“I care for what I care for, at my discretion.”
The Empress is traditionally viewed as a passive figure, who has just enough agency to keep the household in check but not enough agency to do anything without the Emperor’s edict. She is often portrayed as reclining or sitting in a bountiful field ripe for harvest and is implied to be pregnant if not explicitly drawn as such. This implies that she is not able or permitted to do much of anything for herself but must always have the Emperor and his Empire in mind.
But that is not how I have encountered the archetype of this card. Instead of passive acceptance, the Empress is a figure of deliberate action, including the deliberate decision to do nothing for the moment. Instead of keeping others in mind, the Empress keeps herself in mind first, and considers others if doing so furthers her personal goals. This is not to say that the Empress is selfish and seeking an increase in power for the sake of power. But that the personal goal of the Empress is to have a bounty for herself and for those upon whom she has chosen to bestow her favor.
The Empress is the Matriarch of her clan and those she has claimed as hers. She is always aware of the status of her chosen and of the environment in which they reside. She is aware that to have a great bounteous harvest requires a lot of work during the year. The fields must be prepared, worked, and maintained. She is also aware that the bounty will not harvest itself. The harvest must be collected, processed, and used or stored before it rots. It will be used to feed her peoples. It will be traded for goods and favors. In the end, it will be given back to the lands as seed or fertilizer, to prepare future harvests. None of it will be wasted.
And it is because of this exacting and cyclical process that the Empress can be as harsh and as demanding as the Emperor. It is her desire that none of her peoples spend a single day in lack. If this means taking the Empire to war to force the neighboring peoples to yield their harvests to her, she will do just that. In this way, the Empress can be as cold and sharp as any martial weapon.
In a single card reading, the Empress asks if the Querent is knowledgeable of their resources, and if they are aware of their capabilities. The card rarely answers “yes” or “no” but instead reflects the query back onto the Querent by asking if the Querent has completed any preparations for their end goal prior to the reading. If the Querent has not, then their first step is to define what is it they really want and what would it take to get there. As such, the Empress’s timing is “eventually” and calls for patience without interfering in the process.
In a multi-card reading, the Empress is counsel and action. While the query will provide the context of the answer, the cards surrounding the Empress will mark if to let the field sit fallow without action, or if to send the workers into the field. Whatever the Empress advises the Querent to do, it should be done deliberately and without rushing. The process of completing the work is as important as the completed work.
Ill-aspected or reversed, the Empress can indicate unearned aggression towards others, jealousy and/or covetousness of the achievements and resources of others, or a sharp turn towards fulfilling their personal desires regardless of the effect doing so will have on anyone else. Instead of being methodical about the process, the Querent is rushing without care, often breaking the very thing that they wanted along the way. The Querent could be so focused on personal satisfaction that they are poisoning their friends’ good will with their demands. In the extreme, the Querent is outright taking what they want from everyone around them while refusing to consider the consequences of their actions until it is irrevocably visited upon them. The Empress asks the Querent who do they consider as part of their clan and what are they willing to do to help those chosen. The card does not ask the Querent to choose according to social expectations. It asks the Querent to choose according to their heart. For whom is the Querent willing to share their resources and potential with, and to what extent.
Next Card: II – The High Priestess – “You can ask any question, but the answer will be your next question.”
Noxporium’s Tarot Card Masterpost: 78 Tarot Cards
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