O Crown of Light, O Darkened One, I never thought we’d meet. You kiss my lips, and then it’s done: I’m back on Boogie Street.
The Lover/L’Amoureux has typically been interpreted as Hercules (Herakles) at the Crossroads, or an emblematic representation of the choice between vice and virtue. Other theories abound – that the young man is choosing between an older and younger woman, or the older woman is bequeathing her daughter. It’s been debated, also, whether the word is singular or plural. [Answer: singular, although it can also be used as plural.] Here it most likely refers to the central character; ‘the loving one’, ‘the amorous one’, ‘the lover’. But the triad is also important.
While these explanations are adequate, if we want to know what lies beneath the surface, we must, as always, pay attention to the details in this version of the card, which are ‘hidden in plain sight.’
Visconti-Sforza Love ca 1450 and Charles VI Lovers ca 1475-1500.Love (fragment) Cary Sheet, ca 1500.
First, let’s look at the Visconti-Sforza and Charles VI cards, which offer few, but relevant clues. The V-S depicts the actual people for whom the deck was commissioned, Bianca Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza, who were married in 1441 to unite the Visconti and Sforza families. This has nothing to do with the eventual TdM theme, except that it may have been inspired by Tristan and Isolde (very popular in Italy at the time), also likely the subject of the Cary fragment. In the legend, Tristan is delivering Isolde to a king to be married, but the two of them drink a love potion en route and tragic, ‘courtly love’, ensues.
Death of Tristan and Isolt, Rogelio de Egusquiza, 1910
In the Charles VI card, a pair of very determined cupids shoot at three pairs of courtly lovers below. Two of the men on either side clasp their hearts, while the one in the middle can’t contain his passion for his lady. That’s what it was all about – Eros had 0 to do with marriage.
The claw-footed Love, from Documenti d’Amore by Francesco da Barberino, ca 1315.
The Charles VI card recalls the imaginings of the early Renaissance poet and Giotto contemporary, Francesco da Barberino, who “deliberately inverted” love’s personification, emphasizing Cupid as the son of Mars and changed his image from “a personification of Divine Love to a personification of illicit Sensuality” by removing his blindfold.*
The connection to erotic love (Eros) and death is becoming established, and the card becomes less about marital love in the general sense. Much too dull for theatre, darling.
The Lovers, Anon. Tarot of Paris, ca 1650.
The Anonymous Tarot of Paris (ca 1650) gives us our first clue as to the French tradition. The amorous man holding in his arms a resigned, but not altogether unwilling woman might be modelled on Pluto and Persephone. The engraver has managed to convey much in her downward gaze, as if the man’s saying, ‘Come live with me, reign as my Underworld Queen!’ and she’s having an inner conflict, ‘Do I really want to go live down there…forever??’ Think of all the young women who must have felt this way through the centuries, marrying men they hardly knew, often far from home. The story of Bluebeard takes this very rational fear to its extreme.
Winslow Homer, ‘What she sees there’ from Bluebeard.
In ancient Greco-Roman times, love was rarely, if ever, the basis for marriage. A bride would effectively ‘die’ to her own family, transferred as property from father to husband, and would from here on have to worship at the altar of his family ancestors. Because it would be insulting to her own ancestral gods if she abandoned them willingly, a ‘faux’ kidnapping a la Pluto and Persephone had to be enacted, which is where the tradition of ‘carrying the bride over the threshold’ comes from. She has to pretend it’s not her own choice, that she was stolen!
Pompeii fresco featuring the abduction of Persephone.
In actual fact, Persephone (‘bringer of destruction’, ‘bringer of death’, aka the ‘Iron Queen’) was already an Underworld ruler for a long time before the Hellenized myth, and the TdM card is perhaps faithful to this. Before Persephone’s abduction and while she’s above ground, she is called ‘Kore’ (‘maiden’), and as part of the Underworld Goddess triad with Demeter and Hecate, she’s also the ‘maiden’ to mother and crone. Her priestesses were called ‘kores’ (masc. ‘kouros’) and it’s possible that initiation involved ritual marriage with one, ie, ‘marrying death’, so that later, ‘death’ in the form of a beautiful, young, underworld partner awaited the initiate when the time came to cross that threshold. Nobody knows for sure.
Sculpture of a Kore
The connection to Persephone in Tarot of Paris becomes more honed and specific in the TdM card.Here, it is the man who some would assume is having to make a choice. He looks toward the woman wearing a crown of leaves or fronds, while his arms point toward the woman wearing a crown of flowers. The Pierre Madenié 1709 version makes it perfectly clear what kind: Narcissus, the flower Persephone was said to have been picking when she was snatched by Pluto. Further, if we look carefully at the halo around Eros above, in the Conver (type 2) versions, it is visibly skull-shaped. This can hardly be a printing mistake.
Pierre Madenié [type 2] 1709 (Yves Renaud) and orig. Jean Dodal [type 1] c 1701-15.Not convinced? Alright, let’s turn to Dodal (type 1). It is difficult to make out the details of this somewhat ‘cubist’ Eros, but we if we examine closely, we see that his bow is also the handle of a jagged scythe or sickle (maybe a mix of both), which is an attribute of Demeter, as well as Kronos-Saturn, sixth planet-god from the Sun (ancient ‘end of the line’). So we can deduce that, in the esoteric sense of this card, the young man stands between Demeter and Persephone. He could be an initiate, who, after having undergone the ritual would have been referred to as one of the ‘olbioi’, meaning ‘blessed’ ‘blissful’ or ‘fortunate’ – ie, no longer fearing death. He looks kind of blissful…
Reconstructed fragment of ‘The Great Eleusinian Relief’ 27 BC-14 AD (MET) and sarcophagus detail from 2nd c (Louvre) depicting Triptolemus with Demeter and Persephone. [please click image for more details]Central to the Eleusinian Mysteries was the hero Triptolemus, frequently depicted in the same setting, standing between Demeter and Persephone. He was the first initiate, who received from Demeter the knowledge of the grain; ie, the art of agriculture, the cycles of which also held the secrets of death and rebirth (metempsychosis). The Demeter cult was first and foremost an agricultural one.
(Syracuse in Italy, that is).
An ear of golden grain [barley, sometimes referred to as ‘corn’, though actual maize would not reach Europe until 1492] can be seen in the very first card. The Fool also has a similar shape dangling from his belt, though in this case I think it’s his passport – a leaf-shaped, gold, Orphic tablet. But anything gold, especially if flame-shaped, generally has to do with fire and the eternal, ever-resplendent spirit.
[click pic for more details]Honey, the liquid gold of nature’s tiny agriculturalists has been used to anoint and in libations since ancient times. (‘Christos’ means ‘anointed one’). This is, after all, the 6th card, and the hexagram of the apis has 6 sides. Astute TdM lovers will recall that the type 2 Queen of Money (Reyne de Denier) has a bee/beehive staff and her crown resembles a honey comb. This raises the question, are the ‘coins’ actually coins? Or are they phailes (libation dishes)?
