A Major Arcana Mix

A mix, done well, is a piece of art. The way themes weave together, images and ideas corresponding and contrasting. The placement of the songs, transitions between them, pacing. Once I learned a little about mixology, just enough to be dangerous, I wanted to make my own, but the process seemed daunting. I'd been in the company of too many works of genius to think I could step up to that particular plate.

But when a friend at church came up with this project, I was intrigued. His idea -- to create a mix based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot -- came without the scary thought of trying to get songs in the right order, the hardest part of making a mix (in my mind anyway). The Tarot has its own order. Ditto on the themes. And not having to worry about all that freed me up to take the first steps toward my very first mix.

Except for the title, which in the end turned out to be the hardest part of all. A friend suggested Tina Whittle and her Ultra-Oracular Extra-Arcane Divination Mix. But it's not oracular, and it's not divinatory. It is mine, however. Kevin called his The Fool's Journey in honor of the first card. So I'm gonna call mine All This and The World As Well, in honor of the last one.


1. The Fool -- "Get Out the Map" by The Indigo Girls
2. The Magician -- "The Man with the Hex" by The Atomic Fireballs
3. The High Priestess -- "West Virginia" by John Linell
4. The Empress -- "Guinnevere" by Crosby, Stills and Nash
5. The Emperor -- "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega
6. The Hierophant -- "John the Revelator" by Depeche Mode
7. The Lovers -- "Breathe" by Maria McKee
8. The Chariot -- "One Way or Another" by Blondie
9. Strength -- "Rain" by Patty Griffin
10. The Hermit -- "Into the Mystic" by The Wallflowers
11. Wheel of Fortune -- "Where I Want To Be" from Chess
12. Justice -- "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago
13. The Hanged Man -- "Big Strong Girl" by Deb Talen
14. Death -- "No One Lives Forever" by Oingo Boingo
15. Temperance -- "Pendulum Swinger" by Indigo Girls
16. The Devil -- "Essence" by Lucinda Williams
17. The Tower -- "A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
18. The Star -- "Hold On Hope" by Guided by Voices
19. The Moon -- "Brain Damage/ Eclipse" by Pink Floyd
20. The Sun -- "Magnolia Soul" by Ozomatli
21. Judgment -- "Graceland" by Paul Simon
22. The World -- "The Whole Shebang" by Grant Lee Buffalo

1. The Fool -- "Get Out the Map" by The Indigo Girls

"With everything its opposite enough to keep you cryin'/ or keep this old world spinnin' with a twinkle in its eye/ Get out the map, get out the map, and lay your finger anywhere down/ We'll leave the figurin' to those we pass on our way out of town/ Don't drink the water, there seems to be something ailin' everyone/ I'm gonna clear my head, I'm gonna drink that sun."

A card of beginnings, spontaneity, and faith in the face of apparent folly. At card zero, The Fool hangs in the balance, neither beginning nor end. This song addresses paradox -- "the same sun that warms your heart will suck that gutter dry" -- and the movement of time, beginnings in endings, the seed of the ending in the beginning, and the folly -- and necessity -- of faith.

2. The Magician -- "The Man with the Hex" by The Atomic Fireballs

"You remind me of a man (what man?)/ Yeah, the man with the power (what power?)/ Oh, the power of voodoo (who do?)/ Yeah, you do, you do."

I love the drums and horns here, the whole swing rhythm. It's kitschy, of course, but it has the same energy as this card. It gathers to a greatness of sorts, as great as something off the Scooby Doo soundtrack can be. Plus, it shares the wink-wink acknowledgment that this Magician possesses something of the Trickster in him.

3. The High Priestess -- "West Virginia" by John Linell

"Sugar maple's winged seeds/ propellers spinning from the tree/ rhododendron evergreen/ look within and you will see/ there's another deep inside you and inside the other one there is another/ in the other."

There's a Russian nesting doll on my altar, and it's there because of this song, which captures the inward focus of the High Priestess, the potential and the mystery, the spiraling down from the obvious surface to the hidden depths.

4. The Empress -- "Guinnevere" by Crosby, Still, and Nash

"Guinnevere had green eyes/ like yours, m'lady, like yours/ she'd walk down through the garden in the morning after it rained/peacocks wandered aimlessly underneath an orange tree."

