The Empress — The Major Arcana
The word Arcana comes from the Latin word Arcanum, which represents a sacred secret or mystery that one must discover. The Empress is related to the Major Arcana and signifies major life lessons you’ll learn on this path, that of fertility and as the life-giving mother!
The secret paths of the Major Arcana represent the journey of the Fool, in which the Fool learns new lessons with every step of the way and overcomes obstacles and gains wisdom from lessons learned!
The Empress — The Mother
The Empress represents the path of giving birth to life. She is the mother of the Earth and goddess of fertility and desires to balance all relationships.
“I am ruled by the planet Venus! When Cupid (Venus + Mars) meets in both of your birth charts, a potent energy of love begins to brew beneath the surface and is always ultimately unleashed. Cupid inherits the traits of love from his mother, and war from his father, an amalgamation reflected in his bow and arrow, which is infused with passion and desire. Cupid shoots love arrows into the hearts of the unaware!”
“Beware and understand that I am about merging with the beloved to create change. You will feel intensely attracted and desire to connect with me, and once you do, there may be no turning back!”
The Empress’s Ruler — Venus
Venus rules the zodiac signs of Taurus and Libra. Taurus is related to the spring season of new growth and Libra is related to the end of the growing season, the time when the constellation Virgo leaves the sky in the month of September. The planet Venus rules the Taurus zodiac sign, the element of earth and the Libra zodiac sign, the element of air.
This combination relates to the multifaceted personality: Taurus loves the rewards of stability and Libra needs to balance relationship contracts. Both zodiac signs love the finer things in life and need to feel stable and secure in his or her environment and with relationships. Libra is social and extroverted and needs outside stimulation and Taurus is happy to hang out at home or happy to take their artistic creativity for a spin.
The planet Venus is social, harmonious, feminine, sensitive and artistic. As the planet of love, Venus is joyful, receptive, and playful, naturally desirous of giving and receiving. Venus represents your personal experiences, in association with your possessions and your love for them, and also signifies love, and pleasure shared with other people and their personal relationships.
Murphy’s Law — Retrograde Motion
Venus retrograde will have a heavy impact on your love life. During this time you will be attracted to someone or something you really want; however, you might run into a restriction that won’t let you achieve what you desire.
Venus retrograde might bring you into a new romantic relationship, a sudden engagement, a sudden marriage, a relationship breakup, separation or divorce.
This retrograde will also affect your finances, such as how you spend your money, or how you save it. You may have an unexpected run of bad luck, or you may make bad business decisions.
The Story of the Empress Tarot Card
The Empress is enumerated three in the Tarot. She is the mother of the Earth and goddess of fertility. The Empress symbolizes a woman and her fruitful union with a man, which produces a child. As a loving and attentive mother, a pregnant young woman showers life with an abundance of wonder and goodness.
The number three is the most perfect number according to the ancients, standing for creation and completeness and also for reward and success. In Greek mythology, the Empress represented a goddess who was connected to the abundant nature and wholesome fertility of the Earth and was adoringly worshipped as the universal mother. She is also connected to the planet of Venus, which represents love, relationships, beauty, art and sensuality.
The yellow sky of the Empress card conveys the joyous, uplifting optimism of her thoughts. Her sparkling jeweled golden crown, topped with twelve stars, represents divine love. The twelve stars also represent the twelve signs of the zodiac and a woman’s cycles throughout the year, as well as her power of seduction through her cycles.
Her woven throne is red, the color of energy, passion and of high rank. The globe scepter in her right hand betokens the hallowed rules of ceremony and is, of course, also a symbol of her sovereignty, royal rank, and authority, as well as of her power as fertile Earth mother. Her red cushion and red blanket further represent her royalty and her passion for life. The color white of her dress symbolizes purity, while the red pomegranates that adorn it depict a fruit that almost every religion throughout history has used as a symbol of beliefs, desires, seduction, and fertility.
