Week three: the goddesses—of all genders—teach you how to eat

Hello, weary ones. Welcome to this week’s survival tip. As ever, the question for the week is, “How do we survive this week during the fall of an empire?” 

We’ve drawn:
The Empress (4), Queen of Pentacles (2), The Devil (1), Four of Swords (3), The Magician (5)
This is the Apparition Tarot by Spirit Speak

The Devil showed up last week, not as the central card but one over. This week, he sets the tone for us and does so hand-in-hand with the Queen of Pentacles and the Four of Swords. 

I chose this deck today because I showed it to a friend yesterday. I’d forgotten if, during our many tarot show-and-tells, I’d ever shown this one, and apparently I hadn’t. When my friend saw this Queen of Pents, she got very excited—because it shows the Venus of Willendorf, and ancient votive stature of The Goddess(TM). She is thought to be a fertility goddess, and there’s no reason to doubt it—fertility goddesses throughout the world have celebrated, exaggerated, the breasts and genitals of the mother. Think of Ireland’s Sheela Na Gig. 

A quick digression. Skip to the paragraph beginning “The reading:” if you don’t care about this stuff.
I get rather testy about gendered shit, lately. Especially when a tarot deck relies heavily on one or the other. And there are decks that I’ve found and really liked but didn’t want to use because they were so gendered. But while talking to this same friend yesterday, I finally managed to articulate what I’d been trying to say when talking about them. Frequently I’ve said that I feel “left out” of them, because there’s no boys. And I knew that wasn’t quite what I meant, because I don’t actually give a fuck whether a deck is all women or not, and I’ve never really felt very comfortable around other boys, anyway. What I was finally able to articulate was that it’s not the gender, but the vibe. A deck can be all “women” (I put that in quotes not to make it seem ironic, but to highlight the vastness of that word), but it doesn’t have to be all femme. And that’s what I’ve been trying to get out, but I didn’t know how to say it. Because as a queer person, a cis one, I’m particularly aware at this point in my life of the union of the the so-called masc and femme within me. I don’t feel as though I’m non-binary, though had that conversation been introduced to me much younger I might have. I’ve spent a long time growing into myself, now. But sometimes I’m super femme, and sometimes I’m not. And I like the mix. I like being a bit of a changeling, in that way. And I like it when decks can reflect the full spectrum of being a person, rather than saying, “Ah, to be a safe place, this must center only femme-presenting people.” A deck can be woman, womyn, wombon, etc.-centric, while still presenting the masculine as presented by cis women, trans women, trans men, and non-binary people. 

When the now-infamous Divine Masculine Tarot was preparing to fund, a lot of queer male (I believe mostly cis, if not entirely, but I’m not sure) were asked to showcase cards—and many of us eagerly did. In part because of the celebration of the masc/femme dance. There were people with breasts and a penis, for example, beautifully rendered. The Tarot Karens complained and got heir way, and those parts were painted over—disappointing those of us who backed the deck having seen its earlier—and true—iteration, only to find out that the queerness, the dance, had been erased by assholes. 

Because, dear ones, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart: If you cannot look at a naked body in a piece of art and not find it sexualized somehow, you are the prurient one, you are the disgusting one, you are the pervert. 

Anyway. I digress, as ever. 

The reading: The Devil flanked by the Venus of Willendorf and the Four of Swords reminds me of the toughness present in all these cards. I frequently get down on fours because they’re conservative, but they’re also tenacious. Sometimes clinging to shit is bad, but sometimes—especially when it’s our energy, clarity, sanity, and life—it’s not so bad. The Four of Swords actually suggests a stable mind. Fours=stable, swords=mind. Or communication. And one impacts the other, anyway. What we think shapes what we say and when; what we say impacts how we think. Both impact our body/mind. 

To sustain our energy in this time, we need that rocky earthiness of the Venus. Look how solid she is. She has carbed up for the fucking fight. 

