This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
To Create a Polder
The Tower is usually depicted as a kind of destructive card, a sort of eye that destroys a man-made tower with lightning. God bringing down the Tower of Babel.
In Veronique Hogervorst’s Butterfly Tarot, the Tower is the blood drop butterfly feeding on bird’s-foot trefoil. The deep bird claws of the bird’s-foot trefoil quickly deal with such a sand pile (tower) and restore fertile ground.
What an incredibly fun project this is, creating poems based on Veronique’s images. You can’t lean too closely on such an image, but you must create something that captures the essence of it.
No raven, no huge aspirin-blue sphere. Maybe those will come. Or perhaps the raven is the dragon, and that sphere is the wake-up call. Waking up is leveling dreams to the ground.
Right now, I’m reading this wonderful novella, written by Edwin Delsing:
A classic fable, with a butterfly and an ant as the main characters. Will the ant manage to become an individual? I’m only halfway through. I do need to tell Edwin that we breed moths and that a lunar moth caterpillar still recognizes you when it becomes a moth – it doesn’t lose its memory completely.
Are epiphany and vision the same concepts? This comes to mind because there was a deacon present at the meeting who shared that on Christmas Eve he had a vision to follow God instead of becoming a lawyer. I countered that precisely because it happened on Christmas Eve, it was likely not a vision but a script. No vision was described: a vision is an enormous visual event. No, this was a man who had an epiphany: he suddenly saw that he had no desire to become a lawyer and that a life as a pastor seemed more pleasing. That’s not an illogical epiphany at all, in fact, who wouldn’t understand that? But it’s certainly not a vision. Especially not when it happens during the Christmas holiday.
I am strongly opposed to this kind of conceptual blurring, calling an epiphany a vision or a vision an epiphany.
A hallmark of a vision is usually a strongly disturbing effect. With a vision, you are more likely to start your own new religion. This is exactly why the church is not so keen on visions, and everyone can converse with Jesus from the Bible in their heart, but he will never say anything that deviates from the Big Book.
That simply can’t happen, deviating from The Big Book. Especially not if your name is Jesus Christ. In that regard, the Grand Inquisitor from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov was, of course, a symbol of the church itself. In that parable, Jesus returns to earth during the Spanish Inquisition in Seville. He performs miracles and attracts people, but is soon arrested by order of the Grand Inquisitor, who views Jesus as a threat to the church’s order and control. The Grand Inquisitor accuses Jesus of burdening humanity with a message of freedom and personal responsibility, arguing that people are better off with the certainty and comfort provided by the church, even if it means relinquishing their freedom.
It reminds me of Edwin’s book again, and so we’ve come full circle.
Martijn 30-09-2024