Ace of Wands

Oh yeah, I write poems. I haven't in a long time, or I do and then I put them away and I don't think about them. But today a tarot card inspired me and this came out and I shared it with a friend and then I thought, it wants to go out wider, so I'll send it on its way.

I'm back again with Philology, describing the 12th century Quedlinburg tapestry. This somehow takes a long time. Maybe because I haven't seen it in a long time, maybe because it is hard to understand how to understand these figures from another time. Still, I love them. You can look at them. 

I'm about seven pages from really finishing this chapter I've been writing for so long, but I feel stuck and haven't made much progress for a few days. I have been correcting too, and this makes every word feel weighty, as though you don't want to let it get away and it must be just right and it can't be.

Anyways, I got the reversed ace of wands, thinking about a situation I am unsure about. I really like my favorite deck's image, Golden Tarot, an angel with a flower and a wand, and a book at her knees, and the fire behind.

I looked at this one when I wrote the poem, from the Holy Light deck, but the other one was there too, in my mind, since I've looked at it so much :

There is the flame and the branches and the leaves, a good message for the winter solstice.

Ace of Wands

I’m stretching myself up,  
I’m getting taller,
I’m alone, but I have branches
leaves, I’m fueling energy
for growth, I like the way
I feel, I want to continue
this journey, I want to heal.

Reversed, I’m not reaching out,
I’m looking in. Inside
is the answer I am looking for,
though I doubt myself sometimes.
Though I am silent, I am not
ineffectual. I take action through
no action, I feed objectless desire.

There is a spark inside me that is ready
to burst into flames. Watch out or else
you might get burned. It’s all new and
waiting. This fury will become
something good, with time, this rod,
stick, wand, will grow in two directions,
both up and down, so hold on.  

May all of your darkest nights be bright!

Berlin Notes

I'm leaving tonight, on the train, to go back to Geneva. The week went by quickly. We went to Quedlinburg so that I could look at a 12th century tapestry, now in fragments, representing the Marriage of Philology and Mercury. 
Here we see Piety and Justice embracing.

The Church this tapestry was housed in was an SS meeting hall for Nazi ceremonies during the war.

War as Timeless

In early pictures
Hitler wore shorts,
leiderhosen, sat with dogs,
a friend to babies.

These are the politicians
that make the decisions
that leave holes in faces
as well as places.

Shattered minds now
as when in ancient times,
altars destroyed, spears thrown,
the god of war cried out and made himself be sculpted.

I wonder what the Nazis thought of the tapestry, or of philology. Wagner was a great friend of Nietzsche, and philology was often used for nationalistic purposes. The origins of languages and the fascist cause, bosom buddies, and the dangers of wanting to own history, dictate the future. 

I think she looks lovely, holding hands with Mercury. He says, I am yours, in a ribbon unrolling across his body. I am still deciphering her words. The tapestry was apparently commissioned by an abbess named Agnes, for the Pope. I am glad she didn't have to live to see the 20th century.  

A visit to the Pergamon

Eros has wings and serpent legs,
and he is doing things to men.

With one bent foot under his squatting body,
his buttocks, muscles and folds of skin
betray the tension of battle, captured on the wall.

In the center of the hall gathers all the youth of Germany,
who spotted, braced and badly dressed, stare at each other,
as altars to new gods, at the Pergamon Museum.