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Major Arcana XIV

Temperance

Integration, measurement and patience

  • integration
  • measurement
  • patience
Card of a winged tuxedo cat between water and land, with two cups joined by a luminous current, irises and a crowned sun at the end of a path
Major Arcana XIVTemperance

Reading the card

Finding the right ratio is also a way forward.

Temperance brings together elements that seemed incompatible until discovering a new relationship between them. It invites you to adjust quantities, times and expectations with patience, without demanding that balance be immobility or perfection.

Temperance pours water between two cups while maintaining contact with earth and current. The image proposes active integration: test proportions, observe results and adjust again. It can refer to rest and effort, emotion and judgment, one's own life and shared commitment. It does not seek an automatic middle point, because each situation requires a different measure. Start by cutting back on the extremes and create a combination you can sustain without losing any essential needs.

Documented iconography

Symbols to look slowly.

We separate the motifs inherited from the Rider-Waite-Smith system from any artistic decision of Cat Omens.

  1. RWS Tradition

    The two cups

    The flow between containers converts measurement into relationship and continuous adjustment.

    The Pictorial Key to the Tarot · Part II
  2. RWS Tradition

    Water and land

    A support in each element expresses the ability to inhabit two conditions without losing balance.

    The Pictorial Key to the Tarot · Part II

Origin

What we inherit and what we interpret.

The symbolic structure belongs to a published tradition; the reading and the feline adaptation are an editorial creation of Cat Omens.

Reference system
Rider-Waite-Smith
Editorial layer
Original Cat Omens

Sources consulted