Tarot Card Series: The Empress Reversed
THE EMPRESS REVERSED
There’s a brisk trade for photographs of dead women[1],
you know—
men like their women silent, passive.
Weak, soft as a kitten.
They cannot stand a mad woman,
who speaks in tongues,
knows secrets.
A woman is only as good
as those she trusts.
Her blue lips gape—
spiders come crawling
out of her mouth
her eyes go black.
She lifts up off her feet,
head thrown back.
There’s a demon beneath her skin,
scratching to get loose.
Like this pattern she’s dragging her nails down—
yellow wallpaper, purple orchids,
death cap mushrooms,
a woman slipping out
of her body, her prison.
[1] Penny Dreadful, Season One, Episode Seven.
On the card, there is a beautiful woman in a really extravagant gown. She’s wearing a crown of stars. She’s seated on a throne, surrounded by a massive garden. The Empress is the epitome of divine female energy. She represents abundance. She showers others with affection and care.
When a card is reversed, it means the opposite of what it usually does. The Empress Reversed indicates an instability. That you’ve placed your self-worth too much in the hands of other people. That you’ve given too much of yourself, and gotten nothing in return.
It indicates a need to focus your energy back on yourself. To get back in tune with your own needs before taking care of others. When a plane is going down, you are directed to put your own mask on before helping others.
The imagery from the poem comes from Season One, Episode Seven of Penny Dreadful. Vanessa Ives has become possessed by demon after she has sex with Dorian Gray. She begins to talk in voices and hallucinate. She lifts up off of the ground and floats in the air. Her eyes go black. There’s definitely a parallel here between a woman having sex and being punished for it that is in alignment with Gothic literature from the Victorian era. However, Vanessa doesn’t die, she goes on from this experience to become a stronger, more forceful character in Season 2. (I refuse to discuss Season 3, whose ending is one of the most crushing disappointments of my life).
Vanessa, though powerful and phenomenal (probably my absolute favorite ever), is constantly seeking herself. She’s trying to find where she fits in Victorian Era London. She’s trying to find God and failing. And when I talk about her looking for God, I don’t mean the patriarchal Christian norms, I mean she’s looking for comfort. She’s looking for some sort of salvation that she’s not getting from within herself.
She’s so subversive within her own culture, that there really isn’t a place for her. I really connected with that. I always feel like I’m searching for a place where I belong. In the past fifteen years, I have lived in eight cities. For the longest time, nothing seemed permanent, nor did I want it to be. I was unwell. I gave a lot of emotional labor to people who never intended to return the favor. I got to the point where I had nothing left to give anyone. So I stepped away from everything. I took time and space to heal, got the rest that I so desperately needed. I looked within myself for the answers that I needed and I found them there.
Thank you so much for reading! This is the final post in my tarot poem series. If you’re interested in these poems, you can find them all in Bad Omens, which is available through Querencia Press.