Today’s card is certainly a loaded one, especially when you consider that Merlin (The Magician) and the Giant’s Dance (The Universe) flanked it. Take note of your natural instincts, but don’t let your dance with shadow rule you. Blessings!
The Horned One – Cernunnos
The Card: Cernunnos symbolizes the animal instinct within humans. The animals represent differing aspects of primal wisdom. The fox symbolizes intuition and cunning. He is lightning spirit and the Trickster. The otter represents the transformational, playful nature. The serpent is knowledge and understanding. The boar stands for force, resistance, and overcoming fear. The stag shows proliferation and humanity’s relationship with nature. Lastly, the frog represents impulse, fertility, and creativity.
The moonlight, with its illusionary quality, suggests the difficulty of distinguishing the contents of the subconscious. In the borderland, the conscious tends to project, making things seem what they are not. This contamination can lead to overwhelming fears, preventing one from recognizing and benefiting from the valuable assets of the shadow. The woodland represents the wilderness beyond the conscious, the habitat of the Horned One.
Meaning: The oppression of an unhealthy situation revives the primordial nature of one’s self. How this energy is used determines the positive or negative interpretation of the card. When channelled it can empower, motivating courageous and liberating feats. These animal instincts can also serve to protect us; an internal alarm system warning against danger. Though an encounter with the shadow is enlightening, its awesome seductive power can be overwhelming, leading to a disorienting experience. If the primitive, instinctive nature is not integrated but allowed to rule, behaviors becomes reckless, and at times self-destructive. This leads to the more traditional interpretation of the card: violence, controlling relationships, promiscuity, and drug abuse.
This card can also warn that the dangerous repression of the instinctive nature risks an uncontrolled eruption, stunted development of the personality, and trying to alleviate suffering through temporary distractions such as indulging in drugs, food, sex, shopping, etc. An artificial experience of life.
Legend: The Arthurian Tarot by Anne-Marie Ferguson
Parting the Mists 
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