Temperance
Temperance Tarot Card Meanings
UPRIGHT: Balance, moderation, patience, purpose
Upright Temperance
Temperance is the card for bringing balance, patience and moderation into your life. You are being invited to stabilise your energy and to allow the life force to flow through you without force or resistance. It’s time to recover your flow and get your life back into order and balance.
This card calls on you to remain calm, even when life feels stressful or frantic. Maintain an even temperament and manage your emotions. You have learned to keep composed in stressful situations. Little things don’t get to you, thanks to your seemingly abundant source of patience. Your respect for balance and tranquillity is what will help you achieve and experience fulfilment in your life.
Temperance asks you to take the middle path and accommodate all perspectives. Now is not the time to be highly opinionated or controversial. Be the peacekeeper and take a balanced and moderate approach, avoiding any extremes. Include others and bring together diverse groups of people to create harmony and cooperation. By working together, you will collectively leverage the right mix of talents, experiences, abilities and skills.
There is alchemy within Temperance. This Tarot card is about blending, mixing, and combining diverse elements in a way that creates something new and even more valuable than its separate parts. ‘Blending’ can take on many forms; for example, a blended family, an artist who blends different materials or techniques, a bartender who mixes new and exciting cocktails, or a chef who combines different cuisines and cooking styles.
The Temperance card shows that you have a clear, long-term vision of what you want to achieve. You are not rushing things along; instead, you are taking your time to ensure that you do the best job you can. You know you need a moderate, guided approach to reach your goals.
Finally, this card reflects higher learning. You are learning a great deal where you are now and are at peace with what you are doing – it is all coming together well. Your inner voice is guiding you to the right outcome, and you are patiently listening and following.
Upright Love Meaning:
Careful and considerate with love, being patient with love or lover
In romance, the upright Temperance tarot love meaning suggests patience, moderation, understanding and going the middle path. This card indicates that we must avoid going to extremes, and to be cautious and thoughtful of our actions. Consider your actions when it comes to love; and in what aspects your attitudes, beliefs or thoughts can be excessive. Are you too pushy with potential partners? Or instead, are you too reserved? Are you too giving? Or are you not giving enough? How can you bring these traits into balance? In addition, your relationship or potential relationships may require some patience right now, and attempt to work together to find compromise and harmony.
Upright Career Meaning:
Success from patience and moderation, steady and slow progress
Patience and moderation may be helpful tools for you to achieve your career goals. You are likely to find what you desire when it comes to your work, but it may come slowly and quietly as you put in the work every day. Your dedication and ability to navigate emotionally charged situations at work with calm can help you be noticed by your peers and superiors. When it comes to making changes in your career path, the Temperance card can be a reminder to remain patient, steady and devoted; all good things take time. Temperance can also signal doing a good job in balancing your career with different aspects of your life; it is neither an all-consuming ambition nor just a paycheck to you.
Upright Finances Meaning:
Diligent saving, slow and steady growth
The Temperance card can be a call to make sure that your approach to your finances is one of moderation and balance. This can mean that you’ve been diligent with saving, while also being able to treat yourself with something you can afford every once in a while. Over time, you may be building your resources with steady, diligent saving.
Reversed Temperance Tarot Card Meanings
REVERSED: Imbalance, excess, self-healing, re-alignment
Reversed Temperance
If you have recently experienced a period of excess, the reversed Temperance card is your invitation (or sometimes, your warning signal) to restore balance and moderation as soon as possible. You may have been over-eating, regularly drinking, buying things you can’t afford, arguing with loved ones, or engaging in negative thought patterns. These activities are taking you further away from who you are and what you are here to do. So, it is time to stop. As they say, “Everything in moderation!” Or, you may find you need 100% abstinence to break this negative cycle and bring your life back into balance again.
The reversed Temperance card can also be a sign you sense that something is ‘off’ in your life, creating stress and tension. Life is not flowing as easily as you had hoped or there’s a niggling voice from within going, “Wait a second! This doesn’t feel right!” You can ignore it and carry on with life as usual. But, heed Temperance’s warning: If you stay in this state for too long, that voice will just get louder and louder until you pay attention. Or, you can listen to it now and make the necessary adjustments to find your flow once again. Focus on your long-term vision and higher purpose and seek to align your daily activities with this vision.
Temperance reversed may reflect a period of self-evaluation in which you can re-examine your life priorities. Internally, you may feel called in one direction, but your daily life may not match up to what is emerging. See this as your opportunity to align your higher vibration with your outer world. You may need to change your living arrangements, relationships, career, and daily habits so you can cultivate more balance and purpose in line with your new priorities. Don’t be surprised if you run into tension or even conflict as you align your inner and outer worlds; it’s a natural part of the process of levelling up and creating positive change.
Similarly, the reversed Temperance card can be a call for profound self-healing. By creating more balance and moderation in your life, you open the possibility for such healing to occur. Given the reversal of this card, you are doing it in a way that is personal and private to you, without the influence of others. You know you have what you need to heal yourself and create more ‘flow’ in your life.
Reversed Love Meaning:
Going to extremes for love, all or nothing romances, impatience
In love, do you tend to think in all or nothing terms? Love, like many things in life, are full of grey areas. When reversed Temperance appears in a love tarot reading, your intensity may be surprising right now. Sometimes, no matter our best efforts, we can’t force love to come into being. You may benefit from being a bit more patient, while also making sure that your own emotions or desires do not go into extremes. When your date does something that is displeasing to you, do you tend to immediately reject them? Are you too demanding on your potential partners, so that nobody ever can satisfy you? It’s important to remember that humans can never be perfect; make sure your desires are reasonable.
Reversed Career Meaning:
Work-life imbalance, all or nothing at job, rushed job, reckless decisions
Something at work may be suffering from a lack of balance right now. Do you tend to go all in when it comes to your work, so much so that other aspects of your life suffer? Are you always pulling all-nighters, hoping that it all pays off in the end? Or alternatively, do you find that you slack off, leading to resentment from your colleagues? While the former can bring you success, this can be damaging to you in the long term. If this applies to you, look to correct this imbalance. Ensure that when completing projects, you aren’t rushing through them or making reckless choices; the quality of your work may be suffering.
Reversed Finances Meaning:
Failure to balance long term needs with short term happiness
Are you someone who always needs to buy yourself the next nice luxury? Or alternatively are you so frugal that you never reward your hard efforts with any small treat? It’s likely that both of these attitudes will need adjustment, as they are both untenable in the long term. The first always puts instant gratification over your future comfort, and vice versa. Consider your financial goals, and make sure you also put your own well-being in the picture; both your future well-being, and your present well-being needs to find a comfortable middle ground.