Temperance
At first this card — as seen in the Smith-Waite deck — can be a difficult one to immediately parse: The most recognizable symbol seen here is the angel, but what are they doing, and why?
One popular historical definition of “temperance”, linked back to the infamous Prohibition period in North America during the late 1920s and early 1930s, is to refrain from drinking alcohol (interesting since the two cups being held by the angel can be seen as a call-back to the story of Jesus at the Wedding in Cana, where he turned water into wine), but in more modern understandings of the word, it is about moderation or voluntary self-restraint. This could of course apply to almost anything, from destructive addictive behaviours, to more self-indulgent and habits that could be seen as getting in the way of one’s ambitions or goals. These contexts could easily apply to both cisgendered heterosexual people and ace and aro people alike. Perhaps as a revealing reflection of what’s often on my mind, I often look at this card a call to not drink too much alcohol, or not eat too much sweets and junk food. But of course, as with many things in the tarot, there is always room to go further.
In this scene, we see the angel with one foot placed in the ground and another foot in the water; the tall grassy marsh to the right of the angel in the foreground is contrasted withthe rocky path going into the mountains in the background. The enigmatic being holds two cups and is appearing to pour water out of the right cup into the left cup, but from the angle they are holding them, it’s difficult to ascertain how the angel can do this without water spilling into the pool, or on the ground. It’s almost as if the angel is able to balance them near perfectly. And one more interesting thing to note about the angel: Physically, they appear to be non-binary, or at least physically genderless. Arthur Edward Waite himself says that this angel is “neither male nor female”.
Taking all of these together, we have a scene that visually, sums up one of my favorite sayings, which goes all the way back to the Greek poet Hesiod in 700 BCE: “Observe due measure; moderation is best in all things.” Or as know this today, “Everything in Moderation”. It is the solid hardness of the mountain path, versus the soft muddy ground of the marsh. Two extremes contrasted, but here, balanced. This is also expressed through one of the card’s central symbols, the triangle embedded within the square worn on the angel’s chest. There are many different ways to precisely read this, but the theme they all share in common is the tempering and balancing of two aspects of ourselves that can be easily found in opposition to each other, whether it be passion versus reason, or our spiritual self versus our physical self. In an asexual and aromantic context, this can take us immediately to our relationship with sex and our sexuality.
To me, this can represent a call to balance in how we can express and view our asexuality in a world that in many ways, is sexualized and amatonormative to the point of almost extreme lengths. It can be tempting to pull away from the allosexual world, focusing our social energies solely on our little corner of Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook. There is an allure to directing our emotional focus away from our allosexual online and offline social circles to instead be only in the world of our asexual support and social groups. One certainly couldn’t be faulted for this, especially after enduring the difficulties associated with coming out to oneself, let alone coming out to trusted friends, family and loved ones. This is especially true if your coming out was met with at best an exhausting level of emotional labour needed to explain your asexuality…or at worst scorn, derision, and all-around aphobia, whether it would be through invalidating misinformation or dismissive statements that, “You just need to meet the right person.” Who wouldn’t want to be with an affirming community of people who would know exactly what you’re going through, after having endured all of that?
In a perfect world, that would work perfectly. It would even be healthy. But the problem is that life often isn’t so clean, cut and dry. Ace social groups are certainly not immune to the quirks, social awkwardness, and unhealthy foibles that characterize any group of human beings that come together over a common bond. Racism and ableism are especially two pernicious phenomena which the ace and aro community has had to contend with. As with any group, ingroups and outgroups emerge. There are social pecking orders and hierarchies, and clashes of egos to navigate, just as there are in allosexual groups. There are people you will get along with naturally, and people you won’t.
All this is to say that immersing oneself fully in ace and aro groups — especially online groups — is arguably not the healthiest thing to do. And it doesn’t necessarily offer the escape from the problems in allo social groups that we may be tempted to expect.
The other unhealthy aspect of shunning the allo world is that you may very well have many ace-positive and queer-positive allies, or even other ace people in your social groups outside of the ace community, and not even know it. These connections are important in keeping oneself grounded and present in the wider world outside of the ace community, and their voices and ideas may be extremely helpful in helping to better understand and reconcile your asexuality with the many other aspects of living life in an allosexual world. And on another level, these connections are also a valuable opportunity to boost the visibility and messaging around asexuality, the asexual spectrum, and the ace community, in relationships that are both safe, and affirming.
For aces who find themselves either on the spectrum of multigender romantic attraction (such as biromantic or panromantic aces), or for those who find themselves in the liminal space between masculine and feminine gender identity and expression, Temperance offers another interesting message. Its visual messaging is firmly centered around balance; it encourages a presence of the self in states that may at first seem to be in opposition: left versus right, earth versus water, earth versus air. I don’t think this necessarily intentionally sets up or is supposed to prop up an oppressive binary, but instead tells us that it is important for us to not firmly