Dreamers, activists, malcontents, I'd like to introduce you to Emily Wernet's fledgling webcomic Moonlighting. Its heroine, a high school girl named Billy, has a secret life that she is still only dimly conscious of -- which probably has to do with the superhero sightings pouring in from the streets of her boring suburb.
What I love most about the orange-tinted supergirl -- and what cements her as a Princess of Cups -- is the way she expresses herself. Where others speak mere words, her speech bubbles are filled with images that express her intent symbolically. It's a wonderful motif that illustrates what it would be like for a dreamworld creature to interact with everyday people. It also reminds me of the alien creature's telepathy in this Aeon Flux episode. (As Trevor Goodchild describes it, "Her language of pictures is at once more poetic and more precise.")
Rather than inducing a state of paralysis or stagnation, the Princess's suspension between the material world and the watery dreamworld compels her to action in both realms. She may not yet understand herself, but she will learn by doing and speaking, articulating her inner vision as it reveals itself to her. Incapable of the Queen's deep-sea excursions, the Princess trains by executing a series of shallow dives into her unconscious. This has the benefit of making her more accessible to the surface-dwellers out there, and let's face it, we all need a hero who encourages us to straddle that divide ourselves.
2.03.2010
"At Once More Poetic And More Precise..."
7.01.2009
"A Bridge Between Feeling And Action..."
I find it weirdly apt that I could only find a handful of photos of Linda Jones, the late "Empress of Soul", on the internet. Her vocal expression probably rendered attempts to capture her essence in photography quite futile. When you can see sing like this, what in the world else could a picture possibly have to say?
This particular track is equal parts breathless patter and seismic vocal eruption. It's as though her emotional payload is so great that speaking becomes inadequate and the runoff is channeled into song -- sort of like a pressure-release valve. She sings like a woman possessed; her voice and even her body can barely constrain the force inside her. As opposed to Alice Clark, who "keeps it hid", Jones fearless broadcasts the feelings she's discovered, even the painful ones:
I've always preferred Shirley Bassey's version of "I Who Have Nothing", but I begrudgingly admit that Jones' is more emotionally authentic, without sacrificing any of the drama or vocal pyrotechnics. It's so tempting to imagine what else she would have wrought upon the world if she'd lived longer; Jones died of diabetes complications at the of 28, just as her star was rising -- and mere months after recording "Your Precious Love".
The Princess of Cups is an elusive figure in readings and in life. It's hard to know for sure who she is, but what she wants is unmistakable -- she broadcasts her feelings and desires with zero ambiguity. This Princess is a bridge between feeling and action; whereas the revelations experienced by the Queen of Cups serve to enhance her own wisdom and understanding, the Princess's discoveries have a far greater influence on others than on herself. She instinctively latches onto great truths and makes them evident to others in her words and deeds, perhaps without even realizing it. This makes her a valuable and inspiring lover, friend, or ambassador. She has yet to graduate to the sort of profound self-knowledge that will make her a true leader, but she knows all of that will come in time. Meanwhile, there is no one who faces greater challenges or attains sweeter bliss than someone whose dreams are constantly on the verge of coming true.
2.25.2009
"You Want to Travel With Her, and You Want to Travel Blind..."
If it seems I've relied heavily on musical personae to describe the cards of this cycle, it shouldn't be too surprising. It's widely believed that our conscious mind communicates with the unconscious via symbols, and that "language" is not a purely visual one by any means. Each of our senses serves as a mediator between our ego and our innermost self, though they work best in concert.
Even the most transcendent experiences begin as a mere exploration of one's senses. In 1965 Leonard Cohen composed a surprisingly elaborate portrait of his encounters with Montreal bohemian Suzanne Verdal (pictured above):
"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that shes half crazy
But thats why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China..."
The famous song that resulted, "Suzanne," employs sense-memory to transport us to a unique moment between two specific people, but Cohen infused his lyrics with such timeless symbolic resonance that the entire world's imagination was captured; "Suzanne" become a popular cover song, and to date has been recorded by dozens of other artists. (My favorite version, by Nina Simone, who herself starred as the last cycle's Princess of Wands.)
While few would debate Cohen's songwriting prowess, in this case he had a hell of a muse. The real-life Suzanne shares her own account of the time they spent together here and here. Forty years have gone by and she still hasn't traded in her rags and feathers for more conventional attire; Verdal is homeless, making do as best she can somewhere in California. You could say that the only steady thing in Verdal's world is her unwavering commitment to an unfettered life filled with adventure and creativity, no matter what the outcome; this is inspiring, but also challenging for most people to accept. That is the magic of symbolism for you; it survives and influences us regardless of what reality presents us with in the end.