Conver (type 2) and Dodal (type 1) Queen of Coins (Are those pine cones on her crown?)‘Spolia’ featuring ritual objects from temple of Demeter at Eleusis, repurposed on ‘Little Metropolis’ church in Athens: torches with poppies (baton), libation phaile (coin), incense burner (cup) and bucranium of sacrificed ox (sword). The crosses above are meant to ‘baptize’ and thereby neutralize the pagan imagery.
We should not be too rigid about naming precisely which mystery cult the cards might be pointing to, as the imagery seems to draw from several traditions as well as being mytho-alchemical. But the Eleusinian and Bacchic cults were inter-related, and one needn’t throw a stick far in ancient Greek myth to find some hero or heroine transgressing death in search of a loved one or sacred object and returning twice born and wiser or crazier for it. Dionysus, the Greek Osiris, was closely associated with alchemy, because his crop of expertise was the grape, and wine-making involved the essential fermentation process, from the blackened soil to the distillation of spirit. The long-haired Lover is certainly Dionysian, as his popularity with the ladies shows. To me it looks like they might be undressing him.
Isis and Nephthys preparing their beloved Osiris for his Underworld travels, Conver Lover card, fresco of an initiate from Tigran Tomb, Alexandria (note the Orphic eggs).
Worth a mention here is the similarity between the woman on the left of the Conver card with the Valet of Batons. Might this suggest a link to the Dionysian ritual phallus, or, to the club of Hercules, weighted/pulled toward the Underworld, while the young man looks ahead? Is he drawing up some chthonic energy, or, like the Juggler (prototype of the Valets), is he too young and inexperienced to recognize its ritual significance? Instead, maybe he’s using it to measure true, astronomical and visible horizons, with the intention of building a temple to his god…a Herculean task, surely.
Valet of Batons and detail from Lover cardRuins of Dionysus temple at Delos, Greece
Hercules had to become an initiate in order to go kidnap Cerberus, the three headed hound of Hades, as his final labour. So if this card does relate to him, he’s likely not at the crossroads choosing between two women, but at the crossroads of the upper and lower realms, receiving initiation from two goddesses. In the next card, the newly-anointed, golden-crowned hero is in a liminal state, his lower half having descended into a square-shaped (matter/earth/Saturn) Chariot that is at least partly fixed to the ground (in type 2), resembling something funerary.
Don’t strain yourself thinking to hard, Herc! Engraving by Giulio Romano, 16th c
Eros, son of Aphrodite, was said to be able to overpower all the heroes, for love really does wipe out fear of death (Thanatos) and the loss of a love is akin to dying. I’ll be entertaining/tackling this topic further, from a different horizon, in an upcoming post about the Sun card. Stay tuned!~rb
So come, my friends, be not afraid. We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear.
***
Credits:
*Shelly MacLaren, “Or guarda tu …desta donna la forma”: Francesco da Barberino’s Poetic and Pictorial Invention (Dissertation)
Lyrics from ‘Boogie Street’ by Sharon Robertson/Leonard Cohen
The Devil is a conceptual chameleon that has evolved alongside us every step of the way, and on which the literature is exhaustive. This article focuses on the ‘classic’ Tarot de Marseille Devil (above), an image which alone contains enough riddles for a whole book; What’s that he standing on? Is that water in the background? Why does he take that pose? What is on his head? Why is he wearing a blue wetsuit? It turns out these are not simple questions to answer and the mystery is sure to remain after this honourable attempt to scratch the surface of his enigma. Tarot de Marseille (TdM) is unique, in that the images are not always what they seem, yet clues are often hiding in plain sight. All is speculative. Resistance is futile. So, ready to dive in?
[Please click on any images to zoom and for more info.]
Holkham Bible 14th c, Histoire de Merlin, 15th c, Cary Devil, 16th c
The last image in the row above is a fragment of the earliest (supposedly) TdM type Tarot we know of, the Cary Sheet, ca 1500s. Although the Cary is thought to be a prototype for the classic format, its Devil does not provide us with one. Rather, this ‘puppy-face’ demon is spearing souls to collect in his basket. Krampus comes to mind, but he wasn’t really incorporated into the christian tradition until much later. He may have older, pagan roots, but his back-pack for souls is based on medieval Devil imagery, not the other way around.
The first, true TdM type Devils we have examples of (Noblet and Dodal, below), are from quite a bit later, so it’s not clear whether they are the actual prototypes. Nevertheless, it’s what we’ve got. One can’t help but notice a resemblance to the Minoan double axe/butterfly goddess, with those wings. Or maybe Psyche, again eluding to ‘soul.’ Perhaps the Cary Devil’s basket was a cocoon for his next incarnation, and that of his larval captives.
Mycenaean butterfly goddess 1500 bc and Psyche from a relief 2 bcEarly TdM Devils, Jean Noblet (1650) and Jean Dodal (1701)
In the early Middle Ages, when the Devil we know was just getting his mojo on, he was depicted as a somewhat comical character – lusty, bestial, mischievous – but not yet overtly sinister. Sometimes he’s the butt, getting clobbered by the Virgin Mary. Often he mimics or tempts holy men. Similarly, in TdM he stands in a power pose, lolling, as if mimicking a deity or preacher. A relationship between the TdM Pope (5) and Devil (15) is suggested by the number they share (5), that of the bodily senses.
The image below, though 15th c, is a good example of Devil as a kind of pope’s ‘Fool’. We can still see remnants of Pan, even though he now has acquired demonic characteristics courtesy of various feminine entities; bird talons (harpies, lilitu), belly face (Baubo and/or the ‘belly-speaking’ Pythia of Delphi). Additionally, the number 15 was sacred to Ishtar, and represents the height of Lunar power (‘full’ phase), while 5 belongs to Venus (same planetary goddess).
Donkey-eared anti-pope, Master of Girart de Roussillon-ca. 1455
A closer look at the TdM Devil’s ‘antlers’ shows they do not grow from his own skull, but are stuck through/attached to the red brim, which might be the hide of some animal. Perhaps the skin of his former (Cary) self or yet another accoutrement borrowed from a pagan goddess?
Juno Sospita (‘the saviour’), Etruscan, ca 500-480 bc
Dante is accredited with ascribing Satan’s ‘bat-like’ wings, emphasizing his dragon lineage. In the Middle Ages, thanks in part to the widespread popularity of Arthurian legends, apocalyptic visions, St. George and alchemical symbolism, dragons + every other kind of monster were at large in the collective imagination. And to the western, christian mind, dragon = Devil. (Hence Dracula, ‘son of Dracul’, the Dragon). Bacchus was often depicted riding one, as a symbol of drunkenness. But ‘dragon’ comes to us from the Greek word ‘drakos’, meaning ‘eye’ or ‘I see’, pertaining to an ever-watchful guardian of some treasure or mystery.
