north-of-reality

[north-of-reality]

MISSIVE 17 - The Tower as a Burning Tree

“Lightning follows the pathways of life: of sap, of water, of blood, of nerve. It cuts to the innermost, and flows through the sources of growth that brought a living thing to the height at which it was struck. This is something that the Tower doesn’t commonly demonstrate: the way the body informs the wound. The rot burns away, leaving a hollow space to be filled, or if nothing else, a memory through absence. What is destroyed, and what is illuminated, decides what happens next.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 16 - The Strange History of the Hierophant’s Hand

“The card above takes one very bold step in disrupting the tradition of Tarot, in that it places one unit from each suit in front of the Hierophant, a motif usually reserved for the Magician (Hermes). There is actually some interesting interplay that takes place between the Sabazians and Hermes during their time in Greece. Indeed, Hermes is often depicted making the same hand gesture, and twelve known hands of Sabazios discovered have busts of him protruding from their geometry.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 15 - Themes in Animal Allegories of the Hanged Man

“The bat and opossum both introduce new ways to think about the perceptive dissonance that underpins the Hanged Man. Both are misunderstood and treated poorly by humanity. But while the bat implies a physiological boundary of difference, the opossum implies one that we can overcome by choice. We could cut the Hanged Man down at any time; why are we watching this spectacle?“

Read here.

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MISSIVE 14 - Some Notes on Frogs and Fools

“Frogs do, however, casually overcome what we perceive as death. Even though all of their vital organs can freeze over and shut down in winter, come spring’s warmth, they are rejuvenated after a short period of thaw. It baits disbelief that such simple creatures can return from death so casually, whether on ice or in a box, while human technology can only manage to revive in a fraction of cases, and cryogenic preservation continues to be the stuff of science fiction. They’re good at making fools of us.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 13 - The Ace of Wands and the Expanded Category of Fire

“Still, Smith took its portrayal a step further, to wands as still-living, non-burning wood. This decision expresses vital experience: passion, will, motion, ideology, and belief; the instigating stuff that is material, but is not matter in and of itself, just like fire. It is the animistic and animating in equal measure, expressed as suspended animation. Its mutability is in time, rather than space (which is the domain of air). It will grow, it will branch, and someday, it will rot or burn. But for now, it is this.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 12 - The Three and Ten of Swords Considered Together in the Synaesthesia Tarot

“Within the domain of air is the breath of life, the respiratory, which shares an etymological root with spirit for a reason. And, by currently accepted astrological associations, the card corresponds with the Sun in Gemini, a positive position that seems at first to contradict the brutality of the ten’s art. There is a shock of the optimistic in it despite its appearance, a contrast of exhalations: that of drawing one’s final breath with that of relief.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 11 - More on Coral Snakes: Arcana and the Primordial in the Ten of Swords

“This is why I find it interesting to see Tarot’s imagery in reality: we have a tendency to dismiss the presence of a symbolic pattern in an unlikely place as being pareidolia. But we shouldn’t be surprised that consistent forms can move through the material world in unknown ways independently of conscious or even unconscious human activity. There are numerous terms for modes by which a form moves from one medium to another (let’s hold off on counterfeits and simulacra for now), but Batesian mimicry is interesting because it demonstrates a means of transmission that shrugs off the human altogether, and leads us to wonder how many other such mechanisms there are that we are engaging with right now beyond our knowledge.”

Read here.

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MISSIVE 10 - The Formulation of Card 79

“The early twentieth century study of the cards was dedicated to the conceit that it was an unbound book, the remnant of some ancient true religion with greater wisdom than contemporary spiritual traditions offered. Today, as Tarot blooms rhizomatically, with each new interpretation of a card adding to the possibility space, it is hard to imagine pursuing that line of reasoning further.”

Read here.

Compound Eye is a comparative tarot publication by Uel Aramchek, author of North of Reality and proprietor of the Myrmecoleon Club. Subscribe for $5 a month to learn about innovations in the art of tarot, and explorations in the tarot of the real twice a week. Or just sign up for the free newsletter, which is sent once a week.

