“Woman from Magdala”
Maddie is a measured person, who values logical thinking and balance in all things. She’s a stoic, and she lives her life according to her own principles. A bit of a rebel, her. She has a rich spiritual life. She doesn’t mind people one way or the other. She sees the value of social connections but longs for a deeper connection than the ones typically available.
She is the sovereign in the throne room in my mind, and the one who leads my inner world. She shows up a lot in my private life, when all the protectors are sleeping. She is the one I want to bring more into my public life.
The Sage seeks truth and understanding above all, values reason and balance, and lives by her own principles rather than convention. She has depth, including spiritual depth, which is also why ordinary connection can feel thin to her. A bit of the Rebel runs through her, but her center is wisdom.
God of reason, harmony, and measure. His temple at Delphi carried the maxims “know thyself” and “nothing in excess,” which is close to a Stoic creed. He’s also the god of prophecy and music, so the spiritual depth is there too. He brings clarity and balance, and he has a strong sense of his own order.
An angel with one foot on land and one in water, pouring between two cups in a steady, unbroken flow. The card of balance, measure, and integration. She blends opposites until they make something whole: patient, steady, guided by her own sense of what’s right. Her calm is inner alchemy, not suppression. As the angel of the Major Arcana she bridges the earthly and the divine, and her role is integration. She’s the one who can hold all of them.
“Crown”
Atera is a type A overachiever. She’s energetic as fuck, confident, chatty, friendly, a bit chaotic, funny and very much a people person. She likes helping people and being warm and kind. She’s a perfectionist and a control freak. Slightly hypervigilant, very reactive.
Atera keeps me functioning day to day at work and in my social life. She’s the most used part of me and the one everyone sees, at least at first. She does everything she needs to make sure we keep going and we are safe. Her way of ensuring safety is by making sure she’s as “normal” as we can be, and that people like us. She’s strategic, so she creates and deploys different strategies to get people to like her: from manipulation and control to caretaking and excessive friendliness.
She becomes whatever the situation needs: likeable, normal, helpful, persuasive. The Shapeshifter adapts her form to survive and to influence how others see her. She’s highly skilled and very useful, but she’s never quite showing her true face.
The shapeshifter who lives among the Aesir but is never fully one of them. He survives by being clever, charming, useful, and sometimes manipulative. He solves problems, keeps things moving, and wears whatever form gets him through. Underneath is an outsider working hard to stay accepted. Hermes stands beside him: the god tied to The Magician, of persuasion, social fluency, and quick wits.
She has every tool on the table and knows how to use each one to shape the outcome she needs: charm, control, caretaking, persuasion. The Magician is skilled, adaptable, and able to influence how others see her, which is both her gift and her shadow side as manipulation. She’s the one making things work in the outer world.
“Princess, joyful, one who brings joy”
Sara is a quiet, shy and skittish bookworm. She likes books, music, dark places, being alone and doing her own thing. She doesn’t like being around people, or loud, bright places. She likes learning new things, building things, technology and science. Very hypervigilant, mildly reactive.
Sara protects the most vulnerable side of me, the one that’s most likely to be rejected: my quirks and my interests. She also makes sure that no one can get too close to us, which means she needs to be hypervigilant. She is the alarm system; she detects all kinds of threats.
Her way of ensuring safety is by isolating us, but she’s very capable of taking action in the moment as well, if she feels that Atera is allowing people too close. In my social life, she’s gatekeeping Atera, and she’s also the one who protects me from romantic abandonment.
The sentinel at the gate. She’s always watching, deciding who gets in, and ready to act the moment something threatens what she protects. Her whole identity is organized around keeping the vulnerable safe. She’d rather keep everyone out than risk the wrong person getting through.
Keeper of thresholds, crossroads, and doorways. She holds the keys and decides who passes. Her hounds bark at anything approaching in the dark, an alarm system of their own. She stands between the vulnerable and what could harm them. She’s comfortable alone on the edges, and she sees what’s coming before anyone else does.
