 Courting Your Inner Emperor
My tarot passion/specialty is exploration of Sacred Feminine through my Permission Granted: Empress curriculum and my Elemental Queenship work (elementalqueenship.com). However, we all have both the Emperor and Empress and the Kings and Queens at play within us. (Candidly, beware my Inner King of Swords as he is a bit of a bastard.) Thus, bring on the Emperor card! Empress creates the raw content of life and love- sensuous and sovereign. That vision swirling lusciously in a rich inner world must find translation- external expression via a structure that serves. Emperor, as consort, provides the external mechanisms (and perhaps machinations!) to manifest that vision. Emperor builds steadily, step by logical step with an appraising external gaze. These archetypes/cards are at work as the Divine Consorts of mythology in the pairing of Isis/Osiris, Inanna/Dumuzi, Cybele/Attis, Radha/Krishna, Magdalene/Jesus, Yin/Yang. Inner Marriage of these elements (a loving union of your Emperor and Empress) is Big Medicine. You can feel It, see It, and make It so. As a single mother I have my Emperor onside all day long. Blending Logos/Emperor and Eros/Empress means dancing hard, until the questions spill out, then taking a up the pen and writing the answers longhand. Tell me what you want, let me make it happen. Proclamation, benediction. Emperor drafts the plans according to his Empress’s wild design. Clarity, measurable benchmarks, sturdy foundations, an unbeatable campaign of impeccable actions set down to realize Her dream. Beyond notions of gender: can your inner wild generate the tiny seed that --tended loyally-- bears fruit? Can you steward --with tools of language, intellect, perception-- the boundless hum of desperate, undomesticated beauty?
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 Hearing owl’s call or catching a glimpse of Her feathered flight are show-stoppers. Time slows, veils part. Secrets are revealed. Did that really happen?
The Otherworld runs alongside us in every moment. But, on this side we don’t always use our silent flight feathers to consciously cross back and forth-- to snap wisdom up in our talons and beat a path “home”. Some never peek behind that shimmery, alluring edge for fear of what is beyond. On the West of the Medicine Wheel, in strong affinity to the lunar feminine energy of our nature: Owl is a messenger, a queen of traversing liminal space. She bridges waking and dreaming life. She bridges life and death. She dips into the range of space and time we (innocently, having divided them Ourselves) call Past, Present, and Future. Owl lifts off and sails into the dark with the power to return. She isn’t a boots/paws-on-the ground explorer of dark like Black Panther who works the tooth and claw ferocity of personal shadow in a tangle in the damp earth. Owl lifts higher, ascends to Upper World for Her understanding. She just plain Crosses Over and comes back eyes keen, feathers smooth, coolly appraising and ready to deliver the goods. (I sometimes think Panther shifts to Owl when She’s feeling generous. Enough carnage for one day…) Owl comes to you when you are ready for The Reveal. This is not just an info download, this is your invitation to travel liminal space alongside Her. Using the cover of dark as your ally, elevating your powers of intuition and psychic discernment, you are entering a temple of evergreen boughs and cold, silvery light. Ancestral healing, self- knowing, shadow- play, dream communion. Velvet-soft wings gesturing to slow down, step closer, close your eyes, and dare to lean into the darkness. Lean in and see smoky quartz, snowflake obsidian, howlite, and hematite stones. Lean in so far, you fall right off the side-- and take flight.  Bear Medicine is the ideal still point, deep and resonant.
