1. Tarot
2. Card meanings
3. The Empress

Major Arcana · III

The Empress

• fruitfulness
• action
• initiative

Upright meaning

Fruitfulness, action and initiative. A card of growth and care: tending what you have planted, in work, home or creativity.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, Waite reads light, truth and the unravelling of involved matters: something tangled may become clearer.

• truth
• the unravelling of involved matters

Symbolism

A stately crowned figure in a ripening field of corn, with a waterfall beyond and the sign of Venus on her shield.

Group

Major Arcana

Element, astrology

Not given by Waite, so we give none

Source

Our own plain-English summary of A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1911), Part II §2 (symbolism); Part III §3 (divinatory meanings). The keywords are Waite’s own words. Waite’s fortune-telling lists also contain harsher terms; we keep to the reflective readings he gives and never state an event as certain.

Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a prediction of fixed outcomes. This is not medical, legal or financial advice.