reminders: Paper Crowns starts this Sunday. Sign up for this 5 week deep into the court cards and peer into an obsidian mirror bridging past, present, future. Sign up / learn more Here
Who Wakes the Dead? Or will buried bodies unearth themselves? And with what body will they come? And will they remember us well or will they violently seek retribution?
Obviously, a damned, demonized past persists in the present time. The past, dilapidated and disjointed, makes a melodramatic return in its insistence on living on as a monstrous figure. Old slavic stories tell us of a midnight mass: a risen congregation engages in communal worship but behind a mild, pious facade the dead are dangerous.
The recurring structure of return is one in which past suffering and trauma are confronted; for behind the rational veneer of modernity we can look through Arcanum XX and see a prism of horror that configures excessive violence and spectral haunting.
Judgement poses complex questions of temporality, especially within a linear, abstract progressive notion of time in a modern era. Our colonial legacy can't be compartmentalized. Judgement and its retrospective, revenant tendencies critique the dominant schemes of temporal "ordering" in a nationalist appraisal of history. And because there is so much grievance to redress, so much unresolved violence, so much ongoing disarray, the repressed will continue to return, pursuing extreme forms of retribution.
Apocalyptic thinking implies the annihilation of empire. Imperial propaganda spew claims about cornucopia, prosperity and plenitude inaugurated by its emperors. But the horns are alarming. Are we really so unaware that we might be unworthy of salvation? Regardless, revelation gives us reason to hope. There is a grace more Divine than our incessant uncertainty.
Fatigued at the fringes of empire, FADO continues unfurling, sounding trumpets that will remind us we are still alive. We will do the work of waking. We watch over the bodies that will become Gods and we will be pilgrims. We will come back together in wonder, greeting elemental traces of our former selves rising up.
In an apocalyptic presentation of bodiliness, Revenant will examine the distinctions, implications, consequences of dealing with corporeal resurrection in an imperialist context. Disabled, black, brown, trans bodies bear the brunt of repressive power. So what are we to make of the body as metaphor of the state, when it rises up in Judgement? Sign up and see:
Curious about FADO enrollment options?
As a reminder, there are two primary ways to participate in the full Fado container.
The first way is to enroll for the total course by setting up a payment plan (at $65 monthly rate vs the $80 stand-alone sign up rate) or invest in the total course tuition upfront. This will give you year-long access along with additional resources unique to students who enroll in the full course. Sign up and gain accesses to in-depth classes on The Tower, The Hanged Man, The Star and now Judgement.
The second option is to enroll via these individual substack class announcements. Students who sign up for any single class, w/o signing up for the full course, will maintain 2-week access to the class recording.
I’ll be here if you have any questions. Keep sounding the horns prophets.
x,
Christopher