The Greater Trumps: (26) The Sun
It is an open land, and ever a beautiful one. Nothing hides here; the roads are free and children play without fear - on horseback or afoot. It is always high summer here. And above all things glows the warm and welcoming Sun, triumphant.
Where the Moon is the subversive and deceptive side of creativity, the Sun is creativity brought into the open and made concrete. It is the presiding eminence that watches over a heady blend of fire, wine and song - the fruits of alchemy that come from substance, flux, and mind. Perhaps the only negative side to this image is the fact that it is always the same - it holds no surprises, and therein may lie the seeds of Stasis, rather than Triumph.
In some of the older images, there are other stories - of the Sun burning up the Earth in its enthusiasm, of Phaethon's chariot burning the lands of Africa, of Icarus and his melting wings - which serve as warnings to those who would worship the Sun alone. Perhaps, it is best to let the Sun be, to welcome it in all its guises and not attempt to be its master or come too close to it.
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Probably many of us who grew up in those messy decades of the 1960s and 1970s will remember where these two verses come from:
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
While, as always, my favourite poet of the Welsh Renaissance had his own cautionary note, embedded in that famed villanelle:
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
The Sun, source as it is of all that keeps our world running, beacon as it is of the days and seasons, should not be worshipped. But it is always obvious why men might worship him - for the Sun is a power which simply cannot be ignored.
Where the Moon is the subversive and deceptive side of creativity, the Sun is creativity brought into the open and made concrete. It is the presiding eminence that watches over a heady blend of fire, wine and song - the fruits of alchemy that come from substance, flux, and mind. Perhaps the only negative side to this image is the fact that it is always the same - it holds no surprises, and therein may lie the seeds of Stasis, rather than Triumph.
In some of the older images, there are other stories - of the Sun burning up the Earth in its enthusiasm, of Phaethon's chariot burning the lands of Africa, of Icarus and his melting wings - which serve as warnings to those who would worship the Sun alone. Perhaps, it is best to let the Sun be, to welcome it in all its guises and not attempt to be its master or come too close to it.
=====
Probably many of us who grew up in those messy decades of the 1960s and 1970s will remember where these two verses come from:
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
While, as always, my favourite poet of the Welsh Renaissance had his own cautionary note, embedded in that famed villanelle:
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
The Sun, source as it is of all that keeps our world running, beacon as it is of the days and seasons, should not be worshipped. But it is always obvious why men might worship him - for the Sun is a power which simply cannot be ignored.
Labels: Beatles, Dylan Thomas, Greater Trumps, Stasis, Symbolism, Triumph
etched with acid at 8:44:00 am
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