The Passage Of Time: The Temperance

The Temperance card typically depicts an angel or a woman pouring water from one cup to another. The water is believed to represent the flow of time, and the two cups represent the past and the future meeting in the now.

This is the initiation of the prophet, the fortune teller archetype, who must reach into the present flow and capture something from time.

The flow of time between the cups is issuing both ways, with the past flowing into the future, and the future flowing into the past. To pull something from time, the ego must shift from being the centre of consciousness to the point of being between the conscious and unconscious in the flow of time. Later in the tarot, the world reveals the reader has completed this initiation, is able to separate the flow of time and her body has become the bridge between the two worlds, she has become a channel of transmission.

Everybody wants to be a fortune teller. You may feel that your goal is something wider, and it is, but nearly everyone that comes to the Tarot is hoping for a prediction, or a miracle. 

We all want to feel there is something else watching over us, assisting us at the helm. Deep down, time makes us extremely vulnerable. We can be certain that people will let us down, that tragedy will strike, that we will have recurring failures throughout our lives, but certainty fails to provide reason, or hope. In their instant all painful events appear as pointless and cruel. It takes time for life to finally show its hand and in between then and now we often feel helpless, at the mercy of consequence and our own fears of what might happen next. A fractured marriage, an illness, a loved one lost, a failing business unable to support its family, these are the ‘us’ that turn to the fortune teller, that are searching for comfort in the Temperance of time in the hope that life will soon be gentler, kinder, extra caring. 

She is a beautiful card who ensures your future. No matter what position she is in, she is the assurance that discomfort will soon come to an end. She is the mind coming to terms, the body coming to rest, the mixing and maturing of a greater understanding in the passage of time.

In time and space, she is a passage in which no time and all time exists. As initiation, she is a gate keeper of things that are good, keeping our most precious things sacred, pure, free from the corruptions of life. She is the promise that God never gives or takes more than we can manage, that life will be restored, and that time as we know it is not the only time that exists.

As you come towards the Temperance in visualisation, she is a light projected from the Sun coming out from behind the mountains, she is not a physical person she is a state of being. As you move towards her walk directly into her body and bathe in her white light. As you stand inside her imagine her waters flowing over you. You may experience this as a rainbow of colour. She cleanses, tempers, develops, and moderates the ego so that we will be more aligned and alert of her presence in our lives. As we come to know the tarot deeply, through the temperance, we experience more and more synchronicities, signs that appear supernal, this is the Temperance. Never reverse her, and if you wish place her to the side of every reading to help develop.

She is no time, and all time, and she is not a structure that can be changed. She is of sound mind, temperance and moderation, self-control, and the ability to see beyond current circumstances. She is time healing, redefining, reshaping, restoring balance.