Nora Huszka and I started the new video series to present to you our cards. In a spontaneous conversation we touch on mythic aspects and other layers of meanings as well as artistic aspects.
The first in the series is
The Sun in Pisces: Our Moon Card
As the Sun has recently passed into Pisces, we share today a snippet on the Pisces card, XVIII The Moon, from my book “Travelling with the Starlight Dragons” (forthcoming):
We find ourselves on a dark and misty night, weakly illuminated by the Moon on a desolate shore by the sea. We are all alone. Adjusting to the scene, we become aware of the primeval smell of brine and sea-weed. The sounds of the sea with the tide coming in, like a deep breathing in and out, is muffled by the fog. But it touches us deeply and we find ourselves breathing along with it.
In the dark and moving mirror of the water, the silver moon looks up to us, weaker and even more mysterious than the moon up in the heavens. Both are tugging at our soul with a bitter-sweet yearning for something lost, not yet retrieved, something aspired to, not yet achieved. In the moon’s reflection in the sea, make out a silver dragon striving upwards to meet her heavenly counter-part. Fascinated by this marvellous figure we observe its movements and become aware of a silvery conversation beyond words between the Dragon and the Moon. We remember the many cyclical rhythms connected with the Moon, her own eight shapes in one cycle and how they may affect human moods and activities, women‘s menstrual cycle,the tides caused by gravity and a complicated interplay of Moon, Sun and Earth.
While we think about the many associations of the Moon and what they might mean to us personally, we suddenly see a huge fish, intertwined with the dragon. Dark red, we had not noticed her so far.
We recognise the fish as an extremely ancient creature from whom the silver dragon arises, like a higher lighter ‚octave‘ of the fish. Again the mood has changed. We are now tuned to the deep dark water, the primeval ocean, the chaos from which all life came forth – a vastness without limit and structure, fear-inspiring, of inexhaustible fertility. It is present not only to our eyes, but also in a deep throb. And then the alienness of the fish and its abode find a resonant throb inside us. We become part of our own evolutionary history. The ancient fish is our ancestor. The dark vastness before us is also inside us: our unconscious, where shadows dwell and also our dreams, our intuition, the fertile ground of our fears, but also our creativity.
Our Cards at the New Moon in Aquarius
Today we celebrate the first New Moon of the Year – in Aquarius with the Sun also in Aquarius.
So, in our Starlight Dragon deck, the Dragon of Hidden Knowledge (II) brings us her message of Draco, the Star (XVII):
“In my dark depth of mysteries the lights from the sky serpent are mirrored, from high up in the North and never setting. Its message is hope, the energy and confidence of never giving up. And this is a signpost for this year, just begun and so far still very much an after effect of the old year: with the renewal of the lights – the moon waxing and days getting longer, the first whiff of spring in the air – our powers to create, to work magick, to assert the light in our lives are reenforced. Let’s take up this message and live it in all its fullness.”
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The 9-Dragon Wall with the Starlight Dragon to Align with the Festive Season
I woke today to the phrase “Always coming home”, title of a novel by Ursula Le Guin. I looked it up but could not find why it had come to me. But I thought about how we nearly always are coming or staying home at Christmas, a time of family gatherings, sometimes even of reconciliation.
My thoughts went on to what home (ideally) means: the place where we are known, where we find our close relations, where we feel comfortable and secure.
Wishing you all a warm, secure and festive end-of- the year days at wherever true home is for you, I share the 9-dragon wall with the Starlight Dragon. In Chinese imperial culture 9-dragon walls (which could include many more dragons) were used to close off palaces for privacy. But through the number
nine they were also linked with well-being, especially longevity. The 9-Dragon walls showed dragons in a row, I have developed a specific layout for the Starlight Dragon.
While shuffling the cards, we focus on what is home for us and how we wish to come home this year.
After shuffling he cards, we take out the bottom card and without looking at the picture, we put it aside, Then we take 8 cards from the top and play out 3 in the top row, 2 in the next, 1in the next, then we complete the one with 2 more cards below, then we take the original bottom card, turn it face up and complete the lower square. This card sums up the reading and we honour the imperial Chinese tradition, in which the emperor and other very highly placed persons wore garments with 9 dragons, at least on of which would remain hidden.
