Temperance

Oh no,not angels! I mean, no offense to those that really vibe with the angelic universe but the whole angel thing...ain't my thing. But is that fair? I'm pretty sure I have a... guardian angel. When I was only 19 and living in the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco I had a friend that lived across the panhandle, this long strip of park a city square wide by about ten blocks, stretching between Fell and Oak streets into Golden Gate Park. Three times I stupidly stayed at this friend's house waaay too late. Chalk it up to their odd roommate or whatnot, but I didn't want to sleep there. So I walked home. A 19 year old skinny redhead walking through the Panhandle, deep in the city, in the dark. This was a very bad idea. In fact, I once found a handmade tarot deck there, full of dark dark images, scattered across the grass with someone's clothing and possessions. There was blood on some of the cards. But that's another story! At any rate, all three times I went to cross this no sane man's land, I would get to the cross walk at Fell on the edge of the trees, and another young woman would show up at exactly the same time. We would look at each other, and cross together, shoulder to shoulder. I don't think it was the same woman each time, but I knew it was divine. Maybe we are all each other's guardian angels? Maybe she was just another stupid young woman living on luck.

Who am I to diss the concept of a guardian angel? Or angels in general. Even if they are often portrayed blond, beautiful, and white? Do I have to paint an angel for the Temperance card? Historically angels appear predominantly on many of the cards in decks from the 1600-1800s. Angels were around every street corner back then.

The ancient papyrus text, the Codex Marcianus Graecus 299 from about 1st century A.D.contains a story of Isis working over an angel. I'll make this short story shorter for you. An angel has the hots for Isis and wants to get down and dirty with her but she's like, "no way angel, not until you offer up the secrets of alchemy". And he's like "no no I can't, it's so secret", but she's such a hottie, so he gives in. Angel and Goddess porn commences. And the alchemical secret is this: The farmer works the wheat field and gets wheat, the Stone mason works the query and gets stone. What you put in is what you get out. Nature begets nature. It's a cycle- life, birth, life, death, birth, life...It's the Ouroborus, the perpetual motion machine, the snake curling around to eat its own tail, the mobius strip.Ok so that's really inspiring for images!

Somehow this whole painting became everything that turns me off for having become so mainstream, for being drained of its essence. Angels, infinity symbols, christian posters, even the Madonna, Mary. Though she has a right to be in this painting as she is an appropriation of the goddess Isis. She is not associated with alchemy but she is a healer, THE healer. Catholics say you can call on Mary and she will be there for you, with healing and patience, like the Temperance angel. I also had fun, temperance alchemical style, mixing my own ancestral religions. I feel my ancestors behind me, holding space for me, whispering, and I think they are more real to me than the concept of angels. Perhaps they are our guardian angels. My ancestors are Jewish and Catholic. Not quite fire and water, catholicism and judaism still don't seem to mix well. My mom was raised catholic, She had nuns as teachers in school, the Catholic works, and my dad was a New York Jewish boy growing up in the bronx. They canceled each other out, leaving me with an attraction to jewish men and Jewish ceremonies, and a love for beautifully painted altarpieces and the movie Brother Sun Sister Moon, about St.Francis of Assisi. Actually my 'daily' deck that I've taken to, is the Golden Tarot, which is a collage of bits of ancient catholic paintings, and a lovely amount of gold gilding. So my Madonna wears her deep blue wrap which she was classically represented in, but the wrap is also the Jewish Prayer Shawl, a tallit, with its magical knotting. Wait, what??? you say, sacrilege! and also- only Jewish men wore the tallit! Ha! Firstly, Mary WAS Jewish. Yup. And the Temperance angel is all about combining these opposites, and is often portrayed as a hermaphrodite. So 'Mary' is both male and female. She gets the pros and cons of both those designations.

I was sitting outside to attempt to make my first sketch for this painting. The sun was slowly shifting behind the moon. I would draw a bit then put on those funky cardboard glasses to view the solar eclipse then draw again. It wasn’t until the sun and moon parted that pathway that I realized the eclipse should be in the painting. Over time the symbol got jig sawed out completely so it can orbit the painting in a perpetual dance of sun and moon.

The rainbow represents the goddess Iris, messenger to the gods. She is hovering in most modern temperance cards. Really I just wanted to paint rainbows. Likely those other tarot deck makers did as well. Turns out rainbows are kinda tricky! The iris also represents the goddess Iris. And it even has rainbows in it...a bit overkill but again...rainbows. Iris was the message carrier of the gods. The rainbow is the phone line, the ethernet cable to the gods. Got something you'd like to say to God? Or maybe we all need to tune in to that particular streaming service. But this is the Temperance card, so there will be a streaming service fee- perhaps hard work, or 10 minutes of meditation a day (goes up to 15 minutes after 6 months).

It seems the rainbows association of Iris's bridge has been wonderfully colored out of the lines by its adoption by the LGBTQ community. I just got back from the pride parade and what an eye feast of rainbows it was! Since, as I mentioned, Temperance is considered a hermaphrodite, how appropriate that the rainbow is still shining on in this card, letting us know all the options for how we define ourselves and our partners- so many combinations to mix between our cups.

Knight of Coins

Three of Wands