Hey, Reader!

Today I wanna talk about The Empress card and a new framework I've been turning over in my head this week. Dionysus is offering me a framework for a genderqueer & liberatory understanding of The Empress that I am finding to be full of potential. And more than this framework being something that I just came up with, it is actually supported by the original mythos. Which I think is cool AS FUCK! (Obviously not that there's anything wrong with personal gnosis! Y'all know I love just making shit up and making it my practice when it works. But there's just a special tingly magic when you weave a connection across nearly two-thousand years!)

First, let's talk about The Empress. The Empress is abundance. The Empress is pleasure. The Empress is that nurturing spark of life that motivates all things into existence. This card is creation itself. This card is the rebirth of summer that burst forth in May, when all the world is green and holds the promise of growth and creation. It is deeply sensual - sexual and seductive and erotic, yes, but also just plain sensory pleasure. Like a warm afternoon in a hammock in the shade of a tree. It is easy. It flows. And you just accept that pleasure.

Moving into considering the traditional symbolism of the card, we can look at the glyph of Venus, the pomegranate, and pregnancy.

Typically, the card displays the glyph of Venus. And indeed it is all things Venusian - pleasure, love, creation, ease, abundance, beauty, peace. The pomegranate, which in the RWS deck covers The Empress' dress.

The pomegranate is a symbol of abundance, but in my personal opinion, there's a nuance here that doesn't often get spoken to enough: the pomegranate is a fruit of the underworld. It is eating arils of the pomegranate which condemn Persephone to always return to the Underworld. This hints at the fact that creation comes from death, abundance springs from the underworld. This is a theme that holds true in the Hellenic mythos that informs the symbolism, but not something we often (ever?) talk about nowadays.

And finally, The Empress is often depicted as visibly pregnant. This is one part of the imagery that I have always deeply struggled with. In many ways, it solidifies the deeply feminine and womanly aspsects of The Empress, especially in a modern context. Yet, as I learned in reading the poetry of Enhedduana pregnancy & birth as a metaphor for creativity is possibly as old as metaphorical language itself. It's perhaps a metaphor that doesn't land as well in this age of rigidly policed gender roles, gender essentialism & transphobia.

Given all that, it's no suprise that, as a genderqueer and transmasculine person, this is a card I've always struggled with. The Empress is a deeply "feminine" card. Revisions of the card in decks I have worked with re-labelled the card The Lifegiver (Rosebud Tarot) or The Nurturer (Numinous Tarot). And while this work does removed the hierarchy from the card, life-giving and nurturing remain deeply feminine-coded work in our society.

As a result, much of my work in learning to understand The Empress has been around re-thinking what it means to create and to nurture. To sit with the stereotypes that I've inherited around the feminine and grapple with and reframe them. Things like viewing carework as not valuable or unskilled, the idea that needing and receiving help signify weakness, grappling with my own intertwined fear and desire for the kind of easy abundance displayed in the card. But none of this really re-thought the gendered nature of the card, or brought me to any understanding of the card that I truly felt like I could embody.

That ended this weekend, however. Thanks in part to a very inspirational visit with some ancient Dionysian art & a deeply insightful workshop with Kristin Mathis where we explored the Orphic Hymn to Ares line by line something clicked into for me:

Dionysus as The Empress

Ok, now let's talk about Dionysus:

Dionysus is the god of wine, festivity, theatre, madness. He's also known as Bacchus. He's kind of a complex deity. Sometimes he's associated with his dad, Zeus. Othertimes, he's associated with Venus with whom he absolutely shares some essential vibes. He's also a vegetal god and as a vegetal god is associated with the Sun.

Most importantly (to me) he's genderqueer & radical AS FUCK. In Euripedes' Bacchae he is described as being of "questionable gender". Dionysus was a god of the people or, as it was in Greek society at the time, women & slaves. His worship was banned at one point in Rome and his worshippers killed because those in power feared they would become a threat to the state.

Dionysus is a god of ecstatic creation, a god of pleasure, a god of growth. And also a god of endings: revolution and revolt and madness. He has stories of travel into the Underworld, of death and rebirth.

Dionysus shares much of the domain of the traditional Empress in tarot. There's even some genderqueer(-ish) pregnany metaphor in the myth of his birth: after his mother was killed by jealous Hera, Zeus stitches the unborn Dionysus into his thigh and carries him to term.

Kristin Mathis, in her recent workshop on the Oprhic Hymn to Ares, brought it to my attention that Dionysus and Aphrodite (Venus) are given similar roles: they are the mitigators and channelers of Ares' destructive nature. The Orphic Hymn to Ares reads:

Here "Cyprus's Queen" = Aphrodite and "Lyaisos" = Dionysus. Not only to Aphrodite and Dionysus share many attributes, but here they are invoked as directors, mitagators, and harnessers of Ares' destructive potential.

