The Empress—Women and Nature
Part I:The Empress and The Processes of Nature
What do you think of when you get The Empress card in a Tarot reading? In the Waite deck, it depicts a woman sitting in a garden surrounded by Nature’s bounty of grain, water, flowers and forests. In Tarot, The Empress card is sometimes interpreted as representing the Great Earth Mother Goddess and viewed primarily as a symbol of fertility. Here, she is the appropriate card to inspire you to participate in further contemplation of Nature and its processes as in The Empress card in Tarot of Cosmic Consciousness. This card indicates, first of all, that now is the time to re-evaluate your relationship with Nature and your understanding of Nature’s biological systems of growth and development. Ask yourself how you get in touch with Nature: By gardening? Birding? Fishing, Hunting, Hiking, Camping? Traveling? Through environmental concerns, management and conservation of Nature’s resources?
It’s necessary now in view of “climate change,” that we earth-dwellers give these questions serious consideration pertaining to the way we actively deal with the beauty and wonders of Nature’s creations, which flourish all around us. In the highest sense, The Empress represents the Feminine Principle—The Formator. She signifies Nature’s incredible ability to create living entities from the so-called blueprint for self-replication, which, in an earthly sense, implies the formation of all the plants, animals and humans roaming the earth. We know these are formed in the female womb or egg or seed at the start. (Think of the old quote: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)This concept applies to all female creatures and feminine processes, all of which have the ability to form another being or life form like themselves: plants, trees, humans, animals, apes, horses, chickens, snails, fish, frogs, snakes and rats. This has enormous implications.
After the spark of life from the Masculine Principle has activated the process of growth and development—the wonder of cell-division occurs and living organisms begin to assume form. As I have mentioned before in my blog, “The Hierophant Now,” (10/26/20) the art of scientist/artist, Ernst Haeckel, shows the amazing beauty and intricate design of nature’s underlying organic structures in jellyfish, diatoms and radiolarians. These micro-organisms have manifested their forms though what looks like preplanned cell-division; where each cell is predetermined to replicate some part of the whole structure and then these cells merge as the complete creature. The final results of this process demand our utmost respect and awe.
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| Haeckel's drawings |
The planted bean (seed) forms another bean plant like itself. Rabbits make more rabbits, and more and more! This formative process takes place mysteriously in the wombs and eggs and seeds of all female creatures and plant species: Women, mares, cows, hens, ewes, sows, does, nanny goats, lionesses, can all do it. Yes, and that brings up the old adage “…walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so it must be a duck.” Then the question arises why do ducks look the same over and over again with
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| Empress TOCC |
But now we have some other questions to consider—man’s so-called intervention in nature, for example: In animal husbandry, the cows’ reproductive capabilities have been managed by the farmer. Every year, thousands of cows are artificially inseminated, a calf is born, and then we have the production of milk which we drink and the beef we eat. Then there are the processes of GMO crop growing. Genetically modified organisms (corn, for example) are grown in the US. Their genetic material has been modified and does not occur in nature. In horses, the natural processes of breeding without interference mostly occur just with thoroughbred race horses, although chickens and rabbits are pretty good at it too! We know that most plants and animals can replicate themselves without such interference from man.
Now comes the difficult part: in contrast to the living wonders of creation — times up! The plant withers, leaves turn brown, crumple and die, and return to the ground with the onset of Fall and Winter. For most plants, first, it’s life, then death, and the whole process starts over again because of the seeds left behind, which sprout and grow into a new plant in the spring. It sounds like a simple but obvious observation of a very convoluted process. Natural processes versus man’s interference certainly requires much more discussion, scientific study and explanation.
Part II:The Empress: Now from a completely different perspective—a Woman of Power
In this part, we are interpreting The Empress Tarot card based on the meaning of the title—Empress—she signifies a woman who is a ruling sovereign. How do we apply this aristocratic presumption to today’s woman? How do we view the status of women in the world today? In this context, “Empress” implies rank. When we think about the word – Empress – it denotes a woman of high rank, if not the highest in the aristocracy of the earlier European ruling dynasties. Queen Victoria was declared “Empress of India” when the British occupied the country (1876 until her death in 1901). She was the Imperial Head of State (title was dropped in 1948 when the British left India and it became an Independent Nation). I won’t go into all the difficulties of their rule, mostly because it was unpleasant and destructive. So, in naming the card The Empress, this implies “Power.” How do we apply a better concept of “a woman’s power” to today’s world, especially now when women in the US are seeking gender equality and equal rights? Now we get into the political and seamy side of what is happening to women’s rights in the different states. Especially concerning are attacks on a woman’s right to reproductive freedom.
With passage of “Roe Vs Wade,” (1973) the purpose of the ruling was to allow women the choice of what they do with their bodies as a personal health-care matter, not a government control matter. Today, the latest concerns are about a woman’s freedom to determine what happens within her own body versus what the states think should happen morally. Let’s start with the importance of understanding that her medical decisions are personal matter and nobody else’s business. In fact, there are laws that protect doctor/patient confidentiality.
Now comes the really difficult contrast to the wonders of creation: a woman’s right to a medical procedure performed by a doctor to remove an embryo from her womb, to put it bluntly. A frightening prospect to some in dealing with life and death, to say the least.
“The protagonist recognizes her body as both revelation and incarnationof the great powers of life and death. ‘My body also changes, the creature in me, plant-animal, sends out filaments in me; I ferry it secure between death and life, I multiply.’”
