The Empress is the card of creation: inspiration that expresses itself, fertile and radiant.
Make grow what has been sown: create, nourish, let an idea or a relationship gain scope.
Expression, generosity, and care for what grows: giving form and leaving time.
The drive can stay without an outlet, or fold back on itself when nothing comes out of what has been prepared.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
The Empress is the card of growth.
Her image revolves around what grows: wings and a scepter in the Marseille deck, ripe wheat in Waite’s. Many readers see in it creation, expression, generosity, and the desire to bring something into being.
Upright, she calls you to nourish what is already under way. The Magician launches; she makes grow, with patience and attention, a project, a bond, or a talent. Her number, three, evokes what unfolds from two. She can also be read as a reminder: what has been sown needs time, and haste does not help what is growing.
A relationship that blossoms in tenderness, generosity, and the pleasure of being together.
In matters of the heart, the Empress is read as tenderness that expresses itself: attention given to the other, shared pleasure, a relationship that blossoms over time. She can also invite you to receive what you are given more openly, as much as to give.
Creative or supportive work that bears fruit if you grant it the time it needs.
On the professional level, she evokes creation, production, support. A project carried with care, a team you help grow, a work taking shape. She invites constancy more than haste.
What has been sown begins to pay off: the card looks at patient growth rather than a quick hit.
As for money, the card describes a way of acting: maintaining what exists, giving things time, appreciating what is already there. She puts no figure on anything and guides no purchase; she speaks of patient growth.
A sense of fullness, the wish to give form to what is germinating and to leave it room.
Nourish a project or a relationship with regularity, let express itself what asks to grow.
Creation that stays inside for lack of an outlet: blocked energy, a drive that turns on itself.
Rather favorable
A rather favorable tendency: the Empress supports what needs time and care to grow, and the answer firms up as the project is nourished.
Questions to ask yourself
A sentence to keep: “I give and I receive with the same simplicity, letting what grows ripen.”
A crowned, winged figure, seated facing front, holds a scepter topped with a globe and a cross in one hand, while a shield bearing an eagle leans against her: a broad, open presence.
In the Marseille deck, the figure holds in the other hand the shield stamped with an eagle, leaning against her, and the scepter ends in a globe topped with a cross. The wings speak of movement, the crown of a place. In the Rider-Waite version, the Empress sits on cushions in a wheat field, at the edge of a forest and a waterfall. A crown of twelve stars circles her head, the dress is scattered with pomegranates, and a scepter rests in her hand. At her feet, a heart-shaped shield bears the sign of Venus. Both images speak of growth and expression more than of maintenance.
The same card in the two reference decks: Conver’s drawing, dated 1760, and Pamela Colman Smith’s scene, 1909.
| Aspect | Tarot de Marseille | Rider-Waite |
|---|---|---|
| Name | L’Impératrice | The Empress |
| Number | III | III |
| Image | In the Marseille deck, the figure is crowned, winged, and seated facing front, with a scepter topped by a globe and a shield with an eagle leaning against her. | In Waite’s deck, the Empress rests on cushions in a wheat field, in front of a forest and a waterfall, crowned with twelve stars. |
| Reversal | Often not read | Commonly read (reversed cards) |
Tarot de Marseille: Nicolas Conver, dated 1760, restored by the Tarot World Project, CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. Rider-Waite: drawings by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Images resized and compressed by Versana; Marseille Minor Arcana diagrams and card back drawn by Versana.
Two situations, two readings: in a current relationship, then in a period without one, and reversed.
The position changes the reading: 7 common positions, each upright then reversed.
Six cards calculated by the combination rules: two that reinforce it, two that nuance it, two in friction. None is “bad.”
Number III in the Marseille deck and 3 in Waite’s, the Empress comes after the Popess. Venus and the letter Daleth also belong to her.
The Empress keeps her name from one deck to the next (The Empress), under the number three. The drawings differ strongly, scepter and eagle on one side, wheat and waterfall on the other, but both speak of growth; the tone of the card therefore does not change. Venus and the letter Daleth extend this theme of beauty. These associations come from tradition and cannot be demonstrated: they serve to place the card, nothing more.
The Empress is also the tarot birth card for dates that add up to 3; its reduced number, 3, links it to numerology.
The Destiny Matrix reads a date with the 22 arcana: The Empress is energy 3 there, and each position gives it its own meaning.
Numbers and names read on Conver’s cards and in Waite’s text; correspondences reported according to the Golden Dawn tradition, never as facts.
The Empress is read as growth, creation, and generosity. Her image speaks of ripe wheat, wings, and expression: what has been sown gains in scope. The card invites you to nourish what is under way without rushing it.
Reversed, creation finds no outlet: the drive turns on itself and tenderness struggles to express itself. The reading speaks of blocked energy, not of an event, and invites you to look for where it can come out.
The Empress is read with cards of starting, when what begins becomes growth, with cards of study, when creation is fed by silence, and with cards of structure, when what grows seeks to last. Details: the associations above.
For a closed question, the Empress’s tendency is rather favorable when it is a matter of nourishing and letting grow. It is only an inclination: the exact wording of the question and the cards around her weigh more.
