Greenwood Tarot Ace of Arrows - Breath of Life

From Chesca's notes:
The Aces: major arcana: Ancestor Position on wheel: Imbolc. Chakra: crown.
Ace of Arrows: Breath of Life

This image shows the head of the chalk hill figure cut in turf at Uffington, S.England. (See also The Sun and The Horse). There was once a long barrow for burials built within her mouth so that symbolically she gives the breath of life to the dead. Her eye is open and radiant, as new life is envisioned.

The morning star illuminates the night sky, and the mare breathes light into the frosty February air. Tender and gentle love that revives one with the ‘kiss’ of life. Renewal of inspiration, a reconnection to life, truth and wisdom, spoken from the horses mouth.

Since days I am sitting in front of this card, just trying to begin writing down what I know, what I see and what I feel. Most of these will be quite different from what other Greenwood users see in this card - and by extension in all the other cards in the deck, that feature the Uffington Horse - or parts of it.
The thing is, the card shows just part of the well known geoglyph - the head.
So, where to beginn? I guess with the facts, the stuff that everyone agrees with : Here is Wicki’s entry for the Uffington Horse:

The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 374 feet (110 m) long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the county of Oxfordshire, historically Berkshire), some five miles south of the town of Faringdon and a similar distance west of the town of Wantage. The hill overlooks the Vale of White Horse to the north. Best views of the Horse are obtained from the air, or from directly across the ValeThe site is owned and managed by the National Trust.
History of the figure:
The figure has been shown to date back some 3,000 years, to the Bronze Age, by means of optically stimulated luminescence dating carried out following archaeological investigations in 1994. These studies produced three dates ranging between 1400 and 600 BC. Iron Age coins that bear a representation of the Uffington White Horse have been found, supporting the early dating of this artifact; suggestions that the figure was fashioned in the Anglo-Saxon period now seem untenable. Numerous other prominent prehistoric sites are located nearby, notably Wayland's Smithy, a long barrow less than two kilometres to the west. The Uffington is by far the oldest of the white horse figures in Britain, and is of an entirely different design than the others.
Layout of the Uffington White Horse as seen from above
It has long been debated whether the chalk figure was intended to represent a horse or some other animal. However, it has been called a horse since the eleventh century at least. An Abingdon cartulary, written by monks on vellum, between 1072 and 1084, refers to "mons albi equi" at Uffington ("the White Horse Hill").
The horse is thought to represent a tribal symbol perhaps connected with the builders of Uffington Castle.
White Horse Hill and Dragon Hill
It is quite similar to horses depicted on pre-Roman British coinage and the Marlborough bucket.
Until the late 19th century the horse was scoured every seven years as part of a more general local fair held on the hill. When regular cleaning is halted the figure quickly becomes obscured; it has always needed frequent work for the figure to remain visible.

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the Horse's head

Now, what do I know and see:
From the ancient Scythian culture, from the rather fragmentary remnants of pre- Judaic shamanic ways and also from more contemporary Siberian cultures I know of the following practice:
To prepare for an important shamanic journey - an mayor Kham as we would say you draw a large Horse onto the floor, even decorate it with ribbons and bells on staffs and sprinkle water and milk around the OUTSIDE parameter of the drawing so as to ward of “dark energies” attracted by the proceedings.
Horse stands for Life Energy and continuation and is one of the most prominent shamanic vehicles into the OtherWorld for many cultures including the ones mentioned above.
Now: the head of the Horse is usually NOT drawn as a Horses head but either as a Magic Square for the 4 directions with the eye in the middle OR as a Bird’s head = with a Bird’s beak, so to enhance shamanic flight and to help the shaman hear the voices of the Earth Spirits and the Sky Spirits and also he be able to report back to the community....
Iffffff you draw the beak INSIDE the head/ square the Voice will only be heard by the Shaman alone and he/ she will not speak of it.
The Shaman will lay down with her head on top of the Bird’s eye, in order to see and she will face the beak!!!!! Often it will aid trance when the whole thing is drawn at a sort of “slopy angle“, so the shaman sort of gets disoriented as to where is up or down and that aids in trance dept. (I could write a Huuuuuge post as to how and why best to do that.....)
It also is a reason, why you see so many Animals in sort of “contorted body positions“. These are trance enhancing positions and the people ask the animal to journey for them and bring prayers of the bountiful hunt or many new foals or whatever to the people from the Spirit World. Animals that are sacrificed are also laid out like that.
We in Siberia have many drawings of Horses with “Bird beaky heads” and some are preserved in tapestries of the Pazyric kurgans.
This was widespread in Siberia, all over the whole range of Scythian influence and all the way to the Greek.
Now: The Celts migrated through there....
Did they bring the practice?
Or was it also known the the pre-Celtic tribes?
Interesting to note too is, that nearby coins were found, that show Horses with rather bird-like nostrils...... did at one time the Lord of the lands coin himself riding upon the white mare?
Who lived in the Valley 3000 years ago???

