Hang him high. Terror tied by the feet. Awake 3am. What a terrible dream I had of my father hanged upside down. Am I awake. Nine swords glow above me. The Hypnogogic state can be deceiving. They merge in to a single wand. Fear is resolved and sleep is restored. Sadness may fade for a while.
My first thought is pints. Perhaps a drunken scene on a British street.
2. The Seven of Cups
Cornucopia. Plenty. Overflowing of goods and services.
3. The High Priestess
Nuns evoke repressed sexuality. “Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God.” Saint Theresa of Avila. I stumbled upon a photo of her getting shot in the heart and there was nothing left to decide.
The read
Drunkenness ruins many men. Let it then! Let seven cups of heaven rain upon your breast. Let the nipple drip then into my mouth. And let St Theresa take the arrow!
A fourth reading from the Gesamtkomödiewerke deck.
1. The Six of Wands
The RIder Waite centers around a boy on a horse. I don’t want to draw too many horses so opt instead for a boy standing with a halo and the remaining wands in the background.
2. The King of Wands
The king of wands obviously has the same phallic content as the king of swords but I need a way to distinguish it. I choose to use an obese man and found an image of a man on a tortoise which captures the lizard that we see in the Rider Waite deck.
3. The Eight of Swords
I love the Rider Waite card with a tied up woman and six swords stuck in the ground so I plan to largely reproduce that. The read
The read
The minor cocks! Six One Nine. Wands Wand Swords. Ride boy to your father and take your mates. He guards mother tied. Down with the patriarch. Spare nothing but give the world freedom!
Interestingly following yesterdays two of wands. To me it looks similar to the two of wands but further along a journey. I decided to largely base it on the Rider Waite deck but I enjoyed striking the wands at an angle.
2. Death
The mast card! Sein Zum Tode – being towards death. One of the big guns! Coffins. Skulls. Black. But I want it to be simple too. A black rose may be interesting. As a personal note it reminds me of dead family members. In particular two graves standing next to each other. I remembered in my school art class studying the body of Christ at an angle so decided to copy that image.
3. King of Swords
Phallus. The master signifier. There is much phallic imagery in the Tarot but surely we must use that here. I enjoy drawing the penis so will probably include it. Finally I thought a naked athletic man with a big penis and a sword fitted the title.
The read
A devastating set has been dealt. The present is the end. The end is the beginning. The past is the future. “The time is out of joint”. Death puzzles and confounds but also drives. The beautiful young man runs naked with his sword. Let the grasses be cut. Let the bodies shudder for the three are here.
This is the second in a set of readings that will build up a full deck and yield a new ordering that shall be called the !Gesamtkomödiewerke! read.
1. The Two of Wands
Typically associated with a decision of whether to stay or go. As the first card in this three it might represent my personal choice to leave England and more generally the call to adventure in the monomyth. Each wand may represent home and adventure with a globe to signify the possibility of travel. This leads neatly into…
2. The Knight of cups
The knight in Rider Waite is depicted travelling by horse. this seems clear to be the travel considered in the two of wands. This might be romantic adventure or literally travel. A knight on a horse is such a clear image I tempted to leave it as is or minimally change to riot police.
3. The Hierophant
Religious or cultural leaders might be reframed in modernity. Karl Marx said that ‘all critique begins with critique of religion’. One must however be careful to consider what constitutes the contemporary religion. The appropriate analogue of Christianity is not scientific cosmology but rather the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps Kevin Feige the president of Marvel Studios is our hierophant then.
The read
Ambition and curiosity set the stage for a journey. The globe of destiny challenges and is taken. We up and leave facing many troubles but the way leads to wisdom. The mage is a terrifying image of a wisdom too far. Grasp the opportunity but not too firmly.
This is the first in a series of Tarot readings that I am using to determine the order for drawing my own tarot deck. It was a three card past, present, future draw and was:
1. The Empress
The past was the empress. I recently read that a common reading of the Empress is as an important woman in your life and that the mother is the obvious choice. This yields a clear past as birth. My first thought was to use a vulgar anatomical design like the Nirvana In Utero cover. I also like the nipple spraying milk as in and the general Christian depictions of Mary as a universal mother. Pregnancy and babies were other obvious possibilities. When framed as maternal the card becomes almost too inspirational. The whole cannon of western and indeed world art opens up and one is in danger of becoming overwhelmed. As the first card to draw I am torn between a bold simple style and more ornate and complex design. This card births the whole set! The number three is also significant as the third card it has a very high rank and importance. The Trinity is an obvious reference and perhaps my favourite the impossible triangle should make an appearance. The science of reproduction and DNA is also a possible element. The Empress is also a figure of a powerful woman and somebody like Angela Merkel or Margaret Thatcher could be a reference. Can I resist the most obvious symbol of all, the vagina, as per Gustav Courbet’s L’Origine du monde?
2. King of Pentacles
The King seems in direct contrast to the preceding Empress. It occurs to me that it would be an interesting idea for my deck to have an idiosyncratic logic based on the random draw order. So that this becomes card two in the Gesamtkomödiewerke deck. I have largely reproduced the Rider Waite image as a minor arcana I didn’t feel I had much to add. I misspelt pentacles.
3. Temperance
Temperance is a clear indication of balance. Again I have largely reproduced the Ryder Waite image. There are many elements that I struggled to reframe in a new form. Actually by being less busy than The Empress I think the card has greater impact.
The read
Zero: the reading of readings. We begin in the primordial nothing and contradictorily the zero spits out a three that is the mother of the world. The three generates the first three. The obscene threesome of creation yields a coin. The abstraction of value is grasped by the King and made the King of abstraction. The abstract King stumbles out of balance and produces balance in turn.
