For You to See Life - 4u2c.life

The Temperance ~ symbolic meanings painted in the card.

The card of Temperance portrays a beautiful black-haired young woman garbed in rainbow-coloured robes, and bearing wings of many hues. She stands with one foot in a clear stream and one foot on dry land. Along the sides of the stream-bed grow purple irises. Behind her in the sky stretches a rainbow. In her hands she holds two cups, one of gold and one of silver, and pours water from one to the other.

The rainbow, appearing as the sun shines through departing rain-clouds, symbolizes promise and the renewal of relationship. It is also a bridge between heaven and earth, again suggesting relationship.

The gold and silver cups reflect the sun and moon, masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious, joined by the flow of feeling.

The polarity of water and earth upon which Iris stands again reflects her capacity to unite opposites within the individual.

Major Arcana ~ The Temperance

Here we meet Iris, goddess of the rainbow and messenger to Hera, queen of the gods. Iris was the feminine counterpart of Hermes, Zeus’ emissary, and was belove by both gods and mortals because of her kind, loving nature. If Hera or Zeus wished to make their will known to men, Iris flew lightly down to earth where she either borrowed mortal shape or appeare in her divine form, that of a beautiful winged woman. Sometimes she cleaved the air as swiftly as the west wind, Zephyrus, who was her consort. At other times she glided down the rainbow which bridged sky and earth.

She sped through the waters with equal ease. Even the underworld opened before her when, at the command of Zeus, she went to refill her golden cup with the waters of the Styx by which the immortals bound themselves with fearful oaths. When the gods returned to Olympus from their journeys, Iris would unharness the steeds from their chariots and give the travellers nectar and ambrosia.

Iris not only delivered Hera’s messages, but also effected her vengeance, although more often she offered help and care. She prepared Hera’s bath, helped her with her toilet, and night and day stood at the foot of her mistress’ throne. In one version of the myth it was Iris, rather than Aphrodite, who gave birth to Eros, the god of love.

On an inner level, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, is an image of the second of the qualities or faculties which the Fool must learn to form a stable individuality: a balanced heart. Where Athene, who embodies Justice, is fair and objective, Iris, who embodies Temperance, is kind and merciful, although her sympathy is neither mawkish nor sentimental.

Iris is connected with the function of feeling, which is different from what we call emotion, because emotion is a visceral reaction to a situation, while feeling is an active, intelligent faculty of choice. The function of feeling is a constantly changing bridge between opposites, a careful sensing of the needs of a particular situation with the goal of harmony and relationship at the end. Thus Iris pours water ceaselessly back and forth from one cup to another, because feeling must constantly flow and renew itself according to the requirements of each moment.

Where Athene’s ethical precepts are necessarily static and universal, Iris’ goal of harmony requires a perpetually fluid adjustment of feeling, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Thus she can offer solicitous care or effect Hera’s vengeance. But ultimately she serves the feminine realm rather than the masculine, and whatever the changing responses of the flow - even anger and conflict - the goal is always co-operation, harmony and better relationship.

We do not ordinarily think of feeling as an intelligent function like rational thought. Yet the two cards of Justice and Temperance stand as opposites and as complements. Athene and Iris are two contradictory images one serving the Father from whose head she has sprung, the other the Mother, one upholding abstract truth even at the expense of the individual heart, the other protecting the individual heart even at the expense of abstract truth. Although these goddesses were not enemies in myth - for Iris was no one’s enemy - yet they can be enemies within us, for they will often offer different solutions to the same problem Do we make a decision based on rational thought or on the dictates of what our feelings tell us is the appropriate pafh for the preservation of relationship? The presence of these two figures in sequence in the Major Arcana suggests that the Fool, who is really each one of us, must integrate both. Thus, having learned through Athene to think clearly, the Fool encounters Iris, goddess of the rainbow, and must leam the delicate assessment of feeling which is so different from wild reactive emotion or hypocritical sentimentality.

But even Iris, goddess of the rainbow, can be ambivalent. The constant shifting of feeling to preserve relationship can produce stagnation, because nothing but feeling makes it impossible to breathe. Nothing can be talked about, no differences discussed, no conflicts that might lead to growth, because harmony is all. Such a state allows no room for separateness, for separateness threatens aloneness, and Iris, who is friend to both gods and mortals and can function on every level of life, must yet always devotedly serve someone, and cannot exist in her own right. Thus, Temperance without Justice becomes stagnant water, where no change is allowed to occur, and the mind suffocates from sheer boredom.

On a divinatory level, the appearance of Temperance in a spread implies the need for a flow of feeling in relationship. Iris, guardian of the rainbow, suggests the potential for harmony and cooperation resulting in a good relationship or a happy marriage. We are challenged with the issue of learning to develop a balanced heart, while also being gently reminded that the Fool cannot remain forever even with the beautiful Iris, and must pass on to the next Moral Lesson.

I will explain in my readings what each card means, this is a general interpritation taken from the Mythic Tarot Deck

Information Source: Mythic Tarot Deck
[published in 1986 by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene and Illustrated by Tricia Newell (not the New Mythic Tarot)]