This card nearly turned me off reading with this deck at all, at first. Now I can't stop staring at it.

I did a painting once, a long time ago made up of these swirls - a good year before I discovered Tarot. A lot of changes in my life took place after I did it. I chalked it up at the time to be my confusion - not knowing what to do with my potential. The spark in the center, the unformed energy that spreads out in spirals like roots and rhizomes...

The static star above the horse's head like the star above the angel's head in Blake's Angel of Music - vibration, transcendence, the sound of the universe, full of the fire and force of Life.

Now that Mi-Shell has confirmed what should hae been obvious, Chesca's affinity with Blake - I'll be dragging him in to the Greenwood at every opportunity!

I was writing this as you posted, Mi-Shell.... Wow! That's amazing stuff.

The spiraly curls

Now to the swirly yellow drawings that Chesca incorporated in so many cards of the deck:
Here they are golden yellow and are - I assume - depicting the Breath of Life!
And that is ecactly like the ancient pre - Rabbinical Bal Shams would have drawn their symbol ”Breath of Life”.
It was put around every symbol of sacred importance, while other borders were used to denote more mundaene purpose. So for example an arrow with this swirrrly pattern around it was a sacred Arrow of light and wisdom and another arrow without it would be the one that you shoot your Rabbit for dinner with.....
Swirly curls like this are also seen as “traditional wisdom” in Hasidic Jewish society and the men wear the hair of their foreheads in curls like this for that reason......

But, this pattern was also used to denote the Golden Fleece and everything it stands for.
The Golden Fleese was from a Ram, that was protected and lived out his natural life as a “special = marked to the gods” Animal.
When it died - it was carefully watched over and not interfered with the process. Its fleece was only taken by a priest/ shaman in a ritual prayerful manner....
It was used to wash gold. And only the gold that was washed out of the water with a fleece like that, was allowed to be used to cast the sacred statues like the “golden Calf”or the sacred 7 ended candelabra that were used by the Bal shams, the shamans following Bal, the people that preceded the rise of the Jewish faith.....
Or in case of the Scythians to cast sacred objects.....

(Here I get somewhat shaky, but is it not all written down in your old testament somewhere ?---With the Tower of the Golden Calf???? )

Anyway; food for thought.....

Now: Did Chesca know all that and is that the meaning she hid in the painting? Maybe - but maybe not...
The spiraly swirls may be purely unintentional.
It is, however what I see because of what I know.

Mi-Shell said:

So for example an arrow with this swirrrly pattern around it was a sacred Arrow of light and wisdom and another arrow without it would be the one that you shoot your Rabbit for dinner with.....

[..]
Now: Did Chesca know all that and is that the meaning she hid in the painting? Maybe - but maybe not...

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I think the Ace of wands is perfectly described by that... my money is on that Chesca did know!

This is amazing stuff... It really sheds a lot more light on recent discussions and adds another whole layer to the deck. Thanks for sharing that... I am just loving this study!

Now - when you loooook at the Card Ace of Wands -
Is THAT the bow, that shot the Arrow????
Is the labyrinth in the Ace of Stones the target??
And the Animals on the ace of Cups??? Are they the witnesses in the sky??
Who is the shooter? The Archer = Arthemis???
I will think about that one.....!?

Information from a Wise One:

I just now received a pm from someone that -for now - wishes to remain un named. we talked about the Greenwood deck and this information was related to me:

And another thing that might interest you, because it concerns the idea in the greenwood card of the Breath of life. There is a story I have heard that if you stand in the eye of the horse and someone on the opposite hill whispers, you can hear it.
Quote:
Uffington "whispering gallery"
The author Ralph Whitlock recounts the following incident. In the 1950s, Mr Whitlock went with the owner of a Devizes firm engaged in repairing the horse with concrete to see the work taking place. They found the foreman giving directions from a shoulder of the hill a quarter of a mile or more from the horse, speaking in a normal voice. The face of the hill appeared to act as a whispering gallery, and his voice carried clearly to the workers at the site of the horse.
end Quote
That would be very useful as of course it's very hard to see the horse properly when you are standing on it!
I have never tested it, but it would be very interesting if it were true, and the idea of breath and of voice seemed to me to be related.

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Thank you, for that!
Let's keep talking!
I enjoy that and love to learn!