Temperance Help

I am thinking of doing a variation of temperance as a painting (saggitarius is my sign) , and im just wondering if everyone could give me some imput on different symbolism found in this card, some short meanings...just something i could use or interprate in the painting

One foot in water and the other foot on a rock.
A path running from the water (as in like a pond/lake) up to the mountains in which there is a crown glowing with yellow/gold radiation
A disk with a red dot in the middle on his forehead
Definitely a man in my card, even though he is wearing a "dress"
A white square with a red triangle on the "dress" over the heart
Eyes closed

From the Radiant Rider-Waite deck

Bec

In the original tarots, Temperance is always a female angel (the male is a Waite invention), in line with usual female personification of the virtues.

What is Temperance, what is she trying to represent? That is where you need to start. Temperance is one of the four cardinal virtues, described by Plato & neoplatonists. He role is to temper the "appetites" - that is, our desires, our extremes, our bodily impulses.

What is interesting, in the Tarot, is how this tempering is represented. Not as a stifling or numbing of desire, but rather, as an integration of desire with another element. This is shown by the figure of Temperance either decanting a liquid from one vase into another; or more interesting still - combining two liquids from two different vases. That is why this figure is often thought to show alchemy, which is the joining of two elements to create a third. So out of our desires and some other element (say - wisdom, or peace), we create a third element that effectively regulates our desires so they do not become obsessional & destructive, but rather, creative and vital.

From that idea you might take inspiration for your painting! I think it's a fabulous idea you have. Temperance is a truly inspiring figure.

Hydra said:

I am thinking of doing a variation of temperance as a painting (saggitarius is my sign) , and im just wondering if everyone could give me some imput on different symbolism found in this card, some short meanings...just something i could use or interprate in the painting

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Temperance often tries to blend different elements within the image, usually a cup or pot is shown in which to blend opposing forces to strike a balance...to temper you could say. Often land and water is featured as an example, say earth and water elementary.

Your own sign sounds like a good symbol of balancing different forces...half man, half horse and with your opposite sign being gemini this could be an easy way to have two little twins demonstrating this, if not the man and horse itself, power and restraint.

Pipkin

Wellcome Hydra!

And i guess this thread i started may be interesting to you:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=42208

That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.

mnemosyne7 said:

That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.

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Or leaves you hung over and swearing never to do it again...

Another mix in the Temperance card--the bow and arrow of Sag. Two parts create that weapon. Alone, neither does much good, together, they get where they're going.

I always thought a great Temperance card would be one of those Renaissance angels playing a guitar. I think of Temperance as the Buddhist concept of the Middle Way.

Before his enlightenment, the Buddha practiced extreme asceticism (basically trying to starve himself into nirvana) for about seven years. He was beginning to get the idea that it really wasn't working, when one day, as he was practicing near a riverbank, he overheard a conversation on a river barge drifting by. A man on the barge was teaching his friend the basics of guitar playing, saying "if the strings are too loose, they won't work, and if they're too tight, they'll break. To get a good sound, they need to be somewhere in the middle." The Buddha realized that if he stretched his body to the breaking point, he wouldn't accomplish anything except suffering, illness, and death. And extreme "laxness" in lifestyle would do the same. What is needed is a Middle Way. And, of course, this pertains to all areas of life, not just the physical.

So I would love to see the Temperance Angel playing a guitar! Just and idea . . .

I love the idea of the Temperance Angel playing the guitar...

...an instrument that embodies all the passions and emotions of the human soul, but transformed harmoniously by wood and gut string into a high art form. Not for nothing did Crowley call the Temperance card, Art.

I like the Buddha story told by Rachelcat - it inspired me to look at Robert Place's Buddha Tarot Temperance card, which shows Gautama having over-fasted, being offered a large bowl of rice & milk by Sujata. He divided the young woman's gift into 49 parts that sustained him during 49 days and allowed him to regain his strength. That image has a backstory, very like the story Rachelcat told, in which the god Indra appeared to Gautama a while before, when he was almost dying from his fasting, and started to play a three stringed lute, of which only the middle string was usable - one other being too loose and thumping, the other too tight, and broke. Gautama realised that if he wanted to become Buddha, he needed discipline; but too much discipline would break him before he achieved his goal of liberation. "To proceed, one had to embrace the middle path, nurture the body, and find motivation that was deeper than the ego."

Again, I believe what these stories show is not a stifling of passion, but its fertilisation with another element to create a third - that is the true middle way.

And according with that this is the only "Angel" in all the Tarot that is not in the Heaven but in the earth, i think that the middle way is also in mix spirituality with materiality, trying not to fall in "The Devil".
AM*