I'd like to see you try and stop me

So #15 is traditionally - THE DEVIL! Maybe you're spooked of the Devil? Maybe not, I bet you can tell what kind of a person you are if you are or aren't. That's my opinion. Well, that's an aspect of my opinion, there's actually rather a lot to it. Why not explore? Yes lets!

So in some ancient forms the Devil is representative of temptation, think of Christ being tempted in the wilderness for example - the Devil appears and tries to get Christ to act all wrong and then Christ resists. The Devil also appears and tempts Job - "Curse God and Die!" The Devil tempts. Kind of a weird thing to tempt a person to - hopelessness? I can see that, hopelessness is a real vice.

Over time this figure changes into a manichean opposite of god, goes from the Adversary meant to tempt creation into an enemy, possibly even on equal footing, the Devil, to be opposed, thwarted, tossed in the lake of fire. Now this is probably the more familiar of the Devils you've heard of and the Tarot kind of works from that, and it kind of mentions the older meaning too. The Devil represents Vice and the temptation to vice. And this... This is representative of a worldview that may prevail, but I'd say not by many. The idea here is that there is a force that tempts you to the wicked actions - this force is purely malevolent and wants to doom you. Now - I don't buy that. That there is a dark force that turns your hand and heart to wickedness - well I don't deny that. But we're talking about dualism and soul/mind/body divisions - I'm not exactly going that way. It's not a dark spiritual force that tempts you to wickedness - is what I am saying.

Rather, the Devil represents the dooming component of human existence - which is our frailty. Our physical frailty specifically. The Devil represents a kind of arrogance, in my mind, that there is a special force that rules over evil and compels you to evil action. Vice is maybe its own temptation, but I theorize something else.

For example. I see the people driving their $100,000 cars in my neighborhood and you know, I daydream about robbing them, I totally do. Because I want money. Which is gross! But here's the thing - the wolf is at the door, the menace is in the world, there are menacing forces that would drive me to do such things. Or maybe you've grown too attached to someone, you'd rather they were dead than without you, or you're menaced by another who looks to outcompete you, or you've got a vague anxiety that the person you are with is going to be the last person to love you, the last person to touch you. You can have these fears and they'll tempt, tempt or drive you to vice. I don't suggest that people have any innate wickedness but that their fragility predisposes them to it. Not a fall of man - but the story of the fall of man kind of sums this up. The immortal and invincible person is of course the good guy - there is no danger that he faces.


This of course doesn't allow for mad-dog killers and the sort. Serial murderers and ladies that execute their babies in bathtubs. Genuinely I don't think those people are wicked, I think they are probably very crazy and that is sad.

So the Wolves. The wolf is kind of the same as the person - pack hunters, tribal and so forth. We're similar in our ecological neighborhood. But the wolf, you know, they have a few million years of adaptive advantage over us, they're more capable, dangerous - they're more effective and less fragile. They're a paradigm of human fear, a good marker of human frailty. The wolves at the door, the danger that waits lurking. Man is a wolf to other men - the big bad wolf- it comes up and hasn't faded imagery wise.

The wolf means another thing too though.

The beneficence of human genius. Cause the dog is a wolf and it's our best friend. Not mine you understand, but I get it - a dog, you can get somewhere with a dog, it is the primordial danger and fear turned on its head, made a tool. A useful tool to turn against our other predators, other people included. It's a sign that this fragility, while it tempts us to dark deeds - is also a tendency that can be mastered. The frailty endemic to the human condition, that creates the human condition, it can be snatched away and have its nature changed. Because we're better than the world, we can solve the puzzle of biology and darkness and primordial fear.

In the end I think I'm better at painting that photography, or maybe my camera is poor, or maybe my lighting is crummy, anyway, this one is (and take my word for it) nicer than it looks. But it's also pretty complicated and hard to explain. It was hard to think about too.

Here's the image I was going off of. You notice that it's #11 in the Waite deck - but that's to do with Astrology and I honestly haven't included any astrological themes so far, I don't know if I will. Astrology is cool and all, I won't speak against it exactly - but this is my deck and it's all about the Wasteland and my experience and I don't see a lot of stars in my city. When I do - I don't recognize them, so Astrology is out. But Justice is often enough and traditionally the 8th card. So I started thinking about Justice.