[north-of-reality]

“This Nine of Wands is in the space of fire and belief, reminding us that its fortitude is about the conviction and determination to do what must be done. But it is still a IX, and thus, the isolation of the Hermit echoes through it. It is about thankless efforts, lost causes, and gritting one’s teeth until the work is complete. Understanding the card, however, means recognizing that most work of this kind is endless.”

Read here.

Compound Eye is a comparative tarot publication by Uel Aramchek, author of North of Reality and proprietor of the Myrmecoleon Club. Subscribe for $5 a month to learn about innovations in the art of tarot, and explorations in the tarot of the real.

[north-of-reality]

MISSIVE 6: The Fool, Videodrome, and the Threshold of Epistemological Collapse

“We must now live with the possibility that anything experienced as reality is cut whole from liquid crystal cloth, regardless of its origin or authority. We weren’t ready for this world. We crossed the threshold of the screen without noticing, and fell head-first into virtual permanence. The pandemic isn’t helping; so long as it continues, the internet is the only safe place where reality can be found.

We can never log off. Long live the new flesh.”

Read More

Compound Eye is a comparative tarot publication by Uel Aramchek, author of North of Reality and proprietor of the Myrmecoleon Club. Subscribe for $5 a month to learn about innovations in the art of tarot, and explorations in the tarot of the real.

[north-of-reality]

MISSIVE 5: THE EMPEROR’S CUBE IN THE FOUNTAIN TAROT

“The fours are about stable foundations across all suits, oversimplified as follows: financial security with liquidity (coins), satiation of social and psychological desires (cups), mental tranquility and peace (swords), and solidity of one’s standing in the world (wands). Atop these is the fourth major arcanum, The Emperor, who strives to maintain a stable world for humanity separated from the wilderness, despite its providence (portrayed by the Empress, who rules the threes).”

Read Here

Compound Eye is a comparative tarot publication by Uel Aramchek, author of North of Reality and proprietor of the Myrmecoleon Club. Subscribe for $5 a month to learn about innovations in the art of tarot, and explorations in the tarot of the real.

[north-of-reality]

Missive 3: A Brief Lesson in Shark Anatomy using the 5-cent Tarot’s Eight of Buttons

“Most art is a form of organization: arranging matter to produce a specific and effective result. The evolution of a creature like the hammerhead is no different. That being said: evolution never ends. Each shark is just another pentacle hammered together by the previous generation. The secret to the artisan’s mastery is that he is always in the process of improving his craft.”

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Compound Eye Missive 2: An Encounter with the Devil in North Park

“We think of the American Devil as a cartoonish creature who wears a red suit, shoots pool, and plays the fiddle. If we focus only on the shadow in the first photograph, we see a more cartoonish demon, with nubbed horns, floppy ears, and spooky hands. It’s a comical image when seen alone, almost texaveresque; then we meet the moose skull’s gaze, and the whole of his threatening form becomes impossible to ignore.”

Read Here

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Compound Eye Missive 1: The Final Judgment in the Carnival at the End of the World

“Some have said that 2020 is a Tower year for the United States, but I’m not certain that this is case. Tower myths are indeed disastrous, but they are tales of hubris and doomed ambitions. Judgement feels more appropriate: the card of rude awakening, where the unresolved sins of the world are unearthed and suddenly laid bare. Those who have long been able to rest on unjust machinery abruptly find themselves needing to justify their own existence. The dead have been called forth as well, much to their surprise: their statues are judged in their physical absence.”

Read Here

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Hello Everyone

I’m quite humbled and surprised to see that the NoR tumblr is still actively read in my absence. As always, thank you for reading, and I’m delighted that you are enjoying my work.

I’ve recently started a newsletter over on Substack, exploring interesting tarot art in my usual style. Consider taking a look here to see if it is something that might interest you. Even if you yourself are not a tarot reader or student, I tend to think the subject matter may still be interesting if you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written here. Every other post is freely distributed.

Feel free to reach out any time. Especially in times like these when there are fewer people in all of our lives.

