Nurture, nature, creativity, emotional expression, completion, femininity
The Empress Meaning
The Empress tarot card represents the mother archetype and all that entails. From conception, to gestation to giving birth, The Empress is a master creator. She can bring new life into the world in many forms. This is tarot card number three in the major arcana.
This tarot card is all about personal expression. The Empress is very emotional, and she channels her emotions into her creations. This sets her apart from other people who are creators–she is creating for the sake of expression, not for the sake of a legacy.
Another thing that sets The Empress apart from other creators is her ability to create many things at once, and see each of them through all the way to the end. All her creations work together and enhance one another.
A lot of tarot decks depict The Empress, the ultimate mother archetype, as pregnant or with an infant. This represents her femininity, her innate power of creation, and her natural compassion.
The Empress uses her emotions to guide her through life. She relies on her feelings to show her the path to completion. She doesn’t reject her unpleasant emotions, but she uses all her emotions as motivation to continue on her journey.
Every emotion serves a purpose in her creations and ultimately makes her better able to create whatever she will create. She is a symbol of sensuality and carries a lot of yang energy. Compassion, love, kindness, support, gentleness, and other characteristics you might associate with a mother-figure.
What’s amazing about The Empress is her wide range of focus. She can spread her attention around, yet gives everything equal amounts of attention. The same goes for love, as any parent of multiple children will know. Their love and attention are divided, yet all children get all their love and attention.
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The Empress Tarot Card Meaning
In terms of the tarot cards, gender, sex, and sexual orientation are irrelevant. The term motherhood in the tarot’s context refers to our ability to conceive, nurture, raise, love, protect and care for things/people/projects that are important to us. Remember, language is limiting, so we must work with the words we have to describe these abstract concepts.
In a reading, The Empress could show a vital time of conception, creation, and completion. Depending on the context of the reading, she could tell you it’s time to either conceive, develop, or give birth to your creation. Pour your emotions into it, get imaginative, and center your focus until you finish all the work.
People who identify with the Empress major arcana card can probably pursue and complete many projects simultaneously. And if not simultaneously, then they’re likely to have many career paths throughout their life.
There’s a good chance this person is creative and patient, really enjoying the process more than the finished project. The Empress is very skilled at completing what she sets out to create, but she’s in no rush. Just as nature is in no rush. The process is almost more important than the result–it is the process that fills our hearts and souls, not necessarily the finished product.
“Mother Nature” is a common theme in this tarot card. The Empress is a strong mother-archetype, therefore she is strongly associated with nature. She nurtures the plants and watches them grow, just as she nurtures her creativity until her finished masterpiece comes to fruition.
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The Empress Reversed
The Empress reversed tarot card can have several meanings. The most likely is probably being stuck creatively. Somewhere along the journey, you’ve gotten lost or off track. Maybe you’re experiencing analysis paralysis, where you have too much information in order to move forward. Filter out what is unneeded in order to move past this phase.
Creative blocks can be demoralizing. There might not be enough creative energy flowing in. You might not trust yourself enough to live up to your own expectations. Or you might have a total lack of individualism.
It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and distracted with Empress energy. There are so many ideas flowing and you want to focus on all of them right now. But the Empress wants to give birth at some point, she can’t be pregnant with her ideas forever. Therefore, focus is so important–decide what will get your attention now and revisit everything else later.
Another interpretation of a reversed Empress tarot card could illustrate a total lack of focus. Someone who gets distracted by newest ideas all the time probably has a lot of unfinished projects. It’s time to button up those projects before switching gears.
Alternatively, there’s a chance the reversed Empress tarot card is telling you that you’re capable of so much more than what you’re doing now. She might want you to understand that you have the bandwidth to do more than what you’re currently doing. Maybe it’s time to go deeper into your creation and add more elements to it.
The Empress Card
Overall, The Empress tarot card is a beautiful expression of self. We are all creators, and we all have something within us worth creating.
The free flow of creativity and ideas is a natural part of the process. And sometimes, our emotions (positive or negative) take over. The Empress is showing us how to use our emotions to our advantage–how our emotions stylize our creations.
The number of things we can create are literally endless. The Empress rules anything from art, to people, to businesses, and whatever else you can think of to create. Following her guidance will help you. So ask yourself, what are you meant to conceive, create, and give birth to?
