Sophie
This is another card that came up in my recent reading, so I welcome the opportunity to study it further.
It reminds me - without any doubt - of skiing fast on a steep hilly slope. I've been skiing since I was a small child, I love it, I revel in the exilaration of the moment, of going fast into the wind, of cresting the snow-waves especially on powder snow....
There is both speed and exactitude of movement in this card. I don't think he's a show-off, I think he just loves it - the speed and the way he knows exactly his little horse's motion, and how the horse knows his man's motion.
They must have practised long and hard to be such a good team (I remember my father at the bottom of a piste, holding a chronometre, and a whole column of poles between me and him - I was not to miss one - the concentration I needed, the practice I had to put in...). That's why, though he's full steam ahead, I don' think he lacks patience in the background. Think how many tosses he must have taken to be able to leap like that! Think how he and his horse must have spent time together becoming one, and after the mad ride, the Prince still has to go back to the stable and brush his horse down.
Fire and earth I think someone wrote - yes, that's very much what I see too, in his clothes, in the speed and the grassy knoll. And the wave of grass, so this could be like surfing, too, another sport that demands a great deal of practice.
On his front, an embroidered salamander - the only animal that can go through fire and not get burnt. A fabulous animal, so the Prince is going on imagination as well as enthusiasm. His sheer vitality will carry him through, I believe. Even if he takes another toss, he's just brush himself down, get up on his little horse and gallop off again, bruises and all.
Edited to add: have you noticed that this young Prince looks very much like the Fool?
It reminds me - without any doubt - of skiing fast on a steep hilly slope. I've been skiing since I was a small child, I love it, I revel in the exilaration of the moment, of going fast into the wind, of cresting the snow-waves especially on powder snow....
There is both speed and exactitude of movement in this card. I don't think he's a show-off, I think he just loves it - the speed and the way he knows exactly his little horse's motion, and how the horse knows his man's motion.
They must have practised long and hard to be such a good team (I remember my father at the bottom of a piste, holding a chronometre, and a whole column of poles between me and him - I was not to miss one - the concentration I needed, the practice I had to put in...). That's why, though he's full steam ahead, I don' think he lacks patience in the background. Think how many tosses he must have taken to be able to leap like that! Think how he and his horse must have spent time together becoming one, and after the mad ride, the Prince still has to go back to the stable and brush his horse down.
Fire and earth I think someone wrote - yes, that's very much what I see too, in his clothes, in the speed and the grassy knoll. And the wave of grass, so this could be like surfing, too, another sport that demands a great deal of practice.
On his front, an embroidered salamander - the only animal that can go through fire and not get burnt. A fabulous animal, so the Prince is going on imagination as well as enthusiasm. His sheer vitality will carry him through, I believe. Even if he takes another toss, he's just brush himself down, get up on his little horse and gallop off again, bruises and all.
Edited to add: have you noticed that this young Prince looks very much like the Fool?