From my notebook. I found an old Japanese woodblock print concerning childbirth, which I found fascinating since it is difficult for me to find any reference to midwifery or the ritual of giving birth from ages gone by.
One of the functions Syssk performs is that of court musician and there are several cards in this deck (5 of Cups, Dynamo of Wands) where her song illustrates the lessons that the Tarot is trying to teach. Syssk identifies as female, though no one else on Earth might agree. This is her struggle while marooned on this tiny rock, so much of humanity’s sense of self is based on biological reductionism that it makes anyone trying to redefine their own boundaries as revolutionary.
The revolution will not be televised, we are told. Nor will it be gendered.
Notes on Notes:
It’s been pointed out to me that my hand-writing is barely readable so here are what the notes say:
Syssk can sing?
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. [Tao Te Ching]
It is quite true that there are no limits to masculine egotism in ordinary life. In order to change the conditions of life we must learn to see through the eye’s of a woman. [Leon Trotsky]
You never get nothing by bein’ an angel child. You’d better change your ways and get real wild. I’m gonna tell you something, I wouldn’t tell you a lie, Wild women are the only kind that really get by ‘Cause wild women don’t worry, wild women don’t have the blues. [Ida Cox]
We are the stars that sing. We sing with our light. We are the birds born from fire. We fly over the heavens. Our light. Our voice. We cut a road for the soul for its journey through Death. For the three of us are hunters. For we face the hills with disdain. [Passamquoddy]
Life on the planet is born of woman. [Adrienne Rich]
The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing. [Rainer Maria Rilke]
In the great night my heart will go out; while toward me the darkness comes rattling. In the great night my heart will go out. [Juana Manwell]
