The Empress (tarot card)
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The Empress (III) is the third trump or Major Arcana card in traditional tarot decks. It is used in card games as well as divination.
Description
[edit]The Empress sits on a throne wearing a crown with twelve stars, holding a scepter in one hand. The scepter is representative of her power over life, her crown has twelve stars representing her dominance over the year, and her throne is in the midst of a field of grain, representative of her dominion over growing things. The Empress is representative of the productivity of the subconscious, seeded by ideas. She is meant to be the embodiment of the growth of the natural world, fertility, and what one knows or believes from the heart.[1]
History
[edit]Arthur Edward Waite and the other occultists are responsible for the starry crown, the emblem of Venus, the waterfall, and the vegetation and wildlife. In historical decks, the Empress sits on a throne, almost always holding a shield or orb in one hand and a scepter in the other. The shield typically bears an eagle, the heraldic emblem of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Empress can be represented by Aphrodite, a figure from Greek mythology. The empress connects with the Death card, for she is accustomed to life, death and rebirth.
Interpretation
[edit]According to Waite's 1910 book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, The Empress is the inferior (as opposed to nature's superior) Garden of Eden, the "Earthly Paradise". Waite defines her as a Refugium Peccatorum — a fruitful mother of thousands: "she is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word, the repository of all things nurturing and sustaining, and of feeding others."
The Empress is a mother, a creator, and nurturer. In many decks she can be shown as pregnant. She can represent the creation of life, romance, art, or business. The Empress can represent the germination of an idea before it is ready to be fully born, and the need to be receptive to change.[2]
The Empress is associated with the planet Venus in astrology.[3]
Waite writes that the card carries these several divinatory associations:
3. THE EMPRESS.--Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.
Tarot-time.com defines [4] in part as "The message from Spirit is that the creative impulse is in all things and all people, including you, and you must not only accept that but honor it."[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Gray, E. (1960). The tarot revealed: A modern guide to reading the tarot cards. New York, N.Y.: Bell Publishing Company.
- ^ "The Empress Tarot Card Meanings". Simply Tarot. Retrieved 2015-06-06.
- ^ "The Empress Tarot Card Meanings". askAstrology.
- ^ the Empress
- ^ "The Greenwood Tarot". Goodreads. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
Further reading
[edit]- Banzhaf, Hajo (2000). Tarot and the Journey of the Hero. Weiser Books. ISBN 978-1-57863-117-9.
- Butler, Bill (1975). Dictionary of the Tarot. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 0-8052-0559-4.
- Crowley, Aleister (1991) [1944]. The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians. San Francisco, CA/Newburyport, MA: Weiser Books. ISBN 978-0-87728-268-6.
- Eisler, Riane (1987). The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-250287-2.
- Gray, Eden (1988) [1960]. The Tarot Revealed: A Modern Guide to Reading the Tarot Cards. Signet. ISBN 978-0-451-15673-0.
- Greer, Mary K. (1996). Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses. Inner Traditions/Bear. ISBN 978-0-89281-607-1.
- Jodorowsky, Alejandro; Costa, Marianne (2009). The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards. Inner Traditions/Bear. ISBN 978-1-59477-656-4.
- Knight, Gareth (1991). The Magical World of the Tarot: Fourfold Mirror of the Universe. Aquarian. ISBN 978-0-85030-940-9.
- Murphy, G. Ronald (2000). The Owl, The Raven, and The Dove: Religious Meaning of the Grimm's Magic Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-803112-3.
- Place, Robert (2005). The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination. New York: Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4406-4975-2.
- Pollack, Rachel (1997) [1980]. Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot. Thorsons. ISBN 978-0-7225-3572-1.
- Sharman-Burke, Juliet (1985). The Complete Book of Tarot. London: Pan. ISBN 978-0-330-28974-0. OCLC 1029289960.
- Stone, M. (2012). When God Was A Woman. Knopf Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-307-81685-6.
- Waite, Arthur Edward (February 1926). "The Great Symbols of the Tarot". The Occult Review. 43 (2): 85–86.
- Waite, A. E. (1979) [1910]. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. New York: Samuel Weiser. ISBN 0-87728-218-8.
- Wood, Juliette (1998). "The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making". Folklore. 109 (1–2): 15–24. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1998.9715957.
External links
[edit]
Media related to Empress (Major Arcana) at Wikimedia Commons
Learning materials related to A Psychological Interpretation of the Tarot#The Path of Love at Wikiversity
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