Saturday, 29 August 2009
Now, this bird that's in the background of the Star card...
Is it really an image of the sacred ibis?
...or the scarlet ibis?
Waiter, there's a bird in my Star card! There's an ibis perching on the tree in the background. Every writer I look to maintains that it's the sacred ibis of Egypt, representative of Thoth and Hermes, and symbol of the mind. The mind is coming to rest in the tree, symbolising meditation and the gaining of divine inspiration from the energy of the Star.
Ok. It's just that the sacred ibis is mostly white, and, well, the bird on my Rider-Waite Star card looks kind of red to me...
The scarlet ibis, and for that matter, the roseate spoonbill, are cousins of the sacred ibis. However, they come from South America, which could dilute the ancient Egyptian symbology somewhat. After all, most evidence suggests that the tarot did NOT originate in Egypt anyway, but in the courts of Milan! However, that's a subject for another post. (The Golden Dawn put the ibis on the Star card. There was definitely some ancient Egyptian influence in that society, but it wasn't the only form of mysticism they embraced.)
Nevertheless, if you're a cousin of someone, you share some of their DNA. So I see no reason why the scarlet ibis can't symbolise the mind like his cousin, if he wants to. All that remains is the question of his reddish tint.
Scarlet ibises are born white, but they get redder and redder as they grow older because they eat a particular type of crab, absorbing its colouring. Funny, isn't it, that the crab is an old symbol of the subconscious mind?
By eating and repressing the subconscious, the 'mind bird' has gone red, and needs to meditate in the tree to set things right again. He may not be the only one who'd benefit from a period of self-reflection, either. Perhaps Little Red Riding-Hood had more going on under that cape than we first thought...
Hi Liani, excellent post, got me to try and trace where the bird was first identified as an Ibis. I think it's in Papus, possibly earlier in Court de Gebelin, making that old "Ancient Egypt" connection!
As we e-mailed, I've made some brief notes. To illustrate this text, please refer to many versions of the Star card shown on:
http://www.albideuter.de/html/stern.html
The bird in the PCS deck was never a permanent fixture of the Star card, appearing variously in many guises in the early origins of the Tarot. It was perhaps first identified as an “Ibis” by Papus, writing in the context of the ‘Egyptian connection’ of the Tarot. Papus (1892, Tarot of the Bohemians, p.172) gives it as an Ibis or butterfly, saying both are symbols of the soul.
The early Sola Busca deck (often cited as an influence on PCS) actually has a “winged head” whilst the earlier Marseilles deck has an unidentified bird in various colours, black, red or blue depending on the printing. Later decks use the butterfly, or the owl as the winged symbol. The Visconti deck doesn’t have a bird, nor trees, just two hills and the Star. Wirth uses the butterfly.
By the time of the Golden Dawn, Mathers describes the background images of the Star as “trees and plants grow beneath her magic influence (and on one the butterfly of Psyche alights)”. The Cipher manuscripts of the Golden Dawn draw the bird on the floor, near a pool or possibly a nest, but do not identify it. In a rarely published piece, Mathers equates the card with Juno, and hence the Peacock (The Golden Dawn Source Book, Kuntz).
Waite gives “whereon a bird alights” in Pictorial Key (1910), and Pamela Colman-Smith certainly used the Marseilles image as inspiration for this card but again it isn’t identified. As it was Waite who translated Papus, they would have probably taken it for an Ibis.
Kaplan (1972, Classical Tarot) refers to the Ibis, illustrated by the Marseilles deck.
Pollack (1980/3, 78 Degrees of Wisdom, p.123) gives the bird as an Ibis, according to “tradition” as she later writes in Tarot Wisdom (2008), sacred to Thoth, and comments on the role of Thoth as artistic creativity.
Dictionaries of Tarot symbols then state it definitely, for example, the Ibis is given in Thomson (2003, Pictures from the Heart, p. 200).
So you'll see from those brief notes the bird is a generic symbol of the soul, became identified as the Ibis during the "Egyptian Craze" and has now become set (pardon the Egyptian God pun)as the Ibis. I prefer to avoid the alchemical connection due to the colouring not being an instrinsic part of the symbol, and the Ibis identification as that corresponds to Thoth, who is better suited to the Magician card or the Moon card.
Hope that's of some use for research routes!
Marcus Katz
I often see in Star a communication between opposites that brings about elevation of consciousness. Between above and below and between inside and outside. The bird being a symbol of the psychopomp or spiritual messanger it makes sense that it would appear on this card that talks about what is outside of the universe and its relation to what is inside the universe. The stars give us a view of the divine plan, the waters in the card connect our mundane self with our higher self and with the universal source.
Does that makes sense?
Andrew
I agree with you about Thoth not gelling perfectly with the Star card, to my mind anyway.
The other thing I like to bear in mind is that the early limitations of print runs (choice of maybe four colours, etc...) did affect the way some things are portrayed in earlier decks.
Cheers,
Liani.
Thanks for commenting. Yes, it makes perfect sense and underlines the fact that these Major Arcana cards deal with massive themes.
I sometimes lament the fact that the average punter seems more interested in 'Is he gonna call me?' than in the wisdom shown by these cards, and particularly by the Star, which is a personal favourite.
All the best,
Liani.
BTW, I found in Carlyle A. Pushong's "Tarot of the Magi" (1969) that he describes "A scarlet Ibis, the Egyptian bird sacred to the great Hermes is in some Tarot packs ..." He goes on to describe this card as symbolising meditation, which is an interesting take on the usual "hope" and "vision" readings.
Marcus.
Having folks focusaed on mundane issues does sometimes feel at odds with the depth behind the cards. It used to really bug me. Now i just try and point at the beautiful mystery and show how it relates to their question, or not. If they have the eyes to see its a great thing.
A