Empress Wisdom Reading

Empress Wisdom Question:  What do we need to know about the upsurge in interest in the divine feminine (since the 1980s)?

Disks and swords, and the Priestess, just what we should have expected.  No cups, though.

16-Tower-Red Jasper on 5 of Disks.  Well, this is kind of a shocker for such a “touchy-feely” question!   But I think it is answering the question by telling us what we need to know.  Fortune-telling style:  Putting physical concerns above spiritual ones (5 of Disks) will be the downfall (Tower) of feminine spirituality.  The 5 of Disks shows an inverted pentagram, so that the four elements are placed above the fifth element of spirit.  (On each disks is a tattwa, the Indian symbols for the elements, so this is stated very plainly.)  It looks like the gears in the background are cracking under pressure.  Behind the cracks is fire, the cause of the destructive pressure.  The fiery Tower brings the destructive aspect right to the foreground!  I might be prejudiced here, but I don’t think the emphasis of groundedness, ecology, and health is the physical concern that is the problem here.  It’s more likely to be the “abundance” and wish fulfillment focus that today’s teachers, whether sincere or cynical, are putting into new age and feminist spirituality.  Honoring the earth and the human body doesn’t mean only caring about comfort (especially the comfort of a cushiony bank account).  The whole downfall thing might seem a bit dramatic, but the stones are saying that, not me!  Looks like it’s time to bring the focus back the unpopular traditionally feminine values of unconditional love, softness, nurturing, and sacrifice.  Mercury in Taurus points out that you are what you communicate.  So Tower says be careful what you say; it might come back to bite you!

0-Fool-Clear Quartz on 4 of Swords.  Here is the 4 of Swords again meaning closed mind.  I think this combination is saying that one of the enduring gifts of feminist spirituality is its teaching on questioning everything you hear, as the Fool does.  A truly open, questioning mind trumps a conventionally closed one every time.  What is seen cannot be unseen.  (But an open mind can be gradually closed by complacency and concessions to conformity.)  Feminism’s mind boggling switches of what is denigrated to something of value were foreshadowed by the Christian ideas of the cornerstone rejected by the builders and the cross itself (an instrument of torture becoming a symbol the highest transcendence), as well as by Crowley’s promotion of the whore of Babylon and great beast to ultimate deity status.   When questioning and reversal of values become the highest values themselves, spiritual authenticity wins.  (Think of shocking Zen masters and Sufism’s crazy wisdom.)

2-Priestess-Moonstone on Ace of Disks.  This combination is giving us a way forward from the Towery one.  What is needed is a lot of soul searching and deep reflection on the true meaning of feminine, and especially earth and matter, centered spirituality.  While I feel very strongly that that we need to turn away from the perennial and new age tendency to totally devalue matter as negative or even an evil to uproot on the way to higher, more pure, white light spirit, it is important to know exactly what you are valuing when you say or act on valuing materiality and earthly life.  It’s a narrow line, even a razor’s edge, to tread, but the Priestess, that is, our own inner knowing of the truth when we hear or feel it, can lead us aright.

Well, when I asked the question, I was totally not expecting a grim warning, followed by advice to come up with a solution on our own!  But I did ask what we need to know!  Tarot is always full of surprises and much-needed nudges, if we will only pay attention to them!