Temperance tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

Temperance is card XIV of the Major Arcana, the calm after Death. An angel stands with one foot in water and one on land, pouring water from one cup into another. Nothing spills. The card is about patience, moderation and the long art of mixing things until they are just right. Here is what Temperance means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and its history as a virtue.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: balance, moderation, patience, blending
• Reversed keywords: excess, impatience, swinging between extremes
• Number: XIV (14) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Fire Later tradition
• Astrology: Sagittarius Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

Waite described “a winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead” who is “pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice”, and noted that the figure “is neither male nor female”.

The two cups

The angel pours water between two cups at an angle that should not work, and yet the stream flows. Temperance blends opposites without erasing their difference. Change here is gradual, not a sudden fix.

One foot in water, one on land

One foot rests in a pool, the other on the bank. Water is feeling, land is the practical world. The angel balances both.

The path and the crown

A path leads from the pool to distant mountains, where a light shines with a faint crown inside it. Waite called it “some part of the Secret of Eternal Life”. For a beginner, it is the long road that patience makes walkable.

The irises and the triangle

Yellow irises grow by the pool, often linked to Iris, the Greek messenger goddess of the rainbow. On the angel’s robe is a square with a triangle inside, which Waite called “the square and triangle of the septenary”, the number seven.

Upright meaning

Upright, Temperance stands for balance, moderation, patience and harmony. It is the work of blending: work and rest, firmness and flexibility, old skills and new aims. Harmony here is maintained, not declared once.

In a reading, Temperance favors sustainable pacing and small experiments you can adjust as you go. It is often a healing card, for the body, for a relationship or for a stressed mind. Go slowly, mix carefully and trust the process.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, Temperance can mean excess, impatience or a mix that will not hold. You may be forcing a combination that needs more time, or swinging between extremes.

Return to measure. Cut what is too much and add what has been starved. Sometimes discord means that two aims should not share one cup at all. Separate them if blending only makes mud.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, finding a pace both people can sustain, compromise, a calm and balanced relationship. Reversed, swinging between clinging and pulling away.

Work and money

Blending skills into a coherent role, steady progress, a sensible budget. Reversed, overcommitting until quality collapses.

Spirituality

Patient integration of insight into everyday life. Reversed, bingeing on practices and then dropping them.

As feelings

As feelings, Temperance shows calm, patient and balanced affection. The person is in no hurry and wants things to grow steadily.

Temperance as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A time of healing or finding balance.
• Present: Go slowly and blend what you have.
• Future: Steady progress and a calmer rhythm.
• Advice: Find the middle way and keep a pace you can sustain.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When Temperance shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of balance runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is Temperance a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, Temperance leans yes. It leans yes, but slowly. Things will work out with patience and balance. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I blend opposing needs with patience until a livable whole appears.

Reversed affirmation: I correct excess and stop forcing mixes that will not hold.

Journal prompts:

• What two parts of my life need blending?
• Where am I doing too much, and where too little?
• What would a gentler pace look like this week?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called Tempérance, Temperance. Temperance is one of the classical virtues, and medieval artists often showed her as a woman diluting wine with water, pouring from one jug into another. The early tarot cards kept that domestic image: a woman mixing drinks to keep them moderate.

The wings came later, and so did the deeper reading. Waite turned the figure into an angel and wrote that the card “tempers, combines and harmonizes the psychic and material natures”. He said the old meanings, such as changes in the seasons, were renounced in his design. Many modern readers link the card with alchemy, the art of combining substances, which fits its blending theme.

In the Thoth deck, Aleister Crowley renamed the card Art, which shows how strongly later occultists saw it as a picture of alchemical mixing. Whichever name your deck uses, the cups are the key: two streams becoming one.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation.” Reversed, he gave: “Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, sometimes even the priest who will marry the Querent; also disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the second stage, meeting the world’s tests (roughly Strength to Temperance): courage, solitude, change, fairness, surrender, endings and balance. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for Temperance

Use this spread when life feels out of balance.

1. What is too much? What I need to reduce.
2. What is too little? What I need to add.
3. What is my right pace? How to blend them in a way I can keep up.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

What does Temperance mean in love?

Balance, patience and compromise. Upright, a calm and steady relationship. Reversed, extremes and impatience.

Is Temperance a yes or no?

A slow yes. Things will work out with patience and moderation.

What does Temperance reversed mean?

Imbalance, excess or impatience. Step back and find a gentler pace.

Temperance with other cards

• With The Star: deep healing and renewal.
• With The Chariot: steady progress with balance.
• With The Devil: a warning about excess: moderation is the cure.

Related cards

• Death: the card before: Temperance is the healing after an ending
• The Star: calm water and hope again
• Strength: another card of patience and gentle control

Keep learning

Temperance is part of the lesson Strength to Temperance in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, Death or the card after it, The Devil, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for Temperance.