Satyr Arcana II · The Full Reading
The Full Reading: A Psychological Profile of Every Song on Satyr Arcana — Part 2
Fifteen more cards, fifteen more songs — the second half of the deck, in album order. If the first deck was mostly about carrying people forward through loss, this one is about what it actually takes to stand back up and build something after.
Tower
Opens the second deck with no lyrics at all — just wordless, operatic vocalizations performed by the artist's sister, Aurora Fae Lynn, an opera soprano, in their first collaboration together in eleven years. The man the card depicts, sitting on the Tower's steps, is the artist's biological father — a compulsive liar and absent parent for most of the artist's life, one his mother had to take to court for child support. The artist barely knew him and didn't much like him; when the call came that his father had had a stroke with no one to care for him, the plan was simple — step in, get him into a nursing home, be done with it. But the strokes had done something no amount of estrangement ever could: they erased the defense mechanisms and illusions his father had spent a lifetime building to protect himself after growing up with a paranoid schizophrenic mother of his own. The man the artist ended up caring for could no longer lie. Every illusion was shattered, exactly like the card's own imagery — and underneath them was someone the artist actually loved. He wouldn't trade that stretch as his father's caregiver for anything. Musically the track splices together two pieces originally written for marketing (a horror film and the artist's own dark-fantasy-novel site) into one dark industrial EDM track, with Aurora's classically trained voice cutting through the machinery. Psychologist C.R. Snyder's "hope theory" found that hope is a trainable skill made of two parts: believing a path forward exists, and believing you have the will to walk it. Neither part shows up in the acute moment of collapse — in real crisis, people are enduring, which is exactly why the card has no words. The gift is what the collapse clears room for, once you're ready to look — a father finally without his towers, a sister back in the room after eleven years, and a relationship the artist got to choose on its own terms, not the ones he was born into.
The Star
Written from the perspective of the artist's mother, who had him when she was still a teenager and left school to become a wife and mother, as she'd been raised to believe she should. She wrote down her hopes for her son's education and tucked the lists into photo albums — then one night read one back and realized she couldn't talk to him about the importance of school when she'd signed herself out of it. So she earned her GED, kept learning, and kept growing, over her husband's discouragement, until it came to a head and she left, taking her kids with her. Her education eventually inspired other family members — including, years later, the artist's father himself — to go back and earn theirs. This is hope theory's "pathways thinking" in its most literal, documented form: a GED, studied for "by one bare bulb," that became the first domino in several other people's lives changing too. The gift is keeping faith lit when nobody else in the room will — then handing the match to everyone who was watching.
The Wise Woman
The artist's godmother — an educator who spent her life building schools, and who was married to Uncle Jerry (see The Anchor in the Room) for more than sixty years. She tells the truth plainly, without softening it, and that honesty has never read as cold — it reads as love, and the artist trusts it completely. They became especially close through grief: the artist had just booked a flight to tell his family he was HIV positive, had recently been given a prognosis of about three years to live, and his cousin Dave had just died — she was the first person he told, and for the first time he didn't feel alone carrying it. She later gave him his third turn as a caregiver by including him with Jerry in his last years, which is part of why the card's robes are stitched with anchors along the trim. Psychologically, this is what researchers mean by a trusted source of "unvarnished feedback" — the rare person whose honesty is reliable enough that you seek it out specifically when the stakes are highest. The gift is a truth-teller who shows up exactly when you need to not be alone with something.
The Champion
Written for the artist's Aunt Adela — just over five feet tall, who stood up to the artist's abuser, a 6'4" black belt, with her voice and her fists, without a second thought. She protected her sisters from bullies throughout her life and speaks up against injustice on sight. She stood in for his godmother at his christening and stayed through his entire childhood; with his mom and his Aunt Jan, she completes what the artist calls his "trilogy of mothers." Social psychology has a specific term for what she does: "upstander" behavior, the much rarer counterpart to the well-studied bystander effect, where someone acts specifically because everyone else didn't. The card doesn't frame this as fighting for herself. It's fighting for whoever the room just failed — in this case, a nephew who couldn't fight for himself yet. The gift is courage that shows up exactly when everyone else goes silent, in a package nobody expects to be that dangerous.