This crossroads between potential and reality, including all the personal triumphs and grave dangers that await us there, is the sovereign territory of the Princess of Wands. On the surface she might seem frustratingly impulsive, but it's all part of a larger agenda. By disrupting life's predictible patterns, she creates more opportunities for discovery, for mutation. She may eventually have to cool it and settle down (somewhat) in order to function in the long term, but by then she'll have provided herself a full range of options to choose from -- and even if the outcome doesn't wind up being quite what she expected, she'll at least know that she had a major hand in choosing her fate. Or in the words of a far less subtle songwriter whose song was also frequently covered:
"...For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way."
2.19.2009
"You're Free But In Your Mind, Your Freedom's In a Bind."
If ever someone seemed on the fast track to an incendiary music career, it's Janelle Monae, who became one of the hottest numbers of 2008 thanks to her re-imagining of Fritz Lang's classic silent film Metropolis as the background for a series of song-suites, casting herself as the original gynoid.
The essence of the Princess of Swords manifests as clearly in Monae herself as it does in her portrayal of the Alpha Platinum 9000 known as "Cindi Mayweather." Her approach to the music industry could only be described as a coup, and every aspect of her music, image, and business are meticulously strategized to present a united front of keen awareness and originality. For example, the video for her single "Many Moons" dextrously presents her futuristic act as equal parts rock concert, fashion show, and slave auction:
The song's lyrics allude to the simultaneously earthy and airy nature of this revolutionary and intellectual Princess:
"Square or round, rich or poor
At the end of day and night all we want is mor
I keep my feet on solid ground and use my wings when storms come around
I keep my feet on solid ground for freedom
You're free but in your mind, your freedom's in a bind..."
Female androids are usually depicted as being battle-ready but vulnerable to human impulses such as love. Remember Björk's "All Is Full of Love" video, in which two cold plastic humanoids unlock each other's intimate circuitry? The obscure otherworldly possibilities presented by EVE in WALL-E? These are beings with a single-minded determination and an inherent purpose which become overriden by the introduction of alluringly improbable variables. Upon discovering any awareness beyond her original programming, the Princess's concept of victory and failure is no longer virtual -- she becomes susceptible to human instincts like fear, pleasure, and pity. On one hand, this gives her the strength and courage to fight all the harder (a great illustration of this in the Thoth deck), but on the other hand she's so new to this wider world that she may not be the best judge of her own limitations -- or others', for that matter. Her nimble mind sees everything but itself; while it can be terrifying to fight a battle knowing one has blind-spots to work around, the danger itself can be intoxicating, making victories that much more satisfying to pursue.
In the bio on her website, Monae is very direct about her ambitions. "I want to be looked at as a leader and a businesswoman," she says. "I really feel that music and artists have a huge influence in the way we think. My goal is to help bring as many people as I possibly can together with my music." She's backed it up with the lyrics of all her songs on Metropolis: The Chase Suite (available here, or on iTunes), which introduce her as an outspoken social critic determined to defy genre and stereotype. It's not easy to challenge people without alienating them, but if you can first inspire them to dance like crazy, then you're halfway there.
2.09.2009
"A Future That Is Still Hardening Around You..."
"Dad went to town. Made a cake. Wasn't any good. Fred Johnson's pretty sick."
"Almost had fight at school. Got my hair curled. Planning to go home with Mrs. Jones."
"Norman missed school today. Fell down and hurt my finger. Fire in hotel in DeSoto."
These are the everyday events in the life of Genevieve Spencer, a young Illinois farmgirl whose line-a-day journal from 1937 is now available as a daily Twitter feed. This project is courtesy of David Griner, Genny's great-nephew, who started the feed on January 1st. "People seem to enjoy the mixture of monotony and mystery woven through the posts," he says.
It's tempting to forget the restrictions of the line-a-day format and fantasize that this is really all Genny cared to say about these events -- they're so blasé that I can't imagine her being either fazed or excited, just too busy or too disinterested to say any more than a few words about a neighbor's funeral or a bumper crop of persimmons. But this kind of projection is just a microcosm of the great problem of history as we record it; the details give us nothing, and the context is lost to the aether.
Is Genny the perfect Princess of Coins? On paper, perhaps. She is industrious, observant, pragmatic, and admirably consistent in her acknowledgment of life as it passes. She sees only what is right in front of her, allowing herself to remain oblivious to the big picture until she's mature enough to handle it -- she trusts that will come naturally with time.
