empress symbols
venus– beauty, love, gentleness, slowness, harmony, art, peace, pleasure, romance, creativity, luxury, sexuality, playfulness, receptive energy, gentle energy
plants– nurturing and having patience for the organic process of things growing/ blooming in your life
crops– nourishment, harvest, abundance, sustenance
crown– self-love, radical self-acceptance and belonging. Radical grounding/ earthy power. Can take care of self financially, material needs met. Self-compassion, self-care, and self-nurturing. Self-respect. Self-pleasure. Sensuality. Sexuality. Ownership of one’s own pleasure.
pregnancy– feeling full and radiant, birthing something, nurturing something, raising something, giving it care, nourishing it, being slow and conscious with it, taking your time.
river– being in the flow, things flowing to you abundantly, you’re not pushing the river, it’s coming to you gracefully. You’re getting to receive, and give easily/ pour fourth from the river, going with the current.
Empress is in a state of receiving and giving, nurturing, and abundance. In her light she is nurture, comfort, and care. In her shadow she is neglect of those things.
She is emotional intimacy w/ another person, connecting, caring, loving, and expressing compassion. Whereas the Queen of Cups feels people, the Empress feeds people. Offers them a blanket. Cooks for them. And of course, lets herself receive these things 100% even in a luxurious way.
She can extract the pleasure out of life and infuse the mundane with love/ connection. She’s a mother, giver, and inherently beautiful/ radiant. She is in her magnetic, attractive power. She can give because her cup is full and overflowing! She is not giving to get, She is attracting/ magnetizing from her own innate pleasure/ power/ fertility and gratitude, holding it sacred when it comes to her.
She is so thankful and enjoying the beauty of simple things/ nature that her universe expands naturally and organically, and her cup overflows to others, from which then even more energy is returned back to her, and more beauty/ fullness is created.
Her essence: Loving protection with a soft, nurturing energy.
Self-mothering, allowing yourself to relax, being in nature and letting yourself enjoy pleasures. Letting yourself embody divine feminine/ goddess energy. Permission to be fully present and occupy space, feel worthy and that you belong and have a place in the community. You know your own worth and value and have plenty to share.
From The Oracle’s Library:
“The empress is the result of mastering the state of the high priestess.”- the oracle’s library “You get what you give” – the oracle’s library: “a gift from one to another is often received as a gift for both. “
The Empress
- didn’t feel drawn to this card at first
- often felt lack or like I didn’t get what I deserve in life, never enough
- didn’t feel comfortable taking up space, wanted to disappear
- She is teaching me how to feel more than enough, worthy to take up space, enough to give/ share w/ others (symbols)
- river- following the flow WITH the current of what’s choosing YOU in life, what wants you and values you. Don’t push the river.
- Venus- Women 20,000 years ago created them as limestone ‘selfies’, didn’t have mirrors back then. Body positivity, embodiment.
- Pregnancy- be so full and at same time serving another being, mothering and nurturing it. Element of giving in this card. Takes work to harvest crops. Slow and steady process. Patience. Takes selflessness to go through pregnancy and give of yourself and your body to nurture another. Also gets to receive the joy and love from the baby, feel the radiance from the pregnancy, and take in nourishment from the crops. A constant supply of give and take. With the understanding that she has made the right choices and followed the river, followed the natural current of blessings that came her way, and then expanded upon them.
- Beauty and radiance & magnetism. (Venus)