Beside her throne lies a protective shield, shaped like a heart and bearing the symbol of planet Venus, ruler of love, art and beauty. A field of wheat, standing for nourishment and the process of sowing, growth and harvest, connects the Empress to the Earth. The cypress trees clustered in the background represent the planet Venus and connect to the zodiac sign of Taurus and Libra. The deciduous tree is connected to the spring season of new growth (Taurus), but also connected to the end of the growing season, a time when the tree sheds its leaves (Libra).
The waterfall and stream ripples with the energy and motivation which the Empress devotes to her particular issues and relationships through her subconscious. Her pearl necklace, a device so often sewn into bridal gowns, or worn as jewelry by a hopeful bride, denotes purity and innocence. Finally, the blooming garden represents a fruitful mother connected in her bounty and splendor to Mother Nature.
My Interpretation of the Empress Tarot Card
The Empress is connected to the planet Venus, which pertains to your possessions and your love for them, and also signifies pleasure shared with other people. Concerned with love, romance and harmony throughout the complex strands of your web of emotional attachments, marriages, unions and other close relationships, Venus asks nothing more than to spread happiness and tenderness — all the while teaching you how to love and appreciate others and all that they possess.
When she appears in your reading, the Empress may signify your maternal desire or potentiality or perhaps your desire to give and receive a mother’s love. All women who consider bringing forth or adding to a family hail Venus as a munificent omen. Either way, the Empress brings the good luck that accompanies growth. She can also signify the need to focus on your role as a mother or your relationship with your own mother or mother figure.
Every human at some level feels the need for love and care, and the Empress signifies those universal feelings of comfort and reward that you receive while loving and caring for your dearest ones. As a result, she is a sign that abundance and well-being are afoot, tending towards their best possible resolution.
When this card appears in a reading, examine the surrounding cards and try to understand the relationship to the question you’ve asked. If The Empress appears in a reading surrounded by negative cards, perhaps a female in your life threatens to dominate or suffocate you. This position is warning you not to allow her to do so.
The Empress is the Goddess card in my deck. She is a woman whom every man dreams of when he ponders marriage and long term commitment. She dominates the thoughts of man throughout the drudgery of the working week, but it is Friday that he truly yearns to spend with her, for that is not only his favorite day, but a day with special connections for her as well. In fact, the energies of this card speak of love in the air, and those on the verge of a marriage proposal can well expect it to happen on Friday night. Indeed, man wants the Empress to spend the rest of her life with him and mother his children, for she is already the perfect mother to the Earth, her family, and her friends.
Fertility, sexuality, and beauty define her, and as the life-giving mother, her being is intertwined with the Earth and its rhythms. Her gentle, caring, and patient nature empower her to bring anything to fruition and make it grow as if she were herself a fertile seed. The Empress stands for the giving of birth to life and embodies the bright, inner energies that allow its full cultivation. Some call her a garden in which your dearest wishes and desires are planted to be lovingly nourished by her.
This woman plays a dizzying multitude of roles — mother, keeper of the home, wife, lover, muse, and career woman — but in each of them, action, growth, and dynamic motion always define her.
At times, dissatisfaction and vanity overpower the Empress, pushing her to exaggerate all her needs and desires, stunting her growth.
The only way she recovers is to stop and assess the path she has strayed from.
So too, the Empress occasionally suffers from blurred focus.
She loses herself and must rise to the challenge of discovering precisely what has gone wrong.
Upright. You may experience a pregnancy, engagement, committed relationship, marriage or business partnership. The Empress gives birth to life and everything is on course and will come to a successful harvest.
Reverse. You might be feeling unbalanced, vain, insecure or needy. This position could also represents a clandestine affair (the cheater) or perhaps a female threatens to dominate or suffocate you. It might also indicate someone experiencing fertility problems, bloody menopause at the end of childbearing years or a turn for the worse in a relationship.
Timing is 1 – 30 days.
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