Temperance
Temperance is card 14 of the Major Arcana, the card of balance. Readers traditionally take it as moderation, patience and the art of blending opposites into something that works.
- Major Arcana
- Card 14
- Golden Dawn
- Sagittarius
- Upright
- balance, moderation, patience
- Reversed
- excess, imbalance, impatience
Upright
Pouring water from one cup into another without spilling it takes a steady hand, and that is the heart of the reading. Readers take the card as balance, calm and the middle way: not too much of anything, and patience while things find their level.
Reversed
Excess is the usual reading of the reversed card: too much of something, a life out of balance, or impatience that spoils a slow process. Some readers see a conflict between two parts of a life that need blending.
In love and at work
Harmony and compromise are what readers see for relationships, and a partnership where each person steadies the other. For work, it is linked with collaboration, mediation, health care and any role that brings different people together.
In the picture
A winged angel in white stands with one foot on land and one in a pool, pouring water between two cups. A triangle in a square is marked on the robe, irises grow at the water's edge, and a path leads toward a crown of light in the hills. The Golden Dawn assigned the card to Sagittarius.
In a Caelumia profile
When Temperance comes up upright in a Caelumia reading, it counts toward these themes for that day, alongside the rest of the profile: Harmony, Steadiness, Seeking.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Book T: The Tarot (1890s, published by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn (1937 to 1940)). The source of the planetary, zodiac and elemental attributions of the cards.
Updated September 28, 2026.
See it in your own profile
Caelumia reads your whole birth chart and your numbers together, and shows where they agree. Your profile is free to start, and your first results appear while you answer.