When this card came to me this morning, the song “I Am Every Woman” by Chaka Khan came to mind and a smile crossed my face. The Empress embodies the purest kind of femininity which in my mind always equals LOVE. The Empress is graceful, beautiful, intelligent, wise and abundant. The type of woman who would never turn anyone away from her home or a meal. She is the consummate nurturer, voluptuous, friendly, and successful.
The Empress is most often associated with Isis and the planet Venus. Very early depictions of her were of a winged goddess who wore a crown of 12 stars and stood on the moon. Her wings and the stars symbolically connected her to both the heavens and the earth and thus she is also known as the “Daughter of Heaven and Earth” which is a Mercurial connection and speaks of messages or directions descending from the heavens . Finally, the Empress is symbolized by the Hebrew letter Daleth, which means a door.
The presence of the Empress in any reading bestows a message of love. Not just the love between lovers or family, but also, the love which emanates from the “Door” between the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown, between the spiritual and the material. The Empress is the messenger who bridges the gap between worlds bestowing the gift of the mysteries of life. The Knowledge she brings is one of self-understanding. She reminds us that we are of LOVE.
This is the Harmony of the Universe, that Love unites the Will to create with the Understanding of that Creation: understand thou thine own Will!
Love and let love! Rejoice in every shape of love, and get thy rapture and thy nourishment thereof!-The Heart of the Master, Aleister Crowley aka Khaled Khan
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Hello again.
I enjoyed this post very much. It is easy for us to forget how pressing love is – that it isn’t abstract, or limited to specific relationships – it is a vital, unifying force throughout our own lives and through all the manifested world. Without it we cannot create, we cannot hear the breath of life, the music and beauty that surrounds us.
Love is definitely missing in our modern world. It has become a “Disney” concept reserved for princes and princesses – something rare that, when found, has to be coveted and hidden (Ayin), not shared and rejoiced. Universal love was denounced during the awakening of the 60′s, and has subsequently become part of a stereotype which robs us from using love as a means to find common ground in society.
I also wanted to add that the Empress represents Subconsciousness in Action, processes of active imagination which are vital in communicating and developing ideas. Conscious “seed” ideas are planted by the mage in the garden, and the Empress reigns over their fruition and diversification. The mother as the doorway through which life, and also creative imagination, is born into this world.