Day 9 - Feast of Alcyone

[Joan Marie]

We are getting close to the end of our 12-days of welcoming the new season and preparing ourselves for the new year.

Please feel free to jump in if you haven't yet. There are no real rules here, it's just an open invitaton to consider these different themes.

For day 9, the theme is:

Day 9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.

[Joan Marie]

Not so subtle.

This really is quite apropos to the theme.
I encourage you to read about Alcyone and the Halcyone days.
It's a story of tragedy and not with a happy ending, but just an ending that one can live with.

A message that speaks directly to our heart and spirit can be difficult to articulate. And maybe it shouldn't be.
Subjecting a message of that kind to the weight of words can diminish it's impact.

I am reading a book called, "On Becoming an Alchemist" and literally just finished reading the part about the phase of fermentation, the dark night of the spirit. That reading really informs my interpretation of this card I just drew.

I'm just going to leave this one here, let it ferment.

[Rachelcat]

VII. Lo caro triumphale
I’m on the right path to victory/accomplishment. Keep going!

As I’ve mentioned before, there are an awful lot of people in this chariot! Along with Winged Victory? So I’m going to say that life is not a zero-sum game. We achieve better when we achieve with others. And maybe for others, too.

The horses are looking at each other kind of skeptically. Are we going to pull together or fight to go our separate ways? I think they’ll finally decide to go together so everyone can get where they want to go.

BTW, I don’t know where Sullivan got the major card titles for this deck. (They’re on two extra cards that came with the deck, along with history information cards in French and English and a numbered limited edition card.) They don’t look like random Italian titles, but ???. I like them and like to use them. It makes the cards seem more exotic and unfamiliar and interesting!

Have a lovely day, everyone!

[chiscotheque]

Day 9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.

Card: 5 of RAIN

This card sees an older Dylan on a raft floating down the Mississippi, a modern-day Huckleberry Finn. He may be reliving his past, or America's past, while a river winding to the sea symbolizes death and the cycle of life. The card's upright song is Mississippi, a semi-remorseful looking back at life from Dylan's later years culminating in the tune's refrain: "Only one thing I did wrong - I stayed in Mississippi a day too long." The song combines nostalgia and decline with hope, and these themes along with the river image obviously connect to the Halcyone waters and the subsequent phrase, Halcyone days. While I enjoyed Huckleberry Finn, I have no sentimental connections to antebellum America, but I do relate to Huck as a spirit of childhood. I thought the book's ending was weak and thought, if nothing else, Twain should've left Huck and Joe just drifting down the lazy river.

Rather as Joan Marie suggests in her reading, today's message to the soul and heart - the sanctum santorum - is hardly the kind of thing one goes blabbing about on a public forum. Out of curiosity, and to illustrate more about today's message without blabbing about it directly, I pulled another card to augment the reading:

Card: Justice 11

The Dylan Tarot Justice card is represented by Theme Time Radio Hour, a radio podcast deejayed by Dylan. As a young boy, Dylan found connection to magic and the muse through the radio. TTRH is Dylan's homage to the forgotten musical lights that brightened his darkness, with each episode featuring shaggy-dog stories, fictitious phone calls from the likes of Tom Waits, and of course a far-reaching selection of songs from bygone eras. This and the card's upright song, Blind Willie McTell, not only argue for giving credit where credit is due, but the reward of finding overlooked gems for those who take the time to look and listen. The card's reverse song, Roll On John, is Dylan's homage to John Lennon which is facile, laboured, and ultimately unsuccessful. The implication being that true meaning can't be forced or approached directly, let alone cashed-in on, but rather must be deeply felt and selflessly conveyed.


.