Wicca Moon: The Sun

Wicca Moon by Shirlee@Wicca Moon

The Sun card from the Wicca Moon Tarot is a curious thing. Here we see a relatively small sun looking down on a woodland scene. Under a tree, from which hangs a spider, there are two faeries. Both appear to be male, and seem human size, in relation to the tree. They stand on outsize mushrooms that are houses, presumably for some smaller form of fairy. (?) They sprinkle gold glittery dust and wrapped chocolates onto the ground. One of the fairies has a book tucked under his arm, bearing the title 'Magic' on its spine. Bumblebees, butterflies and dragonflies hover around. On the ground, a snail looks up, and standing on the mushroom beside one of the boys is a muskrat or big mouse or some sort of rodent, standing on its hind legs and looking up at the glittering offerings the fairies are dropping.  There are little mushrooms and floxgloves growing in the grass, and a spider building a web between the two mushroom houses.

It's a strange scene.



I have consulted my two best books on Tarot history, Paul Huson's 'Mystical Origins of the Tarot' and Robert Place's 'Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination', and I can't find a clear explanation of why many early tarots depict two children on the Sun card. Later cards show two older figures, one male and one female. And of course the naked boy on the horse so familiar from RWS, was first seen in the 17th and 18th century Belgian tarots.

Huson states: 'Most likely the picture illustrates the 5th house of the horoscope chart, the House of Children and Pleasure, astrologically ruled by Leo and the Sun, and frequently symbolised by children playing' (p. 142).

Place adds: 'Some have suggested the figures are the brothers Castor and Pollux, of the Gemini constellation, or the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. Although Castor and Pollux had the same mother, Leda, Castor's father was mortal -- thus Castor was mortal -- while Pollux's father was Zeus -- thus Pollux was immortal. In the myth of the founders of Rome we find the same polarity: Romulus is immortal, Remus is mortal. Whether the pair are masculine/feminine or mortal/immortal, they represent the joining of opposites. They are personifications of the Sun and Moon being joined. This what alchemists call the great conjunction. It is the unity beyond duality that will allow us to make the leap to the next trump, Judgment' (p. 161).

Now, that's all pretty deep stuff to lay on a couple of fairies sprinkling a bag of Celebrations over a curious snail.

I'm not sure what to make of this card. I don't like it. The kids have Spock haircuts and this sort of faerie figure with pointy shoes and little antennae freaks me out. Plus the mushrooms look like Death Caps, which I know are often drawn by children when depicting faeries, but still!  I suppose the artist just means to depict a feeling of 'All is wonderful!' The chocolates seem a little out of keeping with the nature scene, though. Even though I love individually wrapped chocs, they are linked in my mind with bad choices and failure rather than joy. Mostly I don't like that the sun is so small and all the focus is on the two faerie figures in blue. They dominate the card.

In a reading, I would see this card as showing good times with no problems in sight. But I would tend to see it as a fragile sort of happiness, or rather perhaps a dreamy happiness with a fragile quality, one that might flit away as easily as the notoriously elusive faeries. And that's not my usual way of seeing the Sun card.