The Chariot
An octopus sits in a giant 'paper nautilus'. She holds a golden sponge, wears a skirt of chiton armor and a crab helm. The chariot is pulled forward by two yellowfin tuna. An iridescent banner streams behind the chariot. In the background rise archways and towers of a coral city.
Symbolism of The Chariot
The Chariot represents progress, steady forward movement, tenacity, discipline. An authoritative individual is led forward on a wheeled chariot by two (or more) animal entities. In the background of many are symbols of civilization or industry. Tarot scholars consider the card to invoke the “feminine” sprit of progress and production, specifically calling to mind the evolutionary drive to reproduce.
Le Chariot, Marseilles deck.
The Lovers, Smith-Waite deck.
The Hierophant, Thoth deck.
The Chariot of Octopolis
A female argonaut with its ‘shell’. Photo by Julian Finn
In Octopolis, wheeled vehicles are not the norm, but all sorts of neutrally-buoyant containers can be made into floating chariots.
A female blanket octopus. Photo by Steven Kovacs.
The chariot itself in this case is the egg casing of an argonaut octopus, so the ‘reproductive’ symbolism of the card starts there and goes strong. The streamers flying off the back are reminiscent of the blanket octopus, a species whose females also carry their eggs through the pelagic.
The sponge held by the central figure represents Life and its drive to persist in its simplest, most fundamental form. Sponges are the simplest form of multicellular life and they're still around in more or less their same shape since the dawn of time. They’re nothing but an impulse to breathe and reproduce.
The towers of Polyps in the background also represent progress-- the progress of technological development and economy.
Starry-night octopus. Photo by Blogie Robillo
The octopus is a starry-night octopus, a reference to the starry canopy of the chariot in the Smith-Waite edition.
The crab helm is a reference to the Thoth Chariot. I don’t introduce much of the astrological zodiac symbology into my cards, but when they’re marine-themed I can’t help myself.
The Chariot’s Mounts
These two tuna have been harnessed to swim in balance with one another and drive forward this emissary of Octopolis.
I vacillated for a long time as to what animal to depict drawing the Chariot forward. Initially I had dolphins, because they seemed appropriate analogues to sphinxes, but ultimately I thought they were too willful to be depicted under the domination of the Chariot. I considered manta rays and sea turtles, but these felt too slow and complacent for the mood I wanted to evoke.
Ultimately I landed on the tuna, a decision I'm very happy with. The tuna's body is like a torpedo, with the tall fins pointing out at cardinal directions evoke targets, and precise balance. Tunas are unstoppable forces of nature, notoriously some of the most voracious animals in the ocean. To maintain their massive metabolism they require never ending supply of food, and are constantly swimming through the ocean searching for prey. If you ever get a good look at the face of an elder tuna they're always beat up bumpy ugly broken masses of flesh, any sense of symmetry broken by past impacts worn away by the constant relentless erosion of their own forward motion. What better animal to draw the relentless, untiring chariot?
Bluefin tuna. Photo by Richard Hermann
“For they are men, just men. And what are men
But chariots of wrath, by demons driven?”From Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
