Not Aspiring to be Humble

Kamala Harris as Queen of Swords

Did y’all listen to Kamala Harris on the Call Her Daddy podcast? I must admit, I’d never heard of this podcast til the political talking heads were discussing Harris’s appearance; I’m not really the demographic. But apparently, it’s the ‘most listened to podcast by women’. The host, Alex Cooper, signed a sixty-million-dollar acquisition deal with Spotify, then three years later, signed a 125-million-dollar deal with SiriusXM. Like…these numbers truly make my head spin. I’m over here wringing my hands around raising my prices by $10 in a career field I’ve literally been in over half my life. BUT, we’re not here to talk about my personal money story. <sobbing emoji>  

What I want to do is just highlight how perfectly Kamala Harris is a representation of Queen of Swords throughout this interview. And this isn’t about politics. I mean, I sincerely doubt I have any Trumpers reading this Substack, but I do know a lot of y’all are rightly frustrated with the lack of real progressive leadership. Same! But let’s just talk the embodiment of archetypes here today; it is truly spot on.

So, firstly, if you haven’t listened to this episode, I do encourage it, because you will find Queen of Swords themes woven throughout. Here are the ones I wanted to highlight. (Oh, and before I jump in: Harris is a Libra Sun, and Queen of Swords corresponds to Libra! It’s good shit.)

Ok, what really struck me, because it’s essentially the mantra of Queen of Swords, is when Harris said “It’s really important not to let other people define you.” She was responding to a question about Trump calling her ‘dumb, fake weak’, etc. This is such an important piece of Queen of Swords’ work: to not let other people tell us who we are.

She spoke about her career as a prosecutor (Queen of Swords, as the Libra court card, connects to Justice, the Libra major, and if elected, Harris would be the 47^th president; 4+7=11=Justice. Neat!), and how acutely aware she always was of the power of her own words. The words she chose could be the difference between someone going to prison or not, or a corporation staying in or going out of business. Queen of Swords is absolutely about the power of words. All Queens are witches, wielding a particular elemental magic. Queen of Swords uses words as spells.

When the topic of abortion came up, Harris said, “you don’t have to abandon your deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t be telling [women what to do with their bodies]”. Queen of Swords knows what they believe; their truth is intimate and tightly held. They set boundaries around it, and they expect those boundaries to be honored. And likewise, they will honor another’s boundaries. Queen of Swords isn’t in the business of imposing their value system on other people. Harris’s running mate Walz has used the line “Mind Your Business” when it comes to abortion, and that’s really a great motto for Queen of Swords, too. Mind your business, and I’ll mind mine.

The whole “childless cat lady” thing came up, and the ways that Harris has been attacked by J.D. Vance for not having her own biological children. It’s interesting that Queen of Swords is very often seen as the archetype of a childless woman (either by choice or, often, loss). And yet, Queen of Swords is connected to the Empress, the card of the archetypal mother (Empress corresponds to Venus, which rules Libra). And part of Harris’s campaign has been showcasing her intimate relationship with her step-children, and talking about different sorts of family and parental bonds.

(how all the cats must feel about being drawn into this mess)

And perhaps my favorite line: when she was asked about Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ suggestion that woe be it that Harris doesn’t have biological children to “keep her humble,” Harris responded that “there are a whole lot of women out here who are not aspiring to be humble.” Such a mic-drop of a line! And very in line with Queen of Swords’ ethos. Queen of Swords has a reputation as a ‘bitch’ in a lot of Tarot literature, and perhaps that’s because they just refuse to buy into the prevailing notion that women should be humble. (Of course, there’s no need to gender the court cards, but/and the Queens definitely speak to the work that women/femmes do around reclaiming their power.)

Harris also talked about how her mother raised her to always be aware of her own agency. What choices do you have? How can you “take charge of a moment”? How can you stay in your power, and not let things just ‘happen’ to you?

This is very in alignment with Queen of Swords, particularly the connection to Justice, which is about facing reality with an awareness of your own agency. But High Priestess themes are here, too, which of course connects to Justice (Justice, card 11, reduces to 2, the High Priestess). Harris said her mother taught her to check in with her feelings, as a way to “figure out where [she was] in a moment”, and center herself. That’s High Priestess: taking that time to assess, to ground, to ask yourself where and how you are. It’s the work that lays the foundation for ‘taking charge’ of the moment. To find what is objectively true in Justice, you must first know what is subjectively true in High Priestess.

That’s good parenting, and that’s part of what we’ll dive into in my upcoming class, ReParenting Yourself Through the Major Arcana. We’ll go through the first seven cards with special focus, but we’ll also look at their connections with seven other Majors that connect via numerology, just like High Priestess and Justice. I’d love for you to join me live—it’s Saturday, October 26 from 10-2 Central—but it will also be recorded if you can’t make it. You can sign up here.

And before we go, a simple Queen of Swords inspired prompt, which I encourage you to pull for more than once (I like to do 3 times):

I have more power than I give myself credit for.