Archive of columns.
12/03/98: This week's question:
Lady Esmene reads the cards:
This is a wonderful reading! Very huge! Very exciting! Here we are witnessing a preview of an important person's Major Life Change - quite an honor for us all, and a reminder of why I love my job!
Madonna, I have news for you - 1999 is your year!
The question is laid out in Cards 1 and 2, Opposition and the Princess of Pentacles. Is Madonna going to be able to face the constant struggles she has with herself to express the true magic within her soul?
Card 3, the Challenge, is Disillusion. Madonna is being challenged to accept the disillusionment she has been feeling about her life - at some level she has been aware that she needs to move past her Princess of Wands persona and make a drastic change to her life! She must face and accept her Disillusion.
This is very tough! Card 4, God's purpose in this situation, is Cruelty. She has to be cruel to herself, to see who she has been. Then, she'll be able to see the flip side of this card within herself: Niceness. Madonna is at heart a nice person! But before she can accept this new awareness of herself, she has to face her mirror with pitiless honesty!
The 5th Card, the card of the Present and where we've come from, is Avarice. In the past, Madonna has marketed herself and identified herself according to the image that best fed her greed - greed for fame, for love, for money. But now she has started to be disillusioned with what her avarice has brought her - because in the end, nothing has been able to give her that which she most truly wants: her own love and respect for herself!
Card 6, the Future, is the Moon card, Ava Gardner. This is the intermediate step Madonna will experience as she begins to find her way to her actual Major Life Change. The Moon is the woman of mystery, and allure; the unknown feminine principle; it's an image Madonna has always wanted for herself, but has found it difficult to achieve because it's hard to be mysterious if you allow photographs of every gratuitous body part to be made available to the public. But starting in 1999, Madonna will no longer be so obvious about her body: you'll find most of Madonna's flesh is covered up in photographs next year, and she will no longer pose so provocatively (i.e. her pelvis will no longer be seen touching the pelvis of another person or animal or mechanical or inanimate object in public)!
Card 7 is the question we should have asked, and the first hint we get of Madonna's transformation: Barney, the Happiness card! And Barney really does represent happiness for Madonna in 1999! More about that later!
The card of the archetype acting in this situation, Card 8, is Madonna's former archetype, the Princess of Wands, the card of rapacious sexuality. This is what Madonna is being challenged to become disillusioned with.
The archetype Madonna should be modeling in this situation, Card 9, is the actual Challenge card. She has to face her Challenge (see Card 3, above); she has to be cruel to herself in order to accomplish the next major change in her life!
And Card 10, the Destiny card, is Major Transformative Life Change. Madonna is going to face her challenge, face her disillusionment with the Madonna of old, and learn to express a whole new Madonna, a Madonna her child can be proud of, a Madonna children everywhere can be proud of!
This expression could happen in a number of ways - she could become a nun, or a social worker, or go to medical school; but I think her love for entertainment is going to continue to influence her life. This is my prediction: Madonna is going to go into children's programming! She'll start off small - as a guest on Barney, probably, or perhaps Sesame Street or TeleTubbies. But soon, a whole children's entertainment empire will develop around her, with movies and TV shows and computer games (all designed toward educational development, of course)! Next Christmas the toy shelves will be swamped with Madonna Beanie Babies and Talking Madonnas and other stuffed animals based on her and her goofy but fun-loving characters! PBS, Fox, WB, Disney - you'd all better start lining up, because Madonna the Children's Entertainment Superstar is on her way!
As Eisner was to Disney, Madonna is the natural successor to Shari Lewis, a woman who can truly take Lambchop to a whole new level!
I can't bear to let my mind even conceive the image of Madonna with a Lambchop puppet on her hand. I've often wondered what outrage would finally destroy the public's acceptance of the grotesque commercialization of Christmas. Toy shelves covered with Madonna Beanie Babies might be just the ticket.
Clearly, Madonna is headed for a Major Life Change, something that will forever alter her self-image and the image the world has of her; a Major Life Change reflected in the Moon.
I predict: Menopause.
Madame Esmeralda responds:
