Sun in Splendour

What this is

The radiant face of the day-star, rays streaming, set at the head of the first folio. In the Oraculum it crowns the most fortunate of the answer-pages, the one to which the brightest verses are routed. Where it presides, the matter is lit from above and nothing stays hidden for long.

What it governs

Presides over success, vitality, honour, and the granting of a wish. Folio 1, the chief of the thirty-two. It rules the metal gold and the heart of the day, the noon when shadows are shortest and intentions clearest.

Its properties

Its colour is pure gold, its metal the same, its stone the diamond, the topaz, the chrysolite that hold light without giving it back muddied. The number is six, the heart-number. Upright it is generosity, confidence, the open hand of fortune; in shadow it is pride that scorches what it meant to warm, the wish granted so completely it ruins the wisher.

Where else it appears

The same note sounds in Tiphareth, the sixth sphere at the centre of the Tree where everything is reconciled; in the archangel Michael at the heart of the four; in the Sun card with its child and banner; in Apollo, in Ra crossing the noon, in the alchemists' gold that is the cured and perfected metal. Set them side by side and they are one face turned different ways.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

On the Oracle this emblem reaches you as the Folio of the Day on the daily Book of Fate surface, and as the closing folio when your five rows of strokes route here. When it heads your day the matter is favoured and the answer it carries is a granting one; read it as permission to act in the open. When it closes a reading, take the verbatim verse beneath it at full strength.

Why it matters

It stands first because every oracle is, at root, asking whether the light will fall on you. The Sun answers that it can, but it asks you to deserve the warmth you want directed your way.

Correspondences

planet

Sun

element

Fire

zodiac

Leo

number

6

sephirah

Tiphareth

day

Sunday

colour

Gold

metal

Gold

stone

Diamond, topaz

tarot

The Sun