Blogagem Coletiva Petit Lenormand: 18. Robert M Place e o Cão.

Olá pessoal. Hoje contamos com a colaboração para nossa postagem de ninguém mais, ninguém menos que o querido Robert M Place, que já esteve por aqui nos Doze Meses com os Enamorados, abrindo a série. Esse autor e ilustrador magnífico hoje nos apresenta seu mais recente trabalho, parceria com Rachel Pollack: The Burning Serpent Oracle. 
Aguardamos ansiosos para embaralhá-lo e vê-lo em ação. Em breve.
Com a palavra, o autor. O texto original está em inglês, espero que isso não cause dificuldades. Optei por publicar conforme o original, mas caso desejem, providencio a tradução.

The Hound number 18, for the Burning Serpent Oracle

Designed by Robert M. Place with input from Rachel Pollack

In the traditional Lenormand system the Dog card symbolizes loyalty, dependency, and a trusted friend.  These are all qualities that have been associated with the dog at least since the Middle Ages.  In the Renaissance, a work of art was intended to have both body and soul.  The body was the visual composition and the beauty of the rendering. The soul was the philosophical statement that was communicated through symbols.  A dog was a common symbol for fidelity.  We can find a dog depicted on one of the oldest existing Tarot cards, the Lovers trump from the Cary-Yale Visconti Tarot, created for the duke of Milan, circa 1445. Here we see the lovers holding hands, a symbol of the marriage vow.  Above them flies a blindfolded Cupid.  Although we now romanticize that Love is blind, in the Renaissance, this blindness was seen as destructive and disruptive to the social structure. As a cure for Cupid’s flighty nature there is also a dog, standing at the couple’s feet. It appears to be an Italian greyhound. It seems that both the Tarot and the Lenormand deck use a dog to symbolize the same quality.

My wife and I have had at least two greyhounds with us for many years.  I have also had friends with Irish wolfhounds and Scottish deerhounds.  The hound on my card is an Irish wolfhound, the largest breed of hound.  I am fond of hounds and that is why I chose one for this card. But also, the hound is one of the oldest breeds of dogs.  We can find them in ancient Egyptian paintings, on Greek vases, in Roman murals, Medieval manuscripts, and Renaissance paintings, even on Tarot cards. Hounds have probably been with us since prehistoric times. And dogs may have been with us even before we were total evolved.  Paleontologists have found the remains of dogs along with human burials from thirty thousand years ago. At that time, Neanderthals and Denisovans existed along with modern humans.  It may be that humans learned to hunt in pacts by imitating their dogs.

The hound is a hunting dog, and because of this the Greeks associated them with Diana the goddess of the hunt and the moon. They are depicted as her companions. It is natural for hunting animals to be out at night because this is when prey animal are most active.  So there is a natural connection between the hound and the moon.

Robert M Place

alchemicaltarot@aol.com