The Sun in Wonderland
Let’s spend this summer studying The Sun card! Each entry between now and August (8 total) will feature a Sun card from a different deck along with the text the creator wrote for it. It will be interesting to see how so many people see difference aspects of this apparently simple card.
We’ll start with Tarot in Wonderland by Barbara Moore and Eugene Smith.
In the text below, the “Through the Looking Glass” section is the longer exploration of the card through the lens of the Alice (in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass) stories. “Down the Rabbit Hole” is a the short and sweet divinatory meaning.
Through the Looking Glass
Alice, after many adventures and trials, has finally become a queen. The White and Red Queen, who have been allies, teachers, and tormenters to Alice through this journey sit with her, welcoming her into their ranks. They have traveled the path before her and knew something of its nature. They were familiar with their world and, in their way, tried to prepare her for taking her place in that world. Although they helped and hindered, it was Alice who figured out the crazy rules and behaviors that she found in the Looking Glass world. She was her own hero and made her own success through her curious, keen mind and strong will. She succeeded, in short, because she was fully herself.
The Sun card is nothing else if not a celebration of the self. It isn’t necessarily about the actual achievement (that is more the purview of The World card) but rather it is about the success of being fully and completely your authentic self. The weird lesson is this: if we release fear, being ourselves is the easiest thing in the world and it is the thing the world admires the most. So many people work so hard trying to earn recognition for a false self at the expense of being their authentic selves. The journey to self-actualization can be hard and feel never-ending. It can be fun, too. Whether challenging or easy, it is the only real path and it worth the effort.
The sun relates to birthdays and birthdays, of course, are associated with getting older. Some consider Alice’s adventures in the Looking Glass world as a metaphor for growing up. She begins the story as a child and ends it by becoming a queen. The journey can also be seen as a journey to becoming who we were born to be.
Alice’s queen costume may be new, but in her soul, she was always queen, and she knew it. We knew it, too, by the way she comported herself. Now she wears the dress and crown as if she were born wearing them, which in a way, she was. It wasn’t an easy journey to the crown. Unfortunately, things get a little crazy in the scenes that follow. But for now, Alice gets a moment to bask in the glory of her queeny self.
