kingtycoon | Entries tagged with my own tarot

On today of all days I painted the Senator.

This is my version of Tarot #4 - the Emperor. Sure, sure, the Emperor. You know what? I prefer the imperial system, over the nation state? I say Empire. It's a better, maybe even more robust and correct version of organizing people. More humane. That's my position. Now. I grew up with Star Wars, a little movie you might have seen. The Emperor - he's the bad guy, and Senators are kind of good. Kind of. See this is America. Now I have to get upset and say some political things - for a minute-I just have to. Listen.

So you have representatives, and they're supposed to represent you! It's a whole thing, the Republic. But the thing is - I've noticed that politicians keep deferring to ideologies. Now - I hate ideologies, and by god you should too. You know why the person who represents you wants to talk up ideologies? Because they don't care about you at all, and by talking about pie-in-the-sky notions, they can trick you into thinking that they do. True Fact - if I were the representative for my congressional district - I would hold out, and hold out and hold out and cast tie-breaking, filibuster defeating votes for any bullshit that came across - anything at all - as long as thy would concede that my constituency was granted a $100,000 tax credit. There, job over, represented your interests. Gamed the stupid system and won - for you. Your representatives don't do this -because they do not have your interests at heart - at all. They will tell you some kind of libertarian claptrap about ideals - and that's because they won't do anything for you - at all. Ever. Anger over.

So aside from being kind of angry about politics - today of all days! I painted the Senator. Here's your guide to the iconography. The Emperor is Card 4 in the traditional tarot and it's the Emperor -the universal and maybe sublime father. As I've said - Emperor as a title sits uneasily - what with the nurturing ministrations of star wars. But Father, older, elder, system of governance, the world. Senator is a Roman way of saying 'old man' true fact- the Senex, from the latin for codger. Senators are supposed to be old men who are staid and steady, pillars of the status quo. So - since I like these things: Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood (ya heard!) I went with a democratic symbol of terrestrial dominion and antiquary patriarchy - the Senator. Senators are old men (overwhelmingly) - and they govern, they choose the world you live in. Heck, even if you aren't an american (on today of all days) the old Senate will govern your life in a meaningful way. These are the old guard. I... I'm not trying to make my Senator card a villain. I'm not, just today - it wants to be. I live in Ohio and we haven't had a decent Senator since Glenn returned to the stars. True fact.

So a symbol of terrestrial dominion, masterful excercise over the system of the earth and a patriarch- which, if you value Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood - you don't value or respect all that much - but the Old Guard. The Ancien Regime. The Senator fits the bill.

Now - old timey tarot will put the Emperor as a domnitor, a substitute for the All-Father. Now, this I get. I have a love of the WOTAN of the they Sky Father, the embodiment of childish desiring. Of a want for comfort. I'm a father in fact,and I tell you true- I give some thought to my activities and say: "What would Odin do?" Because Odin plucked out his own eye to see the motherfucking future. You can talk about divine sacrifices, but I am here to tell you that making your hand take out your own motherfucking eye is pretty much the winningest style. So... Okay a door slammed, and I'm... okay I was here. There is a power in the FATHER of all things - and that is something I want to touch and know and care about - not because I want that comfort - but because I want to emulate that strength and goodness. This is lost. There is a lot of talk about the villainy of patriarchy, and I feel - that this talk is fair, it's totally fair. But I also feel that there is a place a vital needful place for the potent, correct and Good Father. So there is that. I abided by convention and gave my Senator a little Col. Sanders Beard. Greying at the temples. And throw in a cane - to complete the iconography.

Or anyway approach completion. I painted the Senator's Cane and kept thinking of Preston Brooks (wikipedia is protesting, google for yourself - unless you're wise). Senators should all have canes, and maybe pistols. There's a strength in the world and in Democracy and maybe the best version of that is the Senator. It's only that when it all goes bad, when it's the worst that it can be -the Senator, the Emperor, the Father - he's the villain, he's Darth Vader, he's the bad-bad-man. Which is a turn. But interesting. First in greatness, least in deficiency. That's my Senator.

I topped it, you know, with the goat-head. Capricorn you know - pretty satanic right? I didn't mean for the excess of Satanism. True story though - I think this is one of the better paintings I've painted. I thought hard about casting the whole thing in the shadow of the Goat-Head- but resolved instead to replace the anthropomorphization of democratic ideals with a terrible goat head. Because it's relevant to the esoteric symbolism - but also Creepy As Hell. So while you contemplate sinister goat-heads - look at this:

And... Continuing. I am not feeling awesome today - I was saying that I think the daily weather that lately encompasses all of the seasons every 24 hours is a monumental test. The Sky has gotten bored of just freezing us out every year and now we're being tested to see if we can bear the whole world's cycle every day - and if we can we'll deserve a spring. As it is, kinda sick today. Still, I have things to do, so I do them, sickness being a slight inconvenience and no object to the tasks at hand.