I wanted a song that captured the organic bounty of this card, its lavish easy abundance, and this song does it even without the significance of the name Guinnevere, which is a version of Gwenhwyfar, the Welsh Goddess who embodied the natural world, made mortal so that King Arthur could literally unite with the Land. Her name means "White Phantom" and she is often depicted as the Queen of the May . . . which makes her even more appropriate to represent The Empress. With her, "we shall be free."

5. The Emperor -- "The Queen and the Soldier" by Suzanne Vega

"And she never once took the crown from her head."

The Emperor represents order, structure, and authority -- and the price that they exact. I like this song because it shows how the craving for control can hide a startling vulnerability, and because it shows what people will do to protect that vulnerability, even a woman with a face like a child's. Maybe even especially such a woman.

6. The Hierophant -- "John the Revelator" by Depeche Mode

"By claiming God as his only right/ he's stealing a God from the Israelite/ stealing a God from the Muslin too/ There is only one God, through and through."

When religion becomes what the Hierophant forces it to be -- a conformity to a rigid group think -- it betrays the very same Divinity that it seeks to illuminate. God/Goddess/Holy Spirit has the integrity of the whole, not a piece hammered out to certain specifications. To believe in the piece is to commit idolatry.

7. The Lovers -- "Breathe" by Maria McKee

"My heart beats your blood, your breath fills my lungs/ Your heart beats my blood, my breath fills your lungs."

In contrast to the Hierophant, this card is NOT about the group -- it is about as personal as it can get, literally wrapped up in each other, blurring the boundaries between self and other. And the songs ramps up the desperation and fear and ecstasy that often accompany such union.

8. The Chariot -- "One Way or Another" by Blondie

"One way or another/ I'm gonna find you/ I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha."

If there could be road music for driving a chariot, it would be this song, especially if you were driving said chariot on a stalking mission. Talk about taking the reins and exerting one's will. It also has that element of making one's choice into reality, of trying to control two unruly beasts that tends to charge off in different directions. Only in this case, the two options -- one way or another -- are really just the same thing.

9. Strength -- "Rain" by Patty Griffin

"Strange how hard it rains now/ grows in rows of big dark clouds/ but I'm holding on underneath this shroud/ praying."

Sometimes being strong means just holding on, quietly. Laying your head in the jaws of the beast and just willing them not to close on you. Sometimes strength is a powerful gentleness.

10. The Hermit -- "Into the Mystic" by The Wallflowers

"Let your soul and spirit fly."

The Hermit is a card about going inside, but it's also a quest card, a card of searching for whatever it is that is both inside and out. It's about withdrawing from the world, yes, but into something interior that is larger than the exterior (which sounds like a paradox, and I guess it is, but it makes sense -- bigger on the inside than on the outside). This song has that same feeling, of coming home into truth and beauty and love bigger than you thought they could ever be. Magnificently.

11. Wheel of Fortune -- "Where I Want To Be" from Chess

"When the crazy wheel slows down/ where will I be?/ Back where I started."

I fell in love with the musical Chess the second I saw "One Night in Bangkok" on Friday Night Videos. The whole East/West defection plotline seems hopelessly dated now, but the idea that you can step into an identity that carries you ever more swiftly away from who you were, that you can get sucked under that current so easily unless you swim for your life, that at some point your choice of direction dissolves and all you can do is keep from drowning . . . Yes. But. There is always a choice, even when the universe seems to be crunching you in its gears. Sometimes you can't see the choice. Sometimes someone else may have to point it out to you. But there is always a choice even on the wildest ride, even if it's simply the choice to keep your eyes open instead of shutting them tight.

12. Justice -- "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago

"He had it coming/ He had it coming/ He only had himself to blame/If you'd a been there/ if you'd a seen it/ I betcha you would have done the same."

Boy, after hearing this song, I just wanna grab some heartless bastard and kick his ass. Well, not really. In the end, all you really hear behind the anger and sharply faceted bitterness of this song is a complete lack of understanding. Because each murderess had it coming too. And then the cell door slams. They have mistaken vengeance for justice, a substitution this card would never allow. This is a card of cause and effect, as is this song.

