Temperance Tarot Card Meaning

Temperance upright

Temperance speaks of moderation and balance: you look for the middle ground between two extremes. Your situation calls for bringing together, blending or adjusting elements that are often opposed, for looking for solutions and bringing distant positions closer. What counts is the way you go about it more than the result: it sometimes takes several tries, tests and mistakes to find the right mix, and continual adjustments to keep the balance. You pay attention to the right moment, the right rhythm and the right amount.

This card follows Death. After the break, it restores circulation: a gradual reconciliation takes place between elements that would otherwise stay separate. You return to the ordinary activities of life, enriched by what you have discovered about yourself, and your way of acting reconnects with reality, with more awareness than before. You combine spontaneity and knowledge. You don't need to go to extremes, because they aren't necessary: you respond appropriately to each situation as it arises.

You don't divide your life into compartments. You don't have one personality for work and another for your private life, and you don't sort moments into serious and fun. You bring the two dimensions of yourself together, your inner life and your life engaged in the world, spirit and personality, without suppressing one for the sake of the other. Your inspiration is born from the union of activity and receptivity: you search, you work, you prepare a right space within yourself, and you stay open to what doesn't come from you alone. You test what you believe against everyday experience: to know, you have to do.

Your decision is not immediate. You think it over and weigh the pros and cons, and you look for fairness and equal shares. You know that the right action is often to do nothing and wait, where others need to act constantly. The card appears as a counterweight to excesses of recklessness and agitation. It also speaks of thrift, frugality, management and accommodation.

With others, you can ease tensions, console and reconcile while keeping a calm temperament. You can manage, keep a budget, test a product, connect people or facilitate a merger. You may also receive advice or help from a trusted source. The card corresponds to the sign of Sagittarius.

Your strengths

You are detached from petty ambitions and selfish passions. You see stress as a creative challenge and mistakes as useful opportunities. You are prudent and discreet. You give practical advice, suited to what the person is really capable of doing. You keep ideas circulating by balancing your emotions and your practical sense. Others find it almost magical how you get through difficulties with joy.

What holds you back

You are very sensitive to outside influences and let yourself be impressed.
You may seem cold or apathetic.
Your nature may become unstable and changeable.
You may become passive, lazy and improvident.
You may spend without thinking and be extravagant.

What helps

Doing what the situation calls for, and waiting when it calls for waiting.
When you feel torn between action and passivity, or between dream and reality, seeking moderation and acting from your inner sense of life to bring these two sides together.
Accepting trials, mistakes and continual adjustments to find the right mix.
Balancing your emotions and your practical sense.
Uniting effort and receptivity: working, preparing, and staying open to what comes from elsewhere.
Putting your ideas to the test of everyday experience.
Giving someone advice they can follow, without demanding of them what they cannot do.

Temperance reversed

Upright, Temperance is about moderation: finding a middle ground between extremes, blending or alternating opposite elements, adjusting bit by bit. Reversed, this search for balance no longer happens: something in your situation is out of balance, in conflict or excessive, and that creates stress. The cards on either side show what is causing the problem or what cannot be brought into harmony.

You may feel that people are not cooperating, or that your needs and interests compete with those of others. Emotions overflow and lead to quarrels and disagreements. What you are building or trying out can prove impractical or take more time than planned, and you grow impatient or frustrated. Your energy scatters. You feel out of the flow, cut off from what is around you, and your sense of the right moment is off: the adjustments you attempt do not land well. The card speaks of unease, restlessness and uncertainty.

You may lack compassion and see situations in "all or nothing" terms. You refuse to rule anything out, or you avoid committing to one possibility over another. You may also avoid tackling a problem because you feel uncreative or unsure of yourself, and put things off or lose time among distractions, inefficiency and hesitation.

You may overreact or overcompensate. Onto others, you project either an image that is too perfect, as if they were better and more gifted than you, or that of people with no sense of measure. You may also have a sound intuition about the right combination of elements in a situation without managing to put it into words or convince others. Reversed, the card also speaks of your awareness of your own inner state, your temperament and what you feel in your body.

In the traditional meaning of the reversed card: disagreement, disunion, bad combinations, competition, conflict of interests, lack of cooperation, changes imposed on you, shifting moods, impatience, frustration, a feeling of instability.

