The Empress, the nurturing mother - a rant

[Diana]

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Empress as a nurturing loving mother. One website calls her the ever-loving “Great Mother,” who encourages, nurtures, and protects all her children. On Biddy tarot (what is biddy tarot and its history - it pops up all the time when I'm doing research) it says : Femininity, beauty, nature, nurturing, abundance. And one can go through all the websites and they practically all say the same. I assume it's the same in all the books.

I wonder if people ever think of Isabella of Castile and Aragon who ruled jointly with her husband, Ferdinand. She contributed to expelling the Jews and instituting the Inquisition in Spain. Inquisition is not very loving and nurturing.

And then there was Empress Lü Zhi (241–180 BC) who is most notorious for her torture of Concubine Qi, one of Liu Bang’s favourite consorts. She ordered lackeys to blind and remove the tongue of Concubine Qi, chop off all her limbs, before imprisoning her in a pigsty and naming the mutilated woman as a “human swine.” Lü Zhi lorded over the Han Dynasty with fear and might, until her death.

Then there was the Roman Valeria Messalina who spent her free time torturing and exiling people. Then there was Julia Aggripina - who carried out a reign of terror. It is rumoured that she had an incestuous relationship with her son, which I suppose some people would term nurturing....

I just needed to rant a bit. Empresses are not candyfloss and spring flowers. No-one can have such power and remain "pure". Empresses are oftimes ruthless and cruel and vicious down to their very toenails.

I get the impression sometimes that the interpretation of tarot cards always makes the women to be sweet and gentle and kind. It's hugely sexist.

[Natural Mystic Guide]

hence the expression 'two sides to every coin' or in our case as Tarot readers, perhaps it is two faces to every card -- the upright and the reversed. Your examples are perfect illustrations of what I would consider to be the shadow side or the reversed aspects of III The Empress.

Another dynamic present in the Empress card that I like to play with is the pure nurturing mother aspect of the Empress versus the full on seductress sex Goddess. Historically/culturally these two aspects of womanhood are often diametrically opposed. I think that both are inherent in the card and can actually be inherent in a healthy well developed woman. The reversed or shadow side of this is also not pretty.

[Diana]

But I don't see why the Empress should even have a "mother" interpretation. I don't get it. That's not what an Empress symbolises. She's a ruler over an empire. When one ponders the word "empress" would one really start thinking of a mother or motherhood ? I think of someone with great power. Someone one trembles before - even if one respects her and she's not evil but a benevolent ruler. We stand in awe of her. We have to - we are her subjects. She has the power to cut off our heads or banish us if we don't show her what she thinks is her due. She's someone above the people - she's in a hierarchical system and not one that considers everyone equal - or else she wouldn't put herself above the others.

She is part of a monarchy after all.

If she's a "mother" then let's call her Universal Nurturing Mother and forget the Empress.

[Libra]

I think it comes from the same school of thought that says when you pull The Emperor, it's talking about your father. I don't know about everyone, but my dad sure dosen't embody that much traditional Emperor energy.

I am curious about what differences you see between The Emperor and the Empress? Like The High Priestess and The Hierophant have the similar pairing, but the differences between them that fall outside gender make the differentiation pretty easy. I'm not really able to find that much in the difference between Emperor and Empress when it comes to both being rulers.

[Diana]

I am curious about what differences you see between The Emperor and the Empress? Like The High Priestess and The Hierophant have the similar pairing, but the differences between them that fall outside gender make the differentiation pretty easy. I'm not really able to find that much in the difference between Emperor and Empress when it comes to both being rulers.

Well, there is the number III and the number IV to take into account. The Empress, number III is more creative, and uses her intuition also, being of a feminine nature. The Emperor, IV, has all his boundaries and rules already neatly aligned and he won't change his mind according to his mood nor the weather and his fancies. He sort of follows the rule book which he wrote. The Emperor is stable. The Empress a bit more fickle. (talk about stereotypes! - soon I'll be saying that when she has her period one should be wary!!! ). The stability of the Emperor is particularly striking in the Tarot of Marseilles. The Emperor would look at the world as it is, and judge it through what he sees with his eyes. The Empress would judge it also through the lens of her "inner vision". The Emperor wouldn't call on a Rasputin to heal his son, but the Empress would - she's not as down to earth as the Emperor. He's the methodical one - she has more of a fantastical nature at times.

That sort of thing. What do you think? Does this make sense ?

