#2 again

 It's been a while, a long while. It's been some time since I painted this the first time. I liked it okay, then, but I can say, with some satisfaction that I've gotten a lot better.

A friend of mine, actually an old girlfriend, she got pretty steamed at me, about painting the Girlfriend as the High Priestess. As if I'd slighted or maligned the lofty station of the High Priestess with a lowlier appellation. This, to me, well. It's purely a mistake to look at the High Priestess as a symbol of feminine empowerment - at least so far as the contemporary ideas of empowerment are the ones in question. The High Priestess, you see, she doesn't have any excess of agency or authority either. That's not how religions work, especially ones with priestesses.

No, see, she's the Pythoness, the one you ask to ask the gods for you, since the gods like her and not you. At least, they like her more. She's the High Priestess, the one who asks, and is allowed to ask. This isn't so of most. The Magician, who precedes her - he's more impetuous, you see, he dares and demands without the intercession of a god or priestly hierarchy - he's out in the wilderness trying to bullshit his way to enlightenment. Meanwhile, the High Priestess, she asks, and nicely at that.

I go with the Girlfriend for her - because your girlfriend, she's the one you answer when she asks you a question, you don't evade or equivocate, you give it to her straight. More than that, you don't mind being asked. "What are we doing tonight? What's on your mind?" You don't mind answering when she asks, and maybe, probably, you really do mind when anyone else does.

So here's the girlfriend - who you ask about the phases of the moon (traditionally this is my blind spot in life, and traditionally I've had to rely on my girlfriend to tell me what is up with the moon) and to discern the will of heaven - just by asking. And what's more, you get her to be on your side by following the will of heaven. She's a good card, the one who you start with, who asks the questions for you.



I remember, I used to work with this lady. I think of it now, her boyfriend, he'd be at home from work and want a pizza, and he'd call her so she could call a pizza for him. He just couldn't deal with making phone calls for himself like that, so he needed her intercession. I feel like I've seen that more than once. The intercessory aspect of the High-Priestess/Girlfriend - right there.

I wrote, about this, a little, to try and illustrate the ideas here, somewhat.

