MISSIVE 39
David Lynch and Wands
“Sitting in front of a fire is mesmerizing. It’s magical. I feel the same way about electricity. And smoke. And flickering lights.”
This is a complete chapter titled Fire from David Lynch’s book Catching the Big Fish, on the subject of the transcendent nature of human engagement with ideas. And despite being one of the shortest chapters, it’s perhaps the most revealing.
Those who have studied Twin Peaks in detail have noted that Lynch equates these forces, and they form a sort of symbolic continuum. The electrical pole is a type of activated tree in a forest of signals; ideas flow through the airwaves, or through wire, or are told over a fire. That flow permeates Twin Peaks; the characters are somewhat transcendent, aware that they are in something like a dream, and the (electric) nature of that dream defines the physical and spiritual laws of their world. The fact that dead logs can speak is intuitive to the show’s inhabitants, because though also a bit strange over there, it’s just how things work on their side of the screen.
The very-difficult-to-obtain The Magician Longs to See Tarot uses the logs of Twin Peaks as its suit of Wands:
And they are indeed Wands: they communicate the animistic vitality of the world of the show, as well as its connection to this universe; fictional or not, our dreams come from the same depths. Whenever wind blows through the Douglas firs, it is as though there is noise in the signal of reality. The Log Lady is in tune with the forest, however, and can receive its messages as easily as we can. As receiver of the mysteries of the wood, it makes sense that she is designated as the deck’s High Priestess.
Lynch himself is depicted as well, and technically twice: once as his character of FBI Director Gordon Cole:
And again as a Card 79, The Director, his external role:
(Mark Frost also gets his own external major as The Writer.)
Finally, we will move to a different context: The Philly Tarot. Here we see Lynch in yet another Waite-Smith lookalike, this time as the King of Wands:
It is interesting that both decks are Waite-Smith imitations. The Philly Tarot is slightly closer to Coleman-Smith’s work, and uses the arcane motif of the salamander for the highest element. That Lynch would appear most often in a traditional style, able to fit in almost unnoticed in a classic, is interesting in its own right. He is aware that ideas can permeate the world of his creations as easily as our own, and move to and from other media via secret fire. Here, they have. Magically speaking, his inclusion in a deck is trivial, perhaps even inevitable. But here we see several permutations:
As a character in his own story, unaware of the importance of his role, yet still transcendent, and having strangely prophetic dreams. As Director Gordon Cole, Lynch embodies one of his own ideas, and renders himself unable to hear his own direction for the sake of the art as a whole.
As the Director of the show Twin Peaks, organizing its magic from outside, and navigating the delicate balance of characters who are part of the framework of television itself. Due to the nature of this, he must exist as outside the canon of the deck, though the presence of fire in this card is fairly overt.
As a figure with mastery over ideas and their passage through reality, from mind to art to screen to eye to mind again. As the King of Wands, Lynch rules over the fire unspoken but implied by the secret fire of symbols, and the oneiric at large.
The first two describe the fluidity of fact and fiction in a transcendent work like Twin Peaks; Lynch’s fire can exist on both sides of the red curtain. But the final describes his role in our world, viewed in terms of his relationship with the rest of humanity.
The wind through the trees is the hum of the wires is the flickering of the screen is the unlit cigarette of the Woodsman is the voice that the Log Lady hears when she presses the log to her ear. That’s just the start, and the whole damn thing is the Suit of Wands: the unseen flow of spirit that pushes us to keep the fire alive in a darkened world.