Dante’s triadic, alchemy-faced Lucifero 1450-75, and Medieval Dragon consumptionDrunken Bacchus 14th c, François Toucarty 2 of Cups 17th c, Bacchic eyes 520-500 BC
Meanwhile, the importation of demon imagery from the Middle East is also influential, and the christian Devil, as mentioned, adopts various features from them. The TdM Devil’s stance is apparent in the two examples below, especially with Pazuzu. (It’s not known whether Tarot artists ever saw these pieces, though, and for the record, the Burney Relief wasn’t discovered until the 20th century, so that’s off the list).
Clay tablet with Ereshkigal /Ishtar c 300 bc, bronze Pazuzu Demon c 800-600 bc
Witch hunts were what really made the Devil into a force for creating suspicion and fear. As persecutors projected their own darkness and depravity onto their scapegoats, the Devil’s terrible character grew into itself. The ‘Nature’ personification (below, right), created during the time of the 16th century witch trials is clearly based on head witch, Artemis Ephesus and bears a resemblance to our TdM Devil. At opposite ends, the men of science and religion, who would divide the spoils, agreed on one thing; that nature and her beasties didn’t possess anything even close to a human ‘soul’.
And that’s because they were idiots.
Personification of the Deadly Sins (15th c) and ‘Nature’ (16th c)
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO: LORD OF GHOSTS
So far, we’ve addressed possible, historical influences for the TdM Devil’s look; the pose, mimicry, belly face, bat/moth wings and bird talons as well as his resemblance to pagan deities and Mesopotamian demons. Though not common in TdM, Tarot Devils may also sport serpents from their groin and head, similar to Gorgons or Furies. I include this fave, TdM exception (below, left) holding a delightful bouquet of pit vipers; it’s the thought that counts.
Now, let us venture deeper into the blue…
Blue Devils: Jacques Rochelais (1782), Besancon (1784), Giuseppe Mitelli (ca 1665)
Ok, I know what some of you are thinking: The Devil is not always BLUE! True, but he is blue enough of the time to warrant an investigation. Barring that colour was on sale, let’s look at some other, plausible reasons.
Giotto’s blue Satan, from The Last Judgement (detail), 1306
Giotto’s choice of colour is thought to have been based on the Etruscan ‘blue demons’ such as those in the ‘Tomb of the Blue Demons‘ (discovered in 1985, however) or the Greek Eurynomos:
Eurynomos was a flesh-devouring daimon (spirit) of the underworld who stripped the flesh from the rotting corpses of the dead. He was depicted as a man with black-blue skin seated on a vulture’s skin. Eurynomos was associated with carrion-feeders such as vultures and meat-flies. His name means “Wide-Ruling” from the Greek words eury- and nomos.
Etruscan daimon (looking rather ‘eastern’) from the Tomb of the Blue Demons, Italy
So naturally, blue palor is associated with the dead, who have ‘turned blue.’ Giotto’s Satan has simply replaced pagan Hades/Pluto. Platonists (TdM is reputed to have neo-platonic leanings) believed the physical body was as a corpse in which the soul (psyche) was imprisoned. With this philosophy in mind, the blue Devil and his willing, sacrificial victims represent attachment to the corporeal.
Two customers approach a statuary, one wishing to place the sculptor’s work [a statue of young Hermes or a Herm] in the tomb of his son, one proposing to use it for private worship. Deciding to sleep on the matter, the sculptor is visited by Hermes in a dream and is told that he has in his hands the decision to make him either a dead man or a divinity. The 2nd century physician and philosopher, Galen gave the light-hearted fable a more serious turn by applying the story to human potentiality:
“You have a choice between honouring your soul by making it like the gods and treating it contemptuously by making it like the brute beasts.”
Herm of Hermes-Mercury as dedicated portrait, ca 150-170
In other words, when we only live within the realm of the bodily senses and appetites, the soul ‘dies’. Losing our senses in any of the Devil’s vices – including magic and the occult – might run us adrift and rudderless. The water (another symbol of soul) behind the Devil is still or frozen. His podium also kind of resembles a ship’s capstan, but without the levers in place with which to haul the anchor up (or down).
capstans
Another way to turn blue, or even die, is to be in frigid water too long. The TdM Devil is usually only blue from the neck down, excluding arms and head. His cup-like hat and blue ‘antlers’ seem to echo the fishes in the Two of Cups, once bonded in sacred union, now turned away from each other. (In black magic, everything is reversed). The shape of his tripartite, blue body also suggests something fishy or amphibious, like conjoined lamprey (from Latin lampetra, ‘stone licker’) or frog legs/ears. Something is being drawn out of the murky unconscious or indeed from the two, willing minions, heads previously filled with Pope’s pape.
Cup hat and fish shapes, two of cups fish and fishy wet suit
Amphibiously speaking (ribbit ribbit), the toad is a symbol of alchemy par excellence. It is a ‘living crucible.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
– Shakespeare, ‘As You Like it’
‘Lord of the Flies’
Of course Lucifer also once had a precious, emerald stone in his forehead, aka the philosopher’s stone, aka the Grail. The TdM Devils’ crossed eyes direct us to where a third one should be, but at the same time are disquieting and repel us. Do they, and his grotesque, ever-watchful, nipple eyes serve to distract from what he’s standing on and guardian of? And don’t the minions’ ropes create a perfect crucible shape? A basket’s no good for cooking souls in, this is better.
They have compared the “prima materia” to everything, to male and female, to the hermaphroditic monster, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.
Conver Diable and Roman crucible for metal, found in England.
The distillation stage is when all of the impurities are removed, and there is nothing left but the essence. In Chemistry, distillation involves boiling and condensation to separate components and is commonly used in desalination. A liquid is boiled until it evaporates, and as the steam condenses, the essence is liberated from the matter. It marks the point at which our essence becomes spiritualized. In others words, in spiritual alchemy, distillation is a metaphor for the actualization of one’s spirit.
Although TdM is never quite this=that, it’s worth noting distillation is the 6th stage (1+5). It seems Temperance (14) has turned Temptress and now these Dionysians are hitting the hard stuff. Because, in seeking to separate the quintessence (purest and most concentrated form or ‘spirit’ of a substance) from the dross, alchemists also created…gin! The root of ‘alcohol’ (Arabic) is ‘kohl‘, pertaining to powdered antimony, which, in alchemy, symbolizes ‘the wild spirit of man and nature.’ At this delicate stage, there are various ‘pure spirits’ that might be drawn out.
