"The Free Man Never Thinks Of Escape."

The World is the final card in the series of Trumps, and it also sets the stage for the cycle to repeat all over again. Every great era in our lives provides us with a new chapter of history to draw from, new revelations that can be applied to whatever we choose next. It's so difficult for us to transform into what we'd like, and yet arriving at this point lets you look back and see the proof that change is possible. It's an all encompassing view of the world, and a temporary reprieve from bearing the weight it. In the Fool card, we see that beautiful weightlessness stirring into action and kicking off the next phase in our evolutionary journey.

Reading Jeanette Winterson's short novel Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles had me thinking about this a lot as spring began. Simultaneously fictional and plainly autobiographical, Winterson's retelling of the myth addresses the misery that we each feel as we bear ourselves up in (and beneath) the world. Always a fan of Greek mythology, I never really cared much for the Atlas story before, but the author's clear empathy for the character reminds of the significance waiting to be uncovered in the oldest tales. Here's a brief passage:

"The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behavior. The burden is intolerable.

"The more I did, the more I carried. Books, houses, lovers, lives, all piled up on my back, which has always been the strongest part of my body. I go to the gym. I can lift my own weight. I can lift my own weight. I can lift my own weight."

In looking for Atlas images to complement this card, I stumbled across another association that I wouldn't have otherwise thought to include: burlesque performer and former Miss Exotic World, Julie Atlas Muz. I once saw Muz perform at a gala benefit in Manhattan, and her fully nude performance -- lip-syncing Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law," first with her buttocks and then with her vagina -- sent the audience into paroxysms of amazement and discomfort. However, her repertoire includes a broad spectrum of other talents. I'm a huge fan of her balloon act, in which her dance partner is a giant orb that she eventually shimmies her entire body into. Observe (some nudity [but no lip-syncing] in the clip below):

I don't know whether the Atlas imagery is accidental or a deliberate play on her name. It's a sort of lyrically beautiful commentary on this card, however, when you compare it to the oppressive weight that Winterson describes in her fiction. Here we see a woman completely in her element, invoking the very essence of the anima mundi figure that we see on most World cards. Her enjoyment is ephemeral, but it's liberating to watch -- it fuels our sense of wonder, our optimism for a future where our current struggles will perhaps be more easily borne. As Winterson points out in the first chapter of Weight, "The free man never thinks of escape."

Previously On Arcanalogue: The World