The Empress

abundance · care · growth · comfort

Card art: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, for A. E. Waite. Public domain.

Trump 3

In a few words

abundance
care
growth
comfort

Things are growing, and they are being cared for. A full, warm time; enjoy it and tend it.

Upright

Everything: Things are growing, and they are being cared for. A full, warm time; enjoy it and tend it.
Love: Warmth, affection, home. A relationship that nourishes, or a family growing.
Work: Creative work bears fruit. Anything you have been nurturing is ready to show.
Money: Comfort and plenty. Income grows through what you have patiently built.
Myself: Take care of yourself the way you take care of others. Rest is part of growing.

Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 284

Reversed

Everything: Neglect, or too much of a good thing. Something needs tending that has been left.
Love: Smothering, or feeling unloved at home. Balance giving and receiving.
Work: Creative block, or a project starved of attention. Feed it or let it go.
Money: Comfort spending running ahead of income. Enjoy less, keep more.
Myself: You have been giving everything away. Fill your own cup first.

Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 284

The card, as Waite described it

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The sceptre which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation. In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus; and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism—as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 80

The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.

Draw this deck ← The High Priestess The Emperor →Other cards

Upright

Everything

Things are growing, and they are being cared for. A full, warm time; enjoy it and tend it.

Love

Warmth, affection, home. A relationship that nourishes, or a family growing.

Work

Creative work bears fruit. Anything you have been nurturing is ready to show.

Money

Comfort and plenty. Income grows through what you have patiently built.

Myself

Take care of yourself the way you take care of others. Rest is part of growing.

Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 284

Reversed

Everything

Neglect, or too much of a good thing. Something needs tending that has been left.

Love

Smothering, or feeling unloved at home. Balance giving and receiving.

Work

Creative block, or a project starved of attention. Feed it or let it go.

Money

Comfort spending running ahead of income. Enjoy less, keep more.

Myself

You have been giving everything away. Fill your own cup first.

Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 284

The card, as Waite described it

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The sceptre which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation. In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus; and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism—as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), p. 80

The plain-word meanings on this page were written for ShreeJyoti and are still under review.