself, rather than seeing it through the distorting lens of our own defensive and ego needs.
 

krazymayj

i like temperance angels opinion of comparing the sun to the ten of cups, very true....