In almost any Tarot deck you look, you can’t help but notice the beauty and dignity and grace the Empress card carries. The Empress is often pictured as young, nubile and fertile. This card is bright and airy, and depicts the epitome of abundance. Symbolically, the Empress (Major Arcana card 3) represents Mother Earth – and seemingly she is able to be everything to everyone.
The Empress is the wife of the Emperor (Major Arcana card 4). She is his balanced counterpart. While he may be out conquering foreign lands, it is the Empress who makes the castle a home. Without her, he would have no true purpose; no reason to fight to his kingdom. It is the Empress – through her nurturing acts - that brings joy and pleasure to the Emperor’s life.
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Tarot card images used with
permission from
Anna Klaffinger, creator of the Anna K Tarot. For more information on this deck, visit www.annak-tarot.at |
I personally like this card a lot because of the message it relays. It draws attention to feminine power and the effectiveness of gentle domination. Unlike her male counter-part, the Empress does not need to conquer her opponents. Instead she ‘kills them with kindness’ and wins them over with her dedication to their well-being. And this is not an act. The Empress truly believes in promoting growth and the well-being of the individual.
However, in my personal opinion, I feel the art on this card is a bit unrealistic at times. The typical Empress card usually depicts the youthful version of the creative mother. She is vivacious and surrounded with the natural abundance that comes to her as a gift of her youth. Yes, the garden is lush and her belly is swollen, and she is in the process of creating her dreams. When the Empress appears in the spread it can literally mean a pregnancy. It can also mean the growth of something important – a dream, a business, a beautiful home, etc. Without a doubt, when the Empress shows up, nurturing and creation are in the air. Her actions bring wonderful gifts to the people around her.
And therein lies my uncertainty with this card. As I said before, the Empress is almost always pictured as an incredibly attractive and youthful woman. I feel this depiction is inaccurate. Rather, I would like to see this card showing that same woman approximately 20 years down the road. Let’s be real. Creation and nurturing are not a one-time thing. This is a gift the Empress gives continuously throughout her life, and that type of giving takes a toll on a person physically and emotionally.
Don’t believe me? Try this: Imagine a young woman leaving the hospital with her brand new baby girl in her arms. This woman is bright, courageous and energetic. She is much like that baby herself – innocent and optimistic about the future. Now imagine that same woman 25 years later. She is standing in a church watching her baby girl exchange wedding vows and beginning a life of her own. Twenty-five years of love and nurturing have been given to this baby, and now the mother must step back and let her child go.
That woman leaving the hospital and that woman leaving the church are not the same woman. They will not look anything alike and they will be much different on the inside as well. There is a wear-and-tear that happens to the body and the soul. To create her beautiful garden, the Empress needs to give of herself, and very few decks incorporate these deeper images associated with this type of giving
On occasion, you will see this version of the Empress. In particular, the Anna K deck does an excellent job morphing the energy of the good intentions of the young mother with the impact of those intentions on the same woman years later. There is still a kindness in the Empress’s eyes, but the wear on her body and soul is evident.
When the Empress shows up, it does tell us something is growing. However, it also tells us to exercise care over ourselves and our well-being. The Empress is a nurturer, she cannot change that. What she can do though is broaden her scope of nurturing to include herself so that the garden she has already planted, as well as future gardens for which she has plans, will continue to grow with a healthy and productive fervor.
To me, this is the where you see the true meaning of the Empress. Her beauty is not fleeting like a gift of youth. Rather, her beauty is inside and lies in her ability to continue to nurture herself and others as a means to make the world a place in which everyone can feel at home.