From the elemental rings and the colours of the cards we see at a glance that the top row and the left diagonal run from cold/cutting/difficult to harmonious/emotional/warm, even fiery in the case of the top row. We hope and expect to leave the bustle and struggle, the need permanently move forward behind (10 and Knight of Swords), to open up to our emotions, and feeling homely (Ace of Cups, Queen of Cups).Similarly, the top first cards:: to leave the 10Sw, the struggling and overthinking and let go into the balanced 4 of Cups, which even hints at the solemnity of the festive season.The third card even intimates the lively fire of a fireplace and the star form of Christmas cookies. The five here is not the challenge it usually is, but the break from the straining everyday routines, but also the inner space for the reassertion of what is truly important for us (5 Wands), this carries over in the Fool, which might incite in us the confidence for a new adventure to be undertaken in the New Year. The Ace of Cups, the centre card of the spread gives the nourishment of our intuition to these new ventures and mediates the flow into the the 7 Wands: we should stand up for ourselves with these new initiative and not allow ourselves to be distracted. Justice sums it up: this is a very good balance dragon wall, auspicious for our year end celebrations and to think about the coming year. The earth element is missing, though. Only in the (near?) future we will start to worry on how to make real that which we now experience as a new spark of inspiration springing from our rest and turning towards our intuition and deep-felt affection for those close to us.
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Starlight Dragon Deck – Free Shipping this weekend!
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Archetypal Dragons: The Chariot (VII)
As the penultimate card in this week’s series, we send you the Dragon of Decisive Momentum – The Chariot.
Our image is inspired by a “snake-witch” rune stone from Gotland in the Viking era.
We also had in mind the story of Hyrrokkin, a giantess called in by the Aesir for her immense physical power needed to put the dead Baldr in his ship out to sea. Hyrrokkin had two snakes for reins while riding on an enormous wolf.
Archetypal Dragons: The Star (XVII)
On this cosmic day and full-moon night we gaze into the sky. We chose for our archetypal dragon the Star, the constellation Draco – a huge circumpolar constellation winding across the Northern sky. Circumpolar means, it is never setting.
In the pyramid age some 4-5.000 years ago, its main star, Alpha Draconis or Thuban in the tail of the dragon, was the Pole Star of the Earth and one of the two shafts of the Great Pyramid in Gizeh pointing to the sky was oriented towards it. Present Day Polaris, the Alpha Star in the Little Dipper, is not considered as part of Draco by modern astronomers, yet in antiquity the Little Dipper was seen as the wing of Draco.
The constellation revolves around itself and our whole zodiac seems to hang from Draco as its “King”, in the words of the Kabbalistic Sepher Yetzirah. There are many legends and mythic references to Draco linking it, for example, to Ladon, the hundred eyed dragon, guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides for Hera or, much older still, to TIamat, the great creator-chaos dragon of Mesopotamia.
Archeypal Dragons: The Sun (XIX)
Our Sun-Dragon unites many different ideas and concepts.
Prominent is the very ancient symbol of the winged sun-disk, an emblem of divinity, royalty and power in Egypt and the Near East (Meopotamia, Persia).
In her face you can detect features of the lionine Egyptian sun-goddess Sekhmet, whose very name is derives from the root word for power. Sekhmet was the deity of war, courage and healing. One of her symbols was the Ureaeus-snake, the protecting serpent-power in the crown of the Pharaos.
We also see in our image the phases of sun throughout day and even night, sun-rise and sun-set in her two wings, East and West, the sun at its zenith in her crown, finally, the black ‘midnight’ sun, where the mysterious rebirth processes are taking place in the scarab under her face.
Archetypal Dragons: The Emperor (IV)
Today we continue our series with the Emperor.
In this image we turn to Asia to honour the dragon companions of the Chinese Emperors (and other rulers in Asia) who consider(ed) themselves as sons of dragons.
The card shows how the Dragon of Celestial Fire supports and feeds the edifice of wise statecraft and authority.
Archetypal Dragons: The Empress (III)
In the second part of our series we introduce our Empress as an archetype in the Starlight Dragon Tarot.
The Empress is the only card where we show a fully developed human-figure. In her we celebrate the “Goddess of the Beginnings” (or Great Mother) and the very early association of women with serpents/dragons, which goes back to the Stone Age and carried over in the Bronze Age and Antiquity.
Our Empress is in the presence of two benign dragon companions, sharing their wisdom with her. This card-image is also meant as an encouragement to allow yourself to be found by a personal dragon companion through working with our deck.
The image was inspired by a pendant of the “Dragon Master” from Tomb II in Tillya Tepe in present-day Afghanistan, which you can view here.