13. The Hanged Man -- "Big Strong Girl" by Deb Talen

"Come on, come on, lay it down/ the best laid plans/ come on, come on, lay it down/ are your open hands."

The Hanged Man is all about the Letting Go -- releasing emotions, accepting what is, giving up control and learning this lesson: "don't push so hard against the world." It's upside down and paradoxical that surrendering can be a strength, but this card says believe it.

14. Death -- "No One Lives Forever" by Oingo Boingo

"And I'm very quick, but don't forget/ we've only got so many tricks/ no one lives forever."

Since the Death card is all about transformation and cycles and rhythms, I wanted a happy happy song here, to celebrate the paradox of this card. So "drink a toast and down the cup and drink to bones that turn to dust."

15. Temperance -- "Pendulum Swinger" by Indigo Girls

"Doesn't come by the bullwhip/ It's not persuaded with your hands on your hips/ it's not the company of gunslingers/ the epicenter love is a pendulum swinger."

Okay, this breaks the "only one song per artist" rule, but I break rules for the Girls. This song deserves a shot, especially since it demonstrates the essence of this card -- balance, even in the extremes, especially in the extremes, since extremes are necessary for this card. And it all comes back to center.

16. The Devil -- "Essence" by Lucinda Williams

"Baby, sweet baby, you're my drug."

I think the essence of the Devil and the essence of "Essence" are the same: bondage and helplessness and the lure thereof. It starts off pretty sweet, but then that first plunge hits and you realize the territory you've gotten yourself into now that you've stepped over the boundary. The Devil also represents all that is taboo, the shadow side that must be reintegrated if the self is to be whole, and this song hits that note as well with its waiting and stalking, its "flirt with death," and its search for essence (which can, in the end, never be found anywhere but inside -- that's what the singer doesn't get yet).

17. The Tower -- "A Hard Rain's A-gonna Fall" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

"But I'll know my song well before I start singing."

Even Death isn't as frightening as this card -- lightning and devastation and tumbling into churning surf, dashed on the rocks. You crash into chaos -- down down -- and then, the revelation. That's this song to me -- people starving and people laughing, dead oceans and sad forests, places where none is the number. And then, after, your voice again.

18. The Star -- "Hold On Hope" by Guided by Voices

"Everybody's got a hold on hope/ It's the last thing/ that's holding me."

This card is the hope card to me -- I cannot see it without being inspired. There is a serenity on it, and peace. I don't think this song has peace yet -- there is still a sense of need and despair -- but it has an eye on something higher. In the mud, maybe, but looking at the stars. This isn't a card of solutions, but it is a card of faith, of "reaching out for the hand that we can't see" -- and finding it there.

19. The Moon -- "Brain Damage/ Eclipse" by Pink Floyd

"There's someone in my head, but it's not me."

When I see this card, I feel a kind of dazed delirious feeling, like I'm about to come down from a drug trip of some sort, on the edge of lucidity, the very boundary of it . . . but not quite. And as befits a card that occupies subterranean psychic lands, this piece is a dreamy stupor, half-shadowed, bizarre, fantastic. Mad, utterly mad, yet also utterly sane. Another paradox, but what else would one expect in a place so disorienting that truth masquerades as a hallucination?

20. The Sun -- "Magnolia Soul" by Ozomatli

"We gonna make them saints march on again."

The Sun always comes up after the dark dark night. This song captures that feeling of breakthrough and invigoration, the confidence and optimism of a breaking day.

21. Judgment -- "Graceland" by Paul Simon

"Maybe I'm obliged to defend every love, every end/or maybe there's no obligations now/ maybe I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland."

Absolution. That is the nature of this card despite its very heavy-sounding title. It comes with a sense of appraisal, of course, of separating wheat from chaff. But in the end, what gets blown away is the guilt and regret -- we are all found to be enough. Perfect. Cleansed and forgiven. When you hear this call, follow it -- it comes with hope.

22. The World -- "The Whole Shebang" by Grant Lee Buffalo

"We'll take the whole shebang/ all or nothing, anything/ Ecstasy's the birthright of our gang/ we'll take the whole she-bang/ free your heart from guilt and shame/come and claim what's yours, the whole shebang."

