She, the Woman—Tarot Fiction

Your Three-Card Spread:

Past — Ten of Pentacles
A foundation of stability, family legacy, or long-term security. This suggests you came from (or built) something solid — financial security, a supportive family structure, or a sense of belonging. It's the "arrived" card, so your past holds a sense of completion or establishment.

Present — Page of Wands
You're in a moment of new creative energy, curiosity, and beginning. The Page of Wands is enthusiastic but still finding direction — there's a spark, an idea, or a new chapter calling to you. You might feel restless or inspired, ready to explore but not yet sure which path to commit to. This is a good time to let yourself experiment.

Future — Nine of Pentacles
This is a gorgeous outcome card. The Nine of Pentacles is independence, self-sufficiency, and enjoying the fruits of your own work. Unlike the Ten (which is about family/legacy), the Nine is personal — it's abundance you built yourself, on your own terms. Comfort, refinement, freedom.

She, the Woman

For years, She has been the mother of all, the giver of love, lunchboxes, hugs, the one who filed documents and picked up parcels, the one who birthed little humans out of her womb, who sang songs to them as they lay in her arms, the one who was there, always, loving unconditionally—but has she ever given when she could not? Has she ever given when she should have first filled her own cup? She has cared for the home and animals and made sure none went astray. The Mother of all. Who are we to venerate a man? It is Woman who was the first voice, the first home. She is equal to Mother Nature, who created the birds, the clouds, the sea, who held men when they feared going out to hunt, who held men when they were hurt, who tended to the fire and went out to hunt when men were lazy or got drunk. She held down the fort and yet, She is forgotten. 

Men have created God in their image, another man; they have made women into the lesser sex. She is finally beginning to realize her power once more; waking up in this world, the world where she is all seeing, all powerful, the world where she has all the answers inside of her. 

Centuries of doubt have transformed her into a being who does not trust herself anymore. A fawn, curled into a ball, lying on the moss. A shadow of her light. She forgot to trust her intuition and started to rely on man to tell her how to act, what to love, what to do, what to desire—even if he doesn’t tell her, actions are words too. Oh dear woman, your desires have been dormant and you don’t even know you have been hibernating. 

She is waking up once more to the gifts inside of her, trying new things, dancing on the weekends and teaching herself to feel for herself; shedding skins and masks and realizing that her voice is worthy. She must sing. It is time to let it out, sing into the clouds, sing to the birds, sing to the morning who wakes with her every day. Sing about the magic of the world, about love, about beauty, sing for the joy of her children and the men she loves, and sing for herself. 

She is like a newborn, seeing this world for the first time. The apple tree standing a few feet away is older than her, it has seen deaths and lives, it has learned to live and grow roots, grow into itself, from a seed planted aeons ago and watered, a seed that has passed the trial of time; becoming a fruit bearing tree and never pretending to be anything else. She walked past the apple tree and stood under its shade. Birds sang their song from its branches and she danced to it, let out a howl and shook and jumped in the tree’s shade. Where to go? What to do? Really, where to go when the path is not clear? When there is no one to follow? 

Above, the apple tree was filled with reddened fruit, perfectly ripe and begging to be eaten. She jumped, caught one, and somewhere across the earth, on the Eve of Day, man saw her jump and hated her for it—he hated that she went after what she desired and vowed that she never would again.

Ode to the sun! She always loved laying in the sun. Letting its warmth caress her face, stretch like a cat under its embrace. She stepped into the light and basked in it, still singing and shaking and jumping. A woman, wild. The light inside of her pulsed. At high noon (under a high sun or moon), her shadow caught up with her shape and she was full of light, reunited as one. 

Years ago, she befriended a horse. They lay and napped together in the sun. She ran through fields with her horse then and once more, he called her back home. He called her from across the plains and she ran from the apple tree, down the hill until she found him. He hadn’t aged a day. She held out her hand flat and he ate the apple. 

“Thank you for your Gift,” the horse said and he bowed his head. “It is time the Love you give transforms you too.”

She put her forehead to his and closed her eyes. She remembered then, about the times they lay together and she was free to be, free to run around like she desired, free to ask questions, to sing, free without the rules inside of her head. Free like a bird singing hello to the morning, free like the cat jumping from roof to roof, free like the dog who ran off without its leach.  

“Let me take them from you,” said the horse and she let him. 

She let him take the pain she did not know she felt, let him take the rules she held inside of her body, rules on how to dress, rules on how to act, rules that told her she needed to be quiet or she would get in trouble, rules that were never hers but rules that came from centuries ago and lived through her body still, like little ticks, attached to her body. Rules that lied and twisted the truth, rules that made her smaller. Do this, do that, said the rules. Do not be too loud in a space where most are quiet or you will be too much. Be sure to say hello to every person you meet or they might think you impolite. Always dress appropriately. You must too always be there when someone asks for your help. 

And when the last rule left her body, she felt it —space. The way a field feels after snow has melted and before anything has grown back. 

The horse stood quietly. 

She opened her mouth.

“I am here,” she said, and the morning heard her, and the birds tweeted in the apple tree, and the earth received her words hungrily.

She said it again. Louder.

“I am here.”

The horse lifted his head and looked at her with patient eyes, black as the sky before the stars come out.

“Your life has begun again. Where will you go?” he asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “Everywhere.”

Oh dear woman. You have always known the way. You have always been the way. The path was never something to find — it was something to remember. 

You are the apple tree. The seed and the fruit and the shade and the years of growing quietly in one place until the roots go deep enough to hold everything.

You are home.

Love,

Julie