The Empress Soul Meditation

I had to do two takes for the next meditation from Soul Meditations.  Perhaps it was the void of course moon, or perhaps it was the gentle swaying of the bus up to Vermont, but I fell sound asleep the first time I tried to do The Empress meditation.  I had a nice dream about The Empress but it wasn't something I could hold onto with my mind and woke up realizing I'd have to try this one again. The second time around with The Empress meditation I choose a more awake but equally relaxed bright hour of daylight to explore this archetype of motherhood, creation, and abundance. Here is what I experienced:

The relaxation into the meditation made me feel like I was immersed in a pool or bath of golden liquid.  I felt suspended there while my subconscious entered into a deciduous, sun-drenched forest.  The birds twittering and flitting from branch to branch came into sharp focus and then receded to flutter through the air in a whirl of butterflies.  Bunnies with little babies nibbled blades of grass around my bare feet.  The soft forest floor was cool and moist with fecund brown dirt speckled with the occasional fallen, green leaf.  The pool of water in front of me had a shaded dark cave along one side, made of exposed tree roots and earth.  Water cascaded down a steep rock ledge into a large brown pool of water.  Upon closer inspection, the cool water was crystal clear with fish swimming around a soft sandy bottom.  I walked over some stepping stones at the opposite end of the pool from the waterfall and crossed into the wide-open field on the other side of the pool.

I ate raspberries and blackberries off bushes and plucked a large, juicy pear from a tree.  I frolicked through the field of wheat over to The Empress on her large rock outcropping covered in velvet pillows.  When I reached down to hold The Empress's hands I saw that they were my mother's hands, warm, callused and real.  I remember them perfectly in great detail...  But when I looked up at her face she was still the blond woman from the tarot card.  The Empress told me I am capable of anything my little heart desires, in exactly the same terms and with the same conviction as my mother always spoke to me.  Her presence conveyed to me without words or gestures that I had been truly loved with the heart of The Empress and I was unmistakably capable of creation.

When I entered into the body of The Empress I looked out through my mother's eyes.  I saw how content and happy she was to have created me.  I saw what it meant to love, honor and respect my ability to create and my creations themselves. I knew that, even though I never want to have children myself, I can understand and relate to this energy because of the pure, whole-hearted example my own mother set for me on how to be a feminine creator.  I could feel that the way she treated, nurtured and cared for me as her creation has left an indelible mark upon me.  I don't feel an urge to spend time dwelling upon the lesson of The Empress because it's something my mother passed onto me right from the womb onward through the 25 years we spent together before she died.  I always believe in the amazingness and rightness of my creations and this is something that she taught to me.

When I left The Empress's body, the tarot card was all that remained of her on her bed of pillows. I looked around the forest and found myself retreating back into the golden glow of my physical body.  This was a really profound meditation that I think I will need more time to digest and contemplate.  These meditations so far have created amazing insights for me into how I relate to these different archetypes of the tarot.  I'm impressed by how helpful they are in my own personal development as well as for learning the tarot cards meanings.