The Empress - My Take

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 01 Aug 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Apoc	01 Aug 2003
Just about every interpretation of the Empress I have yet seen has listed literal fertility and motherliness and feminine creativity as key meanings, and of course, there are many decks that portray the Empress as being actually pregnant. And every one of these interpretations has struck me as being, if not actually wrong, but rather narrow and literalist. Does anyone else get the feeling that the Empress doesn't signify fertility, marriage, pregnancy, etc? The way I see it, the Empress represents fertility and creation in the broadest sense possible -- that of mental creativity and a "fertile" ground for ideas and concepts to come about. Rather than representing nature's abundance, the Empress instead opens your eyes to the mostly unexplored jungle of your own imagination, where ideas and systems of thought arise at will. When I see the Empress, I think "mother", but not as in a mom herding her toddlers around a park. I see mother in the sense of the old adage "Adversity is the mother of invention." Now, this interpretation may merely arise from my own habit of favoring abstraction over literal meanings, but I don't think I'm terribly far off in my thinking.

Diana	01 Aug 2003
Hi Apoc! Welcome to Aeclectic. :) Actually, the Mother figure for me is far more the Papess (High Priestess). The manifestation of spirit in matter. Two is a feminine number, according to the numerology that I follow. She is the Mother archetype to me. The Empress is number III. She expresses more tangibly what the Papess (High Priestess) has conceived. Conscience awakening. She "speaks". The Empress as often described in modern books - that doesn't make sense to me at all.

Trogon	02 Aug 2003
Howdy Apoc! I'll add my "welcome to Aeclectic" to Diana's (hope she doesn't mind me plagiarising her phrase... ;) ). Anyway, in short, yes, I generally see these other aspects of the Empress that you've mentioned. In fact I had her come up in a reading I did a few days ago for one of the girls who works at my favorite coffee house. I saw this card and said "fertility - but not in the sense of being pregnant, but rather fertility of the mind... artistic fertility, creativity..." After saying that, I asked her if she was an artist, or if she'd started a "major art project" (those were the words I used). She said she had just changed her major in college to Art. LOL. But yes, a fertile mind, imagination, creativity are all things that I think of with the Empress. However, I do also think of her as the symbol of physical fertility as well... motherhood yes, but also the fertility of the soil. So this can be a very positive card for someone who is trying to start a family, or for someone who works the soil such as a farmer or person starting a large gardening project. I guess what I'm saying is that, although I sometimes have ideas about a card which goes against the "traditional" interpretations, I don't entirely discount those "traditional" interpretations either. They may apply under certain circumstances.

Kiama	02 Aug 2003
I very very rarely use the literal fertility aspects of this card in a reading... Almost always I interpret it along the same lines as you've mentioned Apoc.... To me, the Empress represents the Creative Process and the metaphorical birth of new projects and ideas... The pregnancy of the woman in most Empress cards, to me is merely a symbol of this creative process, since the processes we go through to create a project/idea, are essentially the same, metaphorically, as child labour... We conceive an idea, just as we conceive a child. We let it gestate for a while, often thinking about it, toying with it, thinking about what it will be like when it finally emerges as a fully grown child/idea. Then, we give birth to it. We turn the idea into reality, and we give birth to a baby. This is a hard process, very difficult, and very very painful, and the same can be said in the birthing phase of an idea... Just some thoughts. Kiama

