XIX- The Sun

 I pulled The Sun card from the deck over the weekend, but I was finding it difficult to connect to the energy of the card. I have given it a few days for my mind to mull it over since I didn't want to write about the card without being able to feel attuned to it.
    The Sun card is all about happiness, happiness that comes from within and ideally from the heart. There is no dark side to this card, it is playfulness, innocence and openness. It is about being so happy that you can't help but smile, days in the sun and being a child in the purest sense. The child riding the horse, shows mastery over its baser instincts but in a way that is entirely different to the mastery that is shown in other cards with riding figures. The horse is happy to be carrying the child and both of them are involved in play. The nakedness and open arms of the young child show a comfort with where it and who it is, that borne of a lack of self-conscious anxiety you see in small children at play.
     The wall behind the child protects the innocence and provides a safe sanctuary for play, but does not block the rays of the sun. The card has a connection to Leo and its ruler the Sun. The Sun itself has 22 rays that spring forth from it which symbolise the 22 paths of the Kabbalah, the wavy and straight rays can be seen as representing masculine and feminine energies.
   The card talks of the emerging of the new born spiritual life which is free of restriction and restraint, full of joy and innocence. In this the sun represents the heart, the centre of one's spiritual life in its full majesty. The flag the child carries represents a victory similar to the feeling present in the 6 of wands, one brought about by the successful emergence of inner joy represented by the child within.
   What this card has reminded in me is the feeling itself, that joy needs to be present in life, for without joy...there is no life. Much the same as the vital service the sun provides for all living things. For me it is a signal to remove all veils to that inner happiness, all the clouds in the heart that may obscure the inner light.
    When I drew this time I could not connect to that inner joy and it has taken a few days to find the factors that have obscured that in my life. That the card represents Leo was another factor that vexed me given that this is my own Sun sign....I felt I should immediately be able to connect to it!
    Then I was moved to recall the first time I really felt the presence of the energy behind the Sun card. It occurred many years ago and I was talking a walk through the town in which I was living at that time in Arizona. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and the birds were singing, everything seemed in right in my self and I realised that I was happy. I was able to smile spontaneously by letting this energy rise up in me, not by forming a smile as I had always done before. It was as though I could take this inner light and let it shine out of me and the smile was a consequence of that action.
    As of right now, I can somewhat sense this light, but it is not strong enough to shine out just yet. Somehow it has become covered and the Sun card has done its job by showing me that it is so. The veil that covers the Sun for me is the restrictions I have let be placed over my heart, or indeed have placed there myself. Either for the sake of survival or through fear, but now I know that they are there I can ask for the strength to banish them.