“Chaos that/ takes I from/ I” ~ Note written for the Fool.

I’ve been trying to keep a notebook in English regarding what Syssk’s tarot cards mean. In the Rider-Waite deck the Magician is the conduit between Heaven and Earth. Here, though, there is no Heaven or Earth, only the formless Void, only Chaos personified. This is what fascinates me. The Tao Te Ching states:

There was something formlessly fashioned, that existed before Heaven and Earth; without sound, without substance, dependent on nothing, unchanging, all-pervading, unfailing. One may think of it as the Mother of all Things Under Heaven.

That “ something formlessly fashioned.” That is the conduit that I’m looking for. Neither masculine nor feminine, neither black nor white, neither solid nor liquid: Chaos, the primal substance that holds the universe together. As a result I must discard any philosophy that can only function on planet Earth for being too limiting. Humans tend to be oppressively myopic when it comes to their desires. As the Chinese feminist and revolutionary, Qiu Jin, put it, “Now that things have gotten so dangerous,/ please change your girl’s garments for a Wu sword.”

That is the teacher. Discard your “I” ~ Chaos awaits.

Notes on Notes:

It’s been pointed out to me that my hand-writing is barely readable so here are what the notes say:

Don’t tell me women are not the stuff of heroes, I alone rode over the East Sea’s winds for ten thousand leagues. My poetic thoughts ever expand, like a sail between ocean and heaven. I dreamed of your three islands, all gems, all dazzling with moonlight. I grieve to think of the bronze camels, guardians of China, lost in thorns. Ashamed, I have done nothing; not one victory to my name. I simply make my war horse sweat. Grieving over my native land hurts my heart. So tell me; how can I spend these days here? A guest enjoying your spring winds? [Qiu Jin]

Je est une autre. I is another. [Rimbaud]

I from I

Thus to name it is to raise stones, to wound the bark with stones, to batter it with stones, the stones to cut the bark, to fester in the bark.

In everything natural there is something mysterious. [Aristotle]

Qiu Jin’s carved seal: Read books/ Practice sword.

Earlier design for the Magician, from a science fiction themed tarot based on astronauts and aliens.