The Empress Tarot Card Meaning

The Empress upright

Waite describes a crowned woman seated among ripening corn, a waterfall behind her and a heart-shaped shield bearing the sign of Venus. He presents her as the fruitfulness of the whole earth and a refuge for many. Upright she says your efforts are growing: tend them patiently, enjoy the senses, and let care — for yourself and others — do its work.

The Empress reversed

Waite's reversed meanings are unusually positive: light, the truth of a tangled matter, public rejoicing — and also vacillation. So reversed, she can mean a problem finally untangling, or a phase of indecision where you are giving to everyone except yourself.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is The Empress a yes or no?

Upright: Leans yes. A generous yes — especially for anything you are growing, creating or caring for.

Reversed: Reversed, The Empress reads as mixed — not a clear yes or no: self-neglect, creative block, wavering.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the The Empress card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• Field of ripening corn — fruitfulness and harvest
• Shield with the sign of Venus — love, beauty and the pleasures of the senses
• Crown of twelve stars — not explained by Waite
• Waterfall behind her — not explained by Waite
• Sceptre topped with a globe — her rule over the visible world

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; also the unknown, difficulty, doubt.

Reversed: light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicing; or vacillation.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.