The Daddy/Mummy theory I also adhered to once. But I find it shaky and easy and a bit childish now. Maybe I'm growing up. I think the parental energies are more apparent in the II and the V, Papesse and Pape. (Pape = papa !!!)

[Libra]

I definitely read The Empress as being a creator more than anything else. Like you mentioned, the numbers make a difference here. One is just a dot, two is a line, a connection. Three can create a triangle, the first shape. I'll see any pregnant Empresses more as metaphorical for any and all creation. For the sake of having a tangible difference in reading The Empress vs The Emperor, I tend to see her ruling side less in how she rules, but rather in how she sits within the benefits and privileges of being a ruler, which brings in the abundance side of things that she's often read as. She isn't a character that I ever see left in having her needs unmet. I do tend to read her as like ... Uber Queen energy, and Queens to me are rulers of their suit, but in a very intimate way. They are the ones to offer their gifts on a one on one or small group sort of basis. They change they offer is very tangible, but it's also very personal. In that sense, I do end up seeing her as more nurturing. With her abundance, if she comes to me through the tarot, I know what I'm being asked to remember is my own abundance as well.

There is definitely a weirdness with gender stereotypes in tarot, and I'm really glad to see people who are clever enough to challenge those and make change. There's a book I'm quite interested in called Queering the Tarot that i feel would likely address this. For me, I tend to just like ... not assume that any card is exclusive to any gender. The archetypes may show a gender, and be constructed on stereotypes about those genders and the roles they are meant to play, but anyone may step into and embody those archetypes. One of my strongest Queen of Wands connections is a male musical artist. He fits my understanding of the Queen far more than a King, and I'm not inclined to shoehorn him into the role of a King because of what he's got in his pants, you know?

ETA - I found an article about Queering the Tarot that goes into The Empress & Emperor. It basically just says that mommy/daddy is an outdated way to read the cards and that The Empress is, lo, nurturing lol. http://thecolu.mn/15326/queering-tarot- ... nder-roles

[Tomatosauce]

There's historical precedent for seeing the King and Queen of a land as metaphorically the father and mother of all their subjects. (Think about "sire" and "madam," as forms of address as artifacts of this idea.)

I tend to think of Emperor and Empress as the divine masculine and feminine- the energies you'd most want to work with in their healthiest forms (of course they also contain the reversed meanings, of the toxic expressions of these energies, as well).

[Diana]

I tend to think of Emperor and Empress as the divine masculine and feminine- the energies you'd most want to work with in their healthiest forms (of course they also contain the reversed meanings, of the toxic expressions of these energies, as well).

But if the Empress is the divine feminine, where does the Papesse/High Priestess come in ?

[Aoife]

I think this dates back to the drawing of the Waite Colman Smith deck, conceived less than a decade after the death of Queen Empress Victoria. That Pamela Colman Smith drew the Empress - in her Laura Ashley nightie - the height of bohemian fashion, I see as very much a revolt against the stultifying Victorian era. There's a backlash against corsetry... I don't remember the name of the garment, but a loose-fitting dress became fashionable among the arty elite. Put together PCS's image and Waite's words and the mother/goddess of fertility becomes the template for the 'modern' Empress.

I think Frieda Harris' exquisite image for the Thoth deck shows a return to the Empress as a symbol of female power.

[Libra]

I tend to think of Emperor and Empress as the divine masculine and feminine- the energies you'd most want to work with in their healthiest forms (of course they also contain the reversed meanings, of the toxic expressions of these energies, as well).

But if the Empress is the divine feminine, where does the Papesse/High Priestess come in ?

I don't really see them as like ... stepping on each other's territory, I guess? I've never really seen The High Priestess as Divine Feminine, that's not really the role she plays for me, any more than The Hierophant doesn't really encapsulate the Divine Masculine.

The High Priestess is, to me, is more about being ... receptive to the unknown, or rather the so deeply known that you need to sink in to find it. The Empress has receptivity, too, but it's more receptive to the tangible, material realm, while The High Priestess is the channel to the intuitive.

[Belenus]

But I don't see why the Empress should even have a "mother" interpretation. I don't get it. That's not what an Empress symbolises. She's a ruler over an empire. When one ponders the word "empress" would one really start thinking of a mother or motherhood ? I think of someone with great power. Someone one trembles before - even if one respects her and she's not evil but a benevolent ruler. We stand in awe of her. We have to - we are her subjects. She has the power to cut off our heads or banish us if we don't show her what she thinks is her due. She's someone above the people - she's in a hierarchical system and not one that considers everyone equal - or else she wouldn't put herself above the others.

