Welcome to Tarot for Scholars, a resource that helps you weave the deep wisdom of tarot into your daily life and work. In each post, we offer reflections and prompts for exploring your own inner world and unlocking the unique creative power of your scholarship.
The Empress
About this card
Aliveness, fertility, the boundless generativity of nature. Nourishing and being nourished. The conception, gestation, care, growth, and proliferation of diverse lifeforms. Maternal love; sensuality; fecundity; embodied presence in the ever-unfolding creative process of the Earth and its riches.
Other interpretations
Margy’s cards, clockwise from top left: Radiant Tarot; New Chapter Tarot; Cosmic Slumber Tarot; Shining Tribe Tarot; Elemental Tarot; Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea; Spolia Tarot; Tarot of the Spirit.
Helen’s cards, clockwise from top left: Moon & Stars Tarot; Light Seer’s Tarot; Japaridze Tarot; Canes Arcanae; Star Spinner Tarot; Muse Tarot; Tarot of Mystical Moments; Forest of Enchantment Tarot.
Questions and prompts
What does creativity look and feel like for you as a scholar? Look for examples of Empress themes in your work: for example, beauty, pleasure, aliveness, fecundity, generativity, nourishment.
If you don’t think of yourself as creative in your scholarship, reflect on where your creativity might be hiding. How might it be quietly shaping your scholarly process without you realizing it?
Picture the scholarly process as a cycle, defined by a repeating sequence of conception, gestation, care, growth, proliferation, and decomposition. How does this archetypal process map onto your own experience? Where are you in this process right now?
Thanks for joining us for Tarot for Scholars! Your hearts, restacks, and comments brighten our day. 💫
Yours in scholarship,
HELEN SWORD is a scholar, poet, award-winning teacher, and founder of the WriteSPACE, an international writing community with members in 30+ countries. Her research-based books, articles, and online tools empower scholarly writers to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically, and with greater pleasure.
Visit Helen’s website here.
MARGY THOMAS is the creator of ScholarShape, a body of work dedicated to elucidating the patterns of Story-Argument across genres, disciplines, and life itself. Through services and DIY resources, Margy helps scholars use Story-Argument patterns to design their work — and to find its deeper meaning and higher purpose.
Visit Margy’s website here.
