Hi all! I was snarky (again) about deck creators seemingly not knowing what Temperance means (in both illustrations and guidebooks). My friend immediately challenged me: "So what DOES Temperance mean?" And I stumbled around trying to answer coherently.

In delayed response, here are my keywordy ideas on Temperance, expanding from conventional meanings of the cardinal virtue to more esoteric concepts. (I think it's appropriate that some of these ideas are tangled up in my mind with scientific concepts. I'm fascinated by the electromagnetic spectrum because I was middle-aged before I learned that light and heat, and radio waves and microwaves and x-rays, are all on the same continuum.)

Meanings of Temperance

Everything in moderation (including moderation)

Aristotelian happy medium = extremes are bad, in between extremes is good

Blending rather than just joining

            Chemical compounds = ingredients combine to create a third thing different than the original ingredients

Alchemy

            Experimentation, physical and otherwise

            Physical things are metaphors for spiritual things

Continuum

            Electromagnetic spectrum

Please join in with agreement, disagreement, more ideas, requests for expansion, etc. What does Temperance mean to you?

Edited Friday at 04:40 PM4 days by Rachelcat

When I think about Temperance, one of my favourite major arcana, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Baroque emblem representing the virtue.

This is how the allegorical representation of La Temperanza appears in Cesare Ripa's influential Iconologia in the 17th century.

Vermeer knew Temperance well, and she shows up on a stained glass window in his painting The Glass of Wine, warning the viewer of the dangers of indulging in alcohol consumption.

Temperance, like Justice and Fortitude, have strong roots in a Christian ethos that emphasises virtues and warns of vices (which come in neat sets of seven). So these images connect me to this moral system, although obviously the concept has undergone many changes since then.

Temperance is closely connected to the ancient Roman principle of festina lente - "hurry slowly".

The dolphin symbolises speed of movement, and the anchor immobility. Combining them means "don't rush, don't stand still - keep the balance".

In biology, it's the principle of homeostasis, when all our vital functions work perfectly. In order to do so, we move constantly from one activity to the next. We breathe in, we breathe out. While we live, there is no moment of perfect balance, we always have to go on breathing, our blood moves from lung to heart on its way through our bodies.

Keeping all the restless movement necessary to enable life in a perfect balance, never doing too much nor too little, is what Temperance teaches us. Don't go overboard, balance feasting with fasting, movement with rest, and don't let your feelings overcome you until you lose control over your actions. Take on the ideas of others, but keep an independent mind. Cultivate your social life, but balance it with alone time. Don't run after the Zeitgeist and don't become fossilised in your thoughts.

It sounds so obvious but it's actually really difficult to do. The virtue of steadfastness, balance, thoughtfulness and self-control leads to health, that's the promise of Temperance. And health means that we're in the best possible shape to deal with life's challenges. Keep going, keep a clear head, balance your humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) or your doshas (vata, kapha, pitta).

Oh well, this sounds all a bit vague and like the advice an old person might give to a younger, like in Cat Steven's song Father and Son. Maybe that's why some people don't really like Temperance. We all want to live passionately at times, want to go overboard, rush into a relationship or a new habit or a new set of ideas. At other times, we feel like doing nothing, seeing nobody, falling into a black hole. Temperance tells us that we may do so, but the pendulum always has to swing back - we have to let it swing back.

This is lovely! Thank you for all the great ideas.

More scientific connections: homeostasis and equilibrium. And of course the pendulum swing.

I never connected it to festina lente, but it makes perfect sense.

Edited Friday at 05:55 PM4 days by Rachelcat

One of the concepts that I like to return to when thinking about Temperance is the act of tempering in metallurgy. So, using exposure to extremes, in this case high heat and quenching, to change the fundamental nature of something. What was once rigid and unbending is made less hard and brittle through opposing forces, therefore actually making it stronger given it's increased ability to flex and yield.

I feel that Temperance can be about consciously choosing the middle way, or it can be about bringing different elements together to create something new. However I also feel that it can be about a new understanding and / or a new way of being through push and pull, a transformation brought about by surviving polarised elements.

Ah, I missed tempering in my list. I especially like flexibility is stronger than rigidity. And I used to cite the middle way all the time, but now I've forgotten more than I ever learned about Buddhism . . .

Thanks for the insights!

16 hours ago, Rachelcat said:

I especially like flexibility is stronger than rigidity.

I had an obvious image come to mind, that of airplane wings and the fact that they are constructed in such a way as to flex when moving through bumpy air. They may move up and down, but equilibrium is at a central point that the wings always return to in order to maintain stability in flight.

Then something else occurred to me, in relation to the fact that the angel in the RWS image has one foot placed in water. As well as that pointing to the balance of emotional and spiritual elements alongside practical and tangible ones (shown through the angel's other foot still placed on the earth), I thought about the way that water behaves. When faced with an obstacle, it will flow around or over or under, directed to a more extreme position in order to keep moving. Then it will return to it's natural, balanced state of flow following the path of least resistance. Of course, there is also the 'strength' of water to consider, that in its ability to adapt and continue to flow, over time it will erode materials that are harder than it.

This is great! Wings and water: I'm adding "flow" to my list! Thank you!

What about the water/liquid flowing from one cup to the other at an awkward angle? I've always regarded that as attempting the impossible.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by RunningWild