La Luna
A separate card from Santa Muerte, but closely related — it closes an arc that runs across both decks: She Knew (Natasha, the best friend whose death rocked the artist to his core), Santa Muerte (the first song written with the Goddess Persephone), and now La Luna, where the artist realized he'd come full circle. After Santa Muerte, Persephone kept echoing Natasha without either of them planning it — the same terms of endearment, the same kind of advice, the same frequency of connection, surfacing quietly the way moonlight does rather than announcing itself. Luna, llévame — moon, take me — is the sound of recognizing that pattern and answering it anyway, on faith, before you can fully explain it: "I can't see it but I feel it." Psychologically, this is intuition treated as legitimate data rather than something to second-guess once it's been right before. The gift is trusting a pull you can't yet justify, because the last time you felt exactly this, it turned out to be real.
The Sun
Written for the artist's friend Rocko, met while first starting to venture out and meet people in Phoenix. During the artist's leather title year, Rocko was honest with him about one of his goals, careful not to let his hopes climb too high — and then quietly started working behind the scenes to help him reach it anyway, never once asking for credit. The moment the artist understood what Rocko actually meant to him came at an odd time: Rocko was delivering bad news, and even carrying it, he still carried light. That's the whole psychological argument of the card: people with a stable, authentic sense of self are measurably more resilient under stress, because they're not spending energy maintaining a performance on top of everything else they're carrying — Rocko doesn't soften the truth to protect the mood, he tells it straight and stays warm anyway. The shadow, true of anyone this reliably sunny, is performing lightness when you actually need to be held too. The gift is being the warmth a room didn't know it needed until it walked in.
The Builder
Listen · Also released in Spanish — El Corazón de un Constructor
The first man the artist ever chose to call Dad — a bricklayer who spent his life helping build skyscrapers, though the most important thing he built was far less visible. By age eleven, the artist carried wounds left by bullies, abusers, and men who should have known better; trusting any man felt impossible. This man met that distrust with patience instead of taking it personally, and never demanded trust — he earned it, brick by brick, proving himself through consistency rather than words. This is accurate relationship psychology: the strongest bonds are usually the ones tested a little at a time and held, rather than the ones that assumed trust from the start. The shadow is needing everything proven before you'll let yourself believe it's real. The gift is a lesson the artist says he'd never been shown before: people aren't defined by the worst examples you've already survived.
Mothers of Creation
Listen · Also released in Spanish — Madres de la Creación
Three sisters — the artist's mother, Aunt Jan, and Aunt Adela (see The Champion) — who together take the place traditional tarot gives to Judgement: the card of awakening, of rising up to become who you were meant to be. This card isn't just another entry in the sequence; it's the root system underneath several others. As the artist puts it: the Mothers of Creation plant the seed, The Star (his mother's own card) sees what that seed could become, The Wise Woman understands how to help it grow, and The Champion (Aunt Adela) carries it into the world. Anthropologists call distributed, non-biological-exclusive mothering "alloparenting" — one of the oldest, most cross-cultural family structures there is. The gift is mothering that multiplies instead of running out — the artist's own words: "they kept me safe, they taught me the way, and they gave me room to heal and grow."
Experience
Written for the artist's friend DJ Jack Daddy Dave. This card replaces The World — the moment all the circles finally connect. The two had orbited the same world for years without meeting: both lived in San Francisco at the same time, knew the same people, probably stood in the same rooms more than once, but their paths crossed only once the timing was right, when Dave welcomed the artist into the DJ crew that gave him his debut. They came up through completely different roads — bands and film for the artist, Burning Man and DJ culture for Dave — and recognized in each other the same thing: a genuine love of music with no genre boundaries. Both are Virgos who watch, analyze, and notice every detail, though the artist calls himself the more emotional, overthinking one of the two. The gift here is the specific relief of finally meeting someone whose path was quietly running parallel to yours the whole time.
The Fool
Written for the artist's friend Jason. Most tarot decks put the Fool first — card zero, pure innocence, a traveler about to step off a cliff for the first time. The artist puts this card last, after The World, on purpose: his Fool has already made that journey, though he'd never talk about it; the white rose turned blue, the innocent dog replaced by a more playful ferret. Jason is deeply analytical, moves at his own pace, doesn't think too far ahead and doesn't linger in the past — fully present in whatever hour he's actually in. The card's job, going back to The Dream Traveler that opens the whole project, is to remind that character (and the artist) that people in the waking world still need him. Psychologically, this is closer to mindfulness-as-trait than to resilience-through-hardship — a whole orientation built around being simply here, now, undistracted by where the road has been or where it's headed next. The gift is presence that doesn't require explanation or a backstory to be real.