Alchemical Distillery, 1512
Here we must briefly retrograde back to Dante. His Lucifer was not shackled in flames, but perma-frozen in ice. Dante and Virgil climb up the shaggy legs, ‘until gravity is reversed and they fall through the earth into the southern hemisphere’. The omphalos has become the omicron phallus (omicron being the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet). It’s been pointed out that the Tarot Devil’s genitals are situated at the centre of the image. In keeping with this subject explored by Renaissance artists, if you draw an ‘X’ from corner to corner, the lines cross right at the ‘Centrum Mundi.’
Lucifer in Ice, Centrum Mundi, 9th ring of Hell
The gravitational reversal described sounds a lot like distillation, and what with Lucifer hermetically sealed and his 3 faces of black, red and white…
Alchemy, like witchcraft, was considered a form of ‘black magic’ and Dante even punishes alchemists – deemed ‘falsifiers’ – with leprosy. Unfortunately, ‘puffers’ (fraudsters who took peoples’ money, promising to turn lead into gold) were lumped in with true, spiritual alchemists and the sullied reputation persists to this day. Perhaps the TdM Devil stands upon the gold as both a temptation and warning to spiritual materialists who’d use Tarot for such nefarious purposes.
A ‘puffer’ from the Ship of Fools, Sebastian Brant, 1494
END OF PART TWO
Typhon, Willem Goeree, 1700
PART THREE: MYTHICAL CHAMELEON
Believe it or not, the above, most impressive depiction of Typhon and its resemblance to the TdM Devil is what ‘spawned’ this whole inquiry. In Greek myth, Typhon was the monstrous, serpentine Titan son of Gaia (Earth). When he fought against Zeus (one of many male gods who wrangle with serpent beings) for rule of the cosmos and lost, Zeus threw him down into Tartarus and plugged the hole with a mountain (Mt. Etna), so he couldn’t escape. The similarity to Satan cast down into Hell and shackled in chains or ice is obvious. Volatile Typhon rattling his chains and blowing his top caused earthquakes, volcanos, tornados (typhoons), plagues (typhoid) and other natural disasters:
In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious bulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the stars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons’ heads. From the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged: unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes.
And furthermore… Typhon was a “poison-spitting viper whose “every hair belched viper-poison.” He “spat out showers of poison from his throat; the mountain torrents were swollen, as the monster showered fountains from the viperish bristles of his high head” and “the water-snakes of the monster’s viperish feet crawl into the caverns underground, spitting poison!” He also hasmany other animal heads, including leopards, lions, bulls, boars, bears, cattle, wolves, and dogs, which combine to make ‘the cries of all wild beasts together’ and a “babel of screaming sounds.”
Typhonic Devil waiting at the edge of the earth
Typhon makes medieval dragons look like newts. Again, it’s interesting to note the parallel between Hades, which later became Hell proper, and the watery abyss. Typhon’s spitting similarity to Satan did not escape medieval christian philosophers, either. They recognized him as one and the same. [The title phrase, ‘between the Devil and the deep blue sea’ means having to chose the lesser of two evils, the way Odysseus had to chose ‘between Scylla (a man-eating sea siren), and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool)’, ie, ‘a rock and a hard place’.]
Hungry sea monsters surrounding a ship.
Typhon was conflated with Set, Egyptian god of chaos, storms and all strange and terrifying natural events from eclipses to earthquakes. Like Typhon and the Devil, Set is an elemental beast of many guises, very ancient (pre-dynastic) and attributed with major, occult powers. Sometimes he takes a recognizable form – hippo, pig, fish or crocodile – but mostly he’s the magical and alluring ‘Set animal’, with rectangular ears, downward curved snout and a stiff, straight tail. His face reminds me a bit of a duck-billed dinosaur and one theory is that he was based on an extinct creature, which is why we don’t recognize it.
Set
Typhon was said to have chased the Greek gods into Egypt, where they transformed themselves into animals. Among them, Pan jumped into the Nile, and became the half-goat/half-fish, otherwise known as Capricorn. On one hand, a neat way to explain their conflation, but on the other, it made Typhon the very agent of the gods’ transmutation, including his own. To hermetic thinkers of the 16th century, Typhon-Set seems to have been understood as a kind of extreme Mercurius.
Typhon as Scorpio, Athanasius Kircher, 1652-54
In his ‘Egyptian Zodiac’, Taurean Athanasius Kircher depicts Typhon-Set as the ‘hieroglyphic’ Scorpio, which makes sense, at least intuitively, as it’s the (sometimes serpent) sign of death and regeneration – both Osiris and Dionysus are dismembered by Set and Titans, consecutively, and are reborn with the dedicated magic of goddesses Isis and Athena. Kircher was not an alchemist by any means, but he was a master of syncretization and made an honest attempt to crack Egyptian code, long before the Dendera Zodiac and Rosetta Stone had been discovered.
On another level, ‘true’ alchemist, Michael Maier‘s allegorical Typhon-Set (below), just like the TdM Devil, is an androgyne with enlarged breasts. He/she holds the tools of dismemberment and transformation. Osiris-Dionysus is all cut up and Isis brings a cauldron/crucible and presumably her magic.
Puppy-faced, Ziphius-bellied Typhon-Set from Michael Maier’s Mythoalchemy (detail)
Three centuries before Dr. Jung, Maier (1568-1622) told of “chymical secrets behind the myths.” He said, therefore, that they should not be taken as merely historical, but as allegory or hieroglyph, “concealing some deeper meaning, philosophical or moral, which must be withheld from those persons too ignorant or too impious to use it aright” and “the truest interpretation is that it all concerns the Philosophical Medicine.” He called Typhon-Set “the burning spirit” and indeed, “the alchemical vessel itself.” Ta-da!
I did not die, and I was not alive; think for yourself, if you have any wit, what I became, deprived of life and death.
– Inferno, 34.25-7
The mosaic below depicts a scene from the Last Judgement, wherein the goats (on Christ’s left) are being separated from the sheep (on his right). The blue angel is believed to be the earliest known depiction of Satan. ~rb
All blue/bold bits herein are quotations.
Eurynomos quote from Theoi.com Distillation and Inferno quote from thecollector.com All other quotes from Wikipedia (some edited for length) Quotation pages and any other pages of interest are linked within the article. More information on images/sources can be found in their descriptions by clicking on them.
‘Anathemia’ sequinned tapestry by Roxanna Bikadoroff
Recessional(A Victorian Ode)
God of our fathers, known of old – Lord of our far-flung battle line Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget – lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies — The Captains and the Kings depart – Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. Lest we forget – lest we forget!
Far-called our navies melt away – On dune and headland sinks the fire – Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget – lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe -. Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law — Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. Lest we forget – lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard• All valiant dust that builds on dust, And quarding calls not Thee to guard. For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy Mercy on Thy people, Lord! Amen.
