Ironwing The Empress - The Forge

First here the Text from the book:

The forge is shown as a pomegranate full of the seeds of creative fire, blowing clean hot air and twinkling sparks. A flower and leaves shelter it and cool the outside as part of the living earth. The pomegranate or "garnet apple" (Punica granatum) is one of the oldest domestic plants, long associated with health and abundance because of its medicinal properties and myriad of jewel-like fruits, and because its flowers and fruit are the color of red earth. It is also the fruit of the Land of the Dead, and gives that place its own strange vitality that connects it closely with Life and keeps the world of the shades from being cold and empty. In the pomegranate forge, the Veil between worlds is a curtain of flames that is too bright to look at.
Among African smiths and ancient European metalworkers, ores and metals are rare "children" of Mother Earth: the mines, smelter, furnace, and forge are Her body. The forge is the inexhaustible womb of the smith's creativity. All ironwork is born there in the bright heart of the Goddess of creation. With each piece of iron it heats, the world is new. Cold hard steel becomes soft and glowing, ready to be transformed with the energy of the smith's life. The shapes that form under the hammer are those of leaves and blooming branches, and spark-filled fruit enclosed in braided roots. The receptive nature of the forge draws the smith back again and again, a comfort and a challenge. Looking into it is like staring into a volcano, or a forest fire, or a star. When a smith dies, her body is cremated and the ashes are returned to the forge, the crucible of new life.

Then here some more on pomegranates:
Medicinal Uses: The juice of wild pomegranates yields citric acid and sodium citrate for pharmaceutical purposes. Pomegranate juice enters into preparations for treating dyspepsia and is considered beneficial in leprosy.
The bark of the stem and root contains several alkaloids including isopelletierine which is active against tapeworms. Either a decoction of the bark, which is very bitter, or the safer, insoluble Pelletierine Tannate may be employed. Overdoses are emetic and purgative, produce dilation of pupila, dimness of sight, muscular weakness and paralysis.
Because of their tannin content, extracts of the bark, leaves, immature fruit and fruit rind have been given as astringents to halt diarrhea, dysentery and hemorrhages. Dried, pulverized flower buds are employed as a remedy for bronchitis. In Mexico, a decoction of the flowers is gargled to relieve oral and throat inflammation. Leaves, seeds, roots and bark have displayed hypotensive, antispasmodic and anthelmintic activity in bioassay.

The forge
to me is the very “IT” of creation. The place in time, when Magic, transformation happens, when you / I can see it, watch it happening, make it happen.
When the Magician creates just the right conditions = In this - tonal- case, heat, solder, 2, sometimes 3 lifeless metals transform, unite, birth another new, living thing = a design, conceived in a vision, mulled over by the creative mind.
When we solder = when they merge, That is when it happens.
When I use a crucible full of leftovers = scrap= bits and pieces cut away to birth previous designs, part of a leg of a wolf(pin) that was tooooo long, a branch of a tree that did not look right, the silver sheet frame out of which Peter cut a Goddess, that now only shows the shadow of her birth -- all these end up in my melting point, sharp, unwieldy, distorted, crumpled up....
Then the heat of the forge / torch is applied and there is an exact point of transformation:
“Wllloopp” it says,-- and then you have molten metal, quickening in your vessel. That now, for just a moment = the exact “Right” moment is “in between = in creation” and needs to be poured into the form made from soft red sand.
In this womb of Mother Earth the liquid will transform yet again, solidify into a new, living design. Once it cools I have to open the form. Soft sand between my fingers, I free the ‘birthling’ and wash it beneath clear, cold water, so completing the circle of the elements.....

In the Forge all the Magician creates, is the right conditions:
The right metals, the right heat the right amount of air and later, earth and water.
The Magic transformation flows by itself, is an intrinsic law of Nature.

In / with the anvil however I - we apply will, ego knowledge and sheer force (of the hammer) to effect change......

The Forge - Ironwing

First off, I need to point out that this is a hugely complicated image. For me, at first glance, it is immensely sexual. Incredibly so. It was difficult initially for me to get past that raw, powerful sexuality and “into” the card itself. By that I don’t mean that it is a physically arousing, sexually provocative image. It is deeply sexual in that it is an expression of the Empress as the All-Mother and thus the most female of us all. It is utterly lacking in anything that might link it to a commonly held idea of “sexiness” but it is a purely, deeply sexual image.

Having absorbed that impact from the card – and it is a huge thump in the solar plexus image for me – I can talk about what I hear and see when I think about the Forge:

Sex, raw – Mother of us all. I see the children growing, getting read for birth. I see the seeds waiting to join with eggs – the Forge is hot. She gives up everything to focus on keeping the children warm.

