The Empress

The garden in full bloom.

The picture

A woman sits at ease on a throne heaped with cushions, out in the open country. She wears a crown of twelve stars and a loose gown patterned with pomegranates, and she holds a sceptre in her right hand. Beside her rests a heart shaped shield bearing the sign of Venus. Ripe wheat grows in the foreground, a stand of trees rises behind her, and a waterfall runs down into a stream.

Upright

The High Priestess keeps her knowledge behind the veil. The Empress puts hers out in the paddock where you can see it growing.

She is the mother, the garden, the body at ease, the creative work that comes to life. Venus rules her, so she is also love, beauty and pleasure in simple things: good food, a warm bath, sunlight on your skin. All of it is how things grow.

When she turns up, something is fertile. A project, a relationship, a family, a business, or just you. Look after it and it will look after you. She asks you to receive as well as give, and to let the season do some of the work.

Reversed

Reversed, the Empress is most often too much or too little. Too little is depletion, the person who feeds everybody and has forgotten to eat, giving from a cup that went dry some time ago. Too much is smothering, the love that holds on so tight nobody gets to grow. She can also be blocked, the creative project that will not start, the garden that should be flowering and is not.

The way to tell them apart is to look at your own cup. If you are exhausted, it is too little, and the card is asking you to be the one who gets looked after for a change. If the people around you seem restless or stuck, check whether you are holding on too tight.

When it turns up

Who looks after the one who looks after everybody else?

The Empress has also been a Tarot Card of the Week. Read that post to see the card at work on a real week.

If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
The Number 3 · The Empress as a Birth Card · The Twenty Two Paths