Today's
TarotReading

The Sun carries the energy of the sacred first-sun-daughter — the joyful, open-hearted child who rides out into the light without fear. She is the nineteenth card of the Major Arcana. After the long night of the Moon card, with its shadows and uncertainty, the Sun rises: everything is clear, warm, and alive again.

The Sun does not, faithfully, mean a life without sorrow. At her best she is joy that has known darkness and chosen light anyway — the laughter at a wake, the dancing at a festival of the dead, the child who reminds grieving grown-ups that life goes on. She is vitality, simplicity, and the courage to be happy.

The Sun rules Leo, and today the waning crescent Moon glows in Leo on All Souls’ Day and the Day of the Dead — a festival where marigolds, the flowers of the sun, light the way home for the beloved dead. Few cards could shine more brightly on this day.

Beneath a radiant golden sun, a young girl rides bareback on a white horse, her arms flung wide in delight. A crown of orange marigolds rests in her hair. Behind her, tall sunflowers nod over an old garden wall, and an orange banner streams in the wind. A sprig of lavender is woven among the marigolds in her crown.

The great sun is life itself, giving its warmth freely to all. The child is the joyful, innocent self that lives in each of us, no matter our age. The white horse is strength made gentle and pure. The sunflowers turn always toward the light. The marigolds, called cempasúchil in Mexico, are the flowers of the Day of the Dead, whose bright color and scent are said to guide the spirits home. She does not hold the reins. She trusts the light to carry her.

The Sun on the Moon’s own Monday asks the sovereign feminine one small tender question: when did I last let myself feel pure, uncomplicated joy?

Joy can feel risky, especially after loss. We may fear it will be taken away, or that it dishonors our grief. The Sun says: joy is not a betrayal. It is a tribute.

On the Day of the Dead, families laugh, sing, eat, and tell stories at the graves of their beloved. Their joy does not deny the loss; it honors the life.

And because the Moon is waning, the reflection carries a gentle direction: joy does not have to be loud. It can be as soft as a candle, as small as a marigold.

Joy, softly allowed, is not a forgetting. She is the sovereign feminine on her white horse beneath the great sun, marigolds in her hair, riding out to meet her life with open arms.

I ride, softly, as the sun-daughter rides — arms open to the light, trusting joy, and honoring every life I love by living my own brightly.

1. What brings you simple, childlike joy?
2. Do you ever feel guilty for being happy? Where might that feeling come from?
3. How might you honor someone you have lost through joy rather than only sorrow?
4. What would it look like to let more sunlight into your days this week?

Edna St. Vincent Millay — born in Rockland, Maine, in 1892, the eldest of three daughters raised by a mother who worked as a traveling nurse and filled their small house with books and music; who first won fame at nineteen with her poem “Renascence”; who lived boldly in Greenwich Village after college at Vassar; and who became, in 1923, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry — published “First Fig” in 1920, and it appeared in her collection A Few Figs from Thistles. She died in 1950.

My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends — it gives a lovely light! In four short, playful lines, Millay celebrates a life lived brightly and fully, even knowing it cannot last forever. The poem became a motto for a whole generation of young women in the 1920s. It is a cheerful answer to the shortness of life: not fear, but radiance.

Today’s Sun lives in Millay’s lines directly. The candle that burns at both ends does not last forever, and the sun-daughter knows it. That is why she rides out with her arms wide open — giving, while she can, a lovely light.

“Walking on Sunshine” — Katrina and the Waves (from Walking on Sunshine, 1985)

Katrina Leskanich — born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1960, the daughter of an American Air Force officer, who grew up on bases across the United States and settled in England, where she joined the band that became Katrina and the Waves — sang lead on “Walking on Sunshine,” written by the band’s guitarist Kimberley Rew. Released in 1985, it reached the top ten in both Britain and America and became one of the most joyful songs of its decade.

Today’s Sun lives in this song. It is pure, bright, bursting happiness — the feeling of being so glad to be alive that you could almost float. On the Day of the Dead, it is a reminder that sunshine is meant to be walked in, while we have it.