it’s me. the empress. empress of small things and mundane things and magical things too. empress of hearth and home and husband. empress of care and feeding and kissing boo-boos for two small children. empress of trash and laundry and gourmet meals, of stories, words and visions, of dance and movement and breath, of tooth fairy glitter and love notes in school lunches and cozy beds, of wanton sex and harsh words and nuzzling my nose into the soft hairs at the nape of my husband’s neck. all of it is my domain.
in the tarot deck, the empress is the card of creation and gestation. she grows things. she is mother, she is abundance, she is love and femininity and nurturing. she is venus and demeter. and at this time in my life, as partner and mother, the image of an archetypal mother fits. but there is more to this symbol of empress. as a woman, i stand in the fertile womb of creation – rebirthing myself to new ideas, new humilities, new awakenings, new visions – an endless opening of myself to all possibility and all disappointment too.
i embrace her in her abundance especially as life teaches me that there is creativity and abundance in all things – in destruction and loneliness, in losing your money or losing your shit – that i can gestate and grow and cultivate so much, that there is room for it all, that i don’t have to, as i was once taught, always be the good girl, the smart girl, the go-to-girl, the fix-it-up girl. that i can trust in the darkness and she too can be a good friend.
and so, when i sat down to consider what i might call myself in this space, how i might evoke my energy without giving my identity away, i decided to call on her, the empress with her golden hair and crown of stars, to guide my way on these pages as i gestate and create and bring forth ideas and words and personal revelations. she reminds me that the gift of creation, the ability to give birth – to humans or art or thoughts or to the inner soul – is many things and asks for patience, trust, surrender, willingness, and courage.
here, on these pages, you will come to know my husband, the magician, a man who creates magic by alligning himself with the elements in a concrete way, through hard work and balance and mastery of alchemy, of earth, air, fire and water – much like the magician in the tarot deck who is another form of creator.
i create through birthing, my man creates through building. this tendency for both us to be fueled by creative fire makes for some forceful horn-locking but one of us almost always becomes water to the other one’s rock. it is a partnership of opposition, of polarity, of magnetism, of passion. it is a marriage of friendship and laughter and hot sex – as long as i’m not breastfeeding, because then it is more like desperate and scanty and infrequent but at least it is always, always, reliably good. i call him my bonus. he is the devoted, loyal, true-blue husband and the stick-around father for the children i always knew i’d have even when i doubted whether or not i’d have the man. he is the prize.
we have two kiddos – turtle boy and monkey girl. they are delightful and different from each other and funny and exhausting and they are another kind of glue that binds me and my husband together.
if you saw turtle boy at the park or on his skateboard or jumping off the high-dive, you would not understand why i’ve decided to call him turtle boy. he’d look a lot more like tarzan boy with his ropey arms and banged up knees and dude-like walk. but on the inside, this boy knows his journey. he takes his time. and, like the turtle who carries his home with him, this little boy is at home everywhere. he is a traveller, he is flexible, he makes friends in any situation or, if not, he happily entertains himself. i really love him for the way he is so still in his center. and for the way he goes so wild on the outside.
monkey girl is just that. she clings and climbs and moves easily from place to place. she is wide-eyed with curiosity and quick. there is much to be revealed still since she is so young, just barely walking now, but i melt at the way she scrunches up her nose when she smiles and squeals when she thinks you are coming to play chase. her eyes, they are endless and knowing and wise. i fall into them and want to know what it is she understands.
well, that feels like enough about me. except, perhaps, that you might like to know that everyday at 4, well, sometimes 5 but never 3, i pour myself a glass of wine and begin to cook our evening meal. cooking gives me great pleasure. i grocery shop or go to the farmer’s market nearly everyday in search of something seasonal, local, colorful, beautiful, irresistable – and then i plan a meal. with a glass of wine in hand and the monkey girl strapped on in the carrier, i begin to cook. i look at my french dutch oven or my morrocan tagine or my sautee pan and i try to decide what to do for dinner. this is a creative moment i can claim in every day, even days when i don’t write or dance or even breathe very deeply, i can cook. i can nourish and feed and create in one little pot on my stove. and i love this.
