This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Empress

The Empress is the tarot's equivalent of the Earth Mother: fertile, abundant, giving. It is my gift to you this Mother's Day, when we celebrate this ideal both personally—by thanking our own mothers or by being thanked by our children—and symbolically, by celebrating the idea of mothering.

This week, take the gifts The Empress offers. She is the harbinger of great things being born into the world, but remember: nothing is born without pain and mess. These are her gifts too, the whole of the process.

Open to love. Open to trust. And most of all, open to the cycles and seasons of the Earth, and of yourself, every greening and keening thing. And be grateful for everyone who has mothered you—all the mothers, even the hard ones—along this path.