This week was Victoria Day here in Canada. While the first long weekend of summer has become the day’s primary reason for celebration for most people, it’s a good opportunity for me to reflect on the concept of royalty, and queens in particular.

Postmodern spirituality can be a struggle between our desire to see ourselves as free souls who choose love, and the old paradigm of submission to royalty. How do we deal with that? 

When I chose my business name, almost five years ago now, I was working on improving my self-esteem and my ability to be seen by others. I worked with a coach who helped me see myself as someone who was worthy of love and all good things. I named myself a queen, at that time, because before then I had certainly not seen myself that way.

Since the products that I work with have made such a difference to my energy levels, it made sense for me to go with the name Energy Queens. I could just envisage the person I wanted to work with – energetic, strong, self-assured, looking to help make the world a better place. I thought that such a person would be a queen.

There cannot, however, be a queen without subjects. Being a subject implies a relationship of submission to a dominant force. Our liturgy is full of such language, although our patriarchal past has generally attributed masculinity to the Divine – our father, our king. So much dominance, so much submission.

Even where the language of divinity has been feminine, we have a lopsided relationship – we are talking about the Shekhina, the indwelling Presence of the Divine, the mystic bride of the masculine deity and mother/bride of the community of Israel. Then there’s the Sabbath Queen, arriving as a radiant bride to the arms of her waiting (male) devotee. 

If we are to see ourselves as sparks of the Divine light, as human beings who are created in the image of G-d, all equally beloved, where do kings and queens come into the picture? How can we describe a person who is strong, energetic, loving, desiring to impact the world in a good way, while not raising her above others in a way that suggests unearned privilege, and not making her power contingent on her relationship with a man? What would you call her?

I’d love to know what you think!