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My Tarot Trump: Temperance
By Artemis/mother of Isis, Amber, Gabriel, Orion

TEMPERANCE and the other Moral Lessons
I consider Temperence, from the Mythic Tarot to be my trump card. As I reflect upon this card, I realize that I can see much of who I now am in the Godess dipicted upon it's face. Iris, messenger and server to, Hera. Iris, stands below a rainbow. One foot in a stream, the other on solid ground, pouring water back and fourth from a silver to a gold cup. The sun shining through departing storm clouds is symbolic to me. I can see the challenges and opsticles that I have had to face ... or perhaps better stated, I can see the way I've chosen to weather the storms and survive happily. Temperance... Balance... A balenced heart. One not fueld by loss, anger, sorrow, hate, jealousy, resentment, or a score of other negative destructive emotions I have stuggled with. The choice to react with intelegent, active feeling rather than get carried away by pure emotion, or worse shutting down completly. That constant balanceing of pain and sorrow with love and joy. The realization that I must, and indeed can, accept fate; yet never give up hope. The ability to bare the cross; yet not be overwhelmed by it's weight. The flow of feeling. Feeling in a relationship. Relationship... something I've always had trouble with. Until the family I have now, that is.

My family... my children...my beautiful daughters, my sons which I failed to carry long enough for them to enter this world alive... my greatest source of both pain and joy. I am like Iris, for I am my daughter's messenger, and their server. As they are mine. This is true with all mother-child relationship. That flow of giving and receiving. Yet, I am truly messenger and server, for you see, both my daughters are chairbound and they both have difficulty speaking. So, I interpret and do things for them that their bodies wont alow them to do for themselves. Yet , I can honestlly say that we are truly happy, for our lives are so full with love.

I have had a difficult time learning the Four Moral Lessons of the Major Arcana. At age three I had shed so many tears that I promised myself I would never cry again. I kept this promise untill my first born was just a little shy of three. Then a series of reacurring dreams (nightmares really) became a reality. My little girl had developed a limp on her right side, and there were someother things she could no longer seem to do. I took her to the doctor one mourning. Just to ease my mind. She must have fallen, or twisted her leg, or something. Must always think positve, you know. By the time I returned home late that afternoon, I was falling to pieces. I couldn't even get out of my car. When my husband came to see what was wrong, all I could do was cry. Finally, I managed to say, "This is it! It really happened!". I had prayed for years that this would not be so. The pain, the anger, the frustration, the denial, I felt it all. I mourned. I knew from my dreams what was to come. And, I had not yet realized that I had underestimated just how bad it was going to be.

I had named my beautiful child after the great egyption goddess, thinking it would protect her somehow. I've always beleived this. Yet, I turned my back on my faith. I felt betrayed by my gods, by my faith. l felt I had somehow caused this to happen. My mother had warned me as a small child not to have children, and "never practice magic, because it would open doors that are better off closed". Looking back, I think that my catholic mother was afraid of her own sight. She never did learn balance. I was angry with my Gods. I decided not to practice the craft. Nonetheles, I felt it would be ok to continue to meditate, channel, study Tarot, keeping it strictly white light and "spiritial". Thank the Godess!, for this is what allowed me to reunite with my religion and myself. To regain my faith. It is what alowed me to heal. The Tarot has shown me life's journey in a different, better perspective. Allowing a balance, a peace,an acknowledgement of life's lessons to develop within me.

Temperance is the second of the Four Moral Lessons represented in the Major Arcana. I can see how I have journyed into each of theese lessons . In my teens and early twentys I was focused on Justice and Strength . A balanced mind, to be rational, objective, to only do what was just and fair without considering the price on the heart. To always be strong, even if it meant alowing the savage beast within to run wild and unchecked. This helped me beat the odds, to not become just another statistic. In my late twentys and early thirties I ran head first, over and over and over again, into the Hermit. I refused to exept the lessons of time and the limitations of being humane. I became a hermit withdrawing into myself and away from others, away from the Gods. Then I became, stagnant, stuck in Temperance... I existed soley for my family , forgetting that I must exist in my own right.

Thus, It has only been through the development of Temperance that I have been able to understand that to find true wisdom, real happiness, one must not only be just and strong, but one also needs to know and accept one's limitations. One must exist for others and for one's self. Balance and a flow of feeling is needed in all things. I am now prepaired and ready to move beyond the Moral Lessons and continue life's journey.Artemis/mother of Isis, Amber, Gabriel, Orion

   
 

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