Margaret Atwood, Surfacing, (Simon and Schuster 1972)
The most explosive part of this conversation is in regard to those who are pondering the question of women’s rights and the cellular changes within a woman’s own body: Who is in charge of the embryo? What part does the government have in this? And most importantly, what about the woman herself — what are her rights? There are many questions and answers in discussing “women’s rights” and the political implications of such a medical procedure. There have been all sorts of justifications, demonstrations, pontifications, accusations, and even deadly violence over this. And today, we see activists carrying signs both for and against abortion: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life in demonstrations across the country.
Much has been written about women’s power, or lack of it, or attempts to quash it. We know some of the answers depend on women’s knowledge of contraception and the need to control fertility. What happens in the future depends on women’s autonomy and their ability to make sensible personal choices. That is why family planning services and educational programs have been so important both here and internationally. This has also been recognized by certain knowledgeable supportive men.
Author, Carol Christ on the issue of abortion:
“The affirmation of a woman’s right to control her own body and choose abortion has been fundamental in the women’s movement.”
Diving Deep and Surfacing(Beacon Press 1980)
As these arguments go on today, the Texas Legislature and the Governor have passed a bill (S.B.8) to ban abortion after 6 weeks and essentially place draconian bounties of $10,000 in lawsuits on women seeking an abortion (punishment) AND their doctors, nurses, families, caregiver, neighbors, and taxi/ Uber drivers who take them to abortion clinics (more punishment). This is really stepping into the sh….t. This smacks of the WWII Nazi government’s evil intent in Germany, demanding that ordinary people report on the whereabouts of Jews to the Gestapo. Their final outcome (punishment) was that they were hauled off to concentration camps and murdered. Even though that genocidal finality is not happening here in the S.B. 8 law, women and their supporters are threatened to be punished with bounties and lawsuits from ordinary anybody if they are seen going to an abortion clinic.What kind of madness is this?So, what’s next? Somebody suing you when you take your dog to the vet to be spayed? This is a blatant attempt to launch patriarchal power through punishment laws in the legislatures and courts to assert control over women; which adversely affects pregnant women in ill health, poor women, and women of color, rape victims, and teenagers, and those who can’t afford to care for a child, and all that entails. Women and their doctors know what is best for them. Some women don’t even know if they are pregnant before 16 weeks.
In view of this draconian law, here’s what has happened in the past in the US. I’m old enough to remember when abortions were illegal and were secretly carried out in clandestine places—back rooms, underground clinics or, if you had money, you went to Switzerland. I have heard many strange horror stories from my women friends about these illegal practices, including the notorious use of a wire hanger or drinking some poisonous potion and awful after effects. I heard from a nurse who spent 2 years in prison who worked in a secret illegal underground abortion clinic and a young man studying to be a doctor whose men friends constantly asked him if he learned how to do abortions yet. Even if abortions are banned, women will return to these old illegal methods of solving the problem.
Philosophy Professor, Kate Manne, discusses the ongoing attempts to establish patriarchal power over women’s lives in her book, Down Girl,(Oxford University Press, 2017). She deliberates on the logic of misogyny and states that:
“…misogyny enforces patriarchy by punishing women who deviate
from patriarchy.”
In a review by Ashraya Maria, (Author of Feminism in India) she says of Manne’s book Down Girl:
“The naïve conception of misogyny shifts attention from systemic conditions toward perpetrators psychologies, thereby giving rise to what Manne calls “himpathy.” Himpathy refers to excessive sympathy given to male perpetrators rather than the victims of sexual violence. It reverses the narrative of blame and gives rise to testimonial injustice.” She continues:“Misogyny is a way women are kept in patriarchal order by imposing social costs for those breaking role or rank and warning others not to.”
“Manne calls the policing system of patriarchy is premised on the idea that it is acceptable for women to owe men certain obligations such as domestic, reproductive and emotional labor which confines them to occupying designated places in a man’s world.”
In the current Scientific American, (October 2021) is an article by Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute in Washington, D.C. where she states:
“A significant body of scientific literature shows that the adverse consequences of withholding abortion care are serious and long-lasting. Forcing someone who wants an abortion to continue a pregnancy requires them against their wishes to accept the great risks of pregnancy and labor-related complications which include
preeclampsia, infections and death.”
Senator Patty Murray from Washington State said in a recent Tweet:
“Any law that restricts the right to abortion and allows anyone —including anti-abortion activists who have no connection to the patient to act as “bounty hunters” is unacceptable. Your choices about pregnancy are up to you —not politicians or
strangers.”
The Empress card in a reading:
When you receive this card as a woman or man, it’s time to apply the concept of “woman’s power” to your life and to today’s world. What power do you have over the affairs of your own life? It’s important to take stock of your own personal power to manage what is most important to you. Ask yourself how you are taking care of yourself. How are you leading, caring, nurturing and tending to the most important matters in your daily life —your family, your friends, your co-workers? Always remember that no matter the circumstances, you are in charge of your own life and your ability to reproduce or not. That’s why there has been so much hype about Pro-choice. It’s a woman’s right to choose what is happening to her own body, not the government, and right now, that’s the law with Roe vs Wade. You don’t have to argue over this situation for months. This is what gender-equality is about, which leads to sustainability in a supportive atmosphere. Affirm the fact every day that you are in charge and you have the power and the forces of nature to guide you.
For a touch of humor in all this, if you watched “Downton Abbey,”
remember what the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) said to Edith (Laura Carmichael):
“You are a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do!”
(Julian Fellowes, Author)
Women are marching on October 2, 2021 in the US.
