(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
Here’s a compilation of my notes on reading The Empress as a card of the day or in a spread.
If you’re just learning tarot, use the deck that most appeals to you, and spend some time looking at your card. What does it say to you? (See my description of The Empress as I see it.)
Tarot is personal and open-ended. There are traditional meanings — and yes, you should know them if you want to read tarot cards — but it really only “works” if you follow what the cards mean to you personally. Your empress and my empress may not mean quite the same thing.
Number
The card has the number 3, the number of creation and completion. A divine number in some religions, notably Christianity, and a magical number in storytelling. Third time’s a charm. It’s associated with optimism, compassion, and creativity. It reminds us of our creative potential, as new things emerge from our dualities, our conflicts and encounters, and our repeated attempts. The number represents synthesis, a resolution of tension with new emergent properties, the process of “becoming.”
Name
An Empress rules. She’s enthroned in sunlight and the earth is her empire. She is otherworldly (those wings!) but an empress is grounded in nature and humanity. She is much like Isis, the Egyptian mother goddess. She’s a wise and fair ruler, gentle and generous, protective and nurturing.
Placement
The Empress is very near the beginning of the major arcana; she comes before the Emperor. She represents earthly paradise (not the heavenly realm of the High Priestess who comes before her). She is not about the intellect but the heart and body and relationships, and the earthly and spiritual benefits that comes from those. She is a mother goddess, at the entrance, not the exit, to the life of the flesh.
Traditional interpretations
The Empress nurtures all life, and her card indicates fertility, abundance, fruitfulness, and motherhood. It’s the card of domestic stability, care, and protection, and of the comfort and inspiration of nature. It’s a card of nurturing in all its forms, and it’s a particularly positive card for home life, family, or creativity that involves some physical aspect.
The card is very positive, a good omen, signifying stability, safety, comfort, wealth, and harmonious relationships that bring lasting joy. The Empress guards this world and is mother to us all. She gives you her blessing.
Reverse interpretations
Reversed, the card warns of domestic upheaval. Sterility or unwanted pregnancy. Partnerships that turn sour. You must bring a relationship into balance or end it.
The card can indicate a person: a domineering, jealous, possessive, over-protective type. Don’t be her, and don’t let her mess with your life.
More often, the card reversed warns of psychic alienation. You’re seeing the universe as impersonal or malevolent. Stagnation, poverty, barrenness, emptiness. Fruitlessness, no results to your effort. You need to be more involved and more reliable; reach out and see the spirit in its earthly forms. Honour life, or this low period will not end soon.
Thematic readings
- In love, this is a very promising card. It’s a good omen for those seeking advice about any relationships (family or romantic). It tells of a strong long-term commitment, domestic happiness.
- In work, your efforts are rewarded. A project bears fruit or a matter is concluded happily. Professional success. Harness personal relationships to yield more success.
- In general life, all is good, especially domestic life. Find comfort and reassurance in nature and simple pleasures. Learn to discern the spirit in its earthly forms and look for goodness in the things of Earth. The card tells of fertility, harmony, sensuality, and happiness. Worldly success for any imminent project.
Specific positions
- Current situation: This is a good time to initiate growth, including family growth. This is a time of abundance. Don’t over-indulge. Stay grounded.
- Past influence: The Empress may represent a person, a mother, but more typically it represents maternal qualities. What you have nurtured will bear fruit; what you have neglected will show signs of neglect.
- Outcome: There’s a firm foundation for future progress. Growth, prosperity, fertility. Physical creation can lead to deeper spiritual awareness. Creative pursuits will flourish with grounding in the real physical world.
- Blocked: The card tells you to nurture: yourself, body and spirit; your home and family; your creative work, especially work with your hands. This is what will bring your potential into fulfillment. You need to enable yourself to be more fertile, to create and to be nurturing of your creativity.
Questions for the Querent
- Do you see the Empress as a person or an idea? Does she represent anyone real to you?
- Do you nourish the physical parts of your life? Your body, home, health, nature, and works of your hand?
- Are you respecting the earth? Can you see a spirit in earthly forms? Do you see the subjectivity in all other lives?
- Is there a person or project you are nurturing, or should be nurturing?
- Are you in need of nurturing?
- Does the sun, the eagle, the brightness of the card appeal to you? Are you drawn to the light?
- Do you see stability as boring? (She is not dull! She shines.)
- Do you have any reaction at first sight of this card? What do you focus on?
- What would you ask the Empress? Would you approach?
- What might she tell you about your journey, your qualities, your needs and goals?
- Would you want to be her? Do you have much in common with her?
- Are you in balance, and in touch with reality? Do you nurture your body and spirit?
Keywords to aid Memory
- Nurturing
- Domesticity; Nature
- Creativity; Fertility
- Physical Abundance; Growth
Images on this page are by the following artists: Banner, left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington; Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith (also shown alone in the box); Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti.
Catherine Austen 