La Papessa
The High Priestess returns to her prayers
Welcome, and a warm first hello to the newcomers!
I’m so happy you’re here.
The last time I wrote around the theme of the High Priestess, it was December 2023, and I was struggling to survive a catastrophic emergency involving my dysfunctional birth family.
I’m happy to report that things have settled down—a little—since last we visited the Priestess. Life continues to present its strangest findings to me, but I’m in a safer place now.
The most important lesson I learned between then and today: the self-knowledge demonstrated by the High Priestess is important, but it must be combined with action in order to be useful.
If you’re curious to read the previous post, you can find it below:
Contents:
Required Violence
Rare Venom
Careful Houses
Sleepovers
Background music: “Are You Mine? (Swing Remix)” by The Lizzy Co Show
Required Violence
The violence is not required, I found;
A young lifetime, spent thinking that it was.
I worked to find my acceptance around
The ineptly, harmfully taught lessons.
I only discovered how badly raised,
How needs-unmet, I was in my soft youth,
By looking for the absences, the space.
The gravity within my house pulled to
A raw black hole, impossible to please,
Unsatisfied by any offering,
A murderer of messengers with ease.
Hands leave marks when they lash out, wearing rings.
A mother is not safety, guaranteed:
My own never could stand that I had needs.
Rare Venom Don’t say: “I love you, but I don’t like you.” Don’t bottle up your rage until you burst. Don’t scream at your loved ones until you’re blue. Don’t make that shit a habit. It’s the worst. Don’t tell your kids that they’re resilient Instead of owning up to your mistakes. Don’t tell your kids that you’re a good parent If you just simply don’t have what it takes. Say: “I can’t wait ‘til you have a daughter” With love in your voice, not the rare venom That dripped from the words of my own mother One day, when I would not indulge her whims. A kid is not a pet. They’re a person, A whole human, right from the start, confirmed.
Careful Houses
You’re always near the water and the sky.
Proximity bird-perches in your palm.
If not for real, at least inside your mind,
The waves are rolling in, and you are calm.
Snap glowsticks when electricity fails:
You have so many resources at hand.
You’re filled with raw power from nose to tail;
She-wolves will execute each of your plans.
Which wave is most perfect under the clouds?
If you would make an effort to decide,
You’ll miss the point: each deserves to be proud.
Nature adores her children, dip and rise.
Interpret the law of the land with care.
Seek out careful houses: you’re welcome there. 
Sleepovers
I quit hosting sleepovers for my friends
When I was still a small, flat-chested girl,
Not because pals did not want to attend,
Because of how my mother made me hurt
By putting on a strange domestic show
Of softened voice and fun pancake breakfast,
When I knew all along that down below
Was someone who more often uses fists.
I stopped having these sleepovers because
I couldn’t stand the raw hypocrisy:
The widened, innocent brown eyes above
A toothy grin that I found menacing.
Don’t act like a nice lady if you’re not.
May angry parents all go fucking rot. 