Recessional was (along with The Vampire) written by Rudyard Kipling in 1897, to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A cautionary Imperialist, he wished to remind his fellow countrymen where England’s power and glory ultimately came from. ‘Lest we Forget’, of course, became the classic war memorial epitaph. (Nineveh is modern day Mosul, in Iraq).
photo: Staff Sgt. Douglas Olsen, USAF
ANAT/ANATH
Anat was the Goddess of war and death, worshipped throughout Mesopotamia and Egypt, from prehistoric times to the 4th-6th century AD. Sculptures of Anat are sometimes confused with male warrior/death Gods, because of her boyish physique. Her adolescent form, however, distinguishes her from a nurturing, mother goddess. Anat personifies the irresistible, testosterone induced ‘rush’ experienced in both sex and battle, which summons willful young men to one mortal coming of age or another.
Violently she smites and gloats, Anat cuts them down and gazes; her liver exults in mirth.. for she plunges her knees in the blood of soldiers, her loins in the gore of cleaving among the tables.
– From the “Ras Shamra Texts” (Canaanite cuneiform tablets), Syria Primitive, sacrificial rights of Anat (Anath)
Anat warrior idol and relief, Egypt
Anat’s bloodlust may have to do with war and genital mutilation being the male equivalent of menstruation rights, as well as primitive blood sacrifice required to fertilize the earth. But like her prototypes, Durga and Kali, she was also prayed to for peace and severs illusion and attachment.
Remove from the earth war, Set in the dust love; Pour peace amidst the earth Tranquility amidst the fields
photo: Roxanna Bikadoroff
The Tapestry
War is anathema. It depletes blood like anemia. Hence, Anathemia, which sounds like a contagious, war disease.
I began working on this third and final tapestry of my series ‘Queen of the Night – an Orientalist Fantasy in sequins starring Theda Bara as The Vamp’ during the start of the Syrian war (the recent one), then only worked on it sporadically. When the current war in/on Ukraine began, however, I was able to channel some of ‘her’ energy and finish the piece. It definitely has more of an active, animated feel than the first two, with explosions going on all around, comets of doom flying and vultures pointing the way, while red poppies sprout from spilled blood.
The goddess sports a westernized mini skirt with a ‘V’ for victory, black high boots/long gloves, and modern weapons replace her old cleaver and spear.
Anat’s lion becomes a panther, reminiscent of the ‘restricted’ symbol for 18+ movies, ie, when a young man is old enough for sex films, he is old enough for battle – a competition over him between love goddess and war god breaks out. But like Ishtar, dual goddess Anat cleverly embodies both morning and evening star personas.
Theda Bara (anagram for ‘Arab Death’) famously played Cleopatra in the 1917 Fox film, wherein she wore a variety of interesting ‘Egyptian’ headgear. The vulture crown, below was said to be her favourite.
‘Coronation’ crown worn by Theda Bara in Cleopatra, 1917
The mystery of Medusa’s mythos is so deep, convoluted and extensive, it’s no wonder most people are happy to just accept the classical version : Beautiful, young Medusa is caught in the act – either by or against her will – with Poseidon, in Athena’s temple. Unforgiving Athena turns her to a snake-haired monster so frightful, her gaze can turn men to stone. Solar hero Perseus decapitates her (presumably also putting her out of her misery), en route to rescuing chained Aethiopian princess, Andromeda from the sea-serpent, Cetus. Neither Perseus or any of his incarnations were fond of reptiles, it seems. The myth of Perseus slaying Medusa first comes about in the 7th c BC, when the Greeks were establishing colonies in North Africa, but the Andromeda rescue operation seems to have been added, later.
Athena Polias, from her temple and illustration from a ceramic vessel
Athena had long been a major, scale-clad, snake-wielding Goddess, in her own right. Most Goddesses of any clout had a relation to serpents, for obvious reasons – in antiquity, snakes, who dwelt in the ground, among the rocks and in crevices of temple ruins they ‘protected’ were believed to be the children of Mother Earth. The oldest religion was snake worship.
However, the Olympian, virgin Athena was born motherless and mess-less, from Zeus’ mind, his contractions merely a bad headache. Her power over life and death was based in rational judgement, not the voices of chthonic, belly spirits. Likewise, the Greeks distinguished themselves from the ‘barbarians’*.
Why have you hated me in your councils? For I shall be silent among those who are silent, and I shall appear and speak. Why then have you hated me, you Greeks? Because I am a barbarian among (the) barbarians? For I am the wisdom (of the) Greeks and the knowledge of (the barbarians. I am the judgement of (the) Greeks and the barbarians.
– from The Thunder : Perfect Mind (Nag Hammadi Texts)
First known image of Medusa
At first, Gorgons were not imagined as having a massive wig of writhing serpents. They had some mixed in with their plaits/dreads, plus a pair interlocked as a girdle around their waist. In the first depiction we know of, Medusa is a centaur with no sign of snake hair, but possibly wearing a snake skin/skirt. Medusa appeared on the temples of other deities and the Gorgon face** was an apotropiac, used on buildings, shields, jewelry, etc…or to protect a mystery. Suffice it to say that Medusa is the face of Athena, once you’ve had a few cups of ergot wine.
Minoan ‘eye’ octopus jug, bronze volute krater handle, 500 BC (Taranto), Corinthian alabastron depicting Athena Owl flanked by lions creating a Medusa face/wings, 595-500 BC, Greek hydria with Gorgon face, sphinx and turkeys or vultures
There’s so much more to her tale than ‘meets the eye’, but perhaps more than any other myth, the decapitation and demonization of Medusa, who was likely a Libyan seer-queen, signifies the final and often brutal conversion from Goddess worship to patriarchal religion. Also, the white-washing. For this ‘Orientalist Fantasy’, I drew inspiration from the romanticized face of the ancient Goddess, subject of symbolist painters and goth horror. But the title, like ‘Lilimoth’, harkens back to natural source, the Sun’s too-powerful gaze, which snakes like basking in.
Medusa mosaic, Turkey
Fun fact: The Gorgon also had another three sisters, the Graiae (essentially the Fates), who shared one, prophetic eye and one tooth between them, also taken by Perseus. Interestingly, in the Perseus constellation, Ras al-Ghul or ‘Algol’, the blinking star in Medusa’s severed head and most feared star in the sky, is in fact not just a binary, but a trinary star system. One theory is that two of the Gorgon sisters were immortal and one mortal (Medusa), because of the three day period of Algol’s variation – the star ‘winks’ out on the third day. We’re the ancients aware of three stars dancing around each other, like Fates?
Nazar ‘evil eye’ amulet (detail)
dread; fearfulness, but also (archaic) the emotion aroused by something awe-inspiring (awful) or astonishing, fear of God (Rasta).
astonish; to stun, to render senseless as by a blow, to strike with sudden fear or wonder (from Latin ‘attonare’ – to strike with lightening/’tonare ‘ – to thunder).
