Drawing you
Just pull a card from the substack…..
Today I would like to share a personal story. I hope it speaks to you. When writing from experiences the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ get used a lot, I apologise but see no way to avoid that. This is a performance. Not being on stage would be strange. It is not about placing me in the center, it is using my perspective to show.
The funny thing is that the original action was not at all intended as a way to grow, it was just for fun. Not an intentional growth planner here, more a see what will happen kind of fool. A bramble not a bonsai. Tasty fruit but watch the thorns.
Inktober
Several years back, I discovered an online challenge called Inktober. For a month you plead to make an ink drawing each day. You can follow a list of prompts or make your own theme. The idea is to either work in ink directly (for the really confident) or make a ‘quick’ sketch, dip your pen and go for it. All real life paper and ink, no digital messing around (and AI generating was still science-fiction). Five years is ancient history.
The Inktober challenge pushes to be in the moment. While thinking ahead and having no time to spend on analysis you are forced to pay attention to what is in front of you with a very - understatement - honest tool.
The first year, I sketched along lightheartedly with the official prompt list and loved it, but didn’t have time to give it my full. Come October the next year I did.
Tarot
Just having discovered Tarot cards I considered it a tasty combination. The major arcana consists of 22 cards, close enough to give a bit of space for completing the task within the set 31 days. I’d pick a card from the reduced (sub)stack and create my own interpretation. A pencil sketch and then black India ink with pen and brush. And why not make some time lapses for the youtube channel?
You can feel it coming don’t you? The first card was Strength. Only now I can see the gift and the warning in that bit of cardboard. But this story is not about convincing you of the divinatory qualities of the tool. No, the discovering that happened was of a more personal kind.
Before one can interpret, one must do research. Inner and outer. I started reading, got books from the library, checked the wiki entries, and gathered different graphic versions of the XI Strength. Slowly my mistake dawned. It took me ten days to finish the first card.
Twenty one to go, both days and cards, but I was hooked. Something about the symbols, the associative boundary crossing mythical character of drawing like that reminded me of my teenage habit. The surrealistic never ending designs I made back then had a similar depth. This was a whole new level. Hyperreal. I slipped back into an enchanted reality as if it was a second skin. A long missed garment that still fit like a glove. Of course it did, it was mine. A super hero’s outfit that enhanced my dormant abilities. The dragon in me opened an eye and wondered if maybe it was time to wake up.
During that first card I kept pretty close to the ‘classical’ form. Now, something was set loose. XIV Temperance was next.
Merging fire and water is done by an angel, a gentle giving entity with wings of light, a fire symbol on her heart, one leg in the ocean, one on land. On her forehead a circle with a dot, she connects air, fire, water and earth. All parts in perfect balance, creating flow. This feels to me like a promise.
The above words I wrote to accompany the clip. While very visual, an inner bridge was being uncovered that tied the words to the visual. Words coming from a tongue I already spoke. I recognised the language used in the tarot system as my own. This is how I think. In relations and patterns. Metaphors within metaphors. Nested meanings, layer upon layer. Echoes, symmetries and resonance that honoured the holistic reality that is my home. And this awareness would grow and grow during the process. A definite fool's journey, a visual quest that happened while my formerly regulated life was crumbling and the river of life swept me away from my home, from my daughters, my parents.
I completed the last drawing more than two years after that Inktober month started. And each card revealed a new level of ‘my’ way.
Carefully chosen words. I said way instead of path. Like the constellation of the stars is a mirror of the whole constellation, the cards are a symbolic rebuilding of the patterns and connections and ways of this magical universe. Like the accepted language of words, a tool. A limited tool as all tools are and should be, but a tool fit for my hands. The lateral way, the right brain perspective, the taoist approach. I had found the invisible. Revealing how I thought, my shamanic looking-beyond-the-surface. The right-under-our-noses world of mythos, fairy tales, fiction. Poetry as the way of knowing that lies closest to the mystery. It hung me upside down for a long time, bound to Yggdrasil, to give me the runes.
Only in looking back can I see how clear the mirror held up to me actually was.
Me drawing you
The secret in the cards I want to share here is that the visual way the decks represent is legitimate, real and much more widespread than the mainstream wishes to acknowledge. Less the symbols themselves but the symbolic nature, its not the cards that do it but the how they point at. Not that specific system or method but the way. Yes, the unnameable way. The world beyond the words, beyond the representations. Not the objects but the relations are the leading force. This language lies closer to reality. At least the real I experience. A real I share with many. And with that I also got a glimpse of the world of pain, denial and damage hidden underneath our western order addiction. This was a hurtful clarity. An emphatic seeing that picks up how it feels at the other end. I could see why I had such trouble interacting with ‘the system’. I suddenly understood why so many get into deep, deep trouble if denied this way of being. I also felt - no, knew - it was not me who was the alien on this earth.
By card number seven I had discovered a depth in the now, previously only touched upon in tiny sparks. The fireworks were lit. Awesome, but they pass. What stayed is the discovered how. I am driven. Not to convince but to show. To draw. Are we on the wrong path? No, this is where we are, but I can see the sharp turn ahead. Well, you don’t have to be a clairvoyant to see that. Only not suffer from the widespread brain-blindness-epidemic raging through the ranks.
Back to the craft. The how. For drawing like that, anything goes. Not just the pencil. Writing is drawing too. Building is. Organising. Politics. It opens hands to any tool, the body to many ways. It opens eyes. Alliance reverts back to its original meaning. Anything done from that drive draws in the shape of what can be. It allows in ‘the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible’.1
Looking with squinted eyes you discover this alliance everywhere. The invisible way is alive. The time to gather close. Do you have the eye? Keep drawing...
I hope you did feel me drawing you. If so, then it may be time to join. Any level is good. We are already bound.
Read along from September and see what can be created from the imagined. You are invited.
If you would like a meditative not so quiet ASMR type look at me drawing the XX Judgement card, then grab some good headphones, or crank up the speakers for ten minutes to watch this. It’s the video I’m most proud of, not the lines of that image but the drawing in of something beneath the surface, slow and deep…
XX Judgement Tarot Visual Journey video
Oops, a quote snook its way in. But Charles is very welcome, he’s sketchy too.
Stunning artwork! And thanks for sharing the video; it's beautiful to see how the piece came into being and I really appreciate the symbolism in your interpretation/representation of 'Judgement'. (Said that, the dancers you drew were very powerful (and uplifting) as well, imo).
Really beautiful! I love how you see the tarot and that it's all about the relationships. And, holy cow! Your video on Judgement was breathing. Truly. Thank you!