Your strengths

You have an intuition for the right mix among the elements of a situation, even if you have trouble expressing it. You know how to spot imbalance.

What holds you back

You overreact or overcompensate.
You give in to impatience and frustration when a project takes more time.
You see things in "all or nothing" terms and lack compassion.
You hesitate to choose, refuse to give anything up, or avoid a problem.
You procrastinate and lose time among distractions, inefficiency and indecision.
You idealize others or judge them without measure.
You feel out of the flow and your energy scatters.

What helps

Looking at the neighboring cards to see what does not fit together. Recognizing the imbalance and taking responsibility for your own well-being by opening to your intuition. Paying attention to your inner state.

What the card shows

The image

A winged angel pours a liquid from one vessel into another. The gesture is peaceful and continuous, and nothing is lost. One foot is on the land and one foot is in the water. The figure is neither masculine nor feminine. A path rises toward the horizon, where a great light lets you glimpse a crown. The lower vessel is not placed under the upper one: the image shows something physically impossible, and that is why the temperate person's ability to deal with difficulties with joy seems magical to others. The underrobe is red, the cloak blue and the lining green: red stands for inner spiritual activity, blue for the serenity of the soul, green for the tendency to give vitality.

What the elements of the image mean

The word "temperance" comes from a Latin word meaning to mix, to combine in the right proportion. The card therefore shows the blending of the elements of life and personality, so that the person and the outside world fit together naturally. The two vessels stand for the two dimensions of being: spirit and personality, inner life and life engaged in the world. The angel is the mediator who makes one flow toward the other. Silver corresponds to the domain of feelings, imagination and the unconscious; gold corresponds to consciousness, reason and will. Water stands for the unconscious and the possibilities of life; earth stands for the real world, other people and what gets realized. The temperate person connects the two through their actions. The triangle inside the square says that life energy works in the midst of ordinary activities: it is enough to be yourself to feel your connection with the universe, without performing miracles. The path means the return to the outside world after going down into yourself, and you come back enriched. The card speaks of behavior rather than ideas. The rainbow and the irises recall the calm after the storm and renewal: the card comes after Death, in which old habits disappear.

The place of the card

After Death, which cut and pruned, Temperance restores a flow and brings a gradual reconciliation between separated elements. She also comes after the Chariot. The ego built by the Chariot becomes rigid and behavior shrinks to habits; Temperance shows behavior reconnected with reality, combining spontaneity and knowledge. She does not go to extremes because they are not needed: she responds precisely to each situation, without holding herself back by a moral rule. The Star also resembles her, with its figure pouring water, but Temperance stays controlled: she pours from one to the other, mixing and conserving, while the Star pours freely.

What the card means

The basic meaning is moderation, adaptation, adjustment, management and economy. It also carries the sense of conciliation, compatibility, calming and consolation. Nothing is done abruptly and everything is done in measure. The decision is not immediate: you weigh the pros and cons. The drawing also indicates fairness and sharing in equal parts. It is the card of inspiration, which is born from the union of activity and receptivity: seeking, working and preparing a right place within yourself, while staying open to what does not come from you alone. It shows the right move in the situation that presents itself, and that right move is very often to do nothing and wait. It sometimes appears as the opposite of the cards of recklessness and agitation. It is also the card of healing: it corrects imbalances and reconciles opposing beliefs. In a spread, if a person is torn between two sides of herself, for example action and emotion, or dream and reality, Temperance shows how to bring them together.

Your strengths

You adapt easily and you are flexible. You have an even temper, you do not seek personal advantage and you stay unruffled in the face of small miseries. You know how to blend opposites and find your way between two extremes. You are able to calm tensions and reconcile.

What holds you back

You are sensitive to outside influences, and your character can be unstable and changeable.
You can fall into passivity, laziness, letting things slide, lack of foresight and thoughtless spending.
You can swing from one extreme to the other because you lack an inner reference point for what suits the situation.
You feel you always need to be doing something, while the situation often calls for waiting.

What helps

Wait when the situation requires it, and act only when it is right.
Make continual adjustments, with trial and error, until you find the right balance.
Balance your emotions with practical sense.
Join effort and receptivity: work, while staying open to what comes from elsewhere.
Calm down and avoid extremes when you feel torn.
Put your ideas to the test of experience.