Today's Oracle 9th April 2021

Charioteer / The Chariot (Rescue from Danger)

The charioteer is a loyal companion who comes quickly to rescue us from danger. While the warrior fights, the charioteer keeps the chariot slightly apart from the fray, helping the warrior make a hasty retreat. The charioteer's qualities are trustworthiness and loyalty.

Invoking the Qualities of Trustworthiness and Loyalty.

IF YOU ARE DRAWN TO THIS ORACLE, you are attracting loyal companionship and good counsel. Perhaps you are in a leadership role and you need discerning yet supportive feedback. Perhaps your endeavours are risky and you need cautious and discriminating advice. Perhaps your life is so out of control or in transition that you temporarily need to have a trustworthy person make decisions on your behalf. Perhaps it is sufficient just knowing that others are available to assist you, even if you rarely call on them. just talking things through with someone sincerely interested in your welfare can be greatly stabilizing and heartening.

A chariot and team of horses pull the sun across the sky. In the blessed isles, golden chariots seem to rise "with the tide towards the sun." The charioteer's art is to stand loyal to the champion in the heat of battle. Withdrawing the war chariot slightly apart from the fray, the charioteer stands ready to rescue the champion if the battle presses too dangerously. The charioteer's qualities are intense personal loyalty and trustworthiness, especially amid the fervour of turmoil and change.

The Celts were terrifying fighters, much feared by the Romans. Combining the swift movements of the calvary with two-wheeled war chariots, the chariots raced between the lines and harassed the enemy. The screaming of instruments, the howling of warriors, the rattle of chariot wheels, the neighing of horses, and the confusion were ghastly. Darting back and forth between the lines of comrade and foe, each chariot carried a warrior, charioteer, and weapons behind well-trained horses. Julius Caesar in De Bello Gallico ruefully bemoans the charioteers' skill. As the chariots veered close to the enemy lines, the warriors hurled spears at Roman soldiers and gouged them with swords. The warriors then jumped from the chariots to fight on foot while the steady charioteers remained with their chariots poised at a distance, ready to retrieve their masters safely from the fray.

The war chariot is readied for combat, the horses dressed and eager, and the warrior "warped" with the frenzy of the battle. The loyalty of the charioteer steadies the conflict. The charioteer casts a spell over the horses and his comrades-in-arms to disguise them and make ready their presence. From the Ulster Cycle, the story of the champion Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Ulster, and his charioteer, Laeg, epitomizes the loyalty and readiness of the charioteer:

"The sickle chariot, friend Laeg," Cúchulainn said, "can you yoke W" . . . The charioteer rose up then and donned his charioteer's war-harness ... of stitched deer's leather, light as a breath, kneaded supple and smooth not to hinder his free arm movements .. . his feathery outer mantle [and] his plated, four-pointed, crested battle cap.... To set him apart from his master, he placed the charioteer's sign on his brow with his hand: a circle of deep yellow like a single red-gold strip of burning gold shaped on an anvil's edge. He took the long horse-spancel and the ornamented goad in his right hand. In his left hand he grasped the steed-ruling reins that give the charioteer control. Then he threw the decorated iron armour-plate over the horses, covering them from head to foot with spears and spit- points, blades, and barbs. Every inch of the chariot bristled. Every angle and corner, front and rear, was a tearing-place."

The charioteer's great strength is his or her trustworthiness and readiness to help. The more stressed. your situation, the more important is reliable counsel and the loyalty of comrades and friends. Choose your confidants wisely, based on their personal qualities, and then seek their counsel, support, and assistance.