Who was Brian Williams?

Thalassa in California dedicates her annual Bay Area Tarot to him, Santo Briano, the patron Saint of Tarot. She has some novena candles and St Cards for Santo Briano - there is a prayer to him somewhere you can say for his aid in tarot readings.

Ah I found it - it was on the Daughters of Divination's website: http://dodivination.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/In_Memoriam.323225120.pdf

PRAYER TO SANTO BRIANO

Santo Briano, full of Grace,
To bring a blush to the Oracle’s face,
Tie us up in leather and lace.
Lying in the lap of Eros,
Surrendering to Thanatos,
You whom the gods hold close,
Guide us in wearing wisdom’s glove.
Look down on us from above,
Lead us to the door of love.
Living in a house of trees,
Tempting Mephistopheles,
Possessor of the handsome knees.
Delight in beauty, joy in pain,
Pour your blessings down like rain.
Santo Briano, tie me up again!
(And bless our oracular ejaculations!)

Thank you Cerulean and Shade for the warm answers! I always get a great feeling handling Brian Williams decks, and his books are great. Glad to have a Thread that details so many aspects of this (I think) important and unsung tarot artist!

Brian's email address was Tarocon@AOL.COM but TarotL doesn't seem to be able to search far enough back unless you know how to get into the early archives.

The prayer to Santo Briano was written by about a dozen of us at a pizza and wine party in Berkeley after his memorial service. I'm afraid many of the lines come from our personal experiences with him at BATS and PantheaCon and other happenings. I don't remember the details, but I communicated with him at the memorial service through his POMO Tarot deck—asking for his comments on some of the things that were being said. I'd swear he was talking directly to me! I mean how many times do you see someone blatantly reading tarot in church! My sharing some of the cards I drew is what led to our wanting to write an invocation of our own patron saint of tarot.

Although there is not much specifically about Brian, you can get an idea of the tarot tour of Italy that I took with him here:
http://home.pacbell.net/mkgreer/TarotTour.html

Mary

Brian spent much of his college years and a great deal of time after that in Italy where he had a great many friends. There is no Italian equivalent of the name Brian and so his friends dubbed him, Briano (to make it sound more Italian). So, there is only one "Briano," and he was utterly unique. He painted a self-portrait of himself with his "side-kicks," the cabana-boys, Eros and Thanatos looking over his shoulder and influencing his every action. He spoke of them often on the various e-lists. The handsome knees refer to his Roman soldier costume that he wore alternately with his Catholic priest garb to events like PantheaCon—both of which would have lent themselves well to a little friendly BDSM.

I thought I should add the proper spacings to the prayer to help make it a little clearer.

PRAYER TO SANTO BRIANO

Santo Briano, full of Grace,
To bring a blush to the Oracle’s face,
Tie us up in leather and lace.

Lying in the lap of Eros,
Surrendering to Thanatos,
You whom the gods hold close,
Guide us in wearing wisdom’s glove,
Look down on us from above,
Lead us to the door of love.

Living in a house of trees,
Tempting Mephistopheles,
Possessor of the handsome knees,
Delight in beauty, joy in pain,
Pour your blessings down like rain.

Santo Briano, tie me up again!
(And bless our oracular ejaculations!)

He was a person I miss dearly
He built things

Question for any who know...

I was thinking that one of the proper ways to honor a saint is to make a pilgrimage to their tomb. Does anyone know where Brian Williams is actually buried? I saw from his web site that his Memorial service took place at St. Johns Presbyterian Church in Berkeley but is he interred there?

Fire Cat said:

Yes, five books and five decks.

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I also have an oracle deck he illustrated - the Angel Journey deck.

http://www.tarotpassages.com/angeljourney.htm

Shade said:

Does anyone know where Brian Williams is actually buried? I saw from his web site that his Memorial service took place at St. Johns Presbyterian Church in Berkeley but is he interred there?

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I'm not sure if there is a memorial plaque somewhere, but Brian was cremated and people at the memorial service had the option of taking a bit of his ashes home (or to spread appropriately). Therefore, he was with us at the pizza parlour after the memorial when we wrote the prayer to Santo Briano.

Then there was a private gathering at which the remainder of his ashes were spread - I believe over Mt. Tamalpais.

Mary

Ah Mt Tamalpais is the perfect place for a spiritual pilgrimage! I love it there. By any chance do you remember which Pizza restaurant it was? I could do a tour of them - Berkeley has some great ones.