Name: Empress - the first crowned figure in tarot,
the first to wear the visible symbol of Kether. The
Fool is androgynous, prior to the differentiation of
gender, and wears a wreath and a feather. The Magician
is male and wears the lemniscate and headband. The High
Priestess, the virgin female, wears the spiritual
precursor to a crown, a symbolic headdress. But the
first symbol of rule, the first imperial path,
expressed as feminine sexuality, is the empire of the
Mother.
Key #: 3 (Major #4) - Key 3,
The Empress, finishes the structure
of the Supernal Triad. This is the
abstract triangle of concepts made of
three depths (numbers), and three paths
(trumps), on which the solid reality of
manifest creation is modeled.
Hebrew Letter: Daleth - The number 4 in Hebrew.
Daleth means door, a reference to the qualities of its
intelligence and the nature of its path. The door of
The Empress is the threshold between force and form,
between male and female, between the hard and the soft,
between the explosive and the yielding. Opening this
door is what every mother warns her daughter about
when she starts dating.
Function: Wisdom/Folly - The sparkle of The Fool,
from which is everything is made, and the radiance of
Wisdom, the force that makes everything happen. These
two together pass through the door of The Empress.
There they are tamed by the imagination, (one of six
functions of consciousness, the one associated by
esoteric tradition with The Empress) and become all
the names, forms, and changes of the creation that
will emerge from the womb of Understanding.
Astrological Attribution: Venus - The goddess who
arose from the formless energy of the sea. Her beauty
is the essential beauty that can be seen in all things
that arise from the ocean of original force.
Path #: 14 - The experience of the journey between
Wisdom (#2) and Understanding (#3), joining the depth
of Beginning to the depth of End and finishing the
Supernal Triad. This path is the experience of
Imagination. In one direction, from Beginning (#2) to
End (#3), it gives shape to what The Fool has brought
into being and The Magician has brought to life. In
this direction, formless light creates an endless
shadowplay on the wall of infinite darkness.
In the other direction, from End (#3) to Beginning
(#2), the shadowplay is drawn back along the path
from the luminous darkness of created things and is
lost again in formless light.
Intelligence: Luminous - The radiance of wisdom
streams through the door of the imagination and fills
the creation to come with light.
Direction: East - The direction of dawn, the
excitement of beginning. This is the state of things
when the Supernal Triad is completed.
Title: Daughter of the Mighty Ones - of Wisdom
(the Father) and Understanding (the Mother).