Today I get up to the Major Arcana #3 - which in my construction is the Schoolteacher. So here's my explanation.

The Empress is supposed to be universal fecundity, female ripeness, the mother of all. I kind of hate this idea. The whole cult of the mother - as it has been redefined by the Victorians and their followers - it's just grotesque and patriarchal. Don't get me wrong - I think it can come from a right place. I think the paleolithic humans who had no concept that sex was the origin of people - I think that they might have had an authentic cult of the mother. But in the modern context - I think it is gross. Motherhood is fine, but it's not emblematic of nurturing and care - just ask my mother - Or yours (Your Mom). And uh... tasteless jokes aside - I thought about a figure of constancy and nurturing, that brings you into the world. Really into the world. Sure - life. Life we won't denigrate and we won't speak against motherhood here. But who trains you to be in the world? Who gives you that life in society? In the world of thought? I went with the Schoolteacher as an emblem of this idea. That you are born, but not a person, that you are trained into the patterns of the world and that is you becoming a person. Because I want my #3 to be more terrestrial, more rooted in the Mundus. That's suggested by other interpretations - and heck - in the old form the Universal Mother gives physical form to souls - it's the translation of the ephemeral into the physical.

Since I almost default to materialism I put the Schoolteacher as the one who translates you from the physical to the intellectual - the self of knowledge. But this knowledge is kind of rigid - in the way that physicality is rigid. You die if you don't eat, you die if you don't breath - there are boundaries of life. So too in the intellectual training you get at school. You are bounded.

Abandoning the idea of universal motherhood - I was as well allowed to play fast and loose with gender - I guess I went all ambiguous - but to me the Schoolteacher is a lady - but I'm satisfied that it can be interpreted any way you want. She carries the ruler - which demonstrates the rigidity of ideas, an inch a meter -these are concepts that have a physical reality that is arbitrarily decided, but decided, defined and (insofar as is possible) absolute. The Schoolteacher doesn't make the rules, she teaches you the rules so you know. Attendant to the Ruler is the feather of Ma'at - the ancient ruler/measure/weight against which your character is judged. The Schoolteacher - the Schoolteacher judges you. Not whether you are bad or good - not what kind of person you are -but rather whether you are ready to begin the next phase of being a person. Whether you are ready to move forward. She has a lot going on - gatekeeper for the many. Nurturer and trainer of the world.

A couple of other things about the Schoolteacher that I've painted. Rider-Waite gives the Empress an ugly frock covered in Pomegranates (again! Again with the pomegranates!) They are meant to evoke, in his illustration, the goddess Persephone. This is an idea about seasons - which was the first thing to suggest the Schoolteacher to me. Aside from farmers and snow-plow operators I guess that Teachers are probably the most affected by the seasons - so incorporating ideas about seasons suggested the schoolteacher as an image. Still -the ugly pomegranate dress doesn't really refer to anything except mythology - it's just a goony costume that the Empress wears in a kind of fandom of greek myth. So true to form I made my schoolteacher goony and fannish and gave her Mr. Spock's jersey.

And right the Schoolteacher is giving you a system for understanding things. The Schoolteacher prepares you to exist in the world, not to be correct, exactly, but to understand the System, and to take a place in it. Another cue I had for choosing the schoolteacher was the 3rd Hexagram that the Duke of Zhou decided on - Difficulty at the Beginning - which I have sadly cast too often and never been happy to see -but which is also very suggestive of school, a beginning, a difficult one. For me anyway.

The empress is also supposed to be crowned with 12 stars - and that's... 12. Okay - tribes of Israel? Months? The Zodiac? I'm just going to put the stars up there - they probably mean months. But the Schoolteacher isn't wearing a crown. No.

I'm putting in Malkuth in there - because I like the idea - hermetic and kabbalistic - just to have them as referents.

And I include the Rivers - that appear in a few versions of the Empress card because I thought there should be a reference to Water - which the Empress is not closely associated with but there's an indication that the Schoolteacher has governance, or at least manifests the governance of the waters according to System.

So altogether this has been kind of a departure - but I like the 3rd and the difficult beginning as the place where momentum shifts, and the new begins. I learned a lot from teachers -but I learned also to go on my own and not thoughtlessly obey the common system.

