TAROT CARD GUIDE

The Empress Tarot Card Meaning & Interpretations

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The Empress Card from the Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Introduction

Kingdom: A country ruled by a king (or queen).
Empire: A group of countries (under one ruler).

The Empress is the Queen of Queens. Each Queen in the Minor Arcana reigns over one elemental domain. The Queen of Cups is the feminine ruler of Water. The Queen of Pentacles is the feminine ruler of Earth. The Empress is ruler of all 4 Elemental Kingdoms.

In the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) Tarot deck the direction in which the Empress and Queens look is a significant detail. The Queen of Swords faces right, or East, and gestures with her left hand in that direction. She is focused entirely on the future. Her back to the past, no interest in the present. The Queen of Wands is almost with us in the present. Her body is facing front though her attention is drawn to the future with her head turned to the right. The other two Queens are both lost in the past, facing left, or West.

The direction in which a character is facing is an important, subtle and often missed, detail in cartomancy's symbology. It tells us about the querent's state of mind and where their attention and focus is. If someone is unhappy they tend to be lost in the past or worrying about the future. They are never fully in the present moment. If you look closely at each of the RWS's Queens you'll see that they each lack something. The Queen of Wands has no water, The Queen of Swords no vegetation.

The Empress has it all. She is beautifully dressed, wearing a crown, holding a sceptre, has a water running through rich fertile lands, trees in the background and a clear bright yellow sky. There is something missing though. In Tarot you must also be aware of what’s not in the picture, what’s missing, as well as what is there. The tall trees behind her protect her, and her lands, from strong winds. This is the element of Air kept in check and controlled.

Her attention is fully with us. She sits relaxed looking directly at you. She is content and happy with what she has right now. The Empress often represents where a woman wants to be in life.

The Empress embodies femininity, fertility, beauty, creativity, self expression and feminine desires. Her empire is a harmonious blend of all the elements which nurture creativity and growth. Although the RWS deck's Empress shows no child or pregnancy, other decks often depict her either pregnant or nursing a baby or both symbolising fertility. This card can point to a pregnancy or the desire to be fertile and pregnant. The symbology often contains references to Venus, the Greek and Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility. Venus in Latin translates as love or sexual desire. The appearance of The Empress can indicate plans, events or endeavours that have not yet come to fruition but are gestating, growing and receiving, or needing, nurture. As a person she can be a mother, or mother figure.

Numerology: The Empress is card number 3 of the Major Arcana. This is the number of creativity, joy, good fortune, self expression and social gatherings.

The Empress in a Tarot Reading

The Empress describes the conditions in which life, creativity and contentment can flourish. As the Queen of Queens, she combines the four elemental domains rather than attending to only one. Her abundance is a living environment, with nourishment, beauty and room for growth working together.

Her attention is also in the present. Unlike the Queens whose gaze is drawn towards past or future, she meets the viewer directly. In a reading, this can ask whether you are able to receive and enjoy what is already here while caring for what is still developing.

Upright Meaning

Upright, The Empress can indicate creativity taking a tangible form. A project, home, relationship or personal endeavour may be growing because it is receiving the right mixture of attention and practical support. Development is underway even if the finished result is not yet visible.

The number 3 connects this growth with expression, enjoyment and social life. There may be pleasure in making something, sharing it or creating a place where other people feel welcome. The card's richness is broader than material display: it includes the ability to feel at home in what you have created.

The Empress can represent a mother or nurturing figure, or bring parenting and fertility themes into a question already concerned with them. The image alone cannot establish pregnancy. Its wider principle is the care that helps something new become established.

Upright keywords: nurture, creativity, abundance, growth, beauty, motherhood, expression, contentment, fertile conditions.

Reversed Meaning

Reversed, The Empress may suggest that growth lacks something essential. An idea might receive enthusiasm without practical care, or a household might function efficiently while leaving little space for warmth and enjoyment. Consider which element of nourishment is missing.

Another possibility is care that becomes excessive. Doing everything for someone can prevent their independence, while pouring attention into others can leave your own resources depleted. The reversal can therefore concern either insufficient nurture or a form of nurture that no longer supports healthy development.

It may also describe difficulty enjoying the present because attention remains fixed on what is missing. This is different from pretending real needs do not exist; the task is to see both available abundance and genuine gaps clearly.

Reversed keywords: neglected growth, creative blockage, depleted care, overprotection, discontent, imbalance, dependence, difficulty receiving.

Love and Relationships

In relationships, The Empress can suggest affection expressed through warmth, physical closeness and a welcoming shared life. The partnership may be developing a home, considering family life or simply becoming more comfortable and generous in everyday ways.

Its nurturing quality should circulate between people. Reversed, one partner may become the permanent caregiver while their own needs go unnoticed. Alternatively, comfort may be taken for granted. Ask what makes the relationship feel alive and cared for, rather than assuming that a beautiful appearance or established routine is enough.

Work and Career

At work, The Empress favours developing an idea through patient attention to the conditions it needs. Creative work, a growing business or a collaborative environment may benefit from resources, encouragement and time to mature. The emphasis is cultivation, not forcing an instant result.

Reversed, a project may be launched before it has sufficient support, or constant interference may prevent it finding its own form. Consider what the work actually needs at this stage. More attention is not always better attention, especially when it replaces the freedom to develop.

Money and Finances

For money questions, The Empress can concern material comfort and the use of resources to support a satisfying life. Spending may be directed towards home, food, beauty or the development of something valuable. The question is whether resources nourish lasting wellbeing.

Reversed, purchases may imitate abundance without creating contentment, or generosity may exceed what you can comfortably sustain. Review the balance between enjoying what you have and maintaining the resources that make such enjoyment possible. The card's symbolism of growth does not promise financial returns.

Advice from The Empress

Provide the conditions that make growth possible, then allow it time. Include your own needs within that care. Take notice of what is already flourishing instead of measuring every moment against a future in which everything is finally complete.

Ask yourself: What needs nurturing now, and am I allowing myself to enjoy what has already grown?

The Empress's abundance is most meaningful when it can be lived in, shared and sustained.

The Empress According to A. E. Waite

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot
Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The sceptre which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation.

In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus; and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism--as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.