tarot talk: the empress
diving into how we embody and balance the feminine within all of us.
the empress: the fully embodied feminine in all her glory
now I tend to not get too caught up in the gender binary of it all in my tarot interpretations. i do believe we all have a balance of energies within us, and the balance between them is more important than dogmatically prescribing labels.
that being said, the empress to me is such a distinct celebration of the divine feminine that it’s hard to not let that fully shine here. in the same way as the emperor does for the divine masculine, the empress holds and presents the feminine in the purest embodied form.
when i pull the empress, my mind goes to persephone, the archetype of the goddess queen of the underworld, the wayward spring daughter, the fully embodied empress of the dead.
persephone in springtime, in her maiden form, symbolizing all that is good and sweet of womanhood: rampant joy, play, wonder, the flush across cheeks on a brisk spring day, the bubbly energy of an early crush or romance. this side of the goddess queen reminds us that to be feminine is to be a beacon of unrepentant joy and beauty in the divine sense.
but there is another side to her, as there is with the empress in the tarot.
the empress also represents the shadow feminine, the more sensual and dominating side to us all. we must all balance these energies without trying to shy from our shadow selves.
when the empress is pulled in reverse, these shadow energies spring forth, suggesting that the shadow side has been neglected for far too long. and one thing the shadow empress will not abide is being neglected for too long.
so the empress encourages us to play and bask in the glory of womanhood, but to never underestimate or relinquish the power of it. the imbalanced feminine is a dangerous thing, something the empress reminds us in her steely, lioness gaze.
there is also a sense of transformation about the empress, some ineffable quality that reminds us that all life is a cycle of death and rebirth. the empress with her guiding energy encourages us to not be afraid as we go forth, transiting the cycle of death and rebirth once more.
the empress reminds us that the periods of dark and light must cycle together to stay in time with the great workings of the universe. every day has a night, every storm clears for beams of sun. if we try to forgo those cycles, disastrous consequences must follow. by contrast, if we heed the natural cycles of the universe, we can become greater than anyone imagined us to be.
journal prompts for exploring the empress:
what is being reborn in your life right now? how can you celebrate this rebirth? how can you nurture it to its greatest potential?
what aspects of yourself feel in your shadow right now? what are you avoiding and how is that avoidance hindering you?
how can you bring more girlish whimsy into your life? what feminine aspects of yourself do you tend to shame? how can you honor them going forward?
where do you feel imbalanced right now, or where do you feel like you are neglecting your feminine side (this is a question for any and all genders to consider)? what small rituals can you take up that connect you more to that feminine energy?