Springtime with the Emperor

Aries // on stewardship and joy

Hello! Well, April has been of a blur… spring break, sickness, work travel and more sickness. I feel like I wrapped up my year of writing the decans and then lost all my momentum completely. I’ve been home fighting off strep throat (do not recommend), washing endless laundry, and obsessively watching things sprout in my garden! There is so much color out there!! Lime greens, and cotton candy pink, and violets, and electric yellow! Today the sky is cerulean blue and I walked at the park with a friend and everything was shimmering and vibrating with life. Rain-filled puddles trickled through mossy grass and the birds were singing with gusto. I hope you can get yourself outside today. XO Linds

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As I watch my garden awaken and the birds sing to each other in the pink mornings, I follow the nudge to do the opposite and let my writing lay fallow. Fallow days mean more time for rest and painting in my sketchbook and more time for reading. Reading wonderful books like Covenant of Water (so long, but so good!) and listening to Neverwhere (so creepy, but so good!) while I fold endless laundry, take strep-recovery naps, and go for long walks. Some days the only creativity I can muster is playing with my 8 year old, or making dinner.

The creative seasons of motherhood are cyclical, but also unpredictable.

When a season of child-care and illness and extended school breaks are forced upon me, I have two choices. Will I fret and fight for my old routines and try to create and write in the midst of the chaos? Or will I surrender to what is and allow something new to emerge?

I’ve been sitting with open hands and this question: What wants to emerge?

After some time, the answer seems to be to follow the astrological year again but to focus on the seasons as whole instead of following each individual decan¹. Each sign corresponds to a tarot card so I will let the major arcana guide my writing this year - beginning with Aries and the Emperor. I’ll aim for every other week, but you may only see a post once a month. I hope you stick around.

The Emperor // card 1 is a from a handmade deck my teen made me for Christmas *sob* and card 2 is the Illuminated Tarot

As I watch the garden flourish and turn bright green after so much spring rain and warm sunshine, I’m reminded that the Emperor can be a card of regeneration, growth, and stability. Like a seed bursting out of the ground to grow and thrive, the Emperor says emphatically, “I am here!” He takes up space. She has autonomy and lives life by her own rules. They are ambitious, solid like a mountain, and protective.

In my own creative life I need the authority of the Emperor, I need her² deep self-trust. And I especially long for her structure. The Emperor knows that limits help him to stay focused on what really matters to him. I’m leaving April and Aries season with a sense of focus on my creative work - signing up for workshops, investing in new paints and materials, and a commitment to practicing in the everyday moments - not just waiting for retreats or long breaks from my kids. Aries and the suit of wands taught me a lot last year, here are three posts about:

Aries 1 // Stewardship & Vision Aries 2 // Adventure Aries 3 // Small Joys

Wild violets that are happily taking over my garden. Take up space, girl.

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I recently attended

Anna Brones

workshop called The Way of Water: exploring local ecosystems. I was rushing kids to bed and chugging hot tea to fight a sore throat, but it was very worth the time and shift to my evening routine. Heather Bird Harris was a co-facilitator and invited participants to utilize the EPA website³ to locate and explore their local waterways. I’ve written before about Lake Erie and my love for the sweet water sea so I was very excited to learn that there is actually a creek and a river that run close to my house and out to the Lake. Both of which I’d never seen before.

So the next day, after I dropped kids off to school and after picking up a prescription I went on a hunt for Sibley Creek. I had to drive through an unfamiliar part of town, past a train yard and over multiple tracks, into an industrial wasteland of automotive shops, factories for steel and concrete, a tool & die company, and empty buildings. And there she was, a little creek, cutting through a massive scrap metal yard. You would barely even notice her, unless you were looking. But she was shimmering in the sun, surrounded by weedy honeysuckle and yellow forsythia and a few lonely songbirds.

If I had the time I could’ve followed her west to the Ottawa River (which I plan to visit next week) and then eventually out to the Bay. A daily journey of water that cycles year in and out in the midst of industry, freight trains, and emptying urban neighborhoods. A dynamic system of sunlight and wind and water droplets that we can forget about so easily in our modern lives.

And it makes me think about how in Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman so creatively conjures an alternate universe in the Under-world of London. The familiar places like train stations and city streets have a mirror-underside. In the novel, creatures and magical beings live in this haunted world down in the sewers. Magic lives under the feet of the above-world, but most people miss it entirely in the busy-ness of their ordinary lives.

And haven’t we built a society on top of an existing world? Our above-world feels so real and distracting and busy and colorful, but there is earth beneath our feet. The earth with her water and stones and beings that live and grow and thrive in the midst of our rushing, noisy, above-world.

The archetype of the Emperor is a conqueror and it’s so easy to only celebrate the ways we have conquered the wild. I appreciate the roof over my head and the laptop that I’m writing on and the cup of hot tea that was transported on some railway from far far away. But the Emperor also stewards the land, and makes sure that she holds the long-view and makes wise decisions for future generations. The shadow of the Emperor is short sighted choices for immediate profit. And bombs being dropped in the name of peace. And children being starved in the name of security.

Can I let the Emperor ask, Will you passionately care for the world that has been entrusted to you? How can you have hope, and work towards a better world? Where can you go in your city to connect to the earth beneath the world? What adventure awaits?

Wandering through a part of town that I’ve never been before was thrilling and reminded me how easily things can become dull with familiarity. And even though we can throw up factories and build train tracks for miles and miles, underneath it is still a living earth. And a creek that flows to a river, that flows to a bay in a Sweet Water Sea. That world exists too, if we look for it. I’m going to keep looking.

From the waterways workshop - inspired by a survey map - my quick painting of my river flowing out to the bay.

1. Each astrological year begins on the spring equinox and the sun entering the sign of Aries. As we travel around the sun each 10* of movement is called a decan (there are 3 for each sign) and has a different tarot card associated with it. 12 signs x 3 decans (10*) = 360* around the sun. Too much math? Sorry. My plan is to focus more on the 12 signs this year & their corresponding major cards and only briefly touch on the decans.

2. A quick note on gender: I read the major archetypes without gender. Or, maybe more clearly, I read them as energy that can apply to all genders. Historically, the Emperor would represent masculine energy, but we know that a woman can embody leadership, wisdom, and stability. I appreciate decks that utilize nature symbols for this reason - mountains, rams, redwood trees all call the Emperor to mind and remind us that these qualities can be embodied by anyone, regardless of gender.

3. You should try it too! https://mywaterway.epa.gov/