Temperance pours the waters of life between two vessels in endless flow; the angel of alchemy who transmutes base experience into spiritual gold always goes along the royal road of the Middle Pillar. Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation -- the sacred art of enough. Reversed: Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, also unfortunate combinations, disunion, competing interests.

UPRIGHT: Economy, Moderation, Frugality, Management

REVERSED: Disunion, Competing interests, Unfortunate combinations, Religion

Golden yellow and sunlike attributes adorn this card and figure. Neither male nor female, this angel may be an archetype for the alchemical “Rebis” figure, the Great Work incarnated into the form of Man. Masculinity and Femininity mastered and integrated, able to pass between the two energies like the re-pouring pair of cups in exchange. Temperance is a righteously dualistic card indicating its unifying dictionary definition on one end {moderation} while its reversal is a harsh renunciation of compounded or collective efforts gone wrong. Here is your Middle Way, or Dao of the Sage, in Tarot form; Temperance is the synthesis of accumulated experience crafting a more mild yet tenacious being. 

On the journey, the hero must be patient, take stock of resources, make a plan…{sometimes in the direct aftermath of a failed coalition.}

Bottom Line: When you draw on Temperance, consider pacifying your extremities.

Tree of Life Path: Tiphareth to Yesod -- Beauty ⟷ Foundation. We move from the heart of construction to the base sphere of thoughtform emanations enshrouding the Earthly Kingdom (Malkuth); Temperance is a necessary blessing of serenity to the long-game array of manifestation. {One must note that God got it all going in seven days, not one.}

A.E. Waite quote: “It is called Temperance fantastically, because, when the rule of it obtains in our consciousness, it tempers, combines and harmonises the psychic and material natures. Under that rule we know in our rational part something of whence we came and whither we are going.”

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