A figure who’s been through battles, standing guard with a wall of wands behind her, wounded but alert and ready for the next threat. She doesn’t trust that the danger is over, so she never fully lowers her guard. She’s the gatekeeper and the alarm system, the one who’s seen enough to know what can get through. She holds the line, and she’ll fight to keep it.
“Honor, light”
Norah is pissed off. That about sums her up. She doesn’t like anything or anyone; she is super angry at literally everything. She’s cynical and somewhat bitter. She thinks people are stupid and the world truly needs to be restarted. She doesn’t care about people either way. She can be mean as fuck if provoked or poked, and will fight you if you cross her. Slightly hypervigilant, quite reactive.
Norah just wants to see the world burn. Literally. She thinks big, so her idea of protecting me is destruction: not just of things that could threaten me, but of everything that exists. Her rage is unbound. She’s the darkest part of me, and Atera keeps her in check. If not for Atera, Norah would have burned down my life by now.
She cannot tolerate any threat to our sovereignty. Any attempt at controlling us or restricting us in any way throws her into a blinding rage. She can turn violent. The scary part about Norah is that she enjoys it: the destruction, the violence and the power they bring.
She tears down what she sees as broken, false, or rotten, and she has no patience for pretending things are fine. The Destroyer is fierce and can be cruel when provoked. Her deeper function is clearing away what doesn’t serve, and her anger often marks a line that was crossed.
The wolf the gods feared, tricked, and bound. His rage at being chained, controlled, and betrayed is the core of his story, and at Ragnarök he breaks free and the world ends so a new one can begin. That’s Norah’s “the world needs to be restarted,” and her fury at anyone who tries to control or dominate us. Fenrir is also Loki’s son, so Atera and Norah are family here too.
Lightning striking, the structure collapsing, everything false burning away. It fits her belief that the world needs a full restart, and her anger at all of it. She’s not interested in fixing or smoothing things over; she’d rather the whole thing come down. The Tower is sudden and explosive, like her reaction when poked. A close second is the Five of Swords: she wins the fight and walks away bitter and alone.
“Longing, love, beauty that comes through sorrow”
The Nightingale is just a baby. She just wants to be loved and safe so she can sing her night song.
The Nightingale loves to play and to create. She creates worlds out of nothing. She has an innocent quality to her, and is slightly magical.
In Jungian terms, the most vulnerable part of the psyche and also the one that holds the most potential: the source of wonder, creativity, and renewal. She can’t protect herself, so everything around her organizes to keep her safe. When she’s finally held and safe, she’s the one who sings.
Lord of dreams, who shapes what comes in the night. The Nightingale sings her night song, and Morpheus rules the realm where she’s most herself: safe, held, and free to sing in the dark. Aphrodite names what she longs for rather than where she lives: the love she’s waiting to feel safe enough to receive.
A figure kneeling naked under the night sky, completely unguarded, pouring water into a pool and onto the earth. The card of hope, gentleness, and healing, of being open without armor. The Star comes right after The Tower: after everything is torn down, what’s left is something tender and true. The Sun, the child riding in full light, safe and loved, is what she longs for rather than what she is right now.
Atera keeps Norah in check. Without her, Norah would have burned my life down.
Sara gatekeeps Atera. Every connection Atera makes is a possible threat Sara has to manage.
Norah’s fear of being taken advantage of keeps Atera’s caretaking in check.
All three protect her: one by keeping people out, one by keeping people pleased, one by being ready to burn it all down.
Sara learned to hide as a baby, Atera learned to fawn at school age, Norah learned to fight as a teenager. A timeline of the tools I had at each age.
Temperance at the center: the one who can hold all of them, and the one I want to bring forward.
Norah is The Tower. The Nightingale is The Star, the card that comes after it: when everything false is torn down, what’s left is something tender and true.