King of Pentacles — Needed a Friend
A love letter to Dan, a friend since 1991 and a brother to the artist ever since. In the '90s they both worked at the Boston Ramrod; after close, they'd smoke cigars under the neon Citgo sign in Kenmore Square and talk until sunrise. One night, after everyone else had said their goodbyes, Dan turned around and the artist could see it plainly — "you needed a friend and you were mine." At the time the artist performed in drag shows and as a leather performer, and says he's not sure Dan ever knew how much he depended on him, or how much he mirrored Dan's steadiness when he wasn't sure who he wanted to be. Psychologically, this is how most meaningful bonds actually form: repetition and presence under a neon sign, accumulated until it quietly became load-bearing. The shadow is measuring your worth only by what you've built. The gift is making a home out of ordinary nights with the right person in them — and that friendship still holding, decades later.
King of Swords — Hold the Line
Written for the artist's friend Sarge — one of the Kings who open the Minor Arcana because, in the artist's words, the Kings are the pillars of his life right now. Like DJ Jack Daddy Dave, Sarge's life overlapped with the artist's for years, first in Boston and then in San Francisco, before they actually knew each other — the artist even mistook him for someone else once at the SF Eagle, and didn't realize until later that Sarge had been a client of his ex-husband's. Once they reconnected, they made a real impression on each other. Sarge is a kind man with a brilliant mind, a fellow Virgo, and someone the artist describes as an older brother and kindred spirit — the embodiment of honesty, fairness, and keeping your word. He thinks it through before he speaks, draws the line clean, and holds it — not out of stubbornness, but because somebody has to keep the air honest. This maps to healthy boundary-setting as psychologists actually describe it: calm, deliberate, and non-negotiable without being loud about it. The shadow is holding the line even after the fight that required it is already over. The gift is keeping things honest without needing volume to do it.
Knight of Cups — Bring Back the Romance
Written for the artist's friend and collaborator Brady, mending his heart after a breakup that needed to happen — not because the love wasn't real, but because neither partner was what the other actually needed, and the kindest thing left to do was set each other free to find it elsewhere. The lyrics don't carry that clarity, though, and that's exactly the point: "I let you pull away from me, I know that I'm the one to blame... bring back the romance, say my name again." This is the part of grief that doesn't follow the logic of the decision — the ache that wants to beg for the thing back even while some steadier part of you already knows letting go was right. Psychologically, this is close to what researchers call "ambivalent grief": two true feelings running at once, missing someone and knowing the ending was correct, with neither one canceling the other out. Loneliness in that gap is real and it isn't a sign the breakup was a mistake. The gift the artist names for Brady is the harder, quieter kind of strength — knowing when to sacrifice a love you still feel, specifically so the other person gets the chance to find the one they actually need.
King of Cups — The One Who Stays
Written for the artist's cousin Brian, who raised his sons alone as a single dad, and then, once they were grown, adopted three more children and stood by them through everything that followed. When his ex-wife changed her mind about the adoption, Brian chose the kids — and became a single father all over again, by choice, a second time. Things weren't always easy after that, but he would choose them again, every time, without hesitation. Maybe the quietest card on the whole record, and the one that hits hardest for anyone who's watched people leave during the hard parts. It doesn't ask for applause — it's just a portrait of the rare, specific relief of someone who didn't go anywhere, twice, when going would have been so much easier. The shadow is staying so quietly that no one notices what it's costing you. The gift is being the one person who never left.
King of Wands — He Brought the Music
Written for DJ Danny G — a friend and mentor, and the same DJ who welcomed the artist into the crew that gave him his debut (see Experience) — a DJ, producer, and promoter who has been spinning records since the days of disco. The artist is thankful for him specifically because DJs like him kept the LGBT community together during some of its bleakest periods: they hauled their own records from gig to gig, held the balls and the dances, gave the community places to gather and build chosen family, and made sure that showing up kept happening even when the world outside wasn't safe — no one danced alone. Every rebuilding story needs someone who turns the lights back on. This card is rooted in rhythm, turntables, and a mic, for the person who understood that a community in crisis still needs somewhere to turn the volume back up on joy — not instead of grieving, but alongside it, and often instead of waiting for anyone else to provide it. The shadow is needing the room loud to feel like yourself. The gift is decades of literally carrying the music to wherever a community needed it most, and helping people find their voices once they got there.
The whole arc, in order
Play the second deck front to back and you can hear hope theory happening in real time: the collapse (Tower), the quiet refusal to give up (Star), the return of an unguarded self (Sun), the decision to walk forward anyway (Fool), and the slow, deliberate work of building something sturdier than what fell (Builder, Experience, the court cards who carry it home). It plays like a working demonstration of resilience, in real time.
Fifteen questions, thirty possible cards across both decks — find out which one claims you.