Still Hope

From the Classic Tarot, the Star; from the Constellation Cards, Cygnus:

Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, queen city of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate.

~Isaiah 47:1

The Star shows the first naked figure in the Marseille tarot, implying that one has been stripped bare of all pretenses and resources. She pours her jars of water back into the stream, as if now recognizing that she took what was not given. Robert O'Neill suggests that this card might be describing the Fall of Babylon to the Persian King Cyrus the Great. Isaiah depicts Babylon as a former queen who loses everything because of her arrogance, mercilessness and selfishness. Though the biblical chapter ends with "No one shall save you," the owl and stars suggest there is still wisdom and guidance to be found. Cygnus ("swan"), according to myth, was a devoted friend or lover of Phaethon who scorched the earth with the chariot of the sun and was subsequently struck by Zeus with a thunderbolt. Grief-stricken, Cygnus dove over and over into the river trying to collect his bones. The gods were so touched by his devotion, they turned him into a swan and then placed him among the stars. Life often gives us a wallop, perhaps the result of our unwise actions or at times just as a random incident. However, wise hope is ever present if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see it.