THE EMPRESS

 

Are you bringing your projects to life—or are they bringing YOU to life? Creation is a fearless, maternal act that defies the traditional "masculine" image of the divine. In this post, I explore the Empress archetype not just as a lived experience of co-creating with the universe. From the "limbo" of pregnancy to the birthing of a project, we’ll look at how to protect what we create without stifling its soul. Let’s talk about Shakti, the "weeds" of our conditioning, and the power of blooming at your own pace.

 

My birthday is coming soon, as I write this. The day we came to life. Don’t you think it is magical? I only really felt the miracle of life at its most potent when I found out I was pregnant. It’s something hard to explain. We know this—we all come to this world through our mother—but to feel it, that’s a different story. We are no longer witnesses of life; our very bodies are creating life, bringing it forth. And the most miraculous part is that we are not consciously doing much to make it happen.

We literally become a vessel through which God brings life. It’s hard to describe with words this state of pregnancy; it seems like we are suspended in another reality. We know life is gestating inside us and that our lives are never going to be the same again. We don’t know anything about them, but we already love them unconditionally. And only then we might understand how our mothers must have felt when we were also inside them. And only then we understand that not only a new life is being born, but also a mother is being born.

How am I going to balance the responsibilities and needs of this new life with my own? Will I be brave enough to face the conditioning I was subjected to, so I don't pass it down? As the old saying goes, “children come through us, but they belong to life.” Could I be loving enough to protect them while always knowing that they are their own person, with their own character, dreams, and fears? Can I always keep in mind that the best I can do for them is to provide the most propitious environment for them to bloom into the flower they are meant to be, at their own pace?

It makes me think of a gardener. A gardener doesn’t expect a sunflower to grow into a rose. They plant the seeds under the best conditions they can, water them with love, protect them if they need to, give them the appropriate nourishment and then leave the rest to nature. The almighty Mother Nature.

And now that I am playing at being an “artist,” I am beginning to understand what it is like to bring an artistic project into life. It feels like being a vessel for something that wants to come to life through you, or in spite of you. I’m back again in that limbo state of pregnancy—giving it love, patience, and presence. Wondering who will it grow up to be? What kind of life is this baby meant to have? Once is out there, outside of me.

Can I be a clean enough brush so the colors come out as they are intended? Is this what they call "co-creating" with the universe? How much of myself is being transformed through this? Am I bringing it to life as much as it is bringing ME to LIFE? Who is transforming who? Who is who? and what is what? When did it all begin? Will it end? Did I choose to do this or the idea chose me? Was this a seed planted long ago and only now I am seeing it sprout? Who planted this idea? Will this flower need a pollinator to come to fruition? or am i the polineator and the project the fruit? or is it the other way round?

If we are flowers in this great garden, then we also contain our own seeds. Are we tending to them? Some may still be gestating in the dark, while others are just beginning to take root. Have you witnessed your own blooming yet? We carry so many seeds within us, each with its own timing and its own unique way of reaching for the light. It makes me wonder: what is required of us to be good gardeners? Is it love? Presence? Patience? or simply the trust to let things grow in their own way?

Nature has this particular quality of growing in spite of us. Is it our job to just take the weeds out and let nature do the rest? Or are the weeds as important to the ecosystem? Can we surrender enough to her force so we may bloom as she intended for us? At what point do we stop being the flower to become the gardener?

When did we learn to give God a beard and make him a “He”? Have you ever stopped and seen the maternal quality of life? How in nature, in almost all species, it is the female who brings forth life and takes care of it fearlessly? If in nature only the female has the power to gestate and create life, why do we ascribe those qualities to the masculine? Isn't our search for God actually our search for that moment we were floating in the womb of our mother?

Cultures living in harmony with nature instinctively recognize the feminine face of God. Shaktism philosophy teaches that Shiva is our innermost stillness—the “witness”—while Shakti, the Divine Feminine, is the manifest power. She is all energy, everything manifest and unmanifest, the very fabric of the universe itself. In their mythology, when the world falls into chaos, even the gods must humbly turn to the Great Mother for help. Is God waiting patiently for us to call upon her? Like a loving mother, she grants us the space to learn our own lessons, yet she remains forever close enough to keep us safe.

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