The Empress

Major Arcana · number 3 · L’Imperatrice

The Empress, plate by Pamela Colman Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1910

Upright

The Empress is the card of fruitfulness in every sense: a project that grows, a relationship putting down roots, physical energy coming back. Waite also speaks of length of days, that is, a long life, health that lasts, things made to endure. If you had planted something, in your family or at work, now you see the first shoots. It is the right moment to take the initiative, to make proposals, to tend what you have instead of looking elsewhere. Watch out for one detail only: the card also carries a hidden side, a doubt you have not yet brought into focus, a difficulty, or simply something you do not know yet. The advice is: nourish what is alive, but keep your eyes open to what is not being said to you.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance.»

Reversed

Reversed, the Empress brings light: tangled matters come undone, a truth surfaces and it is often good news, the kind you celebrate together. If lately you have felt confused about a love story or a family matter, now it clears up. There is another reading, though, and it speaks of wavering: the risk is that you, faced with clarity, start to swing back and forth. The practical advice: when the truth arrives, welcome it and take a position within a few days. Do not let relief turn into yet another postponement.

Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) · read the original passage
«Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.»

Source

Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) Part III, § 3, The Greater Arcana and their Divinatory Meanings https://archive.org/details/a.-e.-waite-the-pictorial-key-to-the-tarot