When Temperance appears in a reading, The querent is, was, or will be up to his ass in alligators and trying to remember to drain the swamp. If he doesn’t become gator chow first, the exercise will make him stronger, more flexible, and better able to cope with the next major glitch in his life. He has come to a point where he must combine, reconcile, or referee the opposing forces and people in his life. His wife and mother may be at each other’s throats. He may be dissatisfied with his job and trying to manifest a better one. He may be dealing with spending, eating, or other addictive disorders, or healing from a serious illness.
Temperance reminds us that patience, open mindedness, strength, good management of time and resources, willingness to try and try again, and lots of prayer and help from the divine are necessary in resolving life’s problems. If the card is upright, it indicates that the querent has enough of the above qualities to come out of his ordeal in fine shape, he might even make it look easy. But if the card is reversed, things get a bit more difficult because he doesn’t have the skills and/or temperament to succeed and must learn them on the fly as he is trying to fix the situation.
In the hero’s journey Temperance can be either an archetype or a stage in the journey. As an archetype it can be either the hero or an ally. The character is trapped between two other powerful characters or two elements in her life and is trying to bring them into balance or harmony.
Sabina Spielrein, in John Kerr’s book, A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein and the movie, A Dangerous Method, is a perfect Temperance figure. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud started out as close friends and colleagues, but professional and personal differences turned these two giants of psychoanalysis into bitter enemies. As a patient and lover to Jung and colleague and confidante to Freud, Spielrein struggles to make peace between the two men. She fails, but the experience strengthens her professionally and emotionally and she becomes a respected Russian psychoanalyst.
Temperance usually appears in the hero’s journey as the ordeal. This is the dark night of the soul where the hero undergoes the worst thing that could possibly happen to him, uses his special talents to survive death or worse, and comes away stronger, wiser, and better able to cope with a final and even worse ordeal. Zach Mayo’s ordeal in An Officer and a Gentleman is drill sergeant Foley, who launches a viscous campaign aimed at tormenting and humiliating Mayo into quitting the program. If he quits, he will lose his one chance to become an officer and a gentleman. He perseveres and the ordeal forces him to admit his dependence on others. This understanding makes him more cooperative and less selfish, two qualities he will need to achieve his goal of becoming an officer and a gentleman.
A quick interpretation of the Temperance card might be “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
4 thoughts on “The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: Temperance, Part IV”
Could you explain/compare the ordeal interpreted from Temperance vs. The Hanged Man?
Great question!
Yes, I can.
Both Temperance and The Hanged Man are about the ordeal phase of the hero’s journey, but they are about different sorts of ordeals.
The Hanged Man’s ordeal is voluntary and final. The hero intentionally chooses his ordeal and sacrifices himself to either gain knowledge or to aid a great cause of some sort. The ordeal will either kill him or bring about the desired result, or both. Odin chose to hang on the World Tree because he wanted enlightenment. He survived the ordeal and was given the runes as teaching tools for humanity.
The ordeal in Temperance happens because it happens and the hero has to deal with it. She didn’t volunteer for it and she’s not expecting any spiritual guidance or knowledge. But if she has the right skills and enough patience she will be able to eventually remedy the situation and come out all the stronger for her effort. In the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman, Zach Mayo just wanted to graduate from flight school. But when his drill sergeant got on his case, he used all his strength and skills to survive the ordeal and obtain his goal.
The underlying lie operating is that one is all alone. Perhaps the break thru is that one asks for help, for guidance, for light to show ways out of the dark times. I think humans, myself included, can spend a lot of time with the bushel basket over their heads cutting off their ability to perceive the light, and the world as it could be.
Yes, exactly.