But all of this is imagination, painting pictures to cover the absence of information. A little girl's dreams and private thoughts, the profound pleasures and miseries of life on the farm in all seasons, the disappointments and wounds felt but never articulated, perhaps never even truly consciously known; how easily all of these realities become supplanted by fantasy! This is the process by which people evolve into symbols and endure, their actual personhood evaporating behind them like the tracks that snails leave. We all do this. We have all already done it.
That's what makes the Princess of Coins such a fascinating card to me; it contains all these earthly elements, but it comes loaded with an incredible amount of hope and enthusiasm for a future that is still hardening around you. This heady mixture of tangible and ephemeral is not just complicated -- it's deeply moving. It's like when I imagine my mother as a child; it seems so unlikely that anyone would ever grow up, invest in this world, and raise a family after the hardships and challenges of life have made themselves known at such a young age. Who could bear to? And yet who can keep from trying?
"Stayed home from school because of a bad cold. Kerby went to Johnsons'. Norman shot a rabbit. He is 8 years old. First one."
"Mr. Mark Patterson killed himself with a shot-gun. Dad went to town. Vernon Gardin came over this evening."
"Wrote to Aunt Dorothy. Today is Sunday." [Via]
10.20.2008
The Four Princesses
If you haven't noticed, the order of these four-of-a-kind entries has completely depended on the order in which I've wound up posting the individual cards. Which is to say, completely random -- the same way you'd encounter the cards if you shuffled and drew them. However, the point of these foursomes is to hint at the underlying structure of the Tarot, which is something that usually doesn't come up over the course of a reading. If that's less interesting to you, feel free to take this site just one card at a time.
Right here and now, however, we have four indomitable young ladies on our hands who occupy a pivotal position in the overall picture. Just as the Queens all reign over the element of Water, the Princesses rule the Earth. If you go back and look at their qualities, you'll begin to see what they all have in common: they're charged with a tingling sense of potential, a sort of latent force borrowed from their suit -- but as lowly, vulnerable humans, they each have at least one foot solidly on the ground. This makes each of them a sort of lightning rod, a channel from the aethyr to the earth, similar to the Aces. In the context of a reading, this is where that message of potential for manifesting your desires in the real world would come from. Of all the Court cards and the Major Arcana, they are the only they are the only truly human face we see; everything beyond there takes us further away from terra firma.
In his book The Chicken Qabalah, author and occultist Lon Milo Duquette (whom I was lucky enough to interview recently) puts a great deal of effort into explaining why the Princess card is the linchpin to the Tarot's role in Western mystical traditions, offering a simplified fairy-tale version of the Kabbalistic worldview. The Princess, as the most earthbound element, represents each of us stirring in an enchanted slumber. We have fallen for the illusion that our world is all that exists (much like the of the world of the Devil card), and several layers of illusion stand between us and an unadulterated view of reality. "You are the King of the universe..." he says, "...Who has fallen asleep and is dreaming he is the Queen, who has fallen asleep and is dreaming she is the Prince, who has fallen asleep and is dreaming he is a sleeping Princess."
Whether your personal beliefs will accomodate that idea is irrelevant, but it's at least worth getting lost in thought over. Think of the prevalence of princesses in our storytelling -- even in modern times. What is the fascination? Perhaps it's that a princess is sort of like a caterpillar, in that part of the thrill of encountering one is knowing that an amazing transformation is imminent. We begin as one thing, we end as another -- but that in-between state is a delicious realm to occupy. That's what being a Princess is all about, and all the little girls in the world would agree, if they weren't so busy being caterpillars themselves.
10.16.2008
Princess of Wands
Nina Simone was many people throughout her long and tumultuous career as a musician, and none of them ever rested easy. She seemed able to reinvent herself even within the span of a single song -- to the point that audiences often weren't sure whether to laugh, cry, cheer, or get up and leave in disgust.
Her concert at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival is both famous and infamous, and you can watch a lot of it online. In fact, you have to see it to believe it! Simone seems to weave in and out of consciousness, propelled chaotically forward by some unknown force. She improvises her way through old standards as freely as if their lyrics were merely suggestions. She bellows and seethes, giggles, dances, and despairs -- all while her skilled fingers frantically caress the piano. She snaps at the audience when they become impatient with her bizarre behavior (such as stopping suddenly to inquire whether her friend David Bowie is in the house), only to woo them again moments later with her reedy braying voice.
