Greetings from the gates to late summer. I’m still in Montréal, piecing together a schedule of 3 different part-time piercing gigs and playing live here and there – including this week with a lineup of noise and electronics. I also just published this interview with NYC-based Cree, Canadian sound artist Chloe Alexandra Thompson.
Below I’m sharing the continuation of my tarot series for By Tooth and Claw’s instagram that I wrote earlier this year: Death, the Devil, and the Pentacle.
Til next time,
xx RV
Death
Death, number 13: possibly the most metal of tarot cards. I contemplated sewing this patch onto a piece of clothing, but eventually it made its way onto my wall (above my collection of pastel plushies; photos coming soon). In this Rider-Waite version of the tarot, Death’s scythe takes up the whole lower quarter of the image. Below him is dark earth marked with patches of grass and strewn with the dismembered hands, feet and heads of two crowned figures. It seems to be referencing the role of death as the great equalizer: even royalty are eventually destined to become fertilizer.
Death here is portrayed as a skeleton tilling the soil with his scythe. The skeleton is inside all of us, and will eventually be the last thing that remains of us on the physical plane. A book that I read in high school that influenced me quite a bit is Vancouver author Douglas Coupland’s short story collection Polaroids from the Dead.
The “Dead” of the title is a reference to the band The Grateful Dead, a concert by which is described in book from the vantage point of several different characters of various ages and class backgrounds: the rich middle-aged hippies wearing designer clothes in the VIP booth at the concert, the young idealistic white couple naively attempting to live a rural lifestyle without any generational connection to the land, the teenagers doing drugs in the car on the way to the show.
Coupland’s book explores the experience of time and mortality through the lens of music as an intergenerational cultural phenomenon. There’s a lot more to be said about this card from an esoteric perspective, but I think art is as an interesting an entry point as ever to think about cycles of change and rebirth.
The Devil
I suppose I should say something about the Devil here.
They’re the scapegoat of the Bible, the exiled angel of the underworld. I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies lately that feature demonic themes: the entire Hellraiser franchise (some are terrible in a good way, others are just terrible), and a beautifully dark and surreal Polish film called Hellhole about a bunch of heretic monks.
As far as the tarot card, I wish this image wasn’t so cisheteronormative. It gets old seeing these symbolic dualities repeated without question, and positioned like everyone can relate to the dynamic. My girlfriend and I are always transposing our own trans/non-binary narratives onto what we’re watching on tv: the Sailor Moon unicorn is a he/him lesbian, Rhaenyra Targaryen is trans masc, etc. (Actually, the actor who plays Rhaenyra is non-binary, I later found out.)
I see the devil not at face value, but as a bogeyman. In tarot culture, it’s often interpreted as a sign of transgression, addiction, lack of control, being chained to bad habits or toxic relationships. Sure, those things exist in real life. But I like to look at “dark” images like this as a symbol of fear of the people and practices that exist on the margins of society, or which are repressed out of shame.
The visual similarities between this card and a BDSM dungeon are obvious. BDSM is one of those things that’s highly misunderstood by many people. For some, it represents fear and non-consensual power dynamics; for others, it’s a form of intimacy, connection, and self-expression built on trust and consent.
Some of my favorite artists incorporate(d) rituals of pain and endurance into their work. Bob Flanagan, who lived with chronic pain from cystic fibrosis, created sadomasochistic performance art with his partner Sheree Rose in the 1980s and 90s which frankly explored the taboos of illness, sexuality, and death. (I’m looking forward to watching the documentary Sick, which chronicles his life and work.)
Queer Rites (Pentacle)
HRT has been a daily ritual for me in the past several months. This is my first time mentioning it on social media. There’s a lot of fear and misinformation out there (to say the least) about trans healthcare. And a lot of opinions and takes on it both within and outside of the trans community.
I didn’t ever plan on taking hormones, but at some point I realized that it could be an option for me, and then later, I decided to access that option. It took a few months on a waitlist, and I was lucky to get into an informed consent clinic where I wasn’t asked to prove anything or define my gender in order to move forward with HRT.
I identify as non-binary, gender nonconforming, and transmasculine. It took me awhile to understand my gender because I enjoy having long hair, wearing makeup, and dressing in some clothes that are considered feminine. For a while I identified as a femme dyke, and in particular a top. Sexuality was also a place where I could explore different gender expressions and roles that didn’t add up according to cisheteronormative, or even cishomonormative, standards.
As I came into my own queerness, I realized that gender was a part of that. For awhile, it didn’t seem important enough to define, and then, I started realizing that I wanted to. And so in the past couple of years I gradually took the opportunity to change my pronouns and start to redefine how I think of myself gender-wise.
Gender is obviously important, but it’s just one facet of my identity. Transitioning, or taking HRT, isn’t the center of my life. It’s just an ambient thing that is happening alongside many other kinds of ongoing growth and change for me. I’m not seeking to become a different person, or try to emulate what a transmasc or non-binary person is “supposed” to look like. I’m literally just evolving into the next version of myself, as I have continually done throughout my life.
*Queer Rites sticker by Blood and Dust, a delightfully dark ritualistic sound and visual project based here in so-called Montreal.