The Empress

Quick answer

The core meaning of The Empress is Nature's bounty and nurturing. Upright, it usually points to Abundance, motherhood, creativity, nature, sensual pleasure. Symbolizes material; reversed, it may suggest Dependence, blocked creativity, domestic troubles, extravagance. May indicate sm.

Card imagery

A full-figured woman sits on a throne surrounded by nature, wearing a white gown patterned with pomegranates. A wheat field lies before her and a waterfall behind. She wears a crown of twelve stars, holds a scepter, and a heart-shaped shield bearing the symbol of Venus rests at her feet.

Upright meaning

Abundance, motherhood, creativity, nature, sensual pleasure. Symbolizes material and emotional richness, a favorable time to nurture new plans or savor life.

Reversed meaning

Dependence, blocked creativity, domestic troubles, extravagance. May indicate smothering care, a lack of growth, or material scarcity.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, The Empress points to Nature's bounty and nurturing. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, The Empress points to Nature's bounty and nurturing. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, The Empress points to Nature's bounty and nurturing. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, The Empress points to Nature's bounty and nurturing. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

Yes

Reversed

No

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

A stately figure, seated, having rich vestments and royal aspect, as of a daughter of heaven and earth. Her diadem is of twelve stars, gathered in a cluster. The symbol of Venus is on the shield which rests near her. A field of corn is ripening in front of her, and beyond there is a fall of water. The scepter which she bears is surmounted by the globe of this world. She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man. She is not Regina coeli, but she is still refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. There are also certain aspects in which she has been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum; but she is not, I may add, the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is counted up another and unusual way. She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word. This is obvious, because there is no direct message which has been given to man like that which is borne by woman; but she does not herself carry its interpretation.

In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate by which an entrance is obtained into this life, as into the Garden of Venus; and then the way which leads out therefrom, into that which is beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess: it is communicated by her to the elect. Most old attributions of this card are completely wrong on the symbolism—as, for example, its identification with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and so forth.

Original Upright Meaning

Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.

Original Reversed Meaning

Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.