This week’s card is The Empress! This past weekend was the Fall Fair in my little town, and that always means the beginning of harvest time. The Empress represents beauty and nature, creativity and nurturing, material prosperity and bountiful harvests!

Image via Tourism New Brunswick

This time of year is so inspiring – it’s getting cold, so thoughts of sweaters and new outfit combinations, new ideas for recipes, switches from cool, refreshing summer drinks to warm, comforting winter ones. It’s getting cold outside, so we’re turning to the warmth of home and the indoors! The Empress represents not only planting and the resulting harvest, but also warm homes where talents and passions can be nurtured.

Golden Dawn Astrology associates The Empress with the planet Venus. The Empress is the embodiment of the feminine, of the inner world as opposed to the outer. Both Venus and The Empress exude beauty & sensuality, and are harbingers of material prosperity!

Image via Gabi+Eran=Mia+Daniel

I originally planned to find a picture of a pregnant woman painting – searching that in google images brings up some weird results!! Looking through pregnant woman painting walls, I started coming across some sweet pictures with both parents painting – and then I found this adorable one of a little family posing in front of some beautiful graffiti. I love how this represents nurturing – the family feeling inspired to take a photo, and demonstrating to their young child art appreciation!

The Empress is usually associated with the Roman numeral III. I have come to associate the number 3 in Tarot as the number of Creativity and Nurturing. The Empress especially is about “mothering:” that is, guiding to fruition/completion, be it of pregnancy, raising a child to an adult, or seeing a creative project through to the finishing touch! This card can also represent marriage, pregnancy, or birth in their many forms. It’s all about joyful creation!

Image via Thematic Tarot

On the other hand, the reversed position represents the darker side of investing so much love into creating. The Empress’s boundless creativity can be overwhelming, to the point of creative block! And her need to nurture can create dependencies that are hard to free herself from. The Mythic Tarot represents The Empress with Demeter, the Earth Mother. Demeter’s downfall came when she was separated from her daughter, Persephone, who disappeared to live with Hades as his partner. This destroyed Demeter, who roamed the earth searching for her daughter. Even when she found her and worked out that Persephone would live with Demeter for part of the year and with Hades for the rest, Demeter was so depressed in her daughter’s absence that she couldn’t tend to Nature, resulting in Winter and the death of all crops until Persephone’s return in the Spring.

Image of the Hopewell Rocks via independent.co.uk

A good way to get back on track from creative block is getting back to nature: both in being true to yourself in a way that makes you feel totally comfortable in your surroundings, but also getting outside! Biddy Tarot suggests that this card’s presence can indicate a need for a little trip – however long you can manage – to a favourite nature place. Immediately, I wondered if I could get to the Hopewell Rocks any time soon! After reading Biddy’s nature angle today, I really tries to “take it in” when I took Iris out to run around the driveway and garden today — and it felt great! Now here I am, finally writing the post for this week.

My image for this card is of a pregnant mother gardening with her two small children, surrounded by flowers, and with a fountain nearby and a house in the background! Appropriately for the card’s creative meaning, I’m already flowing with ideas for my painting this week! Check out last week’s High Priestess on Instagram via the widget in the sidebar!

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 Esselmont, Brigit. “Empress Tarot Card Meanings.”Biddy Tarot. Web. Accessed September 22, 2015.

Astrological Oracle Cards. LWB: Lunea Weatherstone. Artwork: Antonella Castelli. Torino, Italy: Lo Scarabeo, 2012. © Lo Scarabeo Italy.

Sharman-Burke, Juliet and Liz Greene. The Mythic Tarot: A New Approach to the Tarot Cards. Cards illustrated by Tricia Newell. Toronto, ON: Stoddart Publishing Co. Ltd, 1988.

Tarot Mucha. LWB: Lunea Weatherstone. Artwork: Giulia F. Massaglia. Torino, Italy: Lo Scarabeo, 2014. © Lo Scarabeo Italy.