Meaning: balance, moderation, self-restraint, self-control, patience, purpose, consciousness, awareness, intent, healing, excess, unbalance, discipline, need for change, overlooking certain important things, bad habits

Temperance (XIV) is a card of moderation and patience. When this card shows up, it’s telling you to wait, get back to center, or ask yourself if the way you are thinking or approaching something is helping or hurting you. If, for instance, you are asking a question of whether or not you are going to get the job, Temperance begs the question of whether this job is truly aligned with your higher goals or if you are actually prepared for the responsibilities it would entail. Are you being too eager or expecting too much of something without giving much effort?

“Abstinence is the surety of temperance.” – Plato

“The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.” -Francis Bacon

More about the deck and reversals:

If you are wondering how to read this particular card reversed, click here. Although you can’t see it now, this is one of the cards in the deck with an “automatic reversal.” What that means is, no matter how this card lands in front of your spread, it can be taken as is without being turned to the upright position since this card already has a built-in reversal in its design. It may not make sense now, especially if you are reading this when the preview is still blurred out, but it will make sense when I release the cards. This provides the reader with more dimensions to work with in a reading, which I have personally found to be incredibly useful. It also negates the need for a clarifying card; if you ask, for example, whether you are “on the right path” and the Temperance card shows up, you know instantly what you need to work on because it will show up as either in the light or in the dark aspect without any guessing (to know more about light vs. shadow aspects, click here). That said, a telling factor of a card’s upright position is the vertical orientation of the title of the card, such as “Temperance XIV.” If you wish to read these cards as you normally would with a Ryder Waite deck, you are free to do that.

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