This wasn't awesome for me - it turns out that I don't really value justice as a virtue. True fact, I think of Justice as being fairly regressive as a quality - right up there with Honor. It is altogether worse to have Justice than it is to have something else, that Justice, conceptually, negates. This was just a feeling I had, a sense, but I wanted to understand it so I did a little studying. What is Justice? I looked into it and thought about it a lot. In the end I concluded that Justice is a concept in the West that is based on principles of Natural Law - which I do not condone. Life-Liberty-Property - okay? Sure you have these rights? Except that no. No, that's a purely western and I think, reckless construction. Now in that state where you have those natural rights, then Justice is a significant concept because you're constantly going to be in conflict with other people. Your liberties and properties, maybe even your life is always getting on the toes of everyone else's life liberty and property. So you have to have a system of justice to figure things out within the paradigm. You with me so far? So I thought and thought about what that all means - and I couldn't get anywhere. Locke is, fine I guess, Tabula Rasa.... hey man, if you say so. But people who know me know I tend to hold with Hobbes, a little more. And after looking into Utilitarianism etc... I found that I liked Hobbes a little better in terms of his ideas about Justice.

So this image was very informative for me. The Leviathan, the state, the power of the overwhelming giant-king. See? I put it in there too. Giant menacing kings.

At this point though - the symbolism kind of spoke to me. The sword- my sword is the Sharpie Pen - the pen being the sign of political stakeholders (i.e.: Legislators) and intellectualism (i.e.: Me and you). So a pen, he's got that big pen? Sure, I get it. And the little village, heck I like that little village, that speaks to me.

But what's my idea here? What's my thought? What is the concept I'm trying to convey that will eventually have a mythic and mystic connotation when removed from this (overwrought) context?

So I consult the I-Ching, and it's showing me Hexagram #8 - Holding Together - Union So I had it. The union of people. From there some of the imagery came. Now - I'm kind of happy that I paint these things without a plan or special insight, and maybe I'm doing a lot of after-the fact rationalizing. but look.

Here's the little village in the valley with the wall of bricks in a ring. The Bricks. Unity - apart, alone? What's a brick? Together they make the strong wall that holds the predatory giant king at bay. More than that they're a ring, it's a ring - the union of lovers, the sanctioned, unbreakable union. Together - together and united the little village in the valley is not menaced by the king, he may prey upon them, but together they resist his overwhelming strength, force him to reconcile, to wait. His pen, the law, his official strength, it looms over the village but the walls are strong. The roads - the roads join together, all unity of the hill. There are the terraced little farms on the hillsides
in the image of hexagram #8 - they're common, together, the road leads to the safety of the village where they are joined together into the one road.

But what about this guy?

This shirtless little weirdo? Well, this came about. Honestly this was a hard painting to paint. I had ideas, but couldn't make them come together, I actually erased and repainted it a few times. But I kept having this other hill. And I thought - it's got to mean something, and the menacing king. Look - Justice, conceptually - is delivered by an overwhelming power - in our society justice is handed down from the court, it is decided by the bureaucracy. There is an element of inequality inherent in systems of justice - of all vs. all within the concept of Natural Law. So this shirtless little madman represents that - the idea of the individual claiming his rights, challenging the power of the king. He stands atop the other peak and is not effectual, not against the power of the giants. He carries his own pen, trying to go to the battle, thinking that it is a swordfight. See, he's undone already, he has contended according to a lopsided system that automatically doesn't favor him. He is aggrieved and considers Justice to be something he deserves, but that he must fight for. Because Justice has within it that quality of inequity. So there is the little village, that is untroubled by the predation of the great, because in communion the many have the power to resist. So... Commonwealth.

I suppose I should note that these cards, these ideas flow out of one another, into one another - there's an organism being made. $6 Satisfaction leads to a journey - the journey requires the #7 Infrastructure, which suggests the unity of action, but is also a destination for the querent - #8 the Commonwealth.

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.