Integration, accomplishment, fulfillment. The World delivers, but only if we claim it. To hold the world in our hands, we must give ourselves to it. Another paradox, like all the Tarot, like the way this song shifts from soft twinkling to full on dancehall. Like that. Just like that.

#OrlandoStrong

The Writerly Tarot: Three-Card Summer Solstice Reading

The Earth is spinning her way around the Sun in a dance older than every story we have ever told, soon to be at one of the year's two solstice peaks. For those of us here in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the Summer Solstice approaching, the longest day of the year. The word "solstice" has its root in in stillness, and so that is what we are doing this week—slowing down and looking at the Universe in a grain of sand.

Or a spread of cards.

I've been analyzing the three-card reading I did over a month ago, one that turned out to be rather monumental—Judgment, The Moon, and Temperance (you can read my individual analyses by clicking on any of the previous). As in the above illustration, Judgment was the central card in the spread, the thematic statement of the reading, its message flavored by and echoed in the two supporting cards. So let's start there.

Judgment is the card of the calling, and as such, shows up at times when the Universe is delivering a summons (being "called" is a feature of all the cards in this spread, a through-line that gives us the major theme of the reading). Judgment features the angelic messenger Gabriel blowing upon his celestial trumpet, waking the departed from their graves, and as such it calls to parts of us that perhaps we have thought long-dead. It bids us to rise and come forth and—and this is the most important part—heed the call.

That's your first question—what are you being called to do? Since this is a celestial call, you'll feel it in your bones, which are made of stardust. This call might scare you—angels are not exactly the bland pastel presences that greeting cards make them out to be. They are the messengers of all that matters and can be frankly terrifying, with beating wings and rushing air. So there might be fear associated with this call, perhaps a deep existential kind. Your rational brain will probably try to hold you back from leaping to this call, terror being one of its clues that maybe you are venturing too close to the edge/the sun/the monster/the unknown. It responds to this cue like a dog to a whistle.

Such is fear, which is the most primal of protective responses. It's a huge part of the second card, The Moon, too. The Moon beckons you to move forward, from the waters of the subconscious and past the baying wolf and hound, up the crooked path and between the imposing pillars. The Moon send up the warning that whatever you are being called to do, it will have a nightmare or two attached. But all calls that matter come with fear because all calls that matter come with the threat of loss. So ponder for a while on these moonlit shores—what are you attached to that is preventing you from answering this call? What do you fear might happen if you say yes to it?

Take some time with this step. Call your fears up from the deep. Look at them clearly. Sit with them for a while. This is the hard part, but it is necessary preparation for the second angel, Temperance.

Alchemists describe the process that Temperance initiates as solve et coagula—dissolve and coagulate—and as you might expect, people sometimes have a harder time with the breaking apart of things than the coming together. But breaking must happen. This is how the building blocks of whatever is coming next will be formed, in the ash and crush of something returning to source. Think atomic energy. Think combustion. Think raw materials. Temperance may be compassionate, and deliberate, but she is not necessarily gentle.

As you can tell, this is no fortune cookie reading. This is Big Deal Stuff. Yesterday I posted about love, and how this is the only thing that can save us in this burning world. This reading compels you to love as fiercely as you can through whatever art you make—writing, painting, singing, sculpting, playing, moving, acting, dancing, praying, storytelling—and to do it now. Release whatever you must to make room for that love to thrive in this world, even if that means letting go of a fear that seems to be keeping you safe. Share your art with others, and receive theirs in return. This will make you wildly vulnerable. Do it anyway.

You have been gifted. It is time to unwrap that gift and take it out of the box. It really really is.

 

For All of Us

"The world is violent and mercurial -- it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love --  love for each other and the love that we pour into the art that we feel compelled to share: being a parent, being a writer, being a painter, being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love." -- Tennessee Williams

And so this week I begin with a prayer, for all of us, but especially those touched personally by the tragedy in Orlando -- may we all open our hearts to the giving and receiving of love. The poet Jack Gilbert's brilliant "A Brief for the Defense" explains that "we must risk delight" in the "brutal furnace of this world."

And so that is what we do this week. We will lay out cards and light candles and say prayers and hug our loved ones. We will share whatever gifts we have. We will come together.

