The Empress
Earlier last year, I decided to focus my energy and attention into something I hadn’t given much thought to for many, many years, and assumed I would never actually get involved in again: I decided to get back on Twitter. Yes, Twitter. The infamous home of Donald Trump, and breeding ground for many a meme and “hot take”, spread far and wide across the internet. The party line for the world that promised to interconnect us all into one massive, hive-mind conversation.
My previous foray into Twitter was less of a party line and more like me standing patiently by the receiver, waiting for the phone to ring. During grad school, desperate for any kind of human interaction and connection that went beyond confused looks and painted-on smiles, I went to a Twitter social event at an upscale bar in the city where I lived at the time; what it really was, was a glorified wine-and-dine meet-and-greet business mixer, where swank and savvy older white men in suits exchanged business cards in one hand, while balancing a glass of wine — or an elegantly dressed younger female companion — with the other. (My Twitter feed still bears the fossilized remnants of that day; Twitter accounts of Fredericton marketing firm executives, management consultants or real estate brokers improbably punctuate the rest of my list of followers.) Standing there all alone in a sea of suits and cocktail dresses, decked out to the nines in down-on-his-luck grad student chic, the promise of me being involved in the greatest and biggest conversation on earth quickly proved to be a grand disappointment.
My online life in the Twitterverse itself wasn’t any different. Instead of grand ideas, or bold activist calls to action, or dank memes popping up in my timeline, I got posts discussing SEO strategy, the benefits of applying Six Sigma principles to your management processes, and hot tips on how to optimize your mortgage. Once in a while I’d catch a glimpse of the wild and woolly world of Twitter that I’d heard so many stories about from friends — the back and forth between close friends, and hated enemies alike, the organic threads of conversation branching in and out of the absurd and the intimate — but in truth it was far removed from the sterile, artificial sphere of Twitter I’d found myself in, inhabited by middle-aged men chasing after what they thought was the youthful hip and trendiness of online cool.
Almost two decades later, in another city and another apartment, at the cusp of Pride Month, I found myself staring at my moribund timeline, populated by nothing but withered retweets of political stories I’d found both interesting and inflammatory. A tweet popped up, from someone I’d never met before, only related — in my mind, distantly — to someone I’d called a friend a lifetime ago. Something about knitting. I replied with a short, yet supportive and positive comment; it earned me her Twitter like. Seeing that number “1” beside the heart for my comment was something I hadn’t remembered I’d ever gotten before. Buoyed by this, I kept posting. And replying. And posting. And replying. A few short days later, feeling marginally braver and more self-assured, I put out a post asking for recommendations for other asexuals and people identifying on the asexual spectrum who I could follow.
As this all happened, a funny thing happened to me; as I posted and replied on Twitter, people started to reply to me. They started to posting things in response to the hot take or the witty aphorisms they would leave. They answered my questions. And, once in a while, they would even personally tag me.
Further buoyed from this, and encouraged from the range of amazing writing I’d seen from prominent ace activists and writers on Twitter, I revisited another aspect of my online life that I’d long neglected: blogging. I started up a Medium page. I starting writing about what it was like to be a newly out Bi+ Aspec person. I submitted to some literary publications and got published. I got added to Twitter lists of asexual and asexual spectrum advocates, activists and writers.
I mention all this to make a point that the Empress is about the power of nurturing — and in a social and political climate that can be so hostile to queer and ace people, we need the power of nurturing now more than ever. And while we may imagine queer nurturing to look like providing counseling or support to like-minded strangers over the internet, nurturing also has be for oneself and one’s own space too. The persistent and constant theme running throughout the tarot is balance: how easy it is to lose it, and how important it is to do the ever-present work necessary to achieve and maintain it. We can’t take care of each other then, unless we learn to take care of ourselves first. Put another way, connecting and plugging into those existing in our outer world starts with connecting and plugging into our own inner world.