I took the screenshot above from the moment (around 4:30) during "Feelings" when suddenly, looking as if she has just woken from a spell, she ad-libs the line, "I wish I'd never lived this long." Her sincerity is unmistakable. I've watched the concert on DVD many times, and I'll never get tired of trying to drink it all in. Was she on drugs? Mentally unstable? A master manipulator? Perhaps all of the above. But underneath it all, she was just fundamentally determined to embody utter freedom, to be and do whatever she decided -- a freedom that African Americans had been struggling for during her entire lifetime.
Nobody could better embody the unnervingly impulsive and magnetic Princess of Wands (though Simone declares herself a queen during the concert). The Princess is a bit of a loose cannon among the Court cards -- her whims and passions translate into immediate action, and she's willing to explore and blaze her own trail rather than seek counsel or wait for maturity to set in. She may drive people nuts sometimes, but you can't stay mad at someone who is so effortlessly raw and genuine. Accept her, observe her, and follow her (if you dare). And if you are her, then try to remember that self-restraint is a virtue that will enhance your natural gifts, not compromise them.
6.01.2008
Princess of Swords
Don't be deceived by her pretty face and effortless demeanor: if you run afoul of the Princess of Swords, she'll cut you down. And she's still learning how to use that sword, so even if you're on her good side, you still may want to watch out-- she doesn't always know where she's swinging that thing.
That said, you couldn't hope for a more quick-witted and observant ally. She's an effective translator of ideas into actions, and her incredible powers of discernment and improvisational wit make her an invaluable activist in whatever crusade you've got going. She's alert and ready for battle-- untested perhaps, but she'll still probably wind up saving your skin at least once.
This collection of Christian Dior photos-- particularly the sharp little origami frocks-- are handy visual descriptions of this card's essence. Origami itself is a past-time perfectly suited to the Princess of Swords; one can imagine her executing clean cuts and crisp folds with a single-minded glee. She'd also be fascinated by the designer's vision: the unnatural emphasis on precision and technique; the poses that beckon even though the pointy dresses would keep any potential suitor at least an arm's length away; the vague possibility that each garment conceals, or is, a weapon of some sort. And surely the voyeuristic aspects of modeling would appeal to her as well; while you're temporarily dazzled by her flawless presentation and mind-boggling designs, she's already sized you up and is strategizing her next move.
5.26.2008
Princess of Cups
Like the Queen, the Princess of Cups trades exclusively in romantic dreams and other intangibles-- but unlike the Queen, she intrepidly carries them out into the world, searching for ways to wring reality out of them and make them come true. Naïve? Perhaps. But her restless spirit and curiosity will practically guarantee a steady flow of meaningful encounters, artistic inspirations, and emotional transformations for her to keep her occupied. Because she's both observant and compassionate, you'll find she's a natural diplomat as well as friend or lover.
Hello Kitty may have begun as an almost insultingly simple cuteness cash-in, but she's become a beloved symbol for all these qualities-- to the point that Japan recently appointed her as its Ambassador of Tourism to China. I doubt she'll be fazed by that responsibility; after all, she's been the United States children's ambassador to Unicef since 1983. Over the years, so many people have asked her parent-company Sanrio why Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth that they've added their response to the FAQ: "Hello Kitty speaks from her heart." She is clearly a stronger and more enduring force than anyone could have ever suspected, and I think the Princess of Cups will surprise you similarly.
Hello Kitty actually has Tarot deck of her very own! Click the card above to browse its images, which may stun or sicken depending on your tolerance for marshmallowy animal magnetism.
5.12.2008
Princess of Coins
If you think you've seen this image before, click and think again: Lucy Pastier's PixelStitchery converts classic video game graphics and into charming homespun embroidery projects. By approaching a traditional path or pattern with an adventurous and playful spirit, you can wind up creating work that is both substantial and inspiring. Our hands beg for something concrete to do, an outlet for our natural curiosity and restlessness and self-indulgence. This desire applied to a new skill lays a foundation for surprising results, which may seem to materialize practically out of thin air.
And who better than Ms. Pac-Man to embody this idea? Her courage and acquisitiveness, her very coin-like shape-- it doesn't even matter that her game is just a copy of the original, she knows that re-exploring old terrain can uncover new challenges. Her fearsome chomping temporarily banishes the ghosts of the past, but they are ever at her back. She looks forward to the day she can reunite with her partner and family (and rule as Queen), but in the meantime seems to have no problem keeping busy on her own.