North African hairstyles, Theda Vamp and Prudence Hymen as ‘The Gorgon’ 1964
*To Hellenists, a ‘barbarian’ was anyone who didn’t speak Greek, typically from North Africa (the word comes from ‘Berbers’).
**Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, also suggests there was never any Medusa Gorgon, but that the face had always been a mask worn by the Goddess. He claims Perseus takes it to protect what’s in the sack, her magical alphabet.
“During the flush years of the magazine industry in the 1990s, before it began to downsize, Roxanna Bikadoroff was one of the most sought after illustrators in the business. These days her restless imagination takes her work in some new directions — from hard-edged visual messages with maximum impact to soft detailed fabric and bead sculpture drawing on traditional women’s crafts and female mythology. In an interview with Whitney Smith, the artist talks about her background, what motivates her, and her artistic process with nine of her pieces…”
Venus is in Pisces until March 21st, so I thought it would be a good time to post some of my mermaid and Stella Maris themed art.
This acrylic painting is called Pacific Puttanesque. I did it when living near the beach in White Rock, BC, back in 2010. The title refers to Puttanesca sauce which basically means ‘whore sauce’, either because it originated in a Naples bordello or because it’s fishy-smelling, due to the anchovies. Her half-shell looks more like a Venus’ flytrap than a scallop and doesn’t quite conceal her monsters. Victorian fantasy postcards provided inspiration. The frame is decorated with local shells, to resemble boards from an old, sunken boat. (NFS, private collection).
Pacific Puttanesque
This next, mixed media piece, called Stella Maris was sort of a pre-trial for the Star card in my Tarot deck, which ended up being something entirely different. It’s from 1999-2000. A friend of mine said after looking at it she had a dream about the Statue of Liberty. (Limited edition, digital prints are available).
Stella Maris
On the topic of Stella Maris, the star in Mari’s crown…
This miniature, beaded icon of her is a more recent creation, the last of a series of attempts to return the universal (or original pagan) meaning to Catholic imagery, which had ‘borrowed’ and adapted it. In Roman times, fish was eaten on Friday to honour Aphrodite-Venus, because it was thought to be an aphrodisiac. This was prior to her being covered with heavy robes.
The star itself might have been Venus or any guiding star for mariners, such as Polaris or Sirius.
Stella Maris
Similarly, we have La Virgin de la Caridad – Our Lady of Charity. One of the Seven Virtues, she is said to have appeared to rescue two Cuban boatmen and their slave, who were caught in a storm, sometime in the early 1600s. Hence she’s the patron saint of Cuba, but of course religion had to be practiced underground there for about four decades. Caridad is also paired with the more Venusian Oshun in Orisha religion, who rules sex, pleasure, marriage, the arts and money matters. (NFS, private collection).
Caridad Mini
Following the BP oil spill disaster, off the coast of Florida in 2010, I created a whole series of these Worst Cocktail Ever Florida Souvenirs, using some old cocktail mermaids, shells and driftwood. Self-explanatory. This is one of two that remain, and they are for sale.
Worst Cocktail Ever Souvenir
Sea Spirit was also painted in response to the BP spill. It takes inspiration from the Cape Dorset prints I loved, as a child. I thought about how awful it would be if such a spill were to occur in the pristine Arctic waters, for all the marine mammals there. Unfortunately, with the ice melting and more oil exploration going on, the likelihood is increasing. So this is a Sedna type Goddess who’s life-giving breasts are clogged with oil blobs. Acrylic on canvas. (NFS private collection).
Sea Spirit
But let’s end things on a cheerier note. This mixed-media icon is of Poseidon-Neptune’s partner, Amphitrite. One of those Victorian fantasy postcards I referred to in the beginning of the post. (NFS, private collection).
This post is about the inspiration and research behind the first in a series of three tapestries, which has it’s own art page, here. I have Black Moon Lilith and Moon on the ascendant, at the same degree, so astrologically speaking, she’s always ‘in my face’, a topic of much speculation, creativity and learning.
LILIMOTH
Initially, I’d wanted to create something that commented on the US invasion of Iraq. But beyond the political, the psychological motivation behind it seemed to be a continuation of an orientalist, biblical fantasy, mythologized on the silent screen by stars like Rudolf Valentino and Theda Bara. Muse of William Fox (Fox Studios), Theda’s stage name was an anagram for ‘Arab Death’ and the legend was that she had been born under the Sphinx. In reality she was a Jew from Cincinnati, Theodosia Burr Goodman…but maybe her first name carried some karmic, Byzantine resonance. My grandparents adored her, and so do I.
Vamps: Philip Burne-Jones, Theda Bara and the Burney Relief (British Museum)
Fun fact: a direct lineage can be traced from Dracula to Fox News. Bram Stoker’s novel was published in 1897, same year as Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Kipling wrote two famous poems that year; Recessional (‘lest we forget’ – a warning about hubris, not a requiem) and The Vampire, based on his cousin Philip Burn-Jones’ painting of a lady Vampire. The latter became the script for the 1915 silent film ‘A Fool There Was – a Psychological Drama‘ starring Theda Bara as the Vamp, and the rest is history. Hollywood’s reigning succubus made Fox a fortune, and although the studio changed hands a few times over the decades, the news network still bears his name.
I had spent a number of years as an orientalist, myself, belly dancing in San Francisco, where, while American troops pillaged Bagdhad’s treasures, show biz promoters at home were busy recreating and selling Arab culture in their own name, just like in the good old days. It was disturbing to learn that some of the players and financiers behind the invasion believed that the actual Garden of Eden was located around Baghdad somewhere and needed reclaiming. Oil was only part of the story, Saddam was busy rebuilding Babylon on perceived christian turf at a prophetically critical time (imperialist rulers had long ago pillaged the originals, so he was recreating them) – oh no he didn’t. Patriarchs fighting over ownership of the Goddess’ terrain, what else is new?
‘Left in the Dust’ (early sketch)
Further, looking to nature for older, mythical memories, the Death’s Head Hawk Moth struck a chord. Acherontia atropos is the most popular of the three species, due to her pronounced skull marking and subsequent appearances in literature and film (such as the Silence of the Lambs). She lives primarily in the Middle East:
The species names atropos, lachesis and styx are all from Greek myth and related to death. The first refers to the member of the three Moirai who cuts the threads of life of all beings; the second to the Moira who allots the correct amount of life to a being; and the last refers to the river of the dead. In addition the genus name Acherontia is derived from Acheron, a river of Greek myth that was said to be a branch of the river Styx. [Wikipedia]
Death’s Head Hawk Moth (detail)
Turns out this little Moira of the night shares attributes with our lady Screech Owl (Lilith), such as, well, screeching (or rather, squeaking):
“However, let the cause of the noise be what it may, the effect is to produce the most superstitious feelings among the uneducated, by whom it is always regarded with feelings of awe and terror.”
