Myth of Arrival

First, I need your help. I am looking for an artist(s) to work with me in creating a new Tarot deck; an ocean-themed one. I normally use the Cosmic Tribe deck but I have been wanting to do this project for years. It is my own skill at drawing and painting that is dubious at best, some might even call it embarrassing, that has stopped me so far. I decided, however, to let the fates help me and throw this out into the void so that someone might read it and be fascinated enough to write back.

Still, I am curious no one has attempted a maritime deck yet. As a Pisces I find it natural to turn to the seas for my inspiration (OK, not "natural," maybe more "obsessive.") My vision for this project would be that each day I sketch out a new, crude (and I mean crude: pocky, loutish, unrefined!) rough draft of each card and post it on my blog. Since there are myths all around the world concerning the seas and the gods that oversee and dwell in them, then this would include a brief introduction to the role each card plays, ways of interpreting the card in a reading and a sonnet to sum up the mood of the myth being used.

I must stress I am an amateur when it comes to Tarot. I think this project is going to a lot of fun and is workable but I am also open to any suggestions, comments, criticisms anyone might have. For example, I do not even have a title for the deck. At first I wanted to call it after the French word for "sea," La Mer: a nautical Tarot. But then I discovered that "La Mer" spells out "lamer," when read quickly and the last thing I want to be is lame or even lamer. Lamer to what, though, I am not sure.

Sonnets, ocean gods, crude drawings; all the makings of a very interesting summer. What do you think? Fascinated yet?

Let this be a new "Introduction," as you might have noticed, things have changed. A bit of blog body modification. The source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, says this of "mutilation" and "Extreme" body modification:

Body modification (or body alteration) is the permanent or semi-permanent deliberate altering of the human body for non-medical reasons, such as spiritual, various social (markings) or aesthetic. It can range from the socially acceptable decoration (e.g., pierced ears in many societies), over religiously mandated (e.g., circumcision in a number of cultures) to corporal punishment and provocative statement by the rebellious (e.g., nostril piercings in punk subculture), some even get physically addicted to the kick of a painful procedure.

Some even get physically addicted … How true! Just like that twenty-second ear ring, once I began fumbling about with formats and colors on my blog, there was no stopping¹. I never would have imagined, however, how difficult choosing functional colors can be. I guess I am not as much of a fan of "Atomic Vomit" Green and "Little Mermaid Kelp" Blue as I thought. Odd.

This leads us to Today's Question: Do you get points for sending me a letter with all the letters there, just not in the right order? Friends of Cooley Gardens (one of the few public gardens in Lansing) wrote to me asking for money, a letter to "Azchary." The 1995 Poet's Market² (under heading: Red Cedar Review editor) spelled it "Jachary." But that is better than what one of my residents called me two nights ago: "Hey, poop boy!" Poetry and fecal matter; covering all the grounds.

I didn't post this yesterday, partly because I ran out of time before I had to flee to work and partly because I find multiple posting on the same day hideously lugubrious³. However, it has come to my attention I need to submit another poem for publication. Today it is GUIDANCE TO THE WÜNDERKIND and the magazine of choice is The Madison Review. The poem in question is neither a sonnet or villanelle, but in wonderful free verse! Yes, there was a time (was it ten years ago already?) when I was writing long, rambling odes to drag queens that looked a little like this (but with better line breaks):

… the streets are long - we

hurry from lit pool to
lit pool - someone has
scrawled Purgatory in
crayon on the pavement
at our feet …

1. Actually, it was Shelby who did all the work. I just sat by her watching. Also, there was no fumbling at all, nosireebob, she knew exactly which key to hit [back]
2. At a steal! Only $2.95 + plus shipping. [back]
3. Not because I know the really meaning of "lugubrious" but because it is such a fun word to say: lugubrious, lugubrious, lugubrious. Eat your heart out Robert Hass. [back]

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics defines poetry as: “an instance of verbal art, a text set in verse, bound by speech.” Emily Dickinson added: “if I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”

The poetry that interests me, in fact everything that interests me in “Myth of Arrival” is in the tradition of “negative ecstasy,” or “negative capacity.” It is a poetic stretching from Saint John of the Cross through John Keats, Willis Barnstone and others who believe that the poet is nothing more than a void. That is, in order to create the poet requires a willing release of the ego and self, which will in turn allow that void to be filled with the verse. This appealed to me, for I had been feeling like a void on a daily basis for rather long time. It is a method we can use so that works, ideas and even lives that once appeared as imperfect or failures, are, by their very nature, simply unfinished acts of construction.

Some critics argue that modern “Poetry” is in trouble (poetry with the capital P … one of the three P-words that get people all hot and bothered). Or, that there are too many MFA courses being offered and thus too many poets without Serious Things To Say. Or, that _____________ School of Poetry just plain sucks (fill in the blank with whatever form of poetry irritates you at the moment: Slam, Language, Confessional, etcetera). I say, what a great time to be alive! We do have so many different ways to express ourselves. Groovy! As long as we are drawn toward the union of the unknown, steeping aside to let the unknown in, to fill us, to create what we call poetry through us, anything is possible. Coleman Barks has translated the Sufi mystic poet Jalâluddîn Rumi. There are hundreds of Rumi poems advising us to go towards this unknown (some call it Nature, others God or Allah or the Goddess, some the Creative Principal) but this one example, I think, sums up what poetry should be all about better than any other:

“One night a man was crying, ‘Allah! Allah!’ His lips grew sweet with the praising, until a cynic said, ‘So! I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?’

The man had no answer to that. He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick, green foliage.

‘Why did you stop praising?

‘Because I’ve never heard anything back.

‘This longing you express is the return message.’

The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master; that whining is the connection.

There are love-dogs no one knows the names of. Give your life to be one of them.”

Friends, is poetry,“that whining connection”? Is it then a myth that we can never arrive at that union? Or is the myth that once you lean forward, stepping toward the divine, you’ll be able to stop? Is it in the same manner that we constantly turn to all beauty, everywhere, to all things that make us feel as if the top of our head have been taken off?

Perhaps, as poets and readers of poetry and thinkers about the art, we should try to live like that. Let us embrace this union, this longing, this desire, this myth of arrival.