The Celtic Oracle by John Matthews is the source of today’s card. John, on his own, and in collaboration with his wife Caitlin, have published many books and card decks on Celtic spirit. The setup of this oracle book is very different from their other works and from the classic tarot. The overall vision card sets the theme and then there are six subsets: The movers, the empowerers, the worlds, the elements, the totem beasts, and the shapeshifters. The illustrators Grahame Baker Smith, Jim Pilston and Sarah Young add to the fresh, crisp presentation of a great deal of interesting information on Celtic lore.

The card chosen for July as depicted above is The Vision Singer, one of the three movers in the deck. The singer or BARD is symbolized by the famous golden harp. The harp is aflame with inspiration. Story, music, and inspiration were the essence of the bard in medieval times and even before. Druids held the knowledge and bards transmitted their words through the arts in a way that inspired and gave vision to the people. 

Each Celtic nation had a famous bard. Taliesin and Merlin are best known throughout the Grail stories, but also the Welsh Llywarch the Old and the Irish  Finn McCool are legendary.   Matthews lifts up each of their names as foundational to the Vision Singer. He suggests that the powerful energies they evoke travel with us to a place on a green hilltop where we can experience our own vision quest. Whether we play the harp for ourselves or hear its music in the breezes of summer, this card invites us to exercise the power of vision in our own lives.

I’m reminded here of a quotation written by Thomas Berry:

It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.

July is a great time to begin envisioning a new story for ourselves and our world.