Current Mood: Lightly Feverish

That's right! While you slept and watched football and did whatever else it is that people do - I continued painting. Here's my second Tarot image. #2 The Girlfriend. Now this one was a little simpler - there's not a lot of complicated metaphorical imagery in the old version. Evidently in ancient and continental versions of the deck this was the Popette. Lady Popes are sure interesting sure, but who even knows what it would mean that there's a Popette? I'm not catholic or even religious. If the Pope was a lady? It doesn't mean anything to me - he might even be a lady or be smooth down in his genitals - doesn't matter a bit to me, the Pope is the King of a bunch of people that I don't know or deal with too much. Like the King of England or Siam - I never held too much with Kings. Gods either - so the Popess doesn't pop for me, it's untranslatable.

Now - those tatty victorians they took the idea of the Popette and turned it to their purposes - and made her the High Priestess. Priestesses smoke a lot of grass yo. All day long, high as hell. Hah, but I kid. Really the High Priestess is about sexual license. She's a pagan! She's with all those Pomegranates! The Moon! There's gross victorian metaphor all throughout the Rider-Waite that suggests the high priestess is a lady who will do sex with you! Before you are married to her even! So... abandoning the clumsy-ugly suggestions of Victoriana (I'm looking at your creepy ass Brahm Stoker) - you end up with a nice girl, who embodies compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness and the beginning of an adventure - so I make this, in my life, and in the world of today - to mean The Girlfriend.

Hey! Yeah, check her out, but not too close, I'm only just learning how to paint people - this is only the 2nd or 3rd person I've ever painted in fact. Not too shabby. Protip - Couches are way harder to paint than a lady. So here she is. She's got her nice blue dress on, her hair all done up, she's compassionate and thoughtful, she's sitting there saying- "well, hey, if you want to go out we should go out and do something, but if you want to stay here and make out on this couch and eat pomegranates - that's cool baby." Because the Girlfriend Rules. She's up for adventure but nice times too. I kept the pomegranates - not to suggest the lady-genitals (as filthy Rider-Waite does) but because I know a lot of girls that like Pomegranates. She's got that one, she'll share it with you. Or is it a weird-gross intimation on my part that the Girlfriend wants you to do oral on her? Nah - these are current times - if the Girlfriend wants you to do oral to her she will say so. Probably in a nice way. But hey, while you think about it - have a pomegranate.

She's got her pocketbook too (not too hard to paint at all) and sticking out of it is the Opera playbill. Are you at the Opera? Did you go there together? Did you meet there and she just keeps it as a memento? See the old timey Tarot wants the High Priestess to carry a scroll that says TORA on it - but if it comes to magic words - there's one I like best and that's the Alchemist's term for the unity of all arts - OPERA. So there.

On the Pillars it says B&J which I always find to be kind of comical - the High Priestess is stoned as fuck and offers Blowjobs. Nice work Rider-Waite! Nice work. Really the B&J has a masonic/kabalistic element to it - something to do with Solomon's Temple. Fine. I'll keep the B&J but just because it's also a joke - one the Girlfriend laughs at as well. She's pretty cool about stuff.

And just check out those Pomegranates will you? Perfect, I know, I can barely contain my constant success and correctness. I started adding in the I-Ching Hexagrams because of how I do what I want. It's interesting that the first hexagram is all boy and the second is all girl - and the first of the Tarot is the idiomatic Masculine and the second is the Hyperreal feminine. Not that either of these or the Hexagrams really reflect my experience of Man/Woman - but making the distinction - as in- that's the obvious and first distinction people make - Mom v. Dad - who is who? Maybe going forward I'll mess around with these roles and stuff - to be true to the times I live in - but for the first two - I'm content with the time-honored baseline. I also wanted to show the ancient symbol being overgrown - as in - it's old and why are you looking at that anyway? You're girlfriend is right there! You guys should go someplace together. Take her someplace nice.

Current Mood: Snowed Upon

By now you may have fallen on the wrong side of fate and found out that I can almost paint a picture. Nah, I can totally paint a picture, all the way through. I'm not the worst at painting either! Maybe 5th or 6th worst - but not the worst. I also have a bit more than a passing interest in divination. The contemporary landscape demands that you qualify such interests, so here goes that: Intuition and Induction my friends. You see and hear a whole lot more than you know, and in your dreams you put it all together in novel and inconceivable ways, and from dreams you have inspirations, and from inspirations you have the whole wide world. My point is just that, if I have to justify my interest in magical and esoteric stuff to you - I'm very disinclined to do so* - but if you really want an explanation, I'll tell you that it's correct to train yourself to perceive your circumstances in a metaphorical light, and that you should work constantly to erode the barrier between your dreamlife and your waking world.