Yours as always, Uel Aramchek

[north-of-reality]

ON EARWIGS

There is a commonly circulated urban legend concerning earwigs that their name is a reference to a particularly horrifying type of parasitism: that they burrow into the human cranium through the ear canal, then tunnel their way into the brain’s gray matter where they lay their eggs.

In modernity, most discover this myth by way of encountering its refutation. Nearly every text concerning earwigs includes, somewhere in the first few sentences, language similar to this: “Despite their nomenclature, earwigs do not actually burrow into the human cranium through the ear canal to lay their eggs, though this is a commonly circulated urban legend.”

This commonly circulated statement of negation propagates by either burrowing into the human cranium through the ear canal as sound, or through the pupils as written word, before becoming memory in the brain. From there, it multiplies through repetition by the tongue or fingertips.

As a result, the original legend occupies the body of any statement denying its truth, a parasite embedded within its own extermination, quietly spreading from one mind to another.

In this respect, antlions are a close cousin to earwigs.

Bloody Mary also propagates via negation.

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THE MYRMECOLEON EFFECT

The antlion is unique among modern animalia in that its evolution resulted not from a mutation within its genetic code, but rather, within the spelling of its name. Sometime during the legendary translation of the Septuagint from Hebrew into Greek for Ptolemy II, an old Hebrew variant of 'lion' used in the Book of Job was warped into the bizarre word 'myrmecoleon,' a portmanteau of the terms for 'ant' and 'lion.' Over the centuries that followed, scholars searching their archives for the wisdom of antiquity wrote scores of accounts as to just what this ‘myrmecoleon’ was, many of which sharply contradicted. For some, it was a direct hybrid of mammal and insect, a creature damned to starve by its paradoxical metabolism. To others, it was the Myrmex Indikos previously described by Herodotus, a species of aggressive, fox-sized ant native to either India or Ethiopia, who warred with locals over ownership of the vast caches of gold hidden within their nests. The most common (and reasonable) interpretation of the text, supported by Isidore of Seville, was that it referred to some form of "lion among ants:" a fierce predator within its own context, but just another ant to the birds who devoured them in a single peck. In these accounts, it was a traitor to its own kind, distancing itself from the hive either to hunt and cannibalize those who strayed into its territory, or to intercept and ambush columns delivering grain to their queen. When Carolus Linnaeus took it upon himself to classify the living things of the world, he drew heavily upon mythology and folklore to name the taxonomical categories that we use today. Through this task, he became an unwitting accessory to an Alexandrian conjuration centuries in the making. There was one particular family of net-winged insects, whose cunning larvae lured ants into pits with clouds of dust and devoured them whole. They produced no excrement, and eventually built cocoons from the partially digested bodies of their prey. Linnaeus bestowed upon them the variant name myrmeleontidae, for, given the evidence, what else could they be? With that, the evolution of the antlion was complete. After years of existing as ink passing from one page to another, it finally found itself canonized in the grand continuum of life. The integration was so complete as to appear seamless to the empirical eye; its lineage could be traced back to fossilized Neuropterae from a hundred million years prior. The whole axis of time had bent to make room for myth. This phenomenon continues to influence our so-called consensus reality. In his 1959 novel Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs introduces readers to the “giant aquatic black centipede,” an unprecedented monstrosity, whose piquant flesh is devoured by addicts in grotesque bacchanals. In 2001, scientists in Thailand discovered the "horrific" Scolopendra cataracta, the first documented giant aquatic centipede, named in the Linnaean fashion for the waterfall-like undulations that allowed it to swim. By the time it revealed itself, it had always been there; a forgotten, mislabeled specimen was found at the Museum of Natural History in London, where it had been waiting for researchers since 1928. If he had been alive to witness this discovery, Burroughs would have been horrified, yet unsurprised. To him, language was more than simply a means of communicating information: it was an active, living force of nature parasitically attached to the human nervous system, capable of controlling the boundary between its host and their surroundings. Nothing could be read, written, or spoken without further tightening its grip upon reality. Working from this model, there can be no such thing as fiction. Read what you find herein with care.

Every time an antlion feasts, the moon gets a bit darker.

The author may be responsible for at least one instance of this effect.