Following the continuation of moving through each card, we now move into card #3- The Empress. The Empress is a beautiful card, and holds a lot more in terms of invitations and energies than I believe people give her credit for in readings.
As always, this is my interpretation of this card, and if you read it another way, that is terrific.
We just went through the invitations of the High Priestess, which invite you to listen to the magick around you, deepening your own intuition. The High Priestess says that once you become aware to the magick within and around you (from the Magician), the next things to do is to anchor into that magick. What is it saying to you? What does it feel like? Do you feel changed at all? All this and more is what comes through with the High Priestess.
Once you have rooted into your intuition, the Empress springboards from that card, saying that what you conjure is now in alignment with your intuition, the deep depths of self. The Empress is not simply a fertility card, and we will discuss some of her darker, shadow energy for consideration, but one thing is for sure with this card: The Empress is a conjurer, a steward of the dark and the light. She embodies the alchemical forces of life.
Opening to Expansive Energy of the Fool
Before I even begin to discuss what the Empress is, I want to invite you to consider ways that she exists and comes through in a reading WITHOUT speaking to fertility, or the sacred feminine. I know that in many ways the fertile energies is about birthing new ideas, creative endeavors, or passions, but that term can lead into problematic waters because we are still placing a narrative of natural “birthing” on women, like that is the only thing they can and should be doing.
Also, many of you know how I feel about the term sacred feminine. If you don’t, here is the lowdown. Much of the terms and energies we use to describe the sacred feminine still come with a stripping of power, come with a layer of recusal of self into the collective. It often places the sacred feminine in a place of submission, and I don’t have to point far to say that even in 2024, women are still on a lesser level than men.
With that out of the way, here is the first way that I read the Empress: She brings what is in the darkness, in the intuitive waters from the High Priestess into the light. She nourishes, safeguards, protects and carries the primordial interconnective threads of life, including death. This means that she is a channel for the dead and the dying. Like the High Priestess who works on the spectrum of cycles with the waxing and waning phases of the Moon, the Empress also works on the spectrum of cycles, here with the cycles of life and death. Throughout the process of each, we see her nourishing, tending, safeguarding, and fiercely standing up and fighting for those who cannot do so for themselves.
Let’s take a look at some of the images in this post so far. The Empress from the Dark Wood Tarot shows a beautiful woman in red, pregnant, with her hand touching her belly in a loving, protective gesture. Here is what I love about the image. The vivid red paints her as a stark and beautiful figure, standing out from her surroundings, which she does. The red dress is said to speak to menstrual blood, the membrane of life. Menstrual blood also indicates a death-cycle with the shedding of the uterine wall, and the release of the ovum from the body.
The Empress from the Guardian of the Night tarot shows a female fox standing guard while her kit sleeps soundly in the den she made. The Fox represents the resourceful, cunning nature of the Empress. The guidebook mentions that the Empress is never lacking because she is constantly connected to the emotional-spiritual-material realm with trust and strength, which I absolutely love. This means that the Empress is open to constantly find and resource what she needs. The Empress from the Tarot of Dragons shows a great gathering of all living creatures. When the Earth thrives all thrive, even predator and prey. Again, this speaks to the interconnective threads of life and death, apex and ungulate, big and small. The Empress is the channel that speaks to the life force in all things, and how that channel in me is the same in you. When tapped into, she says that we all can conjure a life of plenty, of beauty, and protection.
The next way I read that the Empress is: she is connected to all creations within the world, and it is vital that this connection holds the honest account of the health, vitality, and strength of the world. This means that the Empress implores us to NOT turn away when we are looking at the destruction of rainforests, the mass extinction we are in. The Empress says that to be connected to this world, we have to be connected to truth of it, only from that space can we make change. This engages the darker (but not necessarily shadow side of the Empress).
