The Empress Tarot Card: Fertility, Abundance, and Creative Power

Strong, harmonious, perfect… Who or what is this about? We’re talking about the Major Arcana — The Empress. In any Tarot deck, she is depicted as a luxurious woman sitting on a throne. What meaning does the Major Arcana Empress have in spreads and combinations with other cards? Let’s examine the Empress tarot card’s meaning and what it indicates when it appears.

The Symbolism and Meaning of the Empress Tarot Card

The Empress is a powerful Tarot card. For the querent, it is a sign that they are on the right path and good changes are coming in their life. In love relationships, the person awaits a happy harmonious marriage and the birth of children. In matters both in the future and in the Empress’s present position — success in endeavors, career advancement, and high income. In health matters, the Empress card favors motherhood and often predicts the birth of children, relief from women’s diseases, and infertility.

The Empress embodies the awakening of nature and the energy of abundance. This is a good card; there are all reasons to rejoice at its presence in the spread. It foretells a rich time, full of satisfying events.

The situation favors the querent, and events are developing quite quickly. The Empress possesses colossal life-giving energy, so there is every reason to believe that what has long been dormant will wake up under her influence and give new strong shoots, whether it’s a new project, personal relationships, a health improvement course, building a house, or a dissertation once abandoned. Any endeavor under her patronage flourishes and grows.

At the highest level, she symbolizes Protection and has a significant meaning of Defense, guardianship over the querent’s fate, at least at present. Traditional meanings are fruitful development, progress, active creation, and realization of possibilities. In the upright position, she symbolizes creation, beauty, and goodness in daily and material affairs, in feelings and thoughts. Her maternal gifts are security, physical and emotional comfort, enjoyment of life, celebration of soul and body, and sometimes the gift of mutual love.

The Empress in the Major Arcana: Her Role and Position

The Empress is traditionally a significator of a woman — wife, mother — and female influence on the question. It is possible that this card is a sign that some benevolent woman is involved in the matter, who for one reason or another has taken the querent under her patronage, or simply plays an important role in their life, most often — loving and beloved.

In essence, the card symbolizes the progress of the feminine principle in a person, regardless of their gender, about personal growth precisely in this key. Moreover, this is an active, creative, energetic feminine principle, radiating the energy of creation. This is the development of body wisdom and emotionality, sensuality, and feelings, and the ability to love and be loved, which makes a person beautiful. The “feminine” instinct, or more precisely — maternal, caring, and nurturing, helps to intuitively make the right decisions and gently manage this world. Generosity, hospitality, kindness.

The desire for luxury, “full life,” abundance, nourishment, and need for love. This is physical and emotional comfort, achieving stabilization. Harmonizing one’s own life, striving to live in joy and enjoy earthly sensual pleasures. Some authors believe that the Empress indicates a period of turbulent emotions, strong desires, fierce thirst for life. But just as well she can give pacification, similar to what people usually experience in nature. In any case, the growth predicted by the Empress noticeably changes a person.

What does the Empress tarot card mean? If this Arcana falls to a woman in a personal spread, then the best qualities inherent in a beloved, wife, and mother are manifested in her (everything depends on what role she currently plays).

The Empress Card in Tarot Readings: Upright and Reversed

The Empress upright personifies luck and fortune. The person who received it can rely on fate and enjoy the good streak in their life. Perhaps matters that have not yielded results for a long time will move from a standstill. Sometimes the Empress means luck specifically in love affairs and predicts marriage or conception of a child.

In the reversed position, the Empress tarot means does not foretell development or interesting work projects. Rather the opposite — problems with money.  Often in these difficulties in their life, the person themself is to blame — they are lazy, have no willpower, and cannot curb their selfishness, jealousy, or greed. In some cases, the Mistress speaks of a major quarrel with a loved one, divorce, and unwanted pregnancy.

The Empress in Different Tarot Spreads and Contexts

The Empress Tarot in The Layout for Love

The direct position of the Empress of love means that the right choice has been made — nearby is a person with whom you are happy. You must cherish this relationship and not deviate from the chosen path. Sometimes the card warns that in the partner’s environment, there is someone who interferes or may interfere with the relationship.

In the reversed form, the Arcana brings quarrels, separation from a loved one, and loneliness. The Empress card can speak of unpleasant surprises from the partner, marriage of convenience, unwanted pregnancy, and venereal disease.

The Empress Tarot in The Layout for Work and Career

If a person draws the Empress’s future card in the upright position, then their affairs will be successful. They will be able to get the job they dreamed of, make a good career, or earn a lot of money. Sometimes this Arcana predicts a romance with a successful person who will help gain power, success, and wealth.

The Empress reversed meaning is stagnation and failures in affairs. Probably, at work, the person will not cope with their duties, and they may be fired or demoted. In business, problems may begin due to the fault of incompetent employees or the machinations of competitors.