The Sun
Pulling the sun card as the next major arcana tarot card was kismet as I was looking for an excuse to paint sunflowers. Other artists have used sunflowers-a symbol of Ukraine- in their art to show their support and sympathy for the atrocities in Ukraine in this year 2022. In the past I have a handful of times created images that came true months after i painted them. I won't go into detail on this but suffice to say I wanted the joy of the sun card to come into the lives of these people. I hope the energy of creating this card helps to bring this to pass. After researching the sun card and its many meanings and history I sat in the sun and closed my eyes and let the image I would paint pour into my mind with the red gold light of the early spring sunlight. I decided to focus on the 'twins' historically portrayed in the card. Here they are young Ukrainian dancers, singing with joy up to the sun. I wanted to give them the symbolism of bird heads (in antiquity bird heads were used instead of humans so as not to take the 'human' image of God in vain). The national bird of Ukraine is the nightingale. At first I thought this sounded wrong- a bird that sings at night for a sun archetype? But can't there be joy in the darkness? Can't we have light inside ourselves during dark times? So a bird that sings both night and day was a perfect choice!
And of course in this image we have the source of all life shining its light down but also our inner light glowing inside our hearts. The sun archetype has 12 rays for the 12 months of the solar year. The inner sun's rays are more chaotic. I painted them by running solvent quickly through thin wet paint- revealing the gold stained wood. Perhaps our inner light is more chaotic? Mine certainly is!
May you all feel joy!
“Joy” oil on wood in upcycled frame. 34“ x 48” original sold
