3 & 4: Empress and Emperor: Life Force and the Natural Order
Yin and Yang, receptive and active, Empress and Emperor.
The Empress is always alive in Nature, always present. But it’s during Spring that she is at her most visible.
The Empress is Nature crafting herself, the green leaves sprouting forward from dry branches, the first flowers pushing through white, icy ground. She is life fulfilling itself, endlessly expressing, always reaching outwards, driven and awe-some.
In some ways, she couldn’t be more different to The Popess, who watches her internal life closely, representing what stirs unseen. The Empress is a pop of natural colour, the cry of a fox on the wind, the perfect nest that a tiny bird creates without logic or reason, with pure drive. All that is alive and visible out there. Yet they are both Nature, both with feminine energies.
In the Marseille tarot, she holds her sceptre – a symbol of her power – upwards, with the end point resting on her womb. In the Jodorowsky version, a little leaf hangs there, dangling from her hand. Her legs are spread in long flowing clothes, as if ready to give birth. The golden eagle on her shield sometimes has one fully-formed wing and one partially-formed one; the bird is in a constant state of growth, never quite ‘there’ (wherever ‘there’ is), like Nature itself. A fern – the most ancient of plants – grows at her foot.
Where might you find The Empress on a walk? Everywhere. Where can’t you find her? She is the Goddess who directs what the Magician has created. She is a powerful and formidable force, yet young and fresh, approachable and beautiful.
L’Imperatrice
The Empress from the Tarot de Marseille by Jodorowsky/Camoin. Notice the little leaf at the base of her sceptre, near her womb. Plus – can you spot her Adam’s apple?!
Hold your hand out in front of your face, and wiggle your fingers. All you need to do to find her is to go for a gentle walk and notice everything that lives, including your animate self. Even in the centre of the most concrete city, the weeds push through the bricks, a bird emerges from its nest. You move. The Empress is pregnant with everything, giving birth constantly. She pulls the strings like a conductor at an orchestra. She is always here, this Mother to us all, who lives in our flesh and our bones.
She doesn’t care if you honour her or not, but you will notice a difference in your life when you do.
Empress energy comes forth as a creative burst, mysterious and passionate, but not necessarily with a plan or a goal. Life creates itself, because that’s what it does. And yet the ecosystem is just that – a system – of delicate networks and interconnections that have become precise over years of evolution to become, in many ways, reliable. That’s why climate change is so scary: ice melting into the sea so rapidly upsets this incredible, self-organising system to the degree of horror. Habitats that are perfectly habitable for humans will become unbearable.
The Emperor – the (eco?)system – sits upright in his throne, holding up his sceptre, his power symbol. In most ‘Type 2’ Marseille decks, when lined up next to the Empress, he looks over to her from his card, which seems correct. She looks back; her creative life force meets his organising power. Everything is in balance. Even the eagles in their shields look in this direction of each other’s cards.
Empress and Emperor from the gorgeous Metanoia Marseille Tarot.
But if we look at the Jean Noblet version of the Marseille Tarot (a Type 1 Marseille deck), something is off-kilter. The Empress looks directly at us, accusingly. The Emperor looks to the right, to the future, with his back to her. Here, we could say that Nature’s forces are not working in harmony with each other. They become the image of a marriage gone sour; our interference has come between them, no longer do we feel the safe love of powerful and capable parent figures. There is a coldness that is often dangerous when it occurs between major powers.
Jean Noblet Tarot by Flornoy.
We are not Emperors of the Earth. The Earth is its own Emperor. Left to its own devices, it rules with balance and precision. Interfered with, it becomes chaotic. It strikes me, as I write this, that the Empress and Emperor could represent what many Pagans call the God and the Goddess, the deity-forces of the Earth. But surely they are one and the same principle, never separated from each other, two aspects of the glorious whole, rather than opposites. The Emperor’s order is created out of the Empress’s creativity; it happens naturally. But without his rule and direction, the energy becomes dangerous – and we reap the consequences.
That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Tarot Therapy Sessions if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive email updates on every new post.
Smiles from Scotland,
Stephen
