Temperance tarot card meaning
Temperance is the card of balance, moderation and patience. The art of the middle way. Temperance reflects blending opposites slowly until they work together, and the calm that comes from measure.
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Temperance upright
The art of the middle way. Temperance reflects blending opposites slowly until they work together, and the calm that comes from measure.
Drawn upright, Temperance is the card at ease with itself, and balance, moderation and patience sit comfortably side by side. The image of a winged angel in white standing with one foot on land and one in a pool holds the whole of it. Read it as a mirror, and ask what in your own life it is showing back.
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Temperance reversed
Excess in one direction, or impatience with a process that needs time. Look for what needs rebalancing.
When Temperance falls reversed, many readers take it as the card’s energy turned inward. The balance it stands for has not gone; it is waiting, or it has been overused. Ask which, and the card has done its work.
What the card shows
The plate shows a winged angel in white standing with one foot on land and one in a pool, pouring water between two golden cups, a path leading to a mountain with a crown of light, irises by the water.
In the tradition this deck follows, the plate’s details are read this way: wings as messages from above; water as feeling and the inner life; the cup as the heart and what it holds; and distant mountains as challenges still ahead. Together they are why Temperance is read for balance, moderation and patience.
Temperance in love
For a question of the heart, Temperance turns attention to balance. It may mirror a season of moderation in a friendship or a marriage, and it asks, gently, whether patience is being offered as well as received. As a trump, Temperance speaks to the larger pattern in how you love rather than to a single evening.
Temperance in work and money
At work, Temperance reflects balance, and with money it asks about moderation. Hold it against a real choice in front of you and see where patience fits. As a trump, Temperance speaks to the direction of a working life more than to one week’s accounts.
As a question to carry
Where would a little more moderation bring a lot more peace?
Write it down, and come back to it when patience next comes up in your week.
Its place in the Major Arcana
Temperance is trump XIV, card 15 of the twenty-two in the Major Arcana.
Read as the Fool’s journey, the trumps tell one story of a life, and Temperance stands in the middle stage, where the traveller turns inward and meets fortune, sacrifice and endings. It follows Death and leads to The Devil: balance after the lesson of endings, and before the lesson of attachment.
Draw your own cards
Reading about Temperance is one thing; drawing it in answer to your own question is another. Members draw from the full deck in the Almanac tarot: the card of the day, three cards, or the ten-card Celtic Cross, each card read in its place.
Tarot is a tool for reflection, not a replacement for God, prayer, Scripture or wise counsel.
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Common questions
What does Temperance mean in tarot?
Temperance is read for balance, moderation and patience. The art of the middle way. Temperance reflects blending opposites slowly until they work together, and the calm that comes from measure.
What does Temperance mean reversed?
Excess in one direction, or impatience with a process that needs time. Look for what needs rebalancing. Reversed, it keeps its theme of balance, seen from the side where it is blocked or overdone.
What does Temperance mean in love?
For a question of the heart, Temperance turns attention to balance. It may mirror a season of moderation in a friendship or a marriage, and it asks, gently, whether patience is being offered as well as received.
