THE EMPRESS, Card #3
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 12:11PM 
The tarot’s major arcana cards represent universal experiences that we go through in our lives, no matter what our background or how we were raised.
THE EMPRESS
CARD #3
KEY WORDS: Love, Motherhood, Wisdom, Fertility
This piece is entitled “Demi’s Bleeding Heart”. How could I possibly do a pop-culture rendition of the tarot without including this card as The Empress. It would be a gross failure on my part to overlook the symbolic significance of this photograph taken by Annie Leibowitz for the August 1991 issue of “Vanity Fair” magazine. Aside from the fact that one could probably derive an entire deck from Annie’s work alone, suffice it to say this portrait stands out for obvious reasons.
In this card, Demi and her bleeding heart are portrayed as the Divine or the Holy Mother who, in this case, is abundantly fertile in the literal and metaphorical sense. As signified by the symbol of femininity to the left of her, she represents the divine feminine principal or anima wisely wielding the all healing power of love for the sake of universal motherhood, which she views as her utmost responsibility. The Holy Mother is emotionally forthcoming and gives and receives love equally. Having taken advice from her sister, The High Priestess, she demonstrates an equal balance of heart and mind.
As signified symbolically by the bleeding heart flower to her right and in the background, Demi watches over all of the world’s children, including those precious angels whose parents failed terribly in their responsibilities. The Holy Mother’s bleeding heart heals through love by accepting the burdens of others and transforming those burdens into spiritual lessons. Each of those lessons, the purpose of which is to bring us closer to her, are present as the shimmering stars in her celestial crown. Only She is capable of performing this most necessary form of alchemy while still maintaining her spiritual balance and focus.
The world is a mess, true, but divine motherhood will see it through.
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love this, love you, love these.