full deck	02 Aug 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Diana Actually, the Mother figure for me is far more the Papess (High Priestess). The manifestation of spirit in matter. Two is a feminine number, according to the numerology that I follow. She is the Mother archetype to me. The Empress is number III. She expresses more tangibly what the Papess (High Priestess) has conceived. Conscience awakening. She "speaks". Another perspective that is closer to this point is to consider the series of cards: II - III - IV - V Papesse - Empress - Emperor - pope female - female -- male - male 1x - 1y -- 2y - 2x Thus a kind of inter-locking relationship. I had mentioned in another thread that perhaps the relationship between the Papesse and the Pope could be expressed as "the hidden vs. revealed teaching, which is primarily spiritual in nature. The Empress and Emperor, then, are perhaps a physical shadow of the Papesse and Pope. The fecund nature of the Empress is in the physical plane, (the transfiguration [death] of the formless potentia which is the fool, born into the physical world [world of form]). All realization comes from the womb of the Empress. The Papesse, then, is perhaps the spiritual, physically intangible counterpart of the Empress. Likewise the same relationship could be said to exist between the Emperor and the Pope -- both avatars of an active ordering or consolidation -- one physical, the other spiritual. One could say that there can be no tangible kingdom without an Empress and Emperor to rule or measure out form. As for the intrinsic qualities of the kingdom, there must be a Papesse and Pope to define this as well. I had found the following from the "Tarot Hermit", regarding the ordering of the four cards: Quote: There was clearly persistent hesitation over the proper placement of the Papess. It was taken for granted that the Pope must outrank the Emperor, Empress, and the Papess. It was also clear that the Emperor must outrank the Empress. The two most "logical" possibilities are to pair off the four figures, either with both women coming first (and Papess outranking Empress), or with both imperial cards coming first. What is noteworthy is the presence of a third, less obvious arrangement:_Papess - Empress - Emperor - Pope, as in the Marseilles ordering. It is instructive to tabulate the use of these three different arrangements: Papess - Empress - Emperor - Pope:_Rosenwald (A), Geoffroy (C), Marseilles (C) Empress - Emperor - Papess - Pope:_Steele sermon (B), Bertoni (B), Garzoni (B) Empress - Papess - Emperor - Pope: Metropolitan Museum (B), Susio (C) The Gringonneur and Rouen cards have the Emperor directly below the Pope, but the relative order of Papess and Empress is not known. The Minchiate and Bologna orderings are ambiguous. Notice that none of the broad ordering categories is associated unambiguously with a particular Papess position, although Empress - Emperor - Papess - Pope is very common in the eastern (B) tradition, and Papess - Empress - Emperor - Pope is common in the western tradition. If the variations in the placement of the Papess are ignored, the Metropolitan Museum order then agrees exactly with the Bertoni and Garzoni order, and with the Rouen order. The Steele sermon order differs from them only in exchanging Love and the Chariot. It leads me to wonder if this had anything at all to do with the final ordering of these cards in the Marseilles-style decks, due to their inter-locking relationship to one another. Finally, what is interesting is the comparison between say, Temperance and The Papesse and how they are different and why, but that is alot more than I want to type right now. (whew!)

Thirteen	02 Aug 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Kiama We conceive an idea, just as we conceive a child. We let it gestate for a while, often thinking about it, toying with it, thinking about what it will be like when it finally emerges as a fully grown child/idea. Then, we give birth to it. We turn the idea into reality, and we give birth to a baby. I think you hit the nail right on the head--at least for me. The pregnancy aspect of the card is metaphorical. I've never taken it as literally, not once; and I probably never will unless there's other cards to strongly support it. I always remember that the Empress is Venus--which isn't just goddess of Love meaning Romance, but goddess of things you love as well. She represents your passion, the thing you will tend to, nurture; that which you see as beautiful. To me she's as much gardener as "mother"--and when I say "mother" I don't just mean a womb. In fact, I think it goes beyond childbirth. The Empress is there through those early stages, watching anxiously, protectively (anyone who draws the Empress card as their stand-in--don't even think about criticising their baby--whatever that baby may be), proudly and happily as it grows, crawls, walks and learns to talk. Her baby or garden is her whole world. Think of the guy who manages a single rock band though their first few albums, till they hit stardom and leave him. Think of a scientist working on one forumla for years. Or an artist spending day after day at his easel, his whole world. The thing you love, the baby you find beautiful. Which is why I also worry when I see the Empress. It's hard for her to see any baby grow up enough that it can leave her. Ever meet a guy who owns a huge business and when you remark on it, he doesn't glow with pride but says, sadly, "It was better when we started, when it was just a little business with a few people and I was running it alone. Not like now with other folk in charge...." He's being the Empress. She will always bring out the photo album of baby pictures, she'll always want to keep the garden pruned. It's very hard for her to admit that a thing is old enough to be on its own.

RainbowFire	05 Aug 2003
The Empress card always reminds me of my Granmother - planting her seeds in the garden, nurturing the soil, watering it, watching the flowers grow, tending to them, all the time growing with pride. her flowers are her babies now. I've never thought the Empress to just mean literally having a baby and physical fertility... in fact one of my meaning books said this today (I study a card a day and today's was Empress) - mental creativity, starting a new project etc... Step by Step tarot said for this that we spend too much time in front of TVs like zombies. We should get up and do empress-like activities, creative things ie... acting, writing, painting!! Creating something can be anything from a book to a living child. I'd usually take the other cards in the spread to work out just what the card is telling me to "create". Do I seem to be on the right track? :S

Elle	05 Aug 2003
I read someone's cards recently and the Empress was reversed next to the Devil - this was just a free-form, no-position 2 card spread. Does not bode well for the Querent, I thought. What do you think? Elle

Thirteen	06 Aug 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Elle I read someone's cards recently and the Empress was reversed next to the Devil - this was just a free-form, no-position 2 card spread. Does not bode well for the Querent, I thought. What do you think? No, I'd say this person is so chained to something or someone that she's pretty much restricted her ability to create or nurture what she creates. If the querent is female, I might even guess that she's in a relationship with a man who dominates her and makes her question and doubt herself--or perhaps she has an employer who, likewise, makes her doubt herself.

The The Empress - My Take thread was originally posted on 01 Aug 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.