The Empress is the fourth card in the major arcana and represents abundance, fertility, the divine feminine, nurturing, creativity and sensuality. The Empress is represented by the number three as it’s connected to energies of manifestation, creation, birth and rebirth. The number three represents communication, the exchange of information, creativity, manifestation and the holy trinity.
The Empress is connected to the element of earth and the zodiac sign Taurus, as it’s associated with the fertile earth, stability, your values, self-love and self-care. This card symbolizes that there is fertile energy and potential around you at this time and that it may be in your best interest to get in touch with your creativity in order to “give birth” to something abundant in your life.
This card is also connected to the planet Venus which represents love, values, abundance, creativity, prosperity, relationships and sensuality. Because of this the Empress can also be connected to things like self-expression, how you nurture yourself and the relationships in your life and how you express your values.
The Empress Meaning
This card shows that you’re manifesting something into being and that there are seeds being planted at this time which if you nurture correctly will sprout, grow and develop into something potentially abundant. The image on the card shows a woman sitting on a throne in a lush forest wearing a crown and holding a scepter. Sometimes she’s also portrayed as being pregnant due to her fertile nature.
In the card, the Empress is wearing a gown decorated with pomegranates which symbolize regeneration, life, fertility, abundance, the menstrual cycle and initiation. Pomegranates were a sacred symbol in the ancient world and are also connected to the myth of Persephone and Hades. So the Empress can symbolize the beginning stages of an initiation into the mysteries of life that are centered around the process of creation, birth and rebirth.
The Empress is ruled by earth energies which are typically slower moving and require loving care in order to grow. Therefore, when the Empress comes up in a reading it can show that you will need to play a consistent role in bringing your manifestations to life and that this will be something that doesn’t happen overnight. Alternatively, the Empress can also represent things like pregnancy, the mother archetype, self-love, self-care and the goddess. Always look to the cards around it for clarification or to get a deeper meaning.
Upright
Divine Feminine energy, fertility, abundance, creativity, sensuality, mother earth, a connection to nature, femininity, nurturing, care-taking, a mother figure, beauty, creative self-expression, the holy trinity or maiden, mother and crone.
Reversed
Taking care of everyone else but yourself, feeling disconnected from your creative abilities, in need of self-love, self-care and self-compassion, feeling uninspired, being overly protective, going into the cocoon to prepare for rebirth.
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THE AWAKENED SAGE 