Warrior Woman -
Rise and Raise
Your Knife to the Sky.
Though Taller than You,
The Man is Made of Shadows.
With the Strength of Jagged Peaks
You will overcome
In this stone, I see a young woman warrior, full of life and strength. She holds a knife to the sky and pledges herself to take action in the present. A wolf gazes up at the tip of her knife, quietly watching. She needs to face a force larger than herself, something looming and powerful that has been presiding over her for sometime. She sees it more consciously now and is committed to facing it. This may be a shadow/impulse within herself, or an outside influence in her life, a connection that must be confronted so that there is no further harm.
Interpretation
The Warrior Woman allows for you to find your voice in facing a “foe” in either yourself or your external life. What necessary change needs to be made in your life that feels like meeting the knife’s edge? Though cold and sharp, this is the necessary knife to cut away the superfluous and see the truth of your own image reflected back to you. Even though an obstacle may feel insurmountable, this card allows you to find strength you didn’t know you had. The Woman Warrior is not just about physical strength, but the strength that comes from speaking your truth when a boundary has been crossed. This force guides you within nature as well as within the complexities of civilization...
“Strength” from the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck
The Warrior Woman suggests that the important energy for the year lies in investing in yourself and your self-confidence. Taking a stand, using your voice, amongst other leadership skills, can be harnessed for the work ahead. With this firm grasp of your talents in this stage of your life, your work in the world can flourish.
The Woman Warrior depicted in the Story Through Stone Card stands strong, her right arm raised with a blade towards the sky, meeting with might the large figure that towers over her. For those that have lived lives dominated by busy-ness or other paths incongruent with their natures, this card may signify challenging the “rat race” life you lived before. The hills rise jaggedly behind the warrior woman, affirming the feats that lay before her - which are not simple or straightforward. She needs support and guidance, some of which may still reside in the structures, lessons or connections of previous patterns of living. Some of the other skills, tools or resources you acquired during your Rat Race period are vital in propelling your own career and should not be thrown out like a baby with the bathwater.
Make a list of what you may have disregarded or discarded that may be helpful to you now. There is no need to re-invent the wheel when starting anew.
In 2018, Larry Nassar was convicted of seven counts of sexual assault, though his abuse of children and young women as a national team doctor for the USA olympics included hundreds of reports. In the audiobook Twisted, investigative reporters captured the bond of women that occurred as they gathered to confront Nasser in criminal court. Amanda Thomashow, in her public statement read aloud said,
“Larry, the thing you didn’t realize when you were sexually assualting me and all of these young girls, and breaking their lives, was that you were also building an army of survivors who would ultimately expose you for what you truly are - a sexual predator. You might have broken us, but from this rubble we will rise as an army of female warriors, who will never let you or any man, drunk off of power get away with such evil, ever again.”
Many of the survivors have become powerful advocates and legal fighters in the face of sexual abuse for others since then.
I am loving that this card falls as our first card for the New Year, 2024. Once the Lunar New Year is reached we’ll be set up to enter a new 20-year cycle which will swing in the Yin direction according to Oracle creator Vicki Iskander - who we’ll hear from later this month on the podcast!
Interested in cultivated your own inner heroine/woman warrior? I’m having a retreat in February with Storyteller and Woven founder Kate Farrell! Visit this website for details: https://woventales.net/winter-retreat/
Until then… here is a Warrior Woman Visualization for the New Year!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Archetypal Stories to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.