The Empress
From the early Card of the Day run: a Facebook-first look at tending what grows.
Card three. She sits on a throne piled with cushions out in a wheat field, a crown of twelve stars on her head and a scepter in her hand. Her gown is patterned with pomegranates, a stream runs behind her through the trees, and a heart-shaped shield leans against the side of her throne. Nothing in this picture is in a hurry.
Upright, the Empress is growth that comes from tending. Not forcing, not rushing, feeding the thing a little at a time and letting it get big on its own schedule. A garden, a kid, a savings account, a project taking shape on the kitchen table. She says what you care for is allowed to take up room while it grows.
Reversed, the care goes crooked. Either the garden gets ignored while you run yourself ragged for everybody else, or you're hovering over it so closely nothing can breathe. Both versions are more common than most of us would admit.
Mine is a tomato plant on my back steps this summer. I am not a gardener. But I watered that one plant most days, and it gave me tomatoes into October. It didn't need talent. It needed me to keep showing up with the watering can.
What's something in your life that's growing mostly because you keep tending it, a little at a time?
When something in your life needs tending rather than forcing, a Single Card Pull can name the next gentle step today.