here is a bit i wrote about this writing project, this sisterhood project, this soul project called the siren’s song. i hope it explains a bit about what this means to me and how it came to be…
It all started with a little bar of soap. Sirens’ soap; a gift to each of us from our hostess. Five uniquely different women gathered to celebrate the journey of our lives. Women, writers, poets, dancers, yoginis, runners, midwifes, teachers, mothers, lovers, seekers, magicians. Sirens. All of us collected to honor life and give thanks and bear witness to the life that is. The life that is different from our regrets and different from our dreams, it is the life as it lives, holding the whole, without apology or censorship.
We carved out a slice from this carcass of life to celebrate the path of woman, maestro, mother, crone, virgin, harlot. And in these days we spent together and the words that came in the months that followed, our dialogue grew into the song of the sirens. Our irreverant name of Sirens, because of that bar of soap, grew into a regular salutation between us and now we share it with you.
What if one woman told her whole truth? And what if five women dared to do it together? This is what we strive to do here. And this is the very thing we invite each of you to do too. You may listen quietly to the siren song in your heart, or share it with us by email, or invite a group of women you trust to share their true authentic story with you in person. But here we are, riding rough-shod, willing to lay it all bare before you – the sacred and profane, the boring and the shocking, the illicit and the tender, the risky and the benign.
Here you will find a dialogue between five women – a mix of voices, conventional and rebellious, traditional and absurd, magical and tortured – but it will be the truth as we know it, protected of course by fictitious names and solemn vows of secrecy. There is no other way to do it, no other way to admit to the living desire, the sexual abandon, the pills popped, joints smoked, alcohol consumed, the deep dark secrets, glorious success and perfect failures, the taboo fantasies and the shadow that lives in each of us without the cover of protection in such a public domain.. But the essence of the stories we tell are real. Sometimes polished and sometimes raw, what you will find is the living truth of five women who savor their lives and live their lives with passion, intention and abandon. Women who make mistakes, who know hunger, who have been bedmates with heartbreak. Women who want a place to share and be seen, who want to celebrate and grieve in the presence of others. And this is the journey we invite you to join.
for now, i will close. and i will close with the offering of my siren sisters, a collection of descriptions and images and words that define me – sometimes more honest than we can describe ourselves.
You are a Sycamore tree. You lighten up a space. When I am with you any lethargy disappears and your personal medicine invigorates me. You make me aware of the sweetness of life, even when you act as my shade your energy brightens my world.
-Foxy
You are effortless beauty, the five senses woven together seamlessly. You are the best chicken soup I have ever had, accented with coconut and lemongrass. You are tall leather boots to go out for coffee, sexy and ageless, big shades and quick tears. You are empathy, the pulse of emotion, of availability, of open-heart. You are strong and willful and self-determined. You are the teacher I wish my kids had, the mother I wish I had. You are lush and waterfall and fascinated and student and sister and life partner. Someday, you will be the elder holding all the eager little children in her gorgeous apron, giving each of them a job, a place, irreplaceable. You inspire me.
-Noa
Oh sugar sprinkled, honey dripped Empress! You are show stopping, shyly sit across the room and stare at you beautiful. The real kicker is that you are equally if not even more beautiful on the inside. You are gourmet chef, mindful mother, Shiva invoking compelling friend. You are African Queen though blondest of blonde…you are Waldorf educator and birthing mentor…shop on a budget and look like a million bucks… you are clarity, inspiration and more…more than anything Empress, YOU are love.
-Zita
magical and mysterious. Grace. deep caverns. sensual, luscious. the owl at midnight, the shelter in the storm. orchids, the primal deep, the place where pleasure grows. empathic and inventive. a woman who knows how to get shit done. Traveler inside and out. valiant and fecund. musk and amber. diaphanous, container, dance of darkness, lover of the light.
-Lila
until next time,
signing off,
the empress
