3 The Empress

(2015), graphite pencils on paper, 5.5"x10.5" backed with digital frame.

The Empress is the archetype of the Mother, the nurturing woman. Traditionally she is depicted seated in a natural landscape setting, sometimes with an infant, sometimes surrounded by harvest grains to link her back to mother goddesses like Demeter. She is crowned and holds a scepter.

Crowley removed her posture of engaging the viewer directly and turned her torso awkwardly sideways. He gave her a host of additional symbols such as replacing her scepter with a lotus flower (fertility), a pelican who was once believed to feed its young with blood drawn from its own breast and the white eagle of the alchemists as a symbol of transformation and rebirth. She is also seated between a sparrow (a symbol of concupiscence), which she looks away from, and a dove (standing for faithfulness), which she faces. With these elements Crowley falls into the trap of separating the frightful figure of a sensuous and self-realized woman from the image of the chaste mother, a contradiction in and of itself.

I wanted to do something different and chose as my Empress a Himba tribeswoman. The Himba combat their harsh climate by covering themselves with a paste made of ochre, butter-fat and resin, which protects their skin against the sun and insect bites and makes them appear as if they were one with the earth on which they walk. For an image of an earth/ mother goddess this seemed very appropriate. My Empress has her child casually cradled between her thighs, not denying where he came from and how he got there. She wears the erembe headdress denoting that she is a married woman, not a weird construct between virginity and motherhood. And since the Empress also stands for creativity, beauty and art she is adorned with beads and bracelets and somewhat self-absorbedly engaged in another bead project which shows that her creativity is including but not limited to bringing new life into the world. The Hebrew letter associated with the Empress is "daleth" which means "door". She is not only the passage through which we enter life, she is also the door that leads us out of it, showing that mother goddesses have a shadow side and can take life as well as give it.

In a spread the Empress indicates that your nurturing instinct is strong and that you may want to concentrate on and nurture your partner and your family, perhaps even that you or your partner are planning for or experiencing a pregnancy. It may also mean that a mother figure is a strong influencing factor in your life right now. You may want to treat yourself right, open yourself up to discovering your own needs and sensuality and exploring your own artistic and creative impulses.

If the Empress symbolizes someone else you may have to work through some Mommy issues, good or bad. Do you feel stifled by your mother or mother figures, do you admire them, want to emulate them?