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Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Empress - Astrological Associations



Order of the Golden Dawn (OGD)
The attribution for The Empress is Venus, planet of beauty, love, and harmony. Venus rules the zodiac signs Taurus (Earth) and Libra (Air).




One World Tarot by Crystal Love

The Empress is associated with the zodiac sign Libra (Air), a sign associated with equality, balance, judgment, creativity, fertility, and justice.

A.E. Thierens, PhD. (Astrology & the Tarot)
The Empress, Trump 3, is associated with the zodiac sign Gemini (Air), the third sign of the zodiac. Thierens writes that Gemini "is the macrocosmic 'relation between the two' which is potential vibration, symbolised by 'sound,' and this sign rules the hands of man, with which he grips this relation actually. It rules the 'Word'. . . and words, speech and correspondence in this world below, as above. . . It includes indecision, uncertainty, doubt, change, intercourse, reflection, appearance. . ."

The Celestial Tarot by Brian Clark
The Empress is linked to Venus, "goddess of love, sexuality, and beauty," ruler of Taurus ("the earthy, sensual, fertile, and resourceful sides of the goddess") and Libra ("the heavenly sides of culture and beauty"). Clark writes: "Venus, as the mother of Cupid, also represents motherhood."


The Mandala Astrological Tarot by A.T. Mann
The Empress is associated with the planet Venus, "showing essential fecundity, the ability to embrace and love all fruits of the natural world and to bear the joys and sorrows of life and death."

The Whispering Tarot by Liz Hazel
This deck links The Empress with Venus ("rules Taurus and Libra, exalts in Pisces").






With the exception of A.E. Thierens, all of these sources associated The Empress with the planet Venus one way or another (Crystal Love associates it with the sign Libra, ruled by Venus). From an elemental standpoint, I tend to link The Empress with Earth (although technically, Air would be a viable alternative). I just get a much more "earthy" feeling from this card than "airy" feeling.

I welcome your comments!

Zanna

13 comments:

  1. Welcome back Zanna!

    I love the visual of the One World Tarot, and the Celestial is just lovely.

    With what little I know of astrology and with the help of my Everything Tarot Book I can see both the links with the Empress firstly like you with Taurus, because she is earthy in a very sensuous way, she seems to have all her physical senses attuned to her surroundings and Taurus is a very earthy sign and links her to the mother earth.

    While Libra is an air sign, and maybe leans more towards her creative/artistic side, from what I have read about Libra it is a sign that aims towards balance, I think the Empress does try to achieve that.

    Your weekly cards are certainly improving my astrology lol. :D

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  2. I'd also see her more like Taurus, because of the connection with Venus and the earth element. I've never seen the hierophant as Taurus, though...

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    1. I agree with the Empress associated to Taurus for the earthy Venus connection. It took awhile to understand the connection between Taurus and the Heirophant and I think it is mostly because 1) Taurus never forgets. 2) Taurus can be quite the hoarder 3) Taurus is fixed on traditions -- all things the Heirophant carries forward -- 1) font of wisdom and knowledge and lineage 2) look at all the books and all the knowledge and all the studies...oh my! 3) the tradition of ritual, academia. I see both these expressions of beauty and love and also security in heritage as very Taurean now.

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    2. Excellent points about The Hierophant/Taurus association, Dawn. Taurus loves to accumulate and retain "things" -- and I think this can include knowledge and know-how as well as material possessions. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Also agree with the Taurus interpretation. Nurturing and fertile abundance, care and patience — the Mother Goddess described by the Empress is definitely an earth goddess, looking after her crops, tending her garden. Intuitively, one expects the first four Major Arcana (not counting the Fool) to embody the four classical elements: The Magician, Air; the High Priestess — a lunar goddess — water; the Emperor, the warleader embodying the power of Mars, fire. The Empress, as the manifestation of Mother Earth, completes the quartet. So, yes, this Trump seems closer to Taurus than Libra.

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    1. Very true about the first four Majors, each with one of the four elemental associations. It feels right. Thank you for stopping by, Amy!

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    2. Hi, these are good points. One thing bugs me, though. The Sun card is associated with the Sun (planet). So why isn't the Moon card associated with the Moon (planet)? It's an inconsistent treatment of the lights, seems odd to me. Another thing that sort of bugs me is the male/female and elemental aspects of the signs; in the astrological circle, they alternate in a consistent order; you don't have two air signs next to each other, or two female signs. But in tarot, you have the high priestess next to the empress, for example. This is me being OCD, I guess. Also my feminist side perceives that inconsistency to be by design, to ensure that the female priestess and empress remain "beneath" the male emperor and hierophant in the order of things.......

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    3. Hello tink12410, those are interesting thoughts, for sure! Thanks for stopping by.

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  4. Hierophant/Taurus/ libra.I am libra an I ask the the what does he have for me in the box on the shelf?? I schuffled an got The Empress,is that a ring,marrage or what.

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    1. Well, that was an interesting question to ask the cards, Pjasam! I would say that The Empress could indicate that whatever is in the box is likely to help you create something -- this could take many forms, but the idea of creativity is very strong in The Empress. Love and beauty are other associations.

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  5. I think that possibly the original correlations were just spread too thin - we expected the Empress to be 5 or 6 different women - the young goddess of sexuality and love, the goddess of nature, of abundance, of creativity; the lover, the mother, the wife, the ruler....my goodness, she should be called "the exhausted one". We now have "dwarf" planets that are associated with Goddesses: Ceres (the earth mother aspect currently attributed to the Empress) and Eris (goddess of destruction) - seemingly associated with natural disasters and social upheaval (like a female Uranus or Pluto). Ceres makes sense as an Empress and/or Mother Figure closely associated with Earth/Nature/Nurture and her myth explains the seasons of plenty and scarcity and the grief of a mother whose child has been abducted! There are asteroids named after goddesses too - Juno (the empress and wife), Pallas Athena (the virgin/huntress/tomboy), Vesta (the vestal virgin/priestess/sacred flame). Juno fits "Empress", Vesta fits the High Priestess, Pallas Athena the independent woman, aka 9 of coins - or the Charioteer, maybe? It will be interesting to see if and how these energies are defined in terms of tarot. Perhaps the Emperor, as well could be the Lover, the Soldier, the Ruler, the Father, etc. Maybe in that way the "newer" planets could be incorporated - Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

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    1. Very interesting points and certainly worth considering! Thanks for stopping by.

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    2. Tink... It describes a women, exhausting yes but divine in purpose and abilities ❤️

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Thank you for leaving a comment. I love hearing from my readers!
~ Zanna