Temperance is a quiet card in a loud part of the deck. It arrives straight after Death and just before The Devil, and where those two deal in rupture, XIV deals in mixing. The picture shows a winged figure pouring liquid between two cups, standing with one foot on land and one in water. Readers generally take it as balance, patience, moderation, and the slow work of getting two things to combine properly. The name is old-fashioned and slightly misleading, since temperance here has less to do with abstaining than with tempering, the way metal is tempered. This page looks at the image as A. E. Waite described it in 1911, the usual upright and reversed readings, and reflective angles on love, work, money and a three-card spread. It is offered for self-reflection and entertainment, not prediction.
What the Temperance card shows
In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, published in 1909 and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith under A. E. Waite's direction, XIV shows a winged angel with the sign of the sun upon the forehead and, on the breast, the square and triangle of the septenary. Waite speaks of the figure in the masculine but notes directly that it is neither male nor female.
The figure is held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice. One foot rests upon the earth and one upon waters, which Waite says illustrates the nature of those essences. Behind the figure, a direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above it there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely.
Waite is dismissive of the conventional readings attached to the card, the ones about changes in the seasons and the perpetual movement of life, and he rejects the idea that the figure symbolises the genius of the sun. His own account is that the card is called Temperance fantastically, because when its rule holds in our consciousness it tempers, combines and harmonises the psychic and material natures. That word combines is the one to keep. The card is about what happens when two unlike things are brought together well.
In the Golden Dawn system XIV is assigned to Sagittarius, which some readers connect with the path leading up toward the horizon in the picture, and with the sense of aim rather than drift.
Upright meaning
Upright, Temperance is read as balance achieved through adjustment rather than through compromise. Nothing in the picture is being split down the middle. Something is being poured from one vessel into another, in a steady stream, by a figure standing deliberately between two elements. Readers use the card for the moments when the right answer is a proportion rather than a choice.
Patience is the other standard reading, and it has a specific flavour here. Waite's own divinatory list for the card is unglamorous, economy, moderation, frugality, management and accommodation, all words about handling resources over time rather than about inspiration. XIV rewards the person who keeps a rate going rather than the one who does a great deal at once.
Many readers also treat it as a healing card, in the general sense of recovery and reintegration after a hard passage. Coming directly after XIII, that placement reads naturally: something ended, and this is the work of putting the remaining pieces into a workable arrangement.
Reversed meaning
Reversed, the common readings involve proportion going wrong. Too much of one thing, not enough of another, or a life where work, rest and everything else have stopped sharing the space fairly. Impatience appears here often, in the form of forcing a result that only arrives at its own pace.
Waite's reversed list is unusual, mentioning matters connected with churches, religions, sects and the priesthood, and then, more usefully for modern readers, disunion, unfortunate combinations and competing interests. Those last three are the ones most readers work with: two things that will not mix, or that are being mixed badly.
The excess-or-lack approach from our guide to reversed tarot cards fits the card almost too neatly. Ask which side is currently over-weighted, and what the smallest correction would be.
Temperance in love and relationships
In love, upright Temperance is usually read as a relationship finding its working proportions. Two people with different rhythms, different needs for company and solitude, different tempers, gradually arriving at something that holds. Readers often connect it with patience shown over months rather than with a decisive moment.
For someone single, the card tends to be read as taking things at a measured pace, and as a reminder that blending two lives is a process rather than an event.
Reversed, common readings include one person doing most of the adjusting, a mismatch in pace where one wants to move faster than the other can, or a relationship where the balance has quietly tipped. A question worth sitting with: which adjustments in this bond are mutual, and which have only ever gone one way?
Temperance at work and in study
At work, XIV is the card of steady output and of making different parts fit together. Readers associate it with mediation between people or teams, with combining two roles or skill sets, and with the kind of progress that comes from a sustainable rate rather than a sprint. It is also read as favouring moderation in ambition, not lowering the aim but pacing the approach to it.
In study, the card maps onto regular practice, revision spread over weeks, and the point where separate pieces of a subject finally connect into one thing.
Reversed at work, the usual picture is imbalance: overwork, scattered effort across incompatible priorities, or a team pulling in directions that do not combine. One reflective question is whether the problem is genuinely the workload, or the mix.
Temperance and money
Money is where Waite's own keywords land most directly, since economy, moderation, frugality and management all sit on his list for this card. Read reflectively, XIV might prompt you to look at proportions rather than totals: how what comes in is divided, and whether the balance between spending now and setting aside for later is one you chose or one that simply happened. Reversed, it may reflect a mix that has drifted. None of this is a prediction about your money or a recommendation to do anything in particular. Real financial decisions need real information and, where it matters, a qualified professional.
Temperance as a yes-or-no card
Many readers treat upright Temperance as a qualified yes: yes, given time, and yes if nothing is rushed. Some read it as a plain neutral, on the grounds that the card describes a process rather than an outcome. Reversed, it is commonly taken as not yet, or as a sign that the conditions are not balanced enough for the question to resolve. These are reading conventions, not certainties, and a card that is this much about degree tends to suffer under a binary. Our guide on asking a better tarot question suggests some alternatives.
Temperance in a three-card spread
In the past / present / future positions from our three-card tarot spread guide, XIV usually points to where patience and proportion enter the story.
- Past: a period of gradual adjustment or recovery. Ask what it taught you about your own pace.
- Present: often read as a call to moderate rather than decide. Notice which two things currently need to be combined rather than ranked.
- Future: as a possible direction, this suggests balance reached through steady effort. It describes a way of working toward something, not a guaranteed result.
Following Death, readers often treat the pair as a single movement: a clean break, then the patient work of making the remainder fit together.
Journaling questions
- What two things in my life are refusing to mix, and why?
- Where am I trying to force a pace that this situation will not take?
- What proportion in my week would I change first, if I changed only one?
- What am I recovering from, and what would steady progress actually look like?