The Empress
Tarot Card for Libra

by Stephanie Jean Clement, Ph.D

  "”To affirm what is true and will what is just, is already to create it; to affirm and will the contrary is to vow oneself to destruction … Every positive force in the universe has an exactly similar for of negative attributes."
 

- Church of Light

 "The Empress-woman herself is often as unconscious as others of her powers.It seems to her that everybody else should quite naturally share here enthusiasms.Being touched by Venus, this woman loves beauty in all forms and is often eclectic in her taste, combining things in a new and interesting way. “But the Great Mother is not always the Good Mother.On a grand scale her negative devouring and smothering aspect is called the Terrible Mother.In fairy tales we meet her as the wicked queen or cruel stepmother who jealously tries to keep Cinderella from rising out of the ashes to meet her prince. “But this witch, Hecate-like, wears many faces.If we treat her with civility she may show us a more civilized aspect.”
 

- Sallie Nichols

"She is the Thought,
Which spinneth the plan of existence,
That web of manisfestation
Which entangleth the minds of fools,
And giveth understanding to the wise
Who know the secret of its mystery."

"In her is concealed the plentitude of Tetragrammaton
And hidden in that Doorway of Perplexity
Is the Sun, who is from all and among all.

"This is the Gateway of life and form."
 

- Paul Foster Case

The Empress represents all the many faces of the feminine.Each woman we know will at one time or another express the personality of the child, the mother, the companion, the lover, the goddess, the destroyer, or the virgin. We continue to be astonished at the range of creative potential from the Empress, who is the very essence of the creative energy of the universe.
 

- Stephanie Clement

Sources

Zain, C. C., The Sacred Tarot. Los Angeles, The Church of Light, 1936.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey. York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, 1980.

Case, Paul Foster, The Book of Tokens: 22 Meditations on the Ageless Wisdom. Los Angeles, Builder of the Adytum, 1968.

Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, known also as the Rider Tarot and the Waite Tarot (Copyright 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.)

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