So here's a way that I have decided to do that, and to get (maybe slightly) better at painting pictures. I decided that this year a project I would carry out would be making my own Tarot. Starting with the 1 in the first place I commenced today painting the first of the major arcana. Note to you who are weird about these things - and by weird I mean, reverential or easily drawn into the rigor common in religious and esoteric clubs - I Do What I Want and so I start with #1 and skip #0 for the moment - plenty of time to get to the fool.

So there it is #1 the Salesman. Traditionally the #1 has been the Juggler or the Mountebank (if you're french enough) later on the Thelemites swapped the stage magic for the idea of Tony-Robbins style Personal Power and ended up with the Magician. Now what I have seen in the world and what I know about secret societies and religions is this - if you can persuade people that your average street performer is a personally empowered demigod - you've perpetrated a cunning act of salesmanship. One of the best. Salesmanship man. Persuading the rubes that you can heal by faith, that you have the innate power, the voice of god, the magic tablets, the ten commandments - that's the alchemy right there - turning falsehoods and petty ambitions into Reality. Plenty of con-men have drawn followings, and sometimes those followings go on to do amazing things. Like found nations, religions, put people on the moon. That kind of thing. Turning ideas into reality is pretty much magical, so my magician, the magus for the moment is the Salesman.

Here's a little guide to the Imagery - if you need it. First off - the yellow background and the flowering plants? Stolen straight out of Rider-Waite - because hey, sure, and also - I am terrible at painting feet/shoes. Next you have the folding table and the laptop. He's got that folding table, standing in the weeds because he can give his pitch anywhere. A good pitch - if you haven't heard one before, is like an incantation, it'll bring you on board, it'll draw you in, it is a kind of power. He can perpetrate his pitch any old time, any old place, standing in the weeds at the old folding table. He has his power point presentation as well- useful for the sales-minded. On his Power-Point? The Hermetic Elements - cause after all, dude is still related to the old guard, Trismegistus and all that. Now, understand, I struggled mightily with settling on the hermetic elements, I thought very hard about switching to the 17 elements in Pokemon - but I don't think I can paint 17 elements in a 3"x3" space - and besides, it's still weird to me that Normal is an elemental type.

Next up you've got him eternally juggling the suits- "the infinity sign is just an 8!" you protest. You know what? it isn't. It's on it's side - why? Because that's the way it goes. Now he's juggling the suits, he can bring one out at any time, the one that'll persuade you most. He's like a politician, he can be patrician and condescending, he can be earthly and common, he can be an erudite true believer. Now, I've changed the old suits to suit me. First off - Cups, kept the same, but it doesn't mean much about Clergy now.

I put in the starbucks cup because honestly, I doubt there's a more recognizable kind of cup, and what's more, I think that the hospitality industry and the daily drugging we all take substitutes well for the medieval church. Well enough anyhow. The cup is also water, it is also compassion, in the way that the barista knows what you want and has it ready for you before you order, because you are a regular and you have attained coffeehouse absolution.

Next up is the 2nd Estate - which in the past was the nobility, represented by the Spade or the Sword. I live in a democracy where power comes from legislators, that is, people who write, so I put a picture of my favorite kind of pen to substitute for the sword. There's that old chestnut about the pen and the sword as well - I just know that the ruling classes rule with a pen and not a sword, and if I subbed in a gun for a sword I'd have to acknowledge soldiers, cops and gun enthusiasts and knights of some kind - which I will never ever do. So the Sharpie Pen.

After that the Pentacles are obviously replaced by Bucks. Maybe eventually and later I'll get into it about gold and fiat currency and dollars and whatever currency isn't dollars. For now Money will substitute for Money - the urban classes, commerce and civilization. All there, all at the Salesman's disposal.

Then? See, you're supposed to put in Clubs, or the Rod - to mean the farmers. This was the hard one for me, but then I reasoned, everything else is something you carry with you, something you have on you that makes you capable of having your day. You need a pen, your coffee, some money, you also need a phone. You can leave your house without keys anymore, but you dare not go out without your phone. The phone, the smartphone - also substitutes nicely as it suggests the content-creator, the people behind the internet, who are a kind of farmer, farmers of ideas? Well, if you believe that I've got a car to sell you! And a bridge you can drive it on.

The Salesman. Learn to emulate his confidence, initiative and personal power, learn to give the pitch, to say things that are compelling, to draw the congregations, to pull in the swing voters.

* Okay, I'll give you this explanation. My friend said 'why would you believe in ghosts!?' All stressed that I might, I said 'Because it makes my life better to believe in them.'

Current Mood: None, or other.

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kingtycoon

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Entries tagged with my own tarot

#4 teh $enator

#3 The Schoolteacher

Tarot #2 Electric Tired Out Joke

Part 1 in some other number in a series