~ Edward Newman, mid 19th century entomologist [ibid]
Have a listen to the cutest ‘I am the night’ ever, here.
Like Lilitu, who were thought to steal babes from their cradles, Acherontia steals honey from beehives by mimicking their scent. Her larva feast on nightshades, the accumulative affect of toxic alkaloids making them poisonous – perhaps formulating the distinct skull marking on the adult moth.
Nightshade and Owl Moth (details)
Medium being the message, I put away my paper and charcoal, and took out my unused, belly dance costuming supplies. Religious icons require materials that reflect light, be it glass, gold, movie screen or – why not? – sequins. Then I remembered having been blown away by a show of sequinned, Haitian Vodou Drapo (flags) in Montreal, some years prior, and that sealed it.
Lilimoth was completed in 2008. The second piece, Medusun, in 2009. The third piece, Anathemia, in 2022. This is a 3 part blogpost, so do read the other 2 to learn more!
Descartes denied that animals had reason or intelligence. He argued that animals did not lack sensations or perceptions, but these could be explained mechanistically. Whereas humans had a soul, or mind, and were able to feel pain and anxiety, animals by virtue of not having a soul could not feel pain or anxiety. If animals showed signs of distress then this was to protect the body from damage, but the innate state needed for them to suffer was absent. Although Descartes’ views were not universally accepted they became prominent in Europe and North America, allowing humans to treat animals with impunity. The view that animals were quite separate from humanity and merely machines allowed for the maltreatment of animals, and was sanctioned in law and societal norms. [Wikipedia]
Such cold, clinical mindset (which ignores the fact that we are animals and we feel) still pervades today, because progress depends on it, not because there is any truth to it.
Uranus was discovered in the 18th c, and along with the many scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, the shadow side was this overly-clinical, detached way of relating to other living ‘things’. Nature was no longer sacred, only the human soul was. Everything else was formula, which could be measured, dissected, categorized. Astrology was kicked of of astronomy, alchemy out of chemistry, and myth would become synonymous with ‘lie’. Doctors took over from midwives, magic became a sideshow act, as did people with physical deformities.
It’s no wonder there was a huge, spiritualist movement at the end of the 19th century. Perhaps this was indicative of another side of Uranus coming into play – the free thinker, telepath, prophet or astrologer who seeks to unify everything and who can ‘see the world in a grain of sand.’ The fin-de-ciecle of the 19th c also gave us Frankenstein and Dracula, metaphors for mad science/creation envy and inherent, human cannibalism (according to Guillermo del Toro).
The overwhelmingly positive response to the Queen’s simple and predictable address today, as Black Moon Lilith conjuncts the Sun, shows that many people are starved for the slightest bit of the sacred in their lives. Popular religion is often too abstracted, no longer bearing any resemblance to the natural cycles and phenomena it was originally inspired by.
I’m reminded of when Diana died in a car crash. People were weeping in part for the princess, but more deeply, I think, for the Goddess. Lilith’s destructiveness stems from the lunar Goddess’ rejection and the stripping of her ‘corona’ – the severing of her head/mental power source. This is more obvious in the myth of Medusa, whose head writhes with primordial serpent wisdom.
Looking at this corona virus (even the name) as a symbolic phenomenon, it is a symptom of our dislocation from the sacred, within and without. The lungs are where grief manifests, around the heart (Aquarius/Leo). Viruses are now thought to play role in our evolution, in changing our DNA. So this is also part of our birthing process.
Restoration of the sacred is something we can all take part in. We simply need to listen, become humble in the presence of nature, life, death and learn to live with reverence again – easy! – we are all indigenous to planet earth and this infinite universe.
The number 20 illustrates an ear and open orifice. Yes it is the Judgement calling card, but it is also through the ear (sound, vibration, frequency) that the holy spirit – the shape-making essence – is conceived.
Medical Definition of conception 1a : the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both. b : embryo, fetus. 2a : the capacity, function, or process of forming or understanding ideas or abstractions or their symbols. b : a general idea. [Merriam Webster]
The Titan Goddess Mnemosyne (‘of Memory’) ~ Mother of the Nine Muses
“After the Olympians defeated their Titan rivals, who were known as superb creative deities, the gods asked Zeus to create divinities who were exceptionally innovative and capable of infusing mortals and immortals with abundant gifts and talents.” So he sought out the most gifted one, and charmed her into letting him spend nine nights in her boudoir, resulting in the birth of nine daughters of divine creation.
Mnemosyne made sure her daughters’ gifts were well honed, knowing they would ignite the forces of creativity wherever they went, and taught them that to memorize with meaning was to ‘know it by heart’, not just by brain.
*
Clio ~ Muse of History and Writing
“The Muse Clio discovered history and guitar. History was named Clio in the ancient years, because it refers to ‘kleos’ the Greek word for the heroic acts.”
Historians and biographers are inspired by Clio to weave stories out of our collective past, but so are each of us when we put our own life memories down in words, be it in a journal or a song.
*
Euterpe ~ Muse of Music
“Euterpe discovered several musical instruments, courses and dialectic.”
Euterpe inspires not only the musician, singer or composer, but also anyone who wishes to develop or already has developed an ‘ear’ for music. Beethoven was so well-loved by Euterpe, even going deaf didn’t stop him.
*
Thalia ~ Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry
“Thalia was the protector of comedy.”
Hers is the face of Comedy in the theater masks, Comedy and Tragedy.
‘From joy springs all creation By joy it is sustained Toward joy it proceeds And to joy it returns.’
might as well be Thalia’s slogan.
*
Melpomene ~ Muse of Tragedy and Sorrowful Song
Melpomene’s theatre mask is that of Tragedy, Comedy’s polarity.
Tragedy comes from the Greek ‘tragoidia’, meaning ‘goat-song.’
Those who sing the blues are inspired by this muse to elevate their soul, and thereby others, in times of suffering, through music.
*
Terpsichore ~ Muse of Dance
“She was called Terpsichore because she was enjoying and having fun
with dancing.”
Terpsichore inspires one’s entire body to become an instrument of rhythm and musical self-expression.
*
Erato ~ Muse of Love and Love Poetry
“Her name comes from the Greek word ‘Eros’ that refers to the feeling of falling in love.”
Erato’s inspiration is present in our lives when we are moved by any form of love, be it erotic, parental, universal, but particularly when we love what we do, thereby putting Eros into our creations.
*
Polyhymnia (Polymnia) ~ Muse of Oratory, Sacred Hymns and Poetry
When we recognize and are moved by the sacred or mystical in anything enough to want to express it, this is through Polyhymnia’s inspiration. Everything from Haiku to Handel.
