The Dark Feminine Reclamation of Domestic Bliss
Lana Del Rey and the Rise of the Witch-Housewife Aesthetic
About three years ago, a colleague of mine gave me a reading in which he pulled the Queen of Pentacles to symbolize the path/direction I was headed.
Initially, the card didn’t make sense to me. Raised by my mother and maternal grandmother - both strong feminists throughout my life, I initially associated the Queen of Pentacles with submission. The idea of the traditional or “trad” housewife is that of a domesticated, docile, and subservient woman to her husband.
So naturally, I rejected his reading as this couldn’t possibly be the future my higher Self wanted me to have.
Yet, what I didn’t realize was that there was so much more to the Queen of Pentacles than meets the eye…
Over the years, I have come across many different interpretations of the tarot cards, but I remember reading one description in the Tarot Of The Holy Light deck that describes the Queen of Pentacles (or disks) as a representation of Sybil or an oracle, which has always stuck with me…
The origins of the name Sibyl come from the word sibyls, which was used to describe female priestesses at Delphi, dating as far back as the eleventh century BC. Thus, these women would have been seen as oracles or representations of the Goddess incarnate, whom men and local villagers would seek out for prophecy and guidance.
Michelangelo‘s Delphic Sibyl, on the Sistine Chapel
Yet, how could an oracle be associated with a Tarot card that has come to be associated with the modern “housewife” or “domestic goddess” in our modern society?
Aren’t priestesses meant to be alluring, hidden, and just out of reach, like we associate the Tarot card, the High Priestess, to be?
The Muse Tarot
And while, yes, a representation of the oracle can be the High Priestess, whom we have come to think of as a sort of goddess within the Tarot community, she is not the only mystical representation of feminine wisdom in the deck.
Take, for instance, the Strength card, or as Aleister Crowley labeled it in his Thoth deck- the Lust card…
