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Combinations · Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot
The Empress combinations
Whatever sits beside the Empress gets ground to grow in, so her pairs are about what is ripening and how well it is tended. Here is how card III reads beside each of the other cards in the deck, upright and reversed.
Card meaning: The EmpressCombinations are common patterns, not rules
The readings here describe how a pair most often reads. Check each one against two things before you apply it. The first is the question: the same pair says one thing about a relationship and another about a job offer, and the question decides which side of the pair matters. The second is the background, meaning what the querent already knows about the situation, the position each card holds in the spread, and the cards around the pair. When the question or the background points another way, go with them over the general reading. Each pair page lists the exceptions that come up most often.
Ask what a pair is growing and the Empress usually answers. Crowned with twelve stars, wheat ripe at her feet, she gives the card beside her fertile ground: the Fool's idea gets room, the Ace of Cups gets a home, the Emperor's plan gets something alive to protect. Upright with an upright partner, most of her pairs read as harmonious and lean toward family, a home, creative work or money that grows.
Her pairs go wrong in two ways. Some partners strike at what she grows: the Tower's shock, the Five of Swords' fight, the Devil's habit of turning plenty into attachment. Others show what blocks it, such as fear in the Eight of Swords or hardship in the Five of Pentacles, and beside those she is the care close at hand. Reversed, she brings her own trouble into the pair. Care becomes smothering or runs dry, and the querent is too drained to take what the partner offers.
She is Earth and Venus. Cups water her and sit easily beside her, Pentacles share her element, Wands meet her neutrally, and Swords are contrary, a cold wind over the field. Three is her number, the sum of the Magician's one and the Priestess's two, so beside an Ace to Ten the quintessence is the Major three numbers above the partner's.
The Empress beside other cards in a spread
Beside Major Arcana cards
The High Priestess carries in silence what the Empress brings to birth, and The Emperor puts a wall around her garden: home, family, a venture built to last. The Fool gets fertile ground for his start, and The World brings her harvest all the way in. The Devil, The Tower and The Moon are the trumps that unsettle her upright, binding her plenty, shaking it, or keeping the facts out of sight.
Beside Wands
Wands meet her Earth neutrally, so each pair keeps both voices. The Ace drops a spark into her field, the Three sends her plans out on the water, and the Four is the household celebration: a wedding, a homecoming, a home made secure. The Five sets rivalry around a project worth growing, and the Ten shows success that has multiplied the work. A reversed King of Wands is one of her hardest partners, a domineering will that does not listen.
Beside Cups
Water feeds Earth, and the Cups give her abundance a feeling. The Ace and the Page bring new love, tender news or, in a pregnancy question, a lean toward family, and the Ten is a happy home that keeps growing. The Four, Five and Seven show plenty that the querent cannot enjoy yet, through boredom, grief or too many dreams. The Eight is her one Cups partner that asks the querent to leave a comfortable life that has gone hollow.
Beside Swords
Air is contrary to Earth, so the Swords cool her warmth and she softens their edge. The Ace gives her a clear idea to grow and the Four a restful pause. The Five is her most difficult upright partner in the suit, a fight that damages what she protects. The Two, Three, Eight, Nine and Ten describe a decision, a heartbreak or a fear set against her plenty, and when the Sword is reversed the Three, Eight, Nine and Ten turn toward growth.
Beside Pentacles
Pentacles share her Earth, so the suit makes her abundance literal: a home, a body, a budget. The Ace is a new beginning in money or family, the Seven a slow harvest, the Nine and Ten a comfortable home and lasting wealth. The Queen of Pentacles is the working mother beside the cosmic one, the idea carried out. Only the Five troubles her upright, a winter in which she is the care close by, if the querent accepts it.
Beside court cards
Court pairs have no quintessence, so rank decides the tone. The Pages bring something young to tend: a new feeling with the Page of Cups, study with the Page of Swords. The Knights set the pace, from the bold Knight of Wands to the Knight of Pentacles with his patient work. Queens and Kings are often real people at home or work, and the Queen of Pentacles is her closest likeness. Reversed, the King of Wands turns domineering beside her.
Beside a card of the same number
She is three, the number she shares with the four Threes, and every one of those pairs has The Lovers as its quintessence. The Three of Wands sends her plans out on the water, the Three of Cups shares her abundance at a gathering, and the Three of Pentacles builds her vision with skilled people. The Three of Swords is the odd one: heartbreak in a loving part of life, which eases into recovery when the Sword is reversed.
Beside reversed cards
With the Empress upright, the reversal of a hard card often helps: a reversed Devil, Tower, Five of Pentacles or Eight of Swords loosens a hold, softens a crash or ends a hard stretch, and she tends the growth that follows. The reversal of a supportive card leaves her generous and blocked, with the celebration on hold, the feeling closed or the structure turned controlling, as with the reversed Four of Wands, Ace of Cups or Emperor.
The Empress with every card
Each row gives the outlook in all four states, read from The Empress's side: The Empress first, then its partner.
Harmonious
Mixed
Challenging
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Ace of Cups
New love, a happy home or a new life: feeling arrives and has fertile ground to grow in.
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