Tablet of Contents on This Enchanted Page
410 Lifetime Visits for This Realm, 2 Wizards Have Been Here Today
Affirmation: ‘Abundance and creativity are within my grasp; I believe in myself.’
Ruling Planet: Venus – planet of love, harmony, natural forces.
Ruling Zodiac: Taurus & Libra
Kabbalistic Letter: Daleth
Path on the Tree of Life: Hohkmah (Wisdom) to Binah (Understanding)
Stones: Emerald & Green Jade
Key words: Fertility, creativity, mother, kindness
Image: A woman sits in a green pasture, by the side of a flowing river. The greenness of her surroundings suggests growth and the entire scene is one of harmony. Around her grow different flowers, suggesting pollination, and the reproductive cycle. The woman herself is pregnant, large enough to indicate that childbirth is not far away, a symbol of new life and new beginnings. The Empress is a mother figure; she represents a pregnancy, a birth or the creation of a new project. In her arm she holds a shield, indicating that she still has her defences around her. At her feet rests a crescent Moon, showing that the growth processes which she represents are still based on certain rhythmic patterns in the universe. Between her breasts she bears her heart surmounted by a cross, showing that her spiritual power is that of love.
THE EMPRESS SPEAKS
‘I am the Empress, rightly called, for my power is that of love and love is all. So great is my power that men and women have died in my honour. Rather than have them die, I would prefer that they let my force transform them. I rule over all growth in nature and that includes childbirth. What is the power of man next to the power of woman which gives birth to them? I am the mother of all, but not all that I give birth to will survive. I am Mother Nature, constantly creating new forms of life in experimentation. In the wild, nothing survives unless it is capable of proving worthy of the life which I bestow to it. I am not as gentle as I may seem. There is more to Nature than a summer’s day in the park. In my capacity as goddess of love I have seen terrible crimes committed in my name, but in reality those who commit such crimes do not know me. What blasphemy!’
DIVINATORY MEANING
This card is showing that at this point the way forward for you is to develop and put to use your own creativity, your own ability to make things grow. We are shown here a representation of Venus, resting in her garden, allowing all the plants and creatures which she has brought into being there with her life-bringing force to grow stronger and take their place in existence. It is a message to you that you also have the ability to create, to bring into existence new things. You may, for instance, have an artistic ability or sensitivity. If so, then now is the time to put it to use and increase output of whatever is your particular artistic skill. If you paint, then create many paintings and promote yourself by holding an exhibition in your area. If your sensitivity runs in another direction, then locate it and consciously enhance that. If you are a woman, this card can indicate that you are going through a period of exceptional fertility and that if you do not want to have a child, then you should take extra steps to ensure that you do not become pregnant. This card also indicates that the harmonious quality of the planet Venus, which this card represents, is bringing into your life a very peaceful effect – you will observe that contacts with others flow more easily than before. The Empress rules over our own personal creativity. This card comes up a lot for artists, musicians, actors and actresses. It is directly related to the emotions in which this creative potential is rooted. Without our ability to feel, to experience the different emotions of love, pain, fulfilment and rejection, we are as dead as doornails, at least as far as the Empress is concerned. Many people walk around in life like zombies, blocking themselves off from their own emotions with drugs, alcohol or just with their own insensitivity. The real challenge for them is to learn to accept all of their feelings. This isn’t necessarily an easy business. The entire industry of therapy and self-development has boomed over the last couple of decades, designed to help people do just this. We live in a society in which the Empress is heavily repressed. Our culture is now so TV-based, we all of us, like robots, switch on these machines when we come in – and many of us remain thus transfixed all night. Before the advent of TV and radio, people would learn how to play musical instruments, to sing, to dance together. They would hold plays in the village hall just to entertain themselves. These are all Empress activities. How would you like to learn how to play an instrument, to dance, to express yourself more fluidly? What about that book you’ve always wanted to write? Those poems, that play? What about that baby you keep thinking of having? Well, when are you going to switch off the TV and radio and make a start? Make this the year in which you concentrate on cultivating your own creativity!
(SHORT) DIVINATORY MEANING
The Empress card suggests that abundance is headed your way. This card represents the potential of abundance through reproduction as well as financial prosperity in your life and more. For those invested in the reproductive meaning, this card signifies fertility, creation, and the product of two true lovers. For those divested from this meaning, this card is still incredibly significant. It represents fertile ideas that exist within you and the potential for you to use them (likely soon!) in order to change your circumstances for the better. The representation is of harmony, which doesn’t necessarily show that that is what you are experiencing. But it suggests that you look at how that can realistically be achieved. In terms of creating, the card is asking what it is that you are hoping to create; how and for what do you wish to harness your creativity?
Reversed Meaning
A reversed card conveys poverty, indecisiveness, and even— infidelity (yours or of a person close to you). Be aware of the negativity flowing around you. In reverse, the Empress signifies a blockage to your creative expression. Upside-down, this card represents impotence, infertility, poverty, repressed truth, and lack of what is, in essence, the Empress herself. With these blockages in place, you will struggle to achieve the abundance the Empress wants to offer you. Look to the surrounding cards for clues regarding how to remove these blockages!
WORLDLY ASSOCIATIONS
Nature, mothers, pregnancy, nature, artists, writers, actors, theatre.
POSITIVE QUALITIES
Loving, harmonious, peaceful, gentle. Able to reconcile opposites. Diplomatic. Charming.
NEGATIVE QUALITIES
Too compromising. Too easy-going. Not sufficiently self-assertive.
Numerology with The Empress
The Meaning of 3
The Number 3 is said to represent what happens as a product of union. 2 is about that union in many senses, but 3 reveals the creative product, result, or outcome. 3 is the essence of creativity and expression. Furthermore, it demonstrates the path of growth. 3 demonstrates the importance and value of synthesis.
