The (Lost) Empress: Nothing in your life will change if you keep looping on low self-worth
Excerpt from "Things I Have Loved" | The Muse Letter No. 112
The (Lost) Empress
by Sophia Hembeck
1
At first I lost temperance. It was during a very hot summer in Paris, a sudden gust of wind and there she was lying in the rain gutters on one of these silvery blue metal rooftops that Paris is so famous for.
It seemed quite fitting that she was down there now. Looking up at me with two golden cups in her hand pouring one into the other, her flaming red wings spread wide. Out of reach, yet I could still read the lettering.
It seemed like a sign, like life was trying to tell me something. That things were out of balance, out of line. That my feet needed to touch the ground again.
I had just graduated finishing a four year course in playwriting at the University of Arts in Berlin. Ahead of me a long train journey through the south of France and Italy, to arrive three weeks later in Sicily to attend a wedding.
It was a summer of abundance, extravagant dinners and wine, a summer to make grand decisions and radical life changes. My Saturn return. It was then when I decided, walking on a dusty street towards a tiny chapel somewhere in the hills of Petralia, to finally leave Berlin behind me.
If life could look like this, what was I doing?
Losing temperance made sense, for a while. After all it was urging me to seek it. To focus on it. As the mind loves to think of the things it has lost. Drawn to them like a black hole. It made me reconfigure. What was important to me. What needed to be put back into balance. What was too much for me to take.
It’s funny how not all things are lost immediately but over time. Not everything is rushed off with the wind. How long it sometimes takes to notice that something’s missing.
Eventually to continue using the tarot deck I replaced temperance with a blank card. Always reminding me when it came up of that moment in Paris on the balcony, that summer. I would wonder if she’s still up there; if a pigeon or the rain wore her down. Slowly disintegrating.
As the mind loves to think of the things it has lost.
I’ve always used tarot cards as a means to understand myself better, a sort of prettier Rorschach test, letting my mind dive into the imagery attaching to certain aspects, words, bouncing off feelings, reflections of the state of mind I was in.
The ritual of drawing a card when I’m uncertain, holding a prophecy in my hand, an oracle. And just like all oracles only in hindsight seeing a clearer picture, a narrative. The major arcana telling a story a journey that starts or ends with the fool. Of all things it is the fool dancing at the edge of a cliff, looking up at the sun, bravely and blissfully walking through life. A symbol of mortality reminding us that we’re constantly dancing on the edge, as no one knows their death date. No one knows how much time they have. But still dancing. Still brave. What a marvelous concept to make meaning of the chaos that is everyday life.
It’s funny how not all things are lost immediately but over time. How long it sometimes takes to notice that something’s actually missing.
It made sense to me when I decided to stay in Edinburgh to choose the empress as my guiding star. Representing divine femininity, intuition, strength, creativity. Qualities I was longing for. I remember how I placed her on the window sill in my new home. How I draped sunflowers and peonies I had found on the street around her, it felt fitting to eternalise this moment in a photo. Looking back now:
– It was the last time I saw her.
2
I thought I had understood. After all I had written a list, I had said No and made plans. A vision: I knew what I wanted and was out there to get it.
I was so sure on this. I told the story, my personal gospel: This is how you do it. I would tell my single friends. This is the key to find love.
The worst part is not being clueless. The worst part is thinking you’re wise.
And now I talk to this woman at a party she tells me how she is not dating anyone who talks about finances on the first date.
“He told me how he was in debt.
And it made me feel weird that someone would talk about that on a first date.”
And now I am 21 and googling “How to know when to break up?”.
And now I am 27 it’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep and his phone is turned off.
And now I am 32 and it’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep and his phone is turned off and I know how this will end. Standing on a beach thinking “No matter what happens this will always be here.”
And now I am lying in a bed, my nose pressed against someone’s neck, thinking this should be forever.
And now it’s not.
And I think the red flag is not what someone is particularly doing but how it makes us feel: weird, hurt, sad, desperate, insane, lonely.
There’s a distrust concerning the validity of your feelings when you’re having low self-worth.
That somehow it’s not sufficient to draw conclusions from that. That you need another reason attached to it. A rule. I’m allowed to feel hurt because… It’s not enough to feel hurt and leave. There needs to be a validating factor to prove that how you’re feeling and thus your reaction is appropriate. An excuse. Who taught you this?
On a Saturday afternoon I walk through the Talbot Rice Gallery with a flash light, that projects ultra-violet light. It’s the first solo exhibition of the Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie, who describes himself as a “mapper” as it encompasses his many professions as a teacher, poet, artist, curator, thinker, researcher and writer.
I point the flash light at one of the large maps from his Art of War series, hanging on the wall. They are covered in Chinese calligraphy, stemming from various important military texts from China, beneath each in fluorescent lilac the English translation shimmers. One line strikes deep and I jot it down in my phone: “Make the enemy unable to judge the situation!”
– Was I the enemy?
On my way home, I take the longer route along the Union canal the early setting November sun colouring the water a bright yellow pondering on the exhibition, Pat Benatar in my head repeatedly preaching Love is a battlefield.
“Do I stand in your way
Or am I the best thing you've had?”
To be able to judge a situation, one needs to see clearly, one needs to have enough information.
Looking back at my relationships it seemed that they all had scribbled things down, truths in magic marker, hidden messages, in the landscape of my memory, that I was just beginning to see.
Nothing in your life will change if you keep looping on low self-worth.
The Empress wears twelve stars in her crown, showing her connection with the mystical realm and the cycles of the natural world. Her robe is patterned with pomegranates, the fateful fruit that Persephone eats down in the underworld, that tie her to stay with Hades for six months every year thus creating the seasons summer and winter. On a cushion stitched is the symbol of Venus, the planet of love, creativity, fertility, beauty and grace.
Without noticing I had laid tarot cards for two years with the empress absent. Her wisdom and charisma, somewhere lost between moving houses, between my longing and what I thought I deserved.
Looking at the setting sun, the water now shimmering in fluorescent lilac sending messages from the deep unknown: It is time to find her again.
This excerpt is from “Things I Have Loved – A collection (sort of)”.
It will be published on Valentines Day 2023. Pre-order here.
What a taste of what's to come! The writing has evolved beautifully since Things I Have Noticed, but still has that same warm, confidential feeling to it. Can't wait for the whole book to come out.