III - THE EMPRESS
Upright Meaning: Fertility, abundance, femininity, sensuality, nurturing, fruitfulness, beauty, material wealth, luxury, productive action, nature.
Represents: An abundance of material goods.
Reversed: Venus. Love, lust, desire, intimacy, vanity, gratification, sexuality, values.
Ages: Twelve to fifteen. Abundance, the feminine principle, productive action.
TL;DR: Up: Femininity Down: Intimacy
Today we move on to the third guide of the Major Arcana: The Empress. This card is a hyper feminine card representing fertility, sensuality, and nurturing. The traditional Rider-Waite card shows a woman reclining on a chair wearing a robe printed with fruit, with a heart and the female/Venus symbol on it. In designing my Empress card I wanted to keep these same visuals, the sliced fruit especially because it feels very sensual and romantic. I felt that the rabbit perfectly represented fertility as well as we all know that rabbits love reproducing! When this card appears in your spread it is time to reflect on your own sensuality and femininity (which is not a quality exclusively for women, by the way) but also think about fruitfulness, material wealth and luxury.
The Empress is associated with Venus as well, which implies that the Empress is literally the Goddess of Love. Venus represents lust, desire, love, and sexuality and asks that you reflect on these qualities in yourself; have you taken the time to think about your own desire and sexuality, and what exactly it is that you want? How do you express love? How do you express desire? What do you desire? This is largely in reference to your love life, but could also be applied to friendships and your relationship with yourself. For me the Empress represents self-love in a lot of ways and reminds me not to shy away from topics regarding my own sexuality and sexual health that can often be ignored due to discomfort or embarrassment. The Goddess of Love wants you to think about your love and to express it. Express love for your partner(s), friends, or anyone else in your life that you hold dear. Most importantly to express love for yourself.