The Empress reminds us that while to love like a mother is to love unconditionally, one must fill their own cup first.

The reality is in order to create, something must be destroyed. What this means is that to pour from an empty cup one is destroying the self.

People simply cannot give what they don’t have. This is very easy to understand and abide by when dealing with physical resources.

However, when it comes to emotional, mental, and spiritual resources for some reason we tend to expect the impossible from not just others, but ourselves as well.

The problem is with this is that resources must come from somewhere. Energy can never be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred and transformed. So when we create something, it means we must destroy something else.

Think of pregnancy. First off, the fetus is not a parasite. If the mother’s body determines that for whatever reason that it cannot sustain the pregnancy and survive, a miscarriage occurs. Now with this in mind, how do you suppose the mother’s body builds the bones of the baby? It pulls the calcium from the mother’s bones to do that. This is why women that have had children are at greater risk for osteoporosis than women who have not.

This is true for the entire biological construction of the baby during pregnancy. And this is why a mother’s diet during pregnancy is so critical. It’s intended to minimize the sacrifice her body has to make for the baby.

So now let’s apply this concept outside of pregnancy. What are you doing to yourself when you are trying to pour from an empty cup? Those resources you are giving to people have to come from somewhere. So where are you pulling it from out of yourself?

Each time you do that you create the emotional, mental, or spiritual equivalent of osteoporosis within yourself. And in doing that, you weaken yourself. You are breaking yourself down. Eventually it takes a toll on you physically too because nothing about your being exists in a vacuum. You need to nourish all of you.

So just like a mother who has just given birth to her baby who needs to restore the calcium in her bones through her diet, you also need to take the time to restore your emotional, mental, and spiritual health each day.

~ Steampunk Tarot by Aly Fell (Illustrator), Barbara Moore (Author) © 2012
~ Credit for 3D model and assets used in this rendered image can be found here.

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