The year is just a smidgen of the way past Fall Equinox, The Harvest Festival. The farmer’s markets are bursting with fresh, local apples, pears, Italian plums, winter squashes of all shapes and colors, piles of bright orange pumpkins, tomatoes (finally), corn, wild crafted mushrooms, and 
golden, raw honey. For such a chilly summer, the northwest harvest has been bountiful—except for tomatoes. If the weather holds, even the grape harvest should be excellent, but late.
What better time to talk about The Empress? She is The Great Mother, Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the nurturer; the one who showers us with beauty and bounty and reminds us that, yes indeed, there is plenty to go around if we’d all just behave ourselves and share.
She lounges in the midst of a beautiful garden of ripe wheat, the universal symbol of nourishment. The waterfall behind her reminds us of her counterpart, The High Priestess, the ever virgin, mysterious guardian of the secrets behind the veil. But there is nothing virgin or mysterious about The Empress. In fact, many decks portray her as obviously pregnant. Her crown of twelve stars represents the zodiac and reminds us that she is also the Queen of Heaven.
Her planet is Venus, goddess of beauty, love, and pleasure.
This goddess also rules Libra, the zodiac sign of balance and harmony that begins with Fall Equinox; and Taurus, the springtime sign of fertility, wealth, and stability.
Dalet is the Hebrew letter assigned to this card. The Modern Hebrew word for door is “delet” and the shape of the letter is based on the Egyptian hieroglyph for door. Our Mothers’ wombs nourish us and are
our doors into this world.
The goddess I associate with The Empress is Demeter, the voluptuous, Greek earth mother who taught humanity how to farm and preserve food with the seasons. This sounds like a wonderful gift, except she did it out of pity.
Demeter cast the world into eternal winter until Hades released her daughter, Persephone, from the underworld. Then she visited winter upon humanity every year during the months when Persephone had to return to her husband in the underworld. Mother Nature can be harsh. We get the word “cereal” from Demeter’s Roman equivalent, Ceres. Other Empress-type goddesses are Isis—in her unveiled aspect, Inanna, Lakshmi, Freya, Pandora, and Juno.
The Empress is one of the most auspicious cards in the deck. She brings abundance, pleasure, and assured success. She may also signify a mother, a motherly woman, a generous woman, a pregnancy, the need for nurturing and kindness, domesticity, or creativity.
In the hero’s journey The Empress is usually an ally and a mentor. She may be an empress or queen; a wealthy, motherly woman; or an actual mother. She is sometimes the hero. And she can be a chilling shapeshifter, trickster, and/or shadow figure—think Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest or that fairy tale staple, the wicked stepmother.