She is part of a monarchy after all.

If she's a "mother" then let's call her Universal Nurturing Mother and forget the Empress.

BRILLIANT Diana! Thank you!

I so agree. I have always seen the Mama Empress interpretation as a sexist, watered down, fluffy interpretation of a very potent card. Yet again we have to lay the blame for this popular, but inerrant, view to the revision (I prefer desecration) of the traditional tarot by Waite-Smith. The ubiquitousness of the RWS Empress card and its million and one clones has sullied (or petrified) the minds of so many tarot readers that they cut and paste the RWS meaning onto whatever Major III card - even though it it is not an RWS - that they are reading.

< Belenus steps off his high soapbox of rants and rages! LOL >

Belenus

[Diana]

I so agree. I have always seen the Mama Empress interpretation as a sexist, watered down, fluffy interpretation of a very potent card. Yet again we have to lay the blame for this popular, but inerrant, view to the revision (I prefer desecration) of the traditional tarot by Waite-Smith. The ubiquitousness of the RWS Empress card and its million and one clones has sullied (or petrified) the minds of so many tarot readers that they cut and paste the RWS meaning onto whatever Major III card - even though it it is not an RWS - that they are reading.

We can't only blame Waite. People made this tarot theirs. It's the People who kind of developed it. As far as I know, he didn't give that much information about the cards. So the responsibility lies I think more squarely on the shoulders of the tarot world.

Waite wanted to do a Golden Dawn thing. It's been transformed and has morphed into something a bit different. I don't think this was his intention.

And I don't think he ever expected his Tarot to become the most popular tarot in the world.

No, I think a lot of the trouble comes from the New Age movement which was quite frankly most of the time just a huge hodgepodge of nonsense, superstition and make-believe. I fell into it sometimes myself. We all did. It's often what led people to the tarot in fact. I remember going to a completely useless course by the most incompetent woman who was supposed to teach us how to read auras. I came away no wiser than when I went in.

I'm not saying the New Age movement was all bad. It shook things up a lot. People started questioning the status quo and their old beliefs. It was good to explore. And a lot of the nonsense has vanished already into the oblivion from which it came. But... there are some remnants. Like the Mama Empress. People were looking for some kind of spirituality. The old one wasn't working too well.

< Belenus steps off his high soapbox of rants and rages! LOL >

Oh, you have a soapbox too ? Mine isn't very high, but I have a megaphone. I've had it for ages my soap box. It's specially reserved for Tarot matters, mostly TdM. I have a different one I use when I wish to remind people that the world can no longer afford the rich.

[Diana]

There's historical precedent for seeing the King and Queen of a land as metaphorically the father and mother of all their subjects. (Think about "sire" and "madam," as forms of address as artifacts of this idea.)

I tend to think of Emperor and Empress as the divine masculine and feminine- the energies you'd most want to work with in their healthiest forms (of course they also contain the reversed meanings, of the toxic expressions of these energies, as well).

True about the historical precedent. But then in Tarot terms, if we want to respect the terms of the Tarot, we'd have to assign these roles to the Courts - the real Kings and Queens.

Although come to think of it, I doubt anyone would think of Queen Victoria as the Mother of the British Empire. But the Tsar would probably have been considered the Great Father of the Russian Empire. Maybe there is no Mummy or Daddy in the Tarot and we're just wanting absolutely to find them. I dunno. It's not OBVIOUS anyway. So unless one has something really serious to back this theory up, perhaps it's time for the tarot world to abandon it.

That's an unusual expression "divine masculine". One doesn't often hear it. Seems to me one always hears divine feminine. In fact, I think this is the first time I've heard it. Seriously. Or else I zapped it which is also a possibility.

[Belenus]

No, I think a lot of the trouble comes from the New Age movement which was quite frankly most of the time just a huge hodgepodge of nonsense, superstition and make-believe. I fell into it sometimes myself. We all did. It's often what led people to the tarot in fact. I remember going to a completely useless course by the most incompetent woman who was supposed to teach us how to read auras. I came away no wiser than when I went in.

Diana, I believe your insights about New Age and tarot and other things esoteric. Great points!!

I do believe that having been on the "largest tarot FaceBook group in the world" (according to its marketing), and having taught many classes at our local metaphysical bookstore, and seen far-too many silly preposterous youtube tarot videos, that most people either do not realize that there is anything beyond the RWS, or if they do, quite willingly and blithely dismiss anything pre-RWS as irrelevant - and they can be terribly rabid about it too.

