Emperor

Oil on wood in upcycled cut frame. original available.

The Emperor's crown is the weight of mountains. He is a moment in time and he is forever. He is the axis. He is in balance. He is deep water. He is dry earth cracked in the patterns of his skin. There is confident symmetry in his life, but only when restricted to his own domain.The choice has been made- there is a center and there is an orientation. He doesn't have the freedom of an abstracted system. He has his own inherent structure embedded within. He is his own authority. Do you trust him to hold your world?

What was the Emperor trying to tell me? I originally pulled him reversed (though now, after some guidance, I am reading only upright as I learn tarot). What did the card mean reversed? Do I need more masculine energy ( if you knew me you would definately say NO). Maybe I need fewer rules or more rules? I hate rules but I like structure. Maybe I need LESS emperor energy? Sitting with the Emperor, studying his messages and history, I feel he means that I must embrace my own knowing. I must ultimately be my own authority. I am on my journey, just as you, Kind Reader, are on yours. What card you might paint would necessarily be different from mine. I need to trust myself to hold my own world. To be my own axis. But saying so and being are different struggles! My chest feels heavy just considering accepting confidence in myself. How odd is that? How frightening!

Male, female, no gender, Hermaphrodite, skin tone, ethnicity, background. While painting these archetypal images, some of the hardest decisions have been around wanting this deck to be all inclusive, to represent our wonderfully diverse world so anyone can find themselves within (and because- as an artist, it's just downright fun). It's not that I don't like painting guys, I do! But when I pulled the emperor as the next card on this journey I didn't relish the idea of painting a dude. Would he be young or old? Should I just paint from the stature of an actual emperor? If I choose a model does that actual person have to be the epitome of masculine energy? What a whirlwind! I already wrote my journey of Emperor before I painted him. Now the finished piece sits before me and I can't find what I wrote! It's just GONE. All I recall is writing that my partner could easily have posed for this- he does embody the Emperor as a good and righteous man -especially in regards to his own home/the family man. But that's his part in the image/archetype.

I wanted to include the tortoise in my painting to represent patience and time. That felt so right. But it was almost two weeks before I had the epiphany to make the man's head an actual tortoise head. If you know my art, Kind Reader, you would know I have been painting people with animal heads since the 90s, before it was everywhere in the modern art world and not just in the deepest heart of art history and human-kinds dreams. So it's pretty amusing it took me that long to have my brain click in! And isn't he fabulous? Is he looking into you?

I found my focus drifting back again and again to time and confidence, to patience. I remembered Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" - an image of a statue in the desert sands, worn away, a forgotten emperor:

"... Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart.[17] Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lie....."My name is Oᴢʏᴍᴀɴᴅɪᴀs, King of Kings.” Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair! No thing beside remains. Round the decay of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."

Obviously this influenced the mental image. Yet we DO remember the emperor, not perhaps his names, but his meaning for community. His symbol is the eagle: an image carried through the cards to the present day. So perhaps my conglomerate of ideas in this card may seem odd to you- a statue of a roman emperor, the western red hued desert (nowhere near Rome), the eagle, the emperor's European crown, one old man's hand and the other of a young man. But the tarot is such a melting pot of cultures and ideas already! Why didn't I paint a Japanese emperor in the style I studied long ago when I lived in Asia? I don't know. The image just made itself. The sand was meant to be piled up around the statue but instead became cracks that mirrored the lines in the tortoise's face. Is he stuck in the ground or rooted? Why does the Axis pass through him everywhere but to one side? You may know.

Maybe you don't like the Emperor's methods but he will hold the world for us, with patience and confidence. Do you trust yourself to hold your own world?

Written Later: A quick note on gender binaries in tarot. As you know, Kind Reader, I am really fascinated by the deep history of these cards. The genders of these cards are sometimes interlaced with that history. The gender of the card may be one of the symbols or deeper meanings. I am including as much of the rich tapestry of skin color and outward gender as possible in this deck (self serving cause its just fun). But I am not going to UN gender the tarot. These are not men or women but archetypes of men and women, energies and paradigms of both, which we all embody. Others have made lovely decks that remove any notion of binary. But I am going the other route to include them all! If it bothers you that this is not an Empress, as it has been changed in many decks, perhaps that is why you needed to pull the card?

“The Emporer” original oil painting on wood in cut recycled frame (original available- contact artist for info)