For me, that looked like going back to writing, and going back to a source of connection that, at this present moment, has given me an online community that matches my energy, engagement, and enthusiasm. It isn’t a community that I always feel intimately or deeply connected to, at least not at this time. But I do feel plugged into something. I do feel like I’ve been tapped into an energy that has helped me to feel more in tune with my identity as a demisexual and grey asexual. Getting back into blogging and writing has forced me to question and examine my asexuality and sexuality — but in a way that has helped me build up an more honest understanding of who I really am.
Like with the High Priestess and the Magician before her, the Empress also calls us to be plugged into our surroundings. That especially includes nurturing others. It means helping others — whether they be on social media, the AVEN forums, or in our own communities — sort out their questions about asexuality. It means doing the messy and potentially volatile emotional labour necessary to inform people about demisexuality and grey asexuality. It means speaking out about queer and ace exclusionism and gatekeeping in defence of others. It may mean lending one’s voice of positivity, gratitude and love on a comment section dripping with hate and rancour. Perhaps then it is no coincidence that in the Smith-Waite tarot deck, the Empress is often depicted as being a woman with a heart-shaped shield: a shield with the planetary symbol of Venus, long associated with love and romance. A large part of nurturing others is shielding others with love (as excessively saccharine and cliché as that sounds). That goes for our own inner selves too, of course.
As I write this, my Twitter feed and account look very different from how it looked when I started all of those years ago. It pulses and hums with the verve of people all around the world connected by our experiences of being ace and aro. There is talk of cake, garlic bread, and dragons. There is talk about aphobia, gatekeeping, queerness, and how our experiences and identities are valid amidst a growing trend of exclusionism. All this amidst the collective zeitgeist of our days unfurling itself on my timeline: Grand Ideas about how society’s views on race, gender and sexuality can be challenged and overturned. Calls to action to defend marginalized sexualities and racialized minorities in an age of “Anti-Vaxxers” and COVID-denialists. Dank memes. Wordle.
Being plugged into the ace and aro Twitter hive mind can be overwhelming — like a roomful of telephones all ringing at once — but the sense of connection it gives me is powerful and alluring, especially in a time where human connection is so tenuous, ephemeral, and fragile. Moments of aphobic and transphobic textual violence encountered on other people’s posts jolt me back to the reality that amidst all of the memetic sunshine and positivity, the wolves aren’t that far away. Yet, my timeline never lets me forget the incredible diversity of ace and aro voices that I’ve met and befriended: a whole galaxy of Christian aces and aros, and Black and POC aces and aros. There are people who are hurting, and people who are healing, all in ways parallel to my own path and experiences. The dissonance between community and isolation is an endless paradox, much like Twitter itself and the rest of social media. But despite this discordance, genuine connection and friendship can thrive.
We don’t have to look to the cacophony of Twitter or Facebook to find our place of nurturing. Apart from our social media networks and phones, it is still possible to find and grow a space to build and grow our inner selves. It could be a group that meets over Zoom or FaceTime. It could be an altar space in our room to help us focus our solitary meditations; perhaps even one decorated with items unique and important to our ace or aro jouney. It could be a quiet outside space where we can remove ourselves from mentally and emotionally toxic and aphobic elements in our home life. It can be a walking path in our neighbourhood, or a quiet seat in a café. And yes, if it also happens to take the form of a blog, or a page on Medium or Tumblr, that’s more than okay too. No matter what form or configuration it takes, it is a place of affirmation, and self-honesty. A place where we can shout out that we are ace or aro and proud, even if it doesn’t actually involve saying anything at all.
While we are still far from a brighter world where we are all free to express our sexuality and gender in ways that honour our honest selves, the Empress shows us that we exist in a world where we must provide care, encouragement, and hope. We must provide care for ourselves, encouragement to others, and hope to everyone in our communities, both online and offline. Despite the attacks and hostility thrown our way, still we must remain, standing tall, and connected to what matters most to us.
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Next: The Emperor
