The Empress
Major Arcana, 3 — from The 1909 London Deck.
Upright
abundance, growth, care
Things are growing, and they mostly need feeding rather than forcing. The Empress is comfort, fertility and the sort of patience a garden requires. Whatever you have planted is doing better than you think.
In a yes or no reading, The Empress upright answers yes.
Reversed
depletion, smothering, neglect
Care has gone lopsided — too much given somewhere, none left over for you, or attention so close it is stopping the thing from growing. Step back far enough to see what is actually needed.
In a yes or no reading, The Empress reversed answers maybe — the situation has not settled.
What this card does in a reading here
A reading draws one card and answers the question you asked with it. The Empress can come up either way up — reversals are on in this deck, because the 1909 original was drawn with them in mind — and the two readings above are the starting point, not the answer. The answer depends on what you asked.