Alchemical Goddesses and The Tarot’s Empress Card

In traditional astrology, each of the seven classical planets was assigned to a single house in the natal chart. This is where the planet was said to “rejoice,” demonstrating its most positive significations. The planetary assignment was also connected to many of the meanings of the houses. Venus was said to rejoice in the fifth house — the house of “Good Fortune” — to which creativity, fertility, and children are typically assigned.

The Empress card has often been associated with the archetypal Venus (or Aphrodite in Greek mythology). The connection seems almost unmistakable: the figure is reclining on a chair emblazoned with Venus’ glyph. Although I’ve also seen Demeter as the named archetype for this card owing to the image of grain in the foreground, there is a ferocity associated with Demeter — with overtones of the Dark Mother — that may not necessarily lend itself to the traditionally gentler interpretation of this card.

According to Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of Goddesses in Everywoman, Aphrodite occupies a special category of feminine archetype: namely, that of “alchemical goddess,” owing to the “magical, transformational powers” that she holds in the mythological pantheon (224). In contrast to both virginal and vulnerable goddesses, like Hestia, Hera, Artemis or Persephone, “Aphrodite was never victimized and did not suffer.” While she shares characteristics with both categories of goddess, she is set apart in so far as her motivation rests in the birthing of new life. This ultimately comes…