And later this week, when the sun does not feel so raw upon my skin, we will discuss the three cards that will lead us into the Summer Solstice -- Judgment, The Moon, and Temperance. Because there will always be a Solstice for as long as there is a Sun and Earth. We can count on that.

This Week's Writerly Tarot: Temperance

And now we come to Temperance, the third in my Spring Into Summer reading (you can read more about the first card, Judgment, and the second card, The Moon, in previous posts). This is the card that ties our package with a neat bow, but don't worry, the Temperance of the tarot has nothing to do with Prohibition and everything to do with Alchemy.

So first, make yourself a refreshing drink (I suggest a mojito, a cocktail that suits our purposes well—an especially appropriate recipe follows). Then put your feet up, get comfortable, and let's talk alchemy, which for our tarot-centered purposes today can be defined as the philosophical/spiritual study of transmutation and transformation (fine print: that is a very basic definition, a starting point only. But we must start somewhere, yes?)

You probably already know more about alchemical principles than you think you do—if you're a Harry Potter fan, you have already read an excellent seven-book primer. Here's J. K. Rowling on the subject of Rubeus Hagrid and Albus Dumbledore (their given names referring to the colors red and white respectively):

"Where my two characters were concerned, I named them for the alchemical colours to convey their opposing but complementary natures: red meaning passion (or emotion); white for asceticism; Hagrid being the earthy, warm, physical man, lord of the forest; Dumbledore the spiritual theoretician, brilliant, idealized and somewhat detached. Each is a necessary counterpoint to the other...."

Opposing but complementary. Necessary counterpoints. Those are the key concepts of Temperance, not any Puritanical restraint. Don't think of doing without; think of tempering steel.

Look at the image. A winged angel come from the air to the earth, one foot in water and one on land, an upward-pointing triangle on her chest (the delta, an alchemical symbol for fire). That's all four classical elements, if you're counting, united by Spirit, represented here by the illumination around her head (an activated crown chakra, for those of you conversant in such things).

In other words, the Whole Shebang. And we haven't even begun to parse out how our angel unites the rest of the cards, which, like Temperance, are all major arcanas, the Great Big Deal cards of the tarot. But I will get to that next week, just in time for us to prepare for the summer solstice.

Stay tuned! Until then, may I present...

The Well-Tempered Mojito

10-12 fresh peppermint leaves
1 to 2 tbsp cane sugar (to your taste)
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 oz Very Good Rum (Ten Cane is my choice)
8 oz club soda
Crushed ice

As much of this as one can do for oneself, do. Pick the peppermint. Juice the lime. Crush the ice. Grow the cane and distill the rum if one has a mind to do so. You Yourself are an ingredient, of course, so bring your best and most high quality efforts.

In a 12 oz glass, muddle the mint leaves and sugar and lime juice with a muddler or the back of a spoon. The idea is to extract the oils from the mint without tearing the leaves, so be gentle. Add the rum and stir until the sugar is dissolved—again, be gentle; there is a reason we're not using a blender here. When the sugar is dissolved, fill the glass with club soda and ice and stir the mint leaves up from the bottom with a long handled-spoon, preferably ancient and silver. Ponder the mysteries of the universe, and enjoy!

*Alchemy footnote: Like the Temperance card, all the elements are present here—peppermint and lime for fire, sugar for earth, club soda bringing both water and air (effervescence), and the rum providing the uniting factor of Spirit (what? you didn't think liquors were called spirits for no good reason, did you?). There's a nice balance of feminine and masculine energies. Plus the muddling and the juicing and the stirring represent the act of physical transformation, and as such, take effort and finesse and intention.

This Week's Tarot Apology: The Two of Wands

What is our fine gentleman looking for on the horizon?

Perhaps it is this week's Writerly Tarot he seeks, which elucidates Temperance, the third card in my epic Spring Into Summer reading (you can check out Part 1 and Part 2 of that reading if you'd like a refresher).

But alas, he won't find it this week. I am discovering I need a little more time than these past seven days have provided. But I am sure that if he peers into his crystal ball, he will see Part Three coming up lickety split on Sunday.

I am absolutely certain it.