Temperance traditionally symbolizes balance, moderation, discipline, self-control, harmony between the spiritual and material aspects, taking the middle path, spiritual healing, strengthening the spirit through moderate behavior, calm and serenity.  Temperance represents a balance of mind and body, integration of energies; synthesizing opposite forces in your life; balancing alternatives to reach an equitable compromise; tempering one's appetites, moderation.

"You are blending tangible, physical elements or factors to make new wholes.  You may be an artist, alchemist, baker, party-giver, or grass-roots organizer.  You're using your special talents to creatively produce a tangible product." - Gail Fairfield

Well isn't moderation the key to everything in life.  I suppose someday I'll actually learn how to apply this concept.  It's a bit ironic because this is one of my birth cards and it's a concept I've always appreciated but never quite managed to incorporate into my life.  It certainly answers my question about feeling better.  If I lived in a way that was more balanced and moderate I'd be in much better health.  I tend to move back and forth between extremes.  It's almost a knee-jerk reaction to being told what to do.  Even when I know the advice is beneficial and would help, I get stubborn and dig in my heels (sort of like a Missouri mule).  It's one of my least endearing traits.  And despite one some folks say, knowing one's faults does not always mean that you actually feel the need to modify them (well in my case anyway).

In the Fairy Tale card, Karen Mahony uses and Italian folk tale called Water and Salt to illustrate the energy of this card.  She explains that a king once asked his three daughters how much they loved him (a la King Lear).  The elder two daughters used extravagant language t proclaim their love for their father but the youngest said she loved him as much as water and salt.  This infuriated the father who ordered her killed (talk about an intemperate response).  Her older sisters plot to save her life and the youngest daughter escapes.  She eventually is adopted by a magician and is wooed by the prince of a local king.  When they marry she invites her father to the wedding but gives him no water or salt during the meal.  He bemoans his lost daughter and is thrilled when she reveals herself to him.  What a great guy.

The image on the Collective Spirit card looks like a water elemental who has risen up from the waters and stands nude against the night sky.  She is part of both elements - air and water.  She also holds a chalice in each hand while various other images float about her - beer, a child, a statue.  They all serve as a reminder that each has equal value, equal importance.  One should not focus on only one of these areas to the exclusion of all else.  Unfortunately this is a habit I have yet to break.  I become very driven, almost obsessive about one specific thing.  It does change over time - ranging from cookbooks to Tarot to dolls to who knows what else.  I become so narrowly focused that I often miss out on other opportunities because I've developed tunnel vision.  Obviously this is something I need to work on. 

Somehow I get the sense that what I really need to do here is find my own center.  Rather than letting external objects drive what I do and how I focus my energies, I need to let them flow from within myself and not try to force it.  I need to trust that I can do this.  I have even lost the ability to listen to my own body's signals about when it is satiated and when it is hungry.  One of the keys to my health issue (diabetes) is connected to the fact that I slip into food binges (jellybeans, M&Ms) as easily as I slip into other obsessions.  Not exactly a temperate or moderate approach to life.  Of course I suppose one could argue that even my approach to dealing with this situation is somewhat imbalanced and lacks moderations.  I focus all my energies on it for a time but don't make any long-term changes and then I move on to something else.  Even my approach to "eating plans" veers from one extreme to the next.  One week I'm following the Zone diet, then the Montignac, then the "French Women Don't Get Fat" then it will be something else.  In reality all I need to do is ensure that I eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, go easy on the fatty proteins and work on portion sizes and I'll have this licked.  But sometimes I need to be hit in the head a few times before the message gets through.

Something about the story in the Fairy Tale Temperance card brought to mind Mackenzie Phillips' recent revelations about an incestuous relationship with her father.  She experienced so much intemperance and lack of moderation in her life that she has found it difficult to find her center.  These latest revelations are sad and abhorrent, but probably all to familiar to many women, to many people in general.  When your childhood is one of dysfunction and "abnormal" behavior and extremes it becomes so easy to lose site of what a normal life actually looks like.  And in America, where we hold dysfunction up as a badge of honor and mock those who try to lead a more balanced, holistic life.  Shows like Roseanne, The Simpsons and Family Guy make abusive parental appear acceptable.  Don't get me wrong - I love The Simpsons and Family Guy but I am under no delusions about how out there they are and if I had children they would not be allowed to watch.

I give Mackenzie Phillips credit - it took a lot of courage to share what she happened to her.  Those types of topics - abusive childhoods, sexual molestation, incest, are usually verboten on television but it is important that we drag them out into the light of day so that those being subjected to it now realize they are not alone and help is available.  The flip side is that we have other shows filled with women who have multiple possible fathers to their children, teenagers who thing being sexually promiscuous and disrespectful is acceptable, and parents who either spoil their children or just give up trying. 

Maybe the key to living a moderate and temperate life is facing whatever is causing us to behave in an intemperate way.  Maybe we need to release those inner demons and nightmares so that we can purify ourselves and feel whole again.  Maybe the intemperate behavior is an effort to full some gap in our lives, some hole in our soul that we don't even realize exists.  I watched a woman on the Wendy Williams show this morning who used to weigh over 700lbs.  She has lost over 300lbs and is working on losing more.  Oddly, she has no memory of her life before 13 years of age.  Now I may be completely off in guessing that there was some traumatic incident in her life at that time (possibly sexual abuse) that she blanked out and then proceeded to bury with food.  Gaining weight in order to reduce your attractiveness is a self-defense mechanism often employed by women who have survived rape or sexual abuse.  Maybe the gift being offered by the figure on the Collective Tarot is the gift of our own wholeness.  We can regain our center by finding positive and healthy ways to fill those holes.  This is something I need to explore further.