"You are nurturing yourself.  You're taking time to cozy up and treat yourself well.  This may mean taking time out, reading a good book, feeding yourself, or taking a hot bath.  It could also mean loving and healing yourself on a more psychological level.

It is appropriate or even necessary to be involved with healing and nurturing now.  You have the strength and awareness to protect or heal yourself or others.  Go ahead and do it." - Gail Fairfield, Choice Centered Tarot

The Empress is the 3rd card in the Major Arcana.  She is a symbol of feminine strength and power.  She represents the power of creativity, fertility and abundance.  She is an especially powerful symbol for females - showing that women don't need to act masculine in order to be strong. 

I drew The Empress again.  I have to say, I've become much more sympathetic and in-tune with this card.  I actually used to respond quite negatively to The Empress when she appeared for me.  But now I can see her strength, her beauty and her gifts. 

What I usually react to when I see the fecund and fertile Empress is a sense of being smothered, overwhelmed by that abundance.  Now I realize that what I've usually connected to is my own feelings regarding my mother.  I love her but there are times when I feel like I'm being smothered or drowned beneath her need to be my mother.  I struggle to be true to meet and not mutate to meet her needs and expectations.  This is all complicated by the fact that my relationships with mature, nurturing and supportive women have been difficult or non-existent. 

In the past, when The Empress appeared I reacted negatively to her receptive qualities and saw it as weakness.  I had totally identified with the dominant (male) power in my family and incorporated many traditionally male attitudes and behaviors into my psyche.  I was (and still am) very aggressive and quite capable of getting into a fistfight if the occasion called for it.  I was exceedingly proud of the fact that I had fought boys and could take a punch without crying like a girl.  I wasn't going to be anyone's doormat (mother, wife - all were somewhat interchangeable to me).  As a result I was very offputing to most of the males of my acquaintance.  They didn't feel like dating someone who might punch them in the head if they got too grabby.

But in these cards (and other Empress cards I've pulled lately) I can see the power and strength of The Empress.  On the Secret Tarot she sits garbed in red looking confident and capable.  She is not waiting for some strong knight to come and protect her.  She looks like she would have no problem taking her scepter and bopping someone over the head if necessary.  But I also think that would be her last recourse.  She prefers subtlety and diplomacy instead of aggressive and physical altercations.  The Healing Tarot Empress sits nude, adorned with tattoos and very pregnant in the midst of a fertile and green field.  She seems secure and at home.  She welcomes you into her space and has no fear that you might harm her or that she can't handle any situation that comes her way.  I think I need to be more like these women - letting my self-confidence and self-assurance do my talking for me rather than developing diarrhea of the mouth.

Instead of telling people how great and amazing I am, maybe I need to let them discover that for themselves.  It would certainly make for less antagonistic relationships.  I'm realistic enough to know that I'll never be more yin than yang.  But I am getting mature enough to see the power and wisdom to a yin approach to certain situations.  It's time for me to embrace my inner yin strength.