Playing The Sun Card
UnConquered Sun is my tribute to the triumph of light over darkness. Ahead of its release on iTunes this week (how exciting!), I’ve been thinking about exactly what the sun represents to me as the teller of this ancient tale. I have a special love of the Rider-Waite tarot cards – the artwork is so beautiful and seemingly simple, but the images so rich in meaning – and the Sun Card to me symbolises everything that is joyous and vibrant and timeless in the solstice story (see previous blog).
In tarot, the Sun card is always a sign of good things to come – of happiness, prosperity, abundance, new life, love, joy, fertility, playfulness. It represents the kind of magic that comes from simplicity, the kind of luck that comes from living simply and well. It is symbolic of the basic right of every human being to experience and embrace the light, materially and spiritually.
The sun belongs to us all without exception. It shines without fear or favour. No king can command it, no princess pull it from the sky. Without it, nothing can grow, flourish or even be. It is power and nuclear fission – it gives the moon its glow. We have evolved under its gaze. We are its children. If the sun is veiled from us, our joy is veiled too. It is the card of enlightenment (no more secrets!), of rebirth into a new and successful phase of life – the coming out card, the card of liberation and freedom, of personal awareness and realisation. It embodies integrity and creative light as an inspiration for all to see. It represents greatness and glory, the triumph of individual self-expression and the power of optimism. It is an indication that the universe is working to support the will of the greater good through the joys of individual effort.
The sun is the greatest natural fire to touch the earth without destroying it. Life as we know it is a passionate partnership between the sun and the elements. We are the children of its marriage, of the lovemaking between light and earth. Without this essential interplay, this great relationship, we would cease to exist.
The sun is not just symbolic of all that is good in our world – it is the good in our world in a real and yet strangely forgotten way. Taking a moment to remember its gifts can mean remembering everything else that the sun symbolises too.