A small doorway of fire into her Heart. The Heart of the Mother – fire and ice, calm and storm. The Mother who nurtures us, who births us, who ignores us when she has to. The Mother is a Forge where we are made. Each one of us held securely in the Womb of her fire and joy. What cataclysms are wreaked on this earth by her orgasm? What disaster would ensue if the Forge failed – if the incredible heat of her died? The Mother burns for us. That doorway fills me yearning – I so desperately want to go through it, and to see what there is on the other side…..

She is happiness and laughter and joy and love – how could she do this for us if her love for the Anvil were not perfect and complete? How could she bear us, aeon after aeon, if She didn’t love us so much, so wholeheartedly? We are created inside her very being. Think about it – actually within the Mother we are forged; our essence is shaped. At birth we are perfect – whatever our deformity and imperfection – we are perfect because each of us is as shaped in the Forge, inside the Mother physically and spiritually. How we shape ourselves from the moment of our birth is not her story. How we deal with the gifts she gives us in our shaping – is our trial and problem. In her eyes, despite the physical ailments and imperfections I perceive in myself, in her eyes I am perfect and as she made me….. At birth the Mother creates our future perfection and that of every living thing on earth. Sometimes it just takes new eyes to see how perfect every being is – how utterly true to itself.

And speaking as one who has long had supposed physical defects, and lately rather more of them – I have come to see them all as a gift, as part of my story and as a part of my “self” to be accepted and loved.

Consider this – when I was being created I hung in my little pod in that hot Forge. What and who hung beside me? The rapist? The murderer and the murdered? The rabbit, the deer and the cockroach? We are all created together, within the Forge. And next consider where that leads – where does love for my brother stop – at “good” humans? With all of humanity? Or with the whole of creation that emerges from that hot, pulsing cave?

I acknowledge that my physical birth was from my biological mother. And yet my spirit hung in the Forge whilst my physical self was readied for me, and at precisely the right moment my birth mother became the Mother as she birthed me, and then became herself again. And my spirit would be joined with my body at the instant of my birth – no matter when in pregnancy I was born – no matter how early… if my physical self survived for an instant, the Mother would make sure it had my spirit within it.

And next I recognise the birth of thought, idea, concept…. Not all birth is physical by any means…. This is something that needs to be followed further…

I think of the men and women who have produced paradigm shifts in consciousness for the rest of us. Those who birthed entire movements that have inspired followers to good or ill for lifetimes; Buddha, Christ, Mohammed. Teachers – who are so incredibly important – the best of them can effect such change in their pupils that it seems like a whole new person has emerged…

Those who follow the concept that creators don’t destroy – that all creation is one large family – these people are the saviours of us all in their way. Their purity can be a beacon in dark times. And they are the living presence of the All-Mother in our world.

And a thought from Sinduction on the hurtfulness of perceiving Forge purely as a physical birthing platform. I agree with that but Forge is not there to discuss just the children we might produce from our own bodies by any means. Forge discusses the birth of us all – without the All Mother none of us would be born – not even the Earth herself who is the absolute physical expression of the Mother.

Now thinking of a forge – within a forge things are created… and sometimes things which already exist are taken to the forge and re-moulded, re-shaped. Does that happen with live beings? As we go through our trials, are we re-shaped and does part of that re-shaping involve Forge? The All-Mother never stops loving us, caring for us – and wanting the best for us, although her perception of best might not be ours. She wants what is best for the part of us that she created … and the best iron goes through searing temperatures, is beaten several times, might be crushed, is plunged into dark depths – and then fired again. Until eventually – the beautiful, carefully made and loved creation emerges…..

So there is far more to Forge than a mere birthing machine for the world’s living beings…. I tend to see a human mother as being the one who shapes and builds for her young just as much as the womb that produced them.

I look also at the beautiful flower resting on top of Forge. It tells me that beauty, pleasure and appreciation for the physical are absolutely to be encouraged – Forge has such heartfelt joy in beauty that she makes sure that the flower is not burned, but flourishes… I see this as being encouraged to also enjoy these things – never be ashamed of my body (no matter it’s state of apparent wreckage) – it was created for me and it is part of my Journey that I learn to understand it.

I see the leaves falling down from the sky towards Forge. I learn that “to every thing there is a season”, and that quiet of the forest is where I find my renewal – the All Mother displays her treasures for me in the open spaces; learn also to appreciate the sheer miracle of a leaf.

There is, for me, great joy and power in this card and those two words sum up my personal view of Forge.

Wendywu said:

Consider this – when I was being created I hung in my little pod in that hot Forge. What and who hung beside me? The rapist? The murderer and the murdered? The rabbit, the deer and the cockroach? We are all created together, within the Forge. And next consider where that leads – where does love for my brother stop – at “good” humans? With all of humanity? Or with the whole of creation that emerges from that hot, pulsing cave?

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Not that your entire post was not moving and so much what I feel from this card I wanted to say WOW for the above quote.
I felt that everywhere in my body... For a moment, I took the worst people from my life and hung next to them. That is more powerful than any "forgiveness" work I could do. Now this is an image I can work with...