“Christ Kid, I’m killing myself for you and I think you’re just trying to get put in prison, Christ, what are you even doing?”
The kid was not alright. The kid was basically a madman. He worked at the movie theater, after school but not most days, just sometimes. When he worked, he’d take cash from the till, he’d swipe candy from the displays, and he’d take people’s money and not charge them to get in. He was not just criminal, but reckless in his criminality. This was magnified by the pride he took in all of it. He had been bragging, the man from the bus had come back and he was bragging to him.
“Did you read anything I gave you? What are you trying to do?” The man wasn’t too happy. It was a surprise, all around that he’d returned, the boy wouldn’t have believed that he would. He thought of his encounter with the man on the bus as a single event, something not to be repeated. He’d almost not believed it happened, but after the strange reception of his prophecies in the stranger-still school, and after he’d broken in to the confidences and allegiances of others, he no longer ever felt vulnerable or afraid, he felt certain, but in an unearned way. He didn’t question things, he acted and impetuously at that. “You’re going to get yourself arrested with this nonsense, whaddaya thinking? Ah, you’re not thinking, you’re a dummy. Who’s this spoast to impress?”
“You aren’t impressed? Who cares then, what do you want from me?”
“Damn kid, I want you to get wise, wisdom, get me? That’s the goal, that’s where you’re spoast to be headed. This? Well. Gimme a ticket, I’ll see a movie and then we’ll talk again, I need to get my mind off this. What’s playing?”
“Dancing with Wolves.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright, I’ll see it. Wolves huh? Yeah, I’ll see it. Oscar winner, some damn reason.”
“They say it’s got a chance.”
“Yeah, that’s right, it might.”
“I read those books.”
“Knew you would, good kid. So what’s this other stuff? What’s on your mind with this?”
“I need money.”
“So’s everyone else, especially the police, the wardens, the judges…”
“So you think I should just put my nose to the grindstone and what, study? Get ahead?”
“Told you kid, wisdom, that’s the goal. I’ma go see this movie, I’ll tell you how it goes. After, we talk after.”
The movie was a long one and the kid’s shift was over before it ended, he didn’t feel badly about what the man had said, but he didn’t steal anything that day either. His girlfriend showed up to get him when she knew the shift was ending, she had a car.
“Oh, now I get it, Kid, you’re gonna set yourself up at the greybar hotel to impress this lady? Maybe I had you all wrong. She’s a gem, I can tell. Like her already.”
The man sat in the back of the car, a convertible, white, an old Mercedes, one of her father’s cast offs. She’d waited with it running and the radio blasting, the kid had asked her to wait and tried just a little to explain. “You know that day we met in school? How I, like, came alive? It’s cause of this guy I met, and he came back, today, so I want to talk to him, can he just come with us?”
She’d been game and eager, always nice to meet someone new and smart and mysterious. She wasn’t disappointed, the man was big and handsome and had a ferocious kind of competence about him, something present and intentional, something powerful. He got in and she started driving.
“Radio though, you gotta let that quiet down, if we’re gonna talk.” She turned it down and then clicked it off. “So you won the kid’s heart? Well, you’re not so bad, lemme look at you. Nah, I get it, good for him. So what do you see in him huh? That’s the question for the ages no? Kid like this, he’s a criminal mastermind, I bet… Hey kid you selling it, dealing it? What are you doing that’s gonna get you busted?”
“A little, man, just to friends.”
“A friend is a narc who ain’t got caught yet, always remember kid. True facts. That why you like him sweetheart? He’s got the stuff?”
“He’s got something, plus he knows the weirdest people.”
“Weird. Now I’m weird. Christ, what’s weird about me? Nothing, I’m a straight shooter, a citizen. Listen, if you want weird, look at this kid, with the religions, Christ. You still caught up in it? I guess not what with all the sin.”
The kid and the girl shake their heads all solemnly. “Figures, you’re too cool for school. Do they say that?”
“Yeah. Stupid though.”
“It’s stupid alright. Anyway, this kid, he’s a mess, you’re, what? About to be an adult and you like him, he’s young though, too young for you.”
“Compared to you old man?”
“Not like that, not that. Christ you’re made for each other I guess.”
“I read all those books you had him read, he didn’t read all of them but I did.”
“Good, good, I like you. What did you like best?”
“Demian.”
“Cool girl. So you like this kid? He’s got it in him, he don’t know it, and maybe he’s wasting his time on this bullshit, but he’s got in him to go all the way.”
“All the way where?” By now the kid just tried to act like he wasn’t embarrassed out of his mind. He let the two of them talk about him while he thought about how he’d argue with her about it later.
“Questions, you got questions?”
“I would if you had an answer, what are you, like, Jesus Christ? Do you always answer questions with questions?”
“Not always. For you, I got straight answers, but you gotta ask right.”
“Okay. Okay deal. What’s your name.”
“Kingtycoon. That’s what they call me where I’m from.”
“Where are you from?”
“The future.”
“How far into the future?”
“About 500 years.”
“Are you bullshitting me?”
“Yeah, a little, not totally, but a little. You wouldn’t understand, you ain’t wise yet, it takes wisdom.”
“What kind of books do they read in the future?”
“We read people then. Read them up and down, lives lived, we look at em like books and movies mashed into one.”
“So the kid’s a movie?”
“No, not him, not you either. But it could be. No, this is all too long ago.”
“So why are you here?”
“I wanted to meet you. I like it when you ask questions.”
“So what’s your name really?”
“Satan. El Diablo, Lucifer, The Devil. That’s how I go in this day & age.” He chuckles, the boy looks at him, the girl stares through the rearview mirror. “Pleased to meet you.”
“So where are you from really?”
“The past, the distant past.”
“Are you bullshitting now? You’re a fucking liar, and a creep.”
“Nah, you don’t get it, I’m words, language. You think, you think words. In the end they’re just schemes and ideas, novel interactions. You like chess? Probably you don’t. Music?”
“I like music.”
“See, you could put the notes together so many ways, they’d be any kind of sound, but only some of them would still be music, and then only some of them would make any sense or be any good. There’s infinities and then there’s the sweet infinities – where the jumble comes together and makes a pretty scene. You think you know it all, but there’s a rhyme to things that’s how it goes. There’s a rhyme just waiting to get made, a call and who’s to answer? See, I’m the poet.”
“I don’t see that at all.”
“You live one minute after the next is all. Didn’t see the story while you were in it, that’s how come you’re not wise. Anyhow, this is my stop, I get out here. It’s been sweet, you’re a doll sweetie, a real doll, too good for this kid – you come find me, if you’re interested, I know things, how to help you out, get you where you’re trying to get to.”
“What about me?”
“Stay out of prison, find a way to act right without being a pushover. I don’t care if you can act tough and be stupid. I wanna know you can act smart and be tough. Give it a shot, you probably noticed the difference.”
The man gets out of the car and the kid and his girlfriend drive off.

Still sticking with the Matthew Sweet though.