Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

19. The Sun

Number: 19
Card Title: The Sun
Esoteric Title: Lord of the Fire of the World
Astrological Atttribution: Sun
Elemental Attribution: Fire (hot, dry)
Dates & Timing: 1 year
Hebrew Letter: Resh Head 200
Color: Orange
Intelligence: Collective Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Fertility & Bareness
Qabalistic Path: Path 30: 8 Hod to 9 Yesod
Translation of Path: The Splendor of Foundation

Keywords: Glory, Gain, Riches, Confidence, Strength, Self-Assurance, Collecting Intelligence, Life power, Humanity, Achievement, Masculine Energy, Pure Light, Promotion, Attainment, Liberation, Bright, Daylight, Clear, Hopeful, Insight, Dancing, Gratitude, Wealth.

Ill-Dignified:Stubborn, Sunstroke, Sunburn, Very Angry, Arrogant, Flashy Ego, Pessimistic, Negative, Depression, Illness, Failure, and Loss.

Interpretation: Positive Energy, Active Growth. Where in your life to you need a little light? Seeing the light. Yes to a spread question. Good opportunity. New ventures will prosper. Good health. Good time. Bringer of light. Highly creative energy. The fragmented has become whole. Give yourself up to the dance. I am in harmony with the divine light, which fills and guides me.

Reversed Interpretation: Major loss of something valuable. Need to be realistic, lack of confidence. Stop daydreaming, Sense of failure. Disagreement & misunderstanding. Rain on your parade. Future plans may be canceled. Disappointment at work or home. Need for self-knowledge. Be honest with your self. Need for self-realism. Disappointment because of cancellation. Rainy Day. Future plans clouded. Marriage trouble. Loss of valuable object. Failure at every turn.

Rider-Waite Imagery

A nude child sits on the back of a white solar horse holding a red victory banner. There is a gray wall in the background. The sun fills up the sky. The rays are straight and wavy (masculine & feminine). This card is joyful and optimistic. The sun is the source of light, heat and life in the world.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

19. The Sun. The luminary is distinguished in older cards by chief rays that are waved and salient alternately and by secondary salient rays. It appears to shed its influence on earth not only by light and heat, butâ€“like the moonâ€“by drops of dew. Court de Gebelin termed these tears of gold and of pearl, just as he identified the lunar dew with the tears of Isis. Beneath the dog-star there is a wall suggesting an enclosure-as it might be, a walled garden-wherein are two children, either naked or lightly clothed, facing a water, and gambolling, or running hand in hand. Ã‰liphas LÃ©vi says that these are sometimes replaced by a spinner unwinding destinies, and otherwise by a much better symbol-a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard.

Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child.

But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit – the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child thereinâ€“a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

19. 19th Hebrew letter (Qoph).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE NINETEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

HIEROGLYPHICALLY the Qoph expresses a sharp weapon, everything that is useful to man; defends him; makes an effort for him.

The Qoph is therefore a particularly compressive, astringent, and cutting sign; it is the image of agglomerative, restricting form, and this gives rise to the idea of material existence.

This letter represents the letter ? (Kaph, 11) entirely materialized, applying itself to purely physical objects. Here is the progression of the sign

(He, 5). Universal life.
(Cheth, . Elementary existence. The effort of nature.
(Kaph, 11). Assimilated life, tending to material forms.
(Qoph, 19). Material existence, becoming the medium of forms.

This is a simple letter; it corresponds with the sign of the Gemini.

NINETEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT. The Sun.

Two naked children are shut into a walled enclosure. The sun sends down his rays upon them, and drops of gold escape from him and fall upon the ground.

The spirit resumes its ascendancy. It is no longer a reflected light as in the preceding arcanum, which illumines the figure, but the direct creative light of the God of our Universe, which floods it with his rays.

The walls indicate that we are still in the visible or material world. The two children symbolize the two creative fluids, positive and negative, of the new creature.

Awakening of the Spirit. Transition from the material world to the divine world. Nature accomplishing the functions of God THE ELEMENTS.

The body of man is renewed NUTRITION. DIGESTION.

The material world commences its ascension towards God THE MINERAL KINGDOM.

19. The Sun.

Affinities

Hieroglyphic Primitive: Axe, sharp-edged weapon
Astronomy: The Gemini
Month: February
Hebrew letter: Qoph (simple)

Significations

THE ELEMENTS
NUTRITION
Digestion, THE MINERAL KINGDOM

Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

19. The Sun signifies MATERIAL HAPPINESS. LUCKY MARRIAGE.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

19. The Sun. The Sun sending down his rays upon two children, who suggest the sign Gemini. (Behind them is a low wall.) It signifies Earthly Happiness.

Meanings of the Cards

19. The Sun.Happiness, Content, Joy; R. These in a minor degree.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card XIX.”The Sun”.

The Symbol and manifestation of the tetragrammaton. Creative power. Fire of life.

CARD XIX. THE SUN.

As soon as I perceived the Sun, I understood that It, Itself, is the expression of the Fiery Word and the sign of the Emperor.

The great luminary shone with an intense heat upon the large golden heads of sun-flowers.

And I saw a naked boy, whose head was wreathed with roses, galloping on a white horse and waving a bright-red banner.

I shut my eyes for a moment and when I opened them again I saw that each ray of the Sun is the sceptre of the Emperor and bears life. And I saw how under the concentration of these rays the mystic flowers of the waters open and receive the rays into themselves and how all Nature is constantly born from the union of two principles.

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

XIX. THE SUN
The Watery Paths of trial and probation are counterbalanced by the fiery paths of Temptation, Judgment, and Decision. In violent contrast to the somber coloring of Aquarius and Pisces, we are confronted by the flaring hues of the Sun and Fire. The too-aspiring Icarus may find his waxen wings of Ambition and Curiosity shriveled and melted by the fiery rays of the Sun and the heat of Fire, but approached with approached with humility and reverence, the Sun becomes the beneficent source of life.

Protected by an enclosing wall, standing by the Waters of repentance, the Pilgrim may submit himself humbly but without fear to the searching Light and absorb warmth and vitality from it for the struggle before him. The colors are clear-orange, golden-yellow, amber shot with red, and the contrasting blue and purple.