24/9 The Universe #21
TEMPLE artefact #29
#21 The Universe final version, art by Rian Hughes 2024
XXI. THE UNIVERSE
KEY WORDS – SUCCESS, COMPLETION, FULFILMENT, BELONGING
The Universe is Trump 21 in the Tarot deck.
The final card in the sequence that began with the Fool depicts the figure of a dancing woman. She is Eve, the Virgin Universe, Sophia of the Gnostics, dancing with the Serpent of Genesis. She is the Desired One. Imagination entwined with Life to create the perceived Universe of Matter.
Where the Fool was setting out on a journey into the known unknown, the Universe represents the end of the journey, the arrival at the destination, where the whole cycle can be run again.
The card symbolizes the highest level of spiritual attainment – the climax of the Great Work. It is a card of transcendence that tells us we are on our correct Path. And to prepare for the last step…
Our Cosmic Feminine Principle stands in an upright lens-shaped vulvic frame and spins on an oblate flattened ball shape or EGG which we may recognize as the Cosmic Background Microwave Background Radiation map (also known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) from 2013.
The lens frame containing the Woman has been created as a vesica piscis by the holographic overlapping of two big circles (hinting at the ‘holographic universe’ idea where our universe is formed by the interactions on the boundary of a negatively curved and bound space with its positively curved, infinitely expanding exterior – as I understand it).
Big smile, teeth showing, her eyes are closed blissfully. An expression of joy and delight.
She lifts a small crescent moon SICKLE in her upraised, extended RIGHT HAND and touches her breast with her LEFT – as she does so her hand makes the mudra gesture for LIFE – which is the same as the Hierophant’s 2-fingered benediction, with the back of her hand facing us instead of the palm in his case.
Let’s see if we can incorporate the shape of our local Lainekaea supercluster into her hair as its spills from her head into the surrounding space. Her top half is encircled by SEVEN STARS.
From a central vanishing point where her mouth is, radiant flashes of light stream out towards us radially drawing us down a mysterious cosmic flume/Stargate effect that takes up the background behind the dance – a spiralling form like the inside of an immense hose with SEVEN ribs! Perspective may suggest vast petals or even propellor blades!
Seven rotating divisions generating a rushing, oncoming outburst of form and pattern. Not a Big Bang exploding matter and energy into being but an unfurling of pattern into form, the way a leaf would bud and grow. This being a vision of the Universe that tends to eschew the explosive, ejaculatory sexuality of the ‘Big Bang’ in favour of flower metaphors!
The snake winds its way down around her arm and torso and legs – wrapping around her body to hint at DNA and the helix of life, to finally kiss her foot with its flickering forked tongue. The reptile is in bliss. This partnership is what it was made for. She rubs her head against its skin affectionately.
Colours are blue/green. The associated Hebrew letter is TAU, ‘cross’ implied by the division into four of the Tetramorph creatures. Planetary association is SATURN.
In the FOUR CORNERS are the TETRAMORPH - the FOUR elemental beings that we’ve seen before – see CHARIOT - as representative of the 4 Elements, 4 Archangels, and 4 Fundamental Forces that combine to form the raw Universe.
Here they appear in the four corners of the card as differently coloured circles – red, blue, yellow, and black (use the same glyphs from the Chariot).
TOP LEFT - Weak Nuclear - Man – Air - Yellow
TOP RIGHT - Gravity – Eagle – Water – Blue
BOTTOM LEFT - Strong Nuclear – Bull – Earth - Black
BOTTOM RIGHT - Electromagnetic – Lion – Fire – Red
However, I’m slightly conflicted about showing the representative versions from the CHARIOT card – with the Man, Eagle, Bull and Lion motifs. These seem too biological for the beginning of the Universe – and simple colours seems more abstract and primal. See what you think – if the creatures work leave them in…
Honestly, this whole arrangement, particularly Man and Eve, brings to mind Brainiac 5 and Supergirl. Granted, it isn't hard to push my brain in that direction but Man here resembles Curt Swan's Querl Dox, the woman is blonde, their union both threatened a universe and their separation came at the conclusion of one. The serpent's pattern covering the woman recalls their Kingdom Come Daughter XTC's costume, a strategically placed cutout Superman symbol that snakes around her.
In Levitz's words:
"I could take the time bubble -- try to CHANGE HISTORY and save her -- if the resulting PARADOX didn't destroy us BOTH. As it has EVERYONE ELSE who tried and didn't return. Or, I suppose I COULD go back inside. COWARD."
What we have here is the ouroboros of the Major Arcana. The world at its apex, the fool remains.
I suppose it should seem increasingly plausible that Brainy eventually did make good on his promise. Johns has established that Levitz's Brainiac 5 is still around and Waid and PKJ have inferred that the present Supergirl is the one who died in Crisis and somehow got better, even now aging her up to match Levitz's Querl. It would add a certain poetry if Brainy were in fact somehow tugging at the universe's contortions to get us back to this point, quietly fiddling with the trajectory of Zero Hours and Flashpoints. Love wins! Or so I'd prefer to think.
That's what we want, right? For the fool to matter in the universe?
As an aside, I note you playing with DALL E this year and I have likewise experimented. I'm somewhat skeptical of people who create worlds with keystrokes that they don't guide or grasp but I've been trying more "hands on" AI work.
I don't sing although I played in a band as a teenager and I felt there was a gap in Superman songs. They're so often messianic or iconography driven to a point where I don't recognize Superman in them as a person.
With Kenny Loggins' Return to Pooh Corner and Don McLean's Vincent in mind and a bit of Death Cab, I wrote a song that reflects the Superman I know, as revealed by you and Waid and Loeb and more. I proceeded to put it to music with AI and a cloned version of my voice that's better at singing than me.
The debt to ALL STAR is immense. It's there in the chorus and the ending.
https://youtu.be/Ro5sOXtThTc?si=zcXtX2aACsKhqiI2
I also did a Michael Buble piece about someone who's part of a chain of digital assistants that's deeply inspired by your overall body of works:
https://youtu.be/tiAMExJWeUY?si=myku2i6obszdZD0R
I have a just-for-fun album about topics ranging from the stock market to the satanic panic. It's a bit rough. It's a bit complicated what I'm doing as I'm using about four AI services and writing lyrics myself (with my cloned voice) but I felt you'd appreciate it as the scribbling of someone who is very inspired by you. Walking you through how to do it goes a bit beyond a comment section. It's not anything commercial. I am worried about the future of artists at this stage of capitalism with AI. I just can't resist a tool of expression.
SO MOTE IT BE!