Why is this significant? Consider the card that follows The Empress and who that card is associated with. The Emperor is traditionally associated with the zodiac sign of Aries - traditionally ruled by Mars/Ares!

Honestly, there's so much more I want to write about this. It's just such agenerative framework for me! The idea that the maddness and vengeance of Dionysus could open up The Empress to a deeper understanding of the glorious abundance and magical generative capacity of the natural world - not just Mother Nature as provider, but also Mother Nature's vengeance to actions that are not in right relationship with the natural world. And honestly, I don't think that this isn't there in the traditional meaning of the card - Aphrodited and Venus evolved from Mesopotamia goddesses like Inana who ABSOLUTELY had associations with war. And let's not forget Aphrodite's role in The Iliad! But our current understandings of gender simply DON'T allow us to see that expression of the Venusian.

There's so much here to explore and think on and dive into. This framework is absolutely still evolving for me, but I love it so much I just had to share today. I'll leave it here for now and finish by saying that I hope that this framework is inspiring and generative for you, as well. May it bring you deeper into relationship with The Empress and may we all find understandings of this card that feel inspiring, fulfilling, and invitations into embodiment of our personal wisdom.

Inspirational credit where credit is due:

• I would absolutely not have been able to be thinking along these lines without Maeg Keane, their work with Dionysus, and the conversations Maeg and I have had over the past year.
• I saw the Worringen Beaker over the weekend. This Roman funerary beaker from the 3rd or 4th century CE features Bacchus and Ariadne. It was definitely on my mind as I was forming these thoughts.

And more academic credit:

• Lady of The Largest Heart by Betty De Shong Meador
• Lessons from the Empress by Siri Plouff and Cassandra Snow
• The Bacchae of Euripedes (many translations, but my copy is by Wole Soyinka)
• The Orphic Hymns Grimoire by Sara Leanne Mastros
• Ares/Mars Orphic Hymn Workshop by Kristin Mathis
• Aphrodite and Venus by Bettany Hughes
• The Iliad (many translations, but I favor Caroline Alexander's)

Tarot Readings That Empower YOU!

If this analysis of an alternative understanding of The Empress was inspiring for you, you should know that I'm a tarot reading witch has made it my job bring this level of depth, nuance, and irreverent queering to every single card. I know the experience of being alienated readings infomred solely by normative tarot interpretations and I don't want that to happen to anyone else!

That's why I LOVE to pull cards for queer, disabled, neurodivergent, and rebellious mystics like you! You shouldn't have to read between the lines of a reading or feel alienated by outdated and normative card interpretations. A tarot reading should empower YOU not the reader!⁠
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If you're in need of some affirming and empowering tarot wisdom, my books are open and you can book your tarot session HERE!⁠

In Case You Missed It:

• On The Blog:
  • ​Magic is prefigurative and your magic can make the future! In this post I discuss magic as a poltical act of future making!
• Over on IG this week:
  • ​Gaia Said ACAB​
• On Twitter:
  • ​Astrology gives me permission to be the most authentic (and most cringe!) version of myself!​
  • ​I admitted I regret going to grad school and some other academia drop outs joined me in commiserating over just how unnecessarily traumatizing grad school is.​
• Curious about how to connect with your queer ancestors? Honoring Our Queer Ancestors workshop is now available for download!
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• Interested in learning more about small spells, folk magic, and connecting to your authentic magic? Finding Your Folk Magic is a workbook and starting point for your own journey into folk magic so that you can craft healing, change, and connection – for yourself and for the collective!​
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This Week's Joys

• Over the weekend, I went to a glass making workshop and I got to make a pumpkin out of glass and it was tons of fun! I made mine out of pink-speckled and clear glass and I can't wait to pick it up and see it for real all annealed and finished!
• My Neighbor Totoro! I'd never seen it and when my partner heard that we immediately sat down to watch it cuz they knew it'd be right up my alley. And they were right! Absolutely delightful!
• I just picked up the Modern Witch tarot deck for a project I'm considering working on and omg I already love this deck so much! The energy is perfect! Can't believe it took me so long to get this deck!

What's bringing you joy this week? Where are you finding magic? Feel free to hit reply and let me know!

Until next time!

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Scroll all the way to the end? Here's the digest: Dionysus is offering me a framework for a genderqueer & liberatory understanding of The Empress in a way that is supported by the original mythos.

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In Joy, Magic, and Solidarity,
Lex

P.S. Know someone who would find magic in this newsletter? Please forward it on! Word of mouth is one way we weave connection & magic!

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