Consider for a moment of the destruction that is happening in the world. The oil barrels flooding the Gulf of Mexico. The genocide happening in the Sudan, the Congo, in Palestine. Think of how the people living in these places are facing famine and disease and violence and death. Think of how much will need to be rebuilt in these areas that have been so heavily bombed and decimated. That is as much a part of Mother Earth as a pristine, crystal-clear river, or a majestic mountaintop.
The Empress says that if we truly want to be part of the creative, growing, and thriving forces of life, then we cannot turn away from the ugliness and brutality. We must lean in to the truth, holding our despair as sacred ground for possibilities to be made, for bridges to come together, and for systems of oppression to finally fall. The Empress invites you to consider: how can you be strong in your convictions towards the connective threads of all living things.
Another invitation with the Empress is: to be a guardian and steward for the cycles of life is not without scars and battles fought. The Empress is a great force of life, which means she knows the power of death, and she has had to fight for both. This is why I dislike the Empress seen as just a motherly figure, a pregnant woman, or simply feminine. No. The Empress is a fighter, a warrior for her beliefs, and the rights of others.
If she were a historical figure she would Joan of Arc, Boudicca, Susan B Anthony, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and many other warrior women and queens who have stood up to the wrongs of this world, armed with the strength, fortitude, intuition, and conviction to make change, not simply for themselves, but for all who have been marginalized, pushed to the fringes, deemed lesser than because of the systems of power.
The Empress is Card Images, Literature, and Movies
The Empress in the Spirit Animal Tarot (left image) is depicted as the Cow, and is invocative of the way the cow is revered in India. Seen as the earthly and material embodiment of the Divine Mother Goddess who blesses, nourishes and provides for the people, cows connect people to the threshold of life and the divine. This makes sense. Cows, and all forms of livestock were the conduits for survival. Their milk, eggs, cheese, and meat allowed people and villages to endure harsh winters and long stretches indoors.
The Dream Carrier (again…holding her pregnant belly) sits on a chair in the watery flow of a river, symbolizing the rooted nature into intuition and emotions, but also now in the light and facing the long horizon. She holds a book and a pomegranate (symbolic of knowledge in the spiritual and esoteric, and the pomegranate speaks to the cycles of life and death, and the womb), while her young boy stands in front of her, looking out to the great big world. All she can do for her child is to help the make the world a beautiful anchor for his potential, while also knowing that she cannot impede his own growth or destiny.
This is by far my favorite depiction of the Empress, and it comes from the Hush Tarot. The Empress here wears the hood of the spiritual, the veil, of life’s secrets and mysteries. She has plucked the feathers to use for her own flight or journey between the spiritual and material world.
The bees around her weave in the alchemical thread of life. Bees are naturally symbols for birth and fertility (the birds and the bees), but the bees also speak to the alchemical forces of creation. They turn flower pollen into honey, and are a keystone species for our planet. The Bee represents the creative and interconnective thread of all our lives.
The Empress also has wounds and scars from her journey into the darkness and the light. Again, a testament to what we said before. She is a warrior, a fighter, and a protector for the life force of all things. She is bruised and weary, but still she stands up to the oppressive powers and stands for the truth. What a stunning image.
One depiction I believe we see of the Empress is with Amy Adam’s character in the movie Arrival. I mentioned this on a TikTok, but I will mention it here too why I think she depicts the Empress. Please note that there will be spoilers in here, even thought the movie did come out in 2016.
At the beginning of the movie, we see Amy Adams go through these beautiful moments of becoming a new mother, but unfortunately she ends up losing her daughter to a rare disease. The next big scene is her at a college being confronted by these government officials who want her help as a linguist when these pods arrive from space.
Accepting the job, she is tasked, along with Jeremey Renner who plays a theoretical physicist, to learn how to communicate with the aliens and decipher their codes. Eventually, the world starts to assume that the aliens want warfare and are preparing to strike them with nuclear weapons if need be. During this time, we keep seeing flashbacks to her time as a mother, and we as the audience think she is naturally returning to a time of love, innocence, and simplicity.
