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This seasons theme was for us to explore times and encounters with cards that for some reason or another stuck out for us, or that challenged our usual way of thinking, or was different than expected
There has always been one card in the Tarot Deck until about a year ago that I always got a little stuck on. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the interpretation of the card it was more that it felt lofty and hard for me to put into real life perspective.
The card was the Major Arcana card of Temperance.
Temperance appears right after the transformation of the Death card and seems like the calm in the eye of the storm before The Devil card. It felt to me a little out of place.
Transformation on one side and material entrapment on the other this pretty angel with similarities to the Aquarius zodiac sign and The Star tarot card would stump me.
I knew it called for patience and to take things a step at a time. To avoid extremes and bring together the mind for awareness.
Where this card really clicked for me was in the key meaning of patience.
I am a Gemini. We are not a zodiac sign well known for our patience and moderation. Most Gemini’s I know
talk a lot and want everything yesterday. Which can be very frustrating. Very frustrating.
What the Temperance card taught me was that all things have their time and space and that sometimes no matter how much we want to force it it won’t happen through sheer will power alone.
Being pregnant was a huge test of patience and being fully in the moment and embracing it. Not wanting to rush every little thing. Waiting those long last few weeks where you just want to meet the little one so much and you are so over being tired, bloated, unable to sleep and sore. I was so out of control in that situation it got me to a place of surrender. Not all the time mind you. Sometimes it would still irritate me that I wasn’t in control. But then I would be gently reminded that it was all about the journey and about my unborn son not me and that I was also going through a huge shift in all of my energy fields. Another aspect of Temperance is alchemy and I really connected to the concepts of alchemy while being pregnant. I was a walking, talking chemistry set and still am as I am breastfeeding.
So I finally was able to connect with this card that I found lofty and aloof through my experience of patience, pregnancy and alchemy.
And what a beautiful lesson to learn with the Angel of Balance.
Imbolc Blessings Everyone! Thank you to Karen for organising this Tarot Blog Hop.
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8 thoughts on “Imbolc 2015 Tarot Blog Hop”
Thank you Ethony for sharing your thoughts 🙂 Yes! I can so relate to those late days of pregnancy… You’ve put a whole new slant on Temperance for me 🙂 beautifully done.
Also being a Gemini, and thus slightly schizophrenic, I find that we have a kind of gyroscopic balance – always shifting and spinning but (mostly) stable nonetheless 😀
The temperance card has always stumped me as well and for the most part I understood the alchemy meaning more than temperance. (my ride or die deck is mirrored after the Thoth system). Your personal eperience has opened my eyes to a new way to look at the card. Thanks Ethony!!
Oh thank you
I like that card from the Globalight Angelic Tarot very much, although after looking closer at it I see it’s actually number 8, Justice. I looked up the 14 card and I think you’ll like it: http://www.globalight.com.au/tarot_art.html. It shows a man knitting and a woman breastfeeding!
Yes, Ethony, nothing like the lack of control of a whole lot of things, bodily and emotionally, in pregnancy to help us remember to “go with the flow” and allow the natural mixture of energies. I remember being so amazed at what nature did to my body to make it “just right” for giving birth. That in itself was a miracle of alchemy (almost literally!).
Many blessings to you and your son. 🙂
Funny, I never thought of Temperance as being about patience, for me that would be the Hanged Man (which is connected to pregnancy in several decks, including the Ancestral Path, one of my first). Yet, that sense of getting the right mix of energies and resources, the alchemy of pregnancy, does really speak to me. Thanks for this different perspective 🙂
I totally get patience from The Hanged Man too but in a different way. The Hanged Man is choice in a lot of ways where Temperance is patience to allow Alchemy to happen 🙂 thank you for the comment.