Bohemian Gothic Tarot-The Empress

bumble bee

The Empress and her little granddaughter look like they are smiling for the
camera. They are dressed in their royal finery. But when you look in the mirror image the empress is facing a skeleton who is coming toward her.
Is this a reflection in the mirror or is he in the room actually reflected in the mirror. Does she know she is smiling at a skeleton or is she seeing what she
wants to see? The child is managing to almost eek out a smile but looks a little freaked out.
The empress is the mother card- perhaps the skeleton is her own mother
and the empress is there with her daughter or granddaughter. I could
be showinging the cycle of life. Many of us probably feel those that have gone before us at our sides at times. However, with the flowers on the stand and the royal finery it almost looks as though she is looking at a suiter.
Maybe its her dead husband, but in this desk hed probably be wearing a crown.
 

Grizabella

Maybe the skeleton in the mirror is the little girl's real mother. Maybe the mother there isn't. Maybe the woman sitting there has done away with the real mother.
 

bumble bee

Bohemian Gothic Empress

Ewww! I cant help thinking there is something here about this empress
starring at the face of death and not being afraid because as a woman
She was born with the ability to create life which as long as humans dont
destroy the planet will always overcome death. There will always be new life to continue population the world. This empress is probably past her childbearing years but you never know.
 

Thirteen

It's YOU!

bumble bee said:
They are dressed in their royal finery. But when you look in the mirror image the empress is facing a skeleton who is coming toward her. Is this a reflection in the mirror or is he in the room actually reflected in the mirror. Does she know she is smiling at a skeleton or is she seeing what she wants to see?
Ohmygawd! I finally got a chance to really, really examine this deck. The Empress is facing a skeleton...but it's not her dead husband, or the girl's real mom, or death....If you examine it right, you'll find it's...you.

Give it another look! If there was a real mirror there, you would see a reflection of yourself as you look at the Empress card, right? YOU are looking at her. YOU are reflected in the mirror. And your reflection, as in that of a haunted house mirror is that of a skeleton!

IMHO, this is brilliant! And yes, I think she knows exactly what she's looking and smiling at. A "mother" the Empress knows all about the cycle of life and death. She knows that we are all her children, all the same underneath.

Dark as it is, this is still the Empress card and one of the most telling and best that I've seen. We never really leave the great mother, though we may imagine that we do. I think that's why she's smiling. We think we're different, but she sees, and her mirror shows, that to her, we're not. And we imagine, having become adults, that we've escaped her embrace, but we all come back to it in the end. Back to Mother Earth.
 

Thirteen

*bump* in hopes of more discussion on this cool card.
 

Astraea Aurora

Thirteen said:
Ohmygawd! I finally got a chance to really, really examine this deck. The Empress is facing a skeleton...but it's not her dead husband, or the girl's real mom, or death....If you examine it right, you'll find it's...you.

Give it another look! If there was a real mirror there, you would see a reflection of yourself as you look at the Empress card, right? YOU are looking at her. YOU are reflected in the mirror. And your reflection, as in that of a haunted house mirror is that of a skeleton!

Wow, Thirteen! Yes, absolutely, it makes sense. Oh my goodness ... how scary ... and brilliant! As if the Empress is able to see through you, to see you without your ego, your personality, right to the bones.

Astraea Aurora :grin:
 

baba-prague

I will only say that Alex spent forever positioning that reflection. })
 

Thirteen

baba-prague said:
I will only say that Alex spent forever positioning that reflection. })
Kudos to Alex! Please let him know that it was well worth his time!
 

Thirteen

Astraea Aurora said:
Wow, Thirteen! Yes, absolutely, it makes sense. Oh my goodness ... how scary ... and brilliant! As if the Empress is able to see through you, to see you without your ego, your personality, right to the bones.
Yes! And what a unique and amazing idea to give the Empress a mirror. We often imagine certain other cards might have a mirror in them, but the Empress? And yet how perfectly it works. Of course the Empress, who also relates to Venus and beauty, would have a mirror. But what a mirror for a card about creating--one that deconstructs! One which lets us see ourselves at our most naked, without even flesh to hide the truth.
 

HoneyBea

Thirteen said:
Yes! And what a unique and amazing idea to give the Empress a mirror. We often imagine certain other cards might have a mirror in them, but the Empress? And yet how perfectly it works. Of course the Empress, who also relates to Venus and beauty, would have a mirror. But what a mirror for a card about creating--one that deconstructs! One which lets us see ourselves at our most naked, without even flesh to hide the truth.

This makes a lot of sense because she, unlike the High Priestess who conceals, the Empress reveals her secrets, she connects us to our human lives and that cycle of birth and death. The Empress is the mother to all sorts of creation,and therefore is a symbol of feminine productivity and action and she knows that one has to reconcile opposites in order to create a new third entity, here she reconciles life with death in order to expand her understanding, that out of life and death comes not just an ending but rebirth into something else.

~HoneyBea~