I am also sadly finding the same, as I dip my toes into the world of Lenormand.

In some ways FaceBook has only made all of this muggle misinformation and mutilation of the divinatory arts only worse.

Belenus

[Diana]

I don't really see them as like ... stepping on each other's territory, I guess? I've never really seen The High Priestess as Divine Feminine, that's not really the role she plays for me, any more than The Hierophant doesn't really encapsulate the Divine Masculine.

Well, if you're going to pull out arguments of that stature from your hat, there's not much left for anyone to say is there ?

Although I think the TdM Pape is more of a Hermes Trismegistus than a Hierophant. (hierophant sounds like elephant - have you ever noticed? ). He's a nice guy and he wrote the Emerald Tablets and all.

The High Priestess is, to me, is more about being ... receptive to the unknown, or rather the so deeply known that you need to sink in to find it. The Empress has receptivity, too, but it's more receptive to the tangible, material realm, while The High Priestess is the channel to the intuitive.

That's clever.

[Papageno]

I think this dates back to the drawing of the Waite Colman Smith deck, conceived less than a decade after the death of Queen Empress Victoria. That Pamela Colman Smith drew the Empress - in her Laura Ashley nightie - the height of bohemian fashion, I see as very much a revolt against the stultifying Victorian era. There's a backlash against corsetry... I don't remember the name of the garment, but a loose-fitting dress became fashionable among the arty elite. Put together PCS's image and Waite's words and the mother/goddess of fertility becomes the template for the 'modern' Empress.

I think Frieda Harris' exquisite image for the Thoth deck shows a return to the Empress as a symbol of female power.

You've made a really good point here , the power of Pamela Colman Smith's art may have actually been far more influential than Waite's esoteric ramblings. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the popular storyline that there was a disconnect between Waite's supervision or lack thereof, and Pamela's personal interpretations of the cards, which resulted in differences between Waite's written descriptions and Pam's artwork.

[Diana]

You've made a really good point here , the power of Pamela Colman Smith's art may have actually been far more influential than Waite's esoteric ramblings. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the popular storyline that there was a disconnect between Waite's supervision or lack thereof, and Pamela's personal interpretations of the cards, which resulted in differences between Waite's written descriptions and Pam's artwork.

What I have understood is that Waite concerned himself with the majors, and left Colman Smith pretty much independent to do what she wanted with the minors.

[Diana]

rot and other things esoteric. Great points!!

I do believe that having been on the "largest tarot FaceBook group in the world" (according to its marketing), and having taught many classes at our local metaphysical bookstore, and seen far-too many silly preposterous youtube tarot videos, that most people either do not realize that there is anything beyond the RWS, or if they do, quite willingly and blithely dismiss anything pre-RWS as irrelevant - and they can be terribly rabid about it too.

I am also sadly finding the same, as I dip my toes into the world of Lenormand.

In some ways FaceBook has only made all of this muggle misinformation and mutilation of the divinatory arts only worse.

Ah, well then perhaps you've been mixing with the wrong crowd.

And Facebook, of course it's muddled and mutilated things. That's a kind of a given. There's no depth in Facebook - it's shallow and empty and run by the biggest dealer in the world.

The nonsense on youtube is astounding. I mentioned in a post somewhere that I'd seen the title of a video "learn the Tarot in two hours". I didn't watch it of course, but I did snigger before sighing.

There will always be people who prefer to eat McDonalds rather than go and eat a real hamburger. There's fast food and fast tarot. I don't think the fast tarot crowd will disappear - not as long as there are McDonalds that exist and flourish.

[Diana]

I would like to add that all the indie decks that have appeared thanks to technology and the internet have not really helped the study of Tarot. Each deck creator puts their own touch to the Tarot - and it's usually a very personal touch - it's what the Tarot means to them. Sometimes it goes very deep - I'm not saying that these decks of cards cannot be helpful and enlightening. And there are some very fine thinkers and creators out there - I'm thinking of Benebell Wen for example.

But there is no longer just one Tarot. There are thousands of tarots. The Ur Tarot sometimes disappears almost completely. Never fully, as the structure of the majors and the four suits of the minors are usually followed. But the suits themselves are altered sometimes. One sees very original and unique titles and objects. Cups are no longer Cups. Swords are no longer Swords. The same goes for the major arcana. The names of the cards are so transformed that the original message is sometimes very hard to see. Sometimes it seems to be missing completely.