Over the last two years of service, I have led more seekers in totem work with Bear than with any other critter. With each session my relationship with this energy grows in Beauty. In circle, I have led women into the cave to meet Grandmother Bear. Entry into the darkness is not without its risks. Often the firelight doesn’t reveal all of Bear’s face or her wisdom and you’ve got to sit and stay awhile. Drink from that soup bowl. Watch the osharoot and sage crackle on the flames. See garnets and glowing chrysoprase along the cave walls. You have to stay and Be Loved Unconditionally. And that can be hard work. In private session, a woman with a brilliant mind, truly a dynamo- had to admit: she was tired. Worn-down. Adrenal fatigue. Drum comes out and Bear comes around. With a man (a poet) of considerable strength and rising personal power, Grey Bear had already made himself known. He had taken this student by the paw and brought him to me in such a state of readiness to work through legacy and connection to sacred masculine that the restorative medicine had an energizing impact. This was this seeker's first connection to totem work. Bear’s power as teacher and elder were on display here. An older woman, who has struggled a lifetime to feel loved and welcomed in this world, at this time….I thought Mother Bear and Grandmother Bear were about to tumble out of my kitchen cupboards as I listened to her speak, examined her turn of phrase, and body language! Mugwort oil will join in. Berries, honey, the sweetest things in life. Things our Mother Planet gifts us everyday. Every single day. Bear Medicine carried me, twice through almost unspeakable darkness with courage and assurance. When I am for sure going to lose my mind, I start four rounds of Bear Chant. By the third round, I can feel myself landing in the arms of Love. Fierce, rooted, larger than life, sharp clawed. Bear’s power translates as a welcome home, a true north in my heart. Bear is wonderful medicine to prepare for the coming of a child, to mourn the loss of a loved one, to with grace and finality-- accept yourself just as you are. If you want to come home to yourself, to your life, to your gifts, to your wisdom: come find me. Today, I’ll be with Bear. xx  “Mom, what’s your biggest fear?” asks my thirteen year old Triple-Gemini warrior mini-priestess.I know she’s hoping for something gory or goofy but I am a straight shooter.
“Imprisonment.” Bam! Easy, peasy. No second guessing that. Of course all of the mama-fears are there. Of course. Legions of them, gory and gruesome-- but they seem strangely manageable compared to imprisonment, confinement, contraction of body, mind, or spirit. Loss of liberty, being on lock down. Taken. Held. Isolated.captive, in bondage. Via laborious, yet loving detail I could give the Astro Smarties a peek at the way my Twelfth House Aries Moon hints at a past-life intense confinement of self and spirit, imprisonment, ice cold and solitary. But let’s be In The Now. With all of the beauties and blessings in this lifetime, I have been both by own captor and liberator. (Enter the Empress of the Tarot!) First though, The Tower card must have its due. The edifice, the artifice, the structure that seems so solid, ready to serve for a lifetime is struck by a single bolt of lightning. Bricks and mortar tumble in pure chaotic devastation. At the Tower’s’ center? Always Truth, the treasure.The Wake Up. And after the excavation, the long road to heal: claiming inner authority. Tarot’s Empress archetype is deceptively simple. Regal, beautiful, abundant, receptive to the riches of the natural world, holding high vision for her domain. Sovereign, yes. Fecund, fertile, fabulous, OK- check. In her hand though, Empress holds a lovely pen, poised at the ready: Is it a raven quill? A peacock feather? A Gelly-Roller (LOVE those glitter ones, right)? She writes out your permission slips. For a lifetime we can be imprisoned by External Authority, the expectations of others. Their preferences, whims, and wonderments can create our maps of the possible. We shrink in proportion to the needs and projections of others. Then, the Tower comes down. We think we can dust ourselves off smartly and proceed. Empress reminds us that we must grant self-permissions to escape an insidious captivity of our own devices. Permission to be as you are. Permission to grant permission. Permission to align with ecstasy. Permission to connect the dots. Permission to surrender. Permission to be both Church and State. Permission to reap what you sow. Permission to feel it down to your toes. Permission to contradict yourself and where necessary, contradict others. If we are to offer ourselves unconditional welcome in light and shadow let’s put ink to paper, hand to heart, blood to earth, body to body. “Great Universal Mother, May I? Yes, honey. You surely may. Need a guide, a cheerleader to claim your self-permissions? Reach out today. Here I am! |
AuthorLinda River Valente Archives
November 2017
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