It has been said that diet culture exists in part to keep us thin and weak. If we are not healthy and fed, we cannot fight. The Devil, lord of indulgence, actually shows us two femme bodies, one looking somewhat thin (in the center of the skeletal oval), the other looking supple and ready to feed. 

Feed, dear ones. Sustain yourself. 
Eat. 
I know that’s a dangerous thing to say.
For one, people are literally being starved in a genocides on this planet. 
Also, I know many of us struggle with food.
I do. 
I’m not going pretend I don’t. 
There are times when I’m eating at work and I feel ashamed when someone walks by me because I feel like the fat kid scarfing down my slop. 
No one in my life every called me that, this isn’t one of those times where abusers made me feel this way. I just picked it up because—actually, now that I’m saying that, in fact . . . , other people have said to me. 
Other cis gendered white gay men. 

So, I didn’t pick that up from nowhere. Clarity unlocked, I guess. 🤣

This isn’t feasting; this isn’t gluttony; those isn’t over-indulgence. It is sustaining. It’s nourishment. If you want to help, if you want to survive, nourish. 

The fact that I can’t even say “nourish yourself” without pointing out that, on this planet, in this life, eating food to stay alive is a fucking privilege, when, in fact, it should be a human fucking right, is in-fucking-sane. (And guess who thinks food isn’t a human right: The so-called “United States” and so-called “Isreal.” And these two entities are two of the major reasons why I have to qualify this reading this way. Because even though famine is a violation of “international law” [which is also a fucking joke; if there were “international law” the “US” and “Isreal” wouldn’t exist], but in the meantime, those of us who can need to sustain ourselves. Because these evils will not end on their own. Lord knows it may only be a matter of time before we’re being starved, too. 

Anyway, when I say “eat,” I don’t necessarily mean this has to be food. It could be wisdom, it could be inspiration: recall the earthy presence of the Queen of Pentacles. The wheat surrounding her isn’t yet bread; it’s the potential for bread. So “eat” what sustains you, but whatever it is should be earthy and deep and rich and filling like this Venus. 

Whatever it is should put the mind at least, too. 

That doesn’t mean being an ostrich, but it does mean that toxicity encountered during the week should be countenanced by healthy stuff. Sustaining stuff. Affirming, earthy stuff. 

There’s also the reality that how we talk this week should be earthy, too; it should be Queen of Pentacles-y. It can, and should, be real; queens to fuck around in my world. But it is also rooted in life. And in this case I take life to be mean, well, the value of it. We see so much fucking anti-life right now, primarily from those who claim to be so-called “pro-life” (which is the biggest fucking crock of shit and they know it—that’s why they go deeper on it, because they know if they ever give voice to their truth, they’ll know they’re going straight to the hell they think they’re consigning us to.)

The Empress and the Magician almost seem to me like an entirely different reading.

The Empress really enlarges the queen. There’s a simpatico, here; there’s an intensity of earth and Venus, because Venus is the astrological sign associated with The Empress. 

Which, and I know this sounds privileged, means surrounding yourself with love and beauty. 

But I don’t mean “spiritual white person” love and beauty; I mean actual love and beauty. Because love and beauty mean telling tough truths, standing up for those being denied love and beauty. Loving so intensely that we say “fuck the norms, fuck the rules.” That we discover what beauty means beyond vanity. 

The Magician, mercurial and clever, presents to us the sense of acting the part when we don’t feel it. We will we faced with moments this week when the salt-of-the-earth response is necessary, but we will not feel it. It will be necessary for our own well-being and that of the person we might otherwise chop into bits, but it will not be genuine and it will not be felt. 

Do it, anyway. 

Perform it until it feels true. 

The more sustenance you take on, the more you feed yourself healthy things—food and otherwise—the better. 

Despair will not sustain us. Despair, like diet culture, will leave us weak, emaciated, and fully useless. 

When we see that they’re trying to make us too thin, too weak, too despairing, let the rage of the Goddesses—of all genders—teach you to eat. ​

Until next week.