Traditionally entitled “Empress,” this major arcana or “trump” card portrays the energy of the Great Mother. She is Nature, around us and within us, an always unfolding Source of Power that gives life. She is sometimes protrayed as a pre-Christian Goddess, as the one whom the High Priestess is channeling down to earth for the rest of us.
In medieval Europe, the Empress card was painted to represent whatever Queen currently ruled the land, depending on region or country and it has been indicated that it was to satisfy the Inquisitors. But Renaissance scholars had no doubt of her true identity, although she could not be fully revealed on Tarot cards as the “woman clothed with the sun” until after the French Revolution. In early Christianity, the Virgin Mary was referred to as “the woman clothed in the Sun”
This archetype of femininity also symbolizes fertility. She is the one who provides us nourishment and security. She is the Protectress of the Hearth. She is sometimes seen as offering us flowers and fruit. A potentially terrifying aspect of this archetype manifests itself whenever karmic mood swings wipe out our plans, like a storm that has come upon us. Whatever happens, the Empress is the Source of our Embodiment and of Natural Law. She might even be called “the Great Upheaval”, as she tosses everything about and ‘cleans house’, getting rid of that we no longer need and reusing it somewhere else.
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