In celebration of International Women’s Day, I’m interviewing some very strong and dynamic women on my site this month. We’ll be talking about empowerment (and a little tarot and intuitive arts as well).
First up is multi talented Eva Yaa Asantewaa, who manages to juggle all these different roles: tarot reader, dancer, journalist, minister and educator (anyone who starts out an interview with a Bob Marley lyric HAS to go first in this series!). This busy woman has some deep wisdom to share with us. Check out her answers to my questions:
Q: What does it mean to be a powerful woman?
Eva: Bob Marley sang, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.” Funkadelic also had a few things to say about “freeing your mind….” 🙂
Being powerful means to know and respect your own mind, to have agency in your own life. For many Black people, the Nguzo Saba of Kwanzaa also has wisdom around this through the principle of Kujichagulia, which has always been my favorite of the Kwanzaa principles. It means defining ourselves, naming ourselves and speaking for ourselves. It informs how I think about and present myself as a woman, a lesbian, a person of color, a pagan and other identities. Whatever a woman chooses to do in life, she is self-empowered by awareness of her soul’s mission and priorities and the inner strength to follow and honor her own light.
Q: When do you feel most powerful?
Eva: My creative efforts as well as day-to-day problem-solving skills can give me a wonderful charge of feeling capable, powerful and useful. We tend to think of power in heavy-duty and hierarchical terms–the power of a world leader or a CEO or an army, for instance. But I experience it as being able to create, to give existence to something that makes a difference, and that could be, at times, something actually small and subtle.
As a critic and journalist, I have spent most of my working life within a professional field–the art of dance–that does not get a lot of attention or monetary reward in this society. And yet I’m refreshed by the wonderful power of intelligence, creativity and innovation I recognize in this field. It stimulates my own creativity as a writer, and I feel that my contributions to this field–as a witness, thinker and chronicler–are an appropriate expression of my human power. I do not think of it as the power to make or break something but, rather, the power to illuminate and share something that I feel has great value.
Q: Tell me about an experience in your life that made you feel empowered.
Eva: To swing this around to Tarot, I must give props to Mary K. Greer whose book, Tarot for Your Self, was influential in my early experience with this art. I am mostly self-taught in Tarot, and her book gave me the courage to go off on The Fool’s journey of throwing myself into Tarot on a daily basis without fear of its daunting complexity. And, by the way, it’s exactly parallel to the way I impulsively threw myself into a relationship with dance–an art that many people find difficult to talk or write about. Over the years, I think that my confidence in each of these two areas has deepened my openness, sensitivity, ability and courage in the other.
Q: What inspires you to be on your path?
Eva: I’m greatly inspired by the powerful example and legacy of other artists and activists. It’s all about making the world a better place, being of service, helping people to heal and move onto the next level in life. There’s another Kwanzaa principle that references this: Kuumba. It means “to always do as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.” While the Kwanzaa principles speak directly to and about the Black diaspora, they are also a good model for our overall citizenship of this planet and Universe.
Q: How can Tarot or other intuitive arts help women to feel empowered?
Eva: Our love of Tarot and the intuitive arts is an acknowledgement and reclaiming of a power that secular and religious authorities, down through the ages, often forced women to abandon. In our cells and in our souls, we know this. Returning to these arts (cups of creativity), these sciences (swords of knowledge) and these amazing skills (wands of power) is a radical act, and some of us are not afraid of the implications (and pentacles of consequence) of that reclaiming. We must never again cede any area of our true power.
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Bio: Eva Yaa Asantewaa, a native New Yorker of African-Caribbean lineage, has maintained a practice in Tarot-based psychic counseling and transformative symbolism since the 1980s. She is also a New York State-registered ULC minister/marriage officiant. She has facilitated workshops on metaphysics, ritual and healing for the New York Open Center’s Womanspirit Journey program, New York Theosophical Society, College of New Rochelle, Healing Works, New York State Conference on Women’s Health, Riverside Church Wellness Center, Women’s Health Education Project and Women’s Rites Center, among other organizations. A respected arts journalist and educator in New York’s dance community, Ms. Yaa Asantewaa has published writing on dance in Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, SoHo Weekly News, Gay City News and other publications since 1976. She teaches the annual “Writing on Dance” workshop series for New York Live Arts, and she blogs on the arts at InfiniteBody (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com). Learn more about her services at http://magickaleva.wix.com/psychictarot and at http://mysite.verizon.net/magickaleva/.
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Big thanks to Eva for taking time from her uber busy life to chat with me!
Blessings,
Theresa
@Theresa Reed | The Tarot Lady 2013
(photo credit: Deborah Feller)
I’m Theresa Reed (aka, The Tarot Lady). I’ve been a full-time tarot reader for 30+ years — which, in my industry, makes me pretty badass.
I’m definitely not your average Tarot expert — I drop the F-bomb, I quote rappers, and I’m obsessed with pop culture + reality TV. Folks come to me for straight-talk + tough-love — without the woo-woo fluff. 
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