What Women Want

From the Ship of Fools Tarot, the Empress; from the Wisdom of the Four Winds, Albatross:

The chains in this illustration of the Empress make me want to spit nails. I'm sure she is told things like, "it's for your own protection." So she's destined to be sequestered away, as if she didn't have a brain, popping out heirs for the king like some queen bee. This card brings to mind a story from the legends of King Arthur. While the king was hunting one day in the woods, he was accosted by a knight. The knight told him he would spare his life if he could answer within a year the question of what women most want. Arthur's luck almost ran out until a woman (of course) gave him the answer: "What women want most is the same as men want, sovereignty over their own lives." Women want the freedom to choose how to live their lives, what to do with bodies and minds, and how to nourish their spirits. Please, men, do not even attempt to consider you know what's best for us. Albatross is a seabird with a large wingspan, making it capable of riding the ocean winds and gliding for hours without rest. Mariners said they were the souls of lost sailors; killing them would bring bad luck (thus the saying "an albatross around your neck"). Albatross tells us to return to our navigator within, to seek our own fulfillment instead of letting someone else decree it.