So I wonder often when I see some decks that people use... are we really reading the Tarot here or these often not rather cards for divination based loosely on the structure of the Tarot? And the answer I get when I ponder this is very often "this isn't tarot - it's fake news". One could just as well use any oracle deck.

[Belenus]

I would like to add that all the indie decks that have appeared thanks to technology and the internet have not really helped the study of Tarot. Each deck creator puts their own touch to the Tarot - and it's usually a very personal touch - it's what the Tarot means to them. Sometimes it goes very deep - I'm not saying that these decks of cards cannot be helpful and enlightening. And there are some very fine thinkers and creators out there - I'm thinking of Benebell Wen for example.

It has become entirely idiosyncratic. I think of the trolling and flaming I got in a tarot group because I dismissed the "Game of Thrones" Tarot as nothing more than a marketing ploy. Specifically I referenced the deck creator's using the character of Daenerys "the Mother of Dragons" for the Empress card - as being so limiting and idiosyncratic that it reduced the meaning of the Empress to a very stylized and shallow TV character - thus eliminating all the possible meanings and nuances and subtleties, etc., of the traditional meanings of the Empress card (and further, required a person to have a thorough understanding of the TV show to even interpret that card! )

So I wonder often when I see some decks that people use... are we really reading the Tarot here or these often not rather cards for divination based loosely on the structure of the Tarot? And the answer I get when I ponder this is very often "this isn't tarot - it's fake news". One could just as well use any oracle deck.

Yes! Are we "twins separated at birth"?

All I can add to that is that the same thing goes, impo at least, with all these "I learned tarot in 2 hours" folks - who loudly proclaim that they absolutely do not need any tarot history, studies, traditional meanings, etc. to be a "oh so fabulous" reader because they read only by their own intuition!

Belenus

[Diana]

It has become entirely idiosyncratic. I think of the trolling and flaming I got in a tarot group because I dismissed the "Game of Thrones" Tarot as nothing more than a marketing ploy. Specifically I referenced the deck creator's using the character of Daenerys "the Mother of Dragons" for the Empress card - as being so limiting and idiosyncratic that it reduced the meaning of the Empress to a very stylized and shallow TV character - thus eliminating all the possible meanings and nuances and subtleties, etc., of the traditional meanings of the Empress card (and further, required a person to have a thorough understanding of the TV show to even interpret that card! )

Well if you hang out on Facebook, you've only got yourself to blame for being trolled and flamed. I told you that you probably hang out with the wrong crowd.

I would never deny anyone though the pleasure of creating their own tarot deck. I also have in my files some pictures and photos that to me represent so well certain arcana. The creativity that the tarot has allowed - the number of great artists, even Salvador Dali, who have been inspired by this pack of 78 cards is impressive. It's been like an explosion and some of the decks are truly remarkable.

I think there is tarot and Tarot. Tarot is what people like you and I are interested in - no what we are passionate about. When I say Tarot with a capital T, I am speaking to what I have always referred to as the Ur-Tarot. And then there's the tarot that has evolved into a creative endeavour, into a work of art.

Some (probably more than some) of the decks are rubbish though. Your example of Daenerys is a shining example. It's very facile. Simplicity is wonderful. Simplistic is superficial.

Of course, no-one would buy a Game of Thrones deck of cards if they weren't a fan of the show or at least interested in the show. So they would be able to make their own conclusions about this. If they have a functioning tarot brain that is.

Are we "twins separated at birth"?

No, we're more comrades in arms.

Lyrics in Spanish and English of the following song, A Las Barricadas, from the Spanish civil war, can be read here : https://lyricstranslate.com/en/las-barr ... cades.html

All I can add to that is that the same thing goes, impo at least, with all these "I learned tarot in 2 hours" folks - who loudly proclaim that they absolutely do not need any tarot history, studies, traditional meanings, etc. to be a "oh so fabulous" reader because they read only by their own intuition!

Belenus

I think one can read by intuition. That is why Dan Pelletier (who one sees several times in the movie Tarology) said he could read raindrops and toothpicks. And I'm sure he could.

But reading cards and reading the Tarot are different things.

This whole discussion we've been having here is like my taking a trip back into the past. Sort of like time travelling. The same things were already being argued and debated and discussed right from the start when Aeclectic began. That's when I built my soap box. It's nothing fancy but I've tended to it well.