Eventually, they learn that the aliens do not want war, but want to give humanity their language which is a tool that allows them to approach universal time. This means that when we are seeing the moments of Amy Adams in motherhood, these aren’t past event that have happened, but future events to come. She even says when Renner leans in for an intimate embrace, “I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.” The moments of her daughter are future events to come, and she still chooses to birth this child, knowing that her daughter is still going to die for this incurable disease.
Now, we could have the debate of what choice would we make, but I think Amy Adams beautifully depicts the Empress because she still chooses beauty, love, and life knowing the brutal truth of what is to come, and I think the Empress asks us to still create beautiful things amidst the dark truths.
More Representations of the Empress
The Empress from the Ostara Tarot is another one of my favorites, partially because it is a younger girl, no pregnancy, and she is fully embodying a sovereign spirit, yet interconnective to the growth around her, which leads me into one of the shadow aspects of the Empress- to give so fully of yourself and your energy that you shrink and fade away while everything else shines. This is why I dislike a lot about the sacred feminine, because it often says that women must relinquish autonomy into collective, while masculinity is full autonomy. The Empress in the shadow is letting everyone take from you, always saying yes, and depleting your own inner growth for the sake of others. The Empress asks you to know when and where your limits reside.
The Empress from the Crow Tarot shows a crow flying over a fertile and abundant field of trees and fruits and a full river. Again the Empress is journeyer, a wayfinder, a carrier. She brings the darkness, the seeds, the potentials, the mysteries into the light and makes space for them here to plant and grow and develop. That means one of the shadow aspects into impatience, not knowing when some things need to lie fallow- it is not their time yet. There is also a shadow element here not wanting to see the whole truth like mentioned before.
Finally, we have a radiant tree from the Wild Unknown against a moonlit background. This image says to me that sometimes the brightest parts of our light aren’t ready to be out in the open, that we need that waning time of the moon for rest and release. A shadow aspect absolutely. There is this narrative that we must always be there for others, producing, in the light, and available. Again, the Empress asks for patience, boundaries, and inner knowing of when something is ready to germinate, and when it needs lie fallow for a while.
The Empress from the Herbcrafter’s Tarot is embodied in the rose. The rose is beautiful and sensual, but also has thorns that will prick and hurt if not treated with mindfulness. All parts of a wild rose are medicinal or useful, and the guidebook mentions finding strength in vulnerability. This leads me to one of the Empress’s most potent shadow element- the unhealed and wounded heart. While we are so busy caring for others, we often don’t heal, tend, or acknowledge our wounds, or rage. The Empress in the shadow is walled off, bitter, resentful, and targets those who are easy to be the sounding board for her pain.
Finally, we see a beautiful fairy standing on a bridge holding a basket of abundance while butterflies create a circle around the sun. Her love for the world is shown by the heart on her clothing, and the wreath she holds next to the basket. Roses dot the bottom portion of the card. This card shows once again that beautiful interconnectivity to the world at large, to the cycles of transformation with the Butterfly. One final thing I want to mention with the Empress’s shadow side is the one we place on her. She is beautiful, worldly, heavenly, and abundant, but like the truth around our butterflies of the world right now, we cannot paint her with rose-colored glasses. We must start to look at the truth and do the good we can for the world from that place. Both beautiful and brutal, we are a part of this world….for better or worse.
Ashlie McDiarmid
Hello there! I hope you liked this blog post. As a tarot and oracle reader, my goal with my blogs is to offer you content, resources, and access to the tools that have transformed my life.
I believe that your own intuition is the deepest form of knowing, but here in my little corner of the internet, I share insights based in intuition and instinct. I share my love for nature, witchcraft, and the wild spirit.
- If your spirit is at home in wild places
- If you feel the need to claim your autonomy as ritual
- If you want to more deeply trust your own intuition
- If you want resources or connections to tarot, oracle, witchcraft, and wild sovereignty, then welcome!
