Vir Kobus: Gelukkige verjaarsdag. alpha + omega. Le Pendu, die opgehangde man

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and  this card,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,

Which I am forbidden to see.  I do not find

the Hanged Man - T S Eliot, The Waste Land.

The Tarot uses Christian archetypes - The Pope, the Devil, The Final Judgement -  but was banned;  anyone who was in possession burned at the stake for heresy.  For heretical it was.  The heinous Inquisition and the Witchcraft trials sought to eliminate anything that didn't accept monotheism: one religion, one book, one god.   The Tarot encouraged questioning, the Church demanded blind faith.

Le Pendu, the Hanged Man,  has no Christian relevance as such.  He isn't hanging with a noose around his neck, or crucified..  Was he strung up like this or did he do so himself?   Is the  poised crossing of his leg an arcane sign?

It is the most intriguing + also the most disturbing card.  We can't make  sense of it.  The Fool had just gained Strength [11]. + will, after this die [13].

His world has been turned upside down.  It is brimful of paradoxes, but it is in paradox + contradiction, rather than in simplification that the Truth is found.

What the Fool experienced until now is now seen from a totally different angle.  It is an emotional expurgation, letting go of former beliefs.  It is a reversal, + it is the ultimate sacrifice, of the Fool’s sanity.  He is free of trying to be in control.

 Al-Hallaj was a 9^th century Sufi mystic + writer and revolutionary heretic : Ana al Haq [ أنا الحق‎]  – I am God – he proclaimed.  

 He had a long drawn out public trial, during which he refused to retract his statement and  was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.  He still refused to recant, still repeating  his mantra: I am God, I am the Truth. He was sentenced to a public execution, whereby they hung him upside down, cutting  off his legs.   My legs are what I used to travel the earth, he said, now I am one step to Heaven.  He smiled throughout, chanting Ana al Haq.  They cut off  his hands.  He took the stumps  of his arms to his face, covering it with the blood.  When asked why he was doing so, he replied that the blood was being drained from him, making his face yellow, and he didn't want to appear as if he  was afraid.

They proceeded to cut his body into small pieces, burned it + scattered his ashes into the wind.

 In rural France the local gendarmerie tried to arrest me on a preposterous charge.  I told Monsieur le Capitaine  to sit down and took out my note book.  Can I have your name + number?

He looked at me as if I were mad.

Can I have your name + number?, I repeated, more sternly.

He shook his head in disbelief.  The world has turned upside down.  It is normally we who ask he questions. 

That is right.  The world has turned upside down.   I am asking you for the last time, what is your name + number?

obama

Dear TM

My friends thought I was being reactionary, difficult  when I didn't join in the in the euphoria at his election Now I would gloat - I told you so -  if it weren't so serious, so depressing.  I was surprised at everyone's naivety.  A reason for the attraction was that he was black.  I know that sounds banal, but it is so.  And understandably so.  In the way that one supported women leaders.  surely they can only do better?

Of course he is attractive. I laughed when I read the most attractive since Kennedy.  [!]  Of course he is intelligent.

Suaveness has become the criterion for choosing a leader.  Celebritising, mediatising spin.  Like Blair, Cameron, Clegg  [let us leave Brown out of this], the Millibands.  What work did any of these people do before standing for election?  

Maybe if I had a child like you I would want to believe in a saviour, someone who would save her and her generation from the dismal ugliness that stares one in the face.  But I also am amazed at the naivety of you all.

But did you really  not know that Amerika is ruled by obscene capitalists, and by the military?  Manipulated by the right wing media.   When you visited I kept on asking you -  tiresomely at times - how you could live there?  18 % of Americans believe he is a Muslim!  [and as such a condemnation.  Does it matter if he were?  A few years ago, my physiotherapist, an intelligent guy, told me a previous patient had told him that Mandela had secretly converted to Islam.  What nonsense I said:  why would he -of all people -  secretly do so?  You convert because you are convinced it is the truth.  He would have changed his name, accordingly. ]

When I asked you [+ others]  at the time why you saw it about a choice between Obama and McCain, when there is Nader:  you [all] said he doesn't stand a hope in winning.  But wasn’t he the only sane choice?

Both you + Q are right.  What I said at the time of his election was that he would be devoured by the machinery of America.

Yes, Afghanistan.  Yes, they will wage war on Iran.  He said that he would close the iniquitous Guantanamo camp within one year.  There is no sign of this happening.    The ghastly thing is that we, who thought we were intelligent and sensitive,  have become immune to what has happened, and is still happening there.  Do you hear me:  it is a fucking outrage.  

The most terrifying thing is that the next card will be Palin.  No not suave.  Ignorant, yes.  Dangerous, yes.  And you thought Bush was bad....

I was after the sinus operation at a small bay. Isak was there to help me.  It is interesting to learn the Coloured folklore.  To see his relationship to the sea, because he is rooted where it is not.    He told me – I thought Conrad [+ you] would approve -  that you should never take a pack of cards near the sea.  That night it will come crashing down through the walls.  I suspect to bring in a game of chance in the presence of the unpredictable Poseidon.   Wasn’t Ulysses instructed to pour wax in the ears of his men, +  he bound to the mast to prevent them being bewitched by the sirens?  Paradoxically,  for one who is obsessed with knowing, this all appeals.

Mais, mon ami, dedans tous la laideur je cherche encore pour  la beauté.


Je t-embrasse