*
Urania ~ Muse of Astronomy (Astrology) and Science
“Ourania was the protector of the celestial objects and stars;
she invented astronomy.”
Urania’s name is of course the feminine of Uranus (Ouranos) the Sky God. Thus, she opens our minds and imagination to the beyond, awakens our curiosity and exploratory urges, ‘to boldly go where no one has gone before’ and to ponder the mystery of our own existence.
In ancient times, there was no distinction between astronomy and astrology, so Urania was also associated with prophecy.
*
Calliope ~ Muse of Eloquence and Epic Poetry
“Calliope was the superior Muse. She accompanied kings and princes in order to impose justice and serenity. She was the protector of heroic poems and rhetoric art.”
The oldest and most accomplished of the muses, Calliope was also the mother of Orpheus. In ancient Greece, epic poetry was considered the most esteemed form. Calliope’s inspiration turns poetry into story-telling and performance, where it becomes part of the collective consciousness. I think we can agree Calliope was Shakespeare’s muse.
*
CREDITS:
Mnemosyne excerpt from Angeles Arrien, The Nine Muses/
painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1881
Clio painting by Charles Meynier, 1800
Euterpe painting by Egide Godfried Guffens 1892
Thalia poem from Mundaka Upanishad/painting by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1739
Melpomene painting by Edward Simmons, Library of Congress, 1901
Terpsichore engraving by Pierre Blanchard, 1900
Erato painting by Angelica Kauffmann, 18th c
Polyhymnia plate 13 from Parnassus Biceps, 1601
Urania painting by Francesco Cozza, ca 1670
Calliope engraving by Goltzius, 1592
An old, close friend was here, today, visiting, for the full Moon in Aquarius. She uses the Thoth deck and had recently pulled the High Priestess, depicted with outspread arms, so different from the traditional image of her, sitting on a throne, holding a book. We got talking about what that signified. What is the Goddess or Deity, exactly?
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, and you hearers, hear me…
In Tarot and numerology, 2 is considered receptive. The Arabic numeral is in the shape of an ear, because it has to do with hearing, listening. 1 embodies vision, literally a first ray or bolt of lightening. [As a side note, Taurus rules the second zodiac house. Though Aries rules the head in general, ear, nose and throat are more Taurus’ jurisdiction.]
Grimaud TdM
If one puts the Marseille Juggler (Magician) beside the Priestess, one could imagine him as listening to her. The wand he holds is parallel to the strap across her front, directed to the book she’s holding. That he is ‘merely’ a performer means he himself is not the source of this magic, but a trickster who, by listening and creating space, can ‘bring it.’ Interestingly, by casting cards, you yourself become the Magician, with four types of tools, while the vehicle of space, as personified in the Papess revealing sacred wisdom, is Tarot.
Hear me, you hearers and learn of my words, you who know me. I am the hearing that is attainable to everything; I am the speech that cannot be grasped. I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name.
In ancient times – as with any rock concert or belly dance performance or Baptist sermon, today – the performer or priest had to connect with and exchange energy with the audience. The uplifted audience then became as one, through synergy. The Deity was the collective spiritual experience, larger than the individual, but felt inside, by each. The sacred space being accessed (or summoned) for the spirit to flow through and become alive in – one could say that was the feminine principal, regardless of whether people considered the Deity to be male or female. She was/is present in connectivity itself. Sometimes psychogenic substances were used to enhance the experience (or maybe a forbidden fruit?), just as they are today, although now people use substances solely because they have lost the ability to open.
This ever-present, but invisible space was concretized as the temple or church, but nature was the original temple, and birds her priests.
We spoke of singing to both people and animals – my friend, to a Tibetan lama, me, to a crow – and how the subject inspires the song. For this giving, receiving and returning to occur naturally, a space needs to open, sesame. That is the threefold way of Goddess. Every time you open space to listen to and understand another living thing, or to receive inspiration with which to playfully create something (as opposed to having to do it for work, noble as that may be), you bring the Divine Feminine into being. The resulting creation then embodies spiritual aliveness, and can be a catalyst in opening space for others.
The modern world seems to be set on eliminating space and imposing will, in one form or another. Rather than listen to a tree, we think of it in terms of how it can be useful to us. We keep other living beings in cages or kill them for sport and raise our children in institutions, where the same lessons are imposed on everyone of a certain age. Few of us have any energy exchange with what we consume in the way of food – energy just means caloric intake. We want things how they ‘should’ be, not as they are. Silence is feared, space is the blackness ‘out there.’
I am the one whom they call Life, and you have called Death.
Merely replacing the male godhead with a female is a superficial and symbolic step, but unless we begin to re-open the space that is the living Goddess, through which the spirit flows between every living thing, we will continue on the path of death; eating dead food, wasting knowledge, being ignorant to the root of illnesses, plundering nature/each other, and so on. Then and only then will we finally experience space, for she is also the space between lifetimes and lifeforms, through which both karmic and genetic information is passed. And if we die without listening, we are in for more of the same. That is probably why the first words in the Tibetan Book of the Dead are ‘Oh nobly born, listen undistractedly.’ Passages are recited to the dead person’s soul, to which they must be receptive, instructing them on navigation of the in-between realms.
To the attached person (and we all have some attachments), space feels like a void, equated with Death, and must therefor be a-voided. Silence, stillness and aloneness must be filled with sound, motion and other people. Their experience of the Goddess space is finite – an empty vessel, from which one might hear an echo, but little else. Patriarchal religion sees the Divine Feminine only as a vessel for the male God, imposing will on that which has no form, but silently provides, sustains and returns life to all creation.
This is not to deny the importance of masculine energy in creation. Going back to Tarot, we see that the Juggler/Magician is the Mercurial spirit that exists in everything. He has all his tools set before him, and will use the appropriate one, based on what he hears and where the energy wants or needs to be directed. When spirit and the space are combined, we get the threefold return, a directed movement that is a reverberation and microcosm of the original.
In Tarot, cups are indeed feminine vessels, but the Ace is usually depicted as a threefold fountain, rather than just an empty cup, wherein the waters of life are flowing. It’s the natural space, depicted as a church or censer in the Marseille Ace of Cups (not to be taken literally).
And yes, of course the Goddess takes many forms – the Earth, the Moon, and everything in between – but ultimately this initial space is her ‘formless form,’ via which she gives birth to the infinite manifestations of herself.
I am the knowledge of my inquiry, and the finding of those who seek after me, and the command of those who ask of me, and the power of the powers in my knowledge of the angels, who have been sent at my word, and of gods in their seasons by my counsel, and of spirits of every man who exists with me, and of women who dwell within me. ~ Excerpts fromThe Thunder: Perfect Mind, Nag Hammadi Texts
