Open to Exhale

From the Golden Tarot, the Empress; from the Yantra Deck, "Exhale:"

           The Empress is the perfect counterweight to her husband the Emperor. While he likes rigid structure, logic and behavioral boundaries, she embodies the freedom of creativity, unbridled emotion and abundant giving. Like all the tarot queens, she is a nurturer who embodies their compassionate qualities. Why does she have such an open heart and hand in contrast to her husband's control? Where he sees separation, she see's interrelation. She would agree with John Muir: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." The Empress knows we need to care for and support the earth and all its inhabitants, because they in turn support us. We might be individuals, but we are not truly independent. Of course many Westerners would disagree; they prefer to believe as Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz does: "Give me a horse and a gun and an open plain, and we can conquer the world."
          Find someone who is fearful or angry, and I bet you will find someone for whom it impossible to take slow, relaxed breaths. The booklet's quote given for the Exhale Yantra is by May Sarton: "I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go." Openness cannot exist where there is fear or anger about something that might be lost. But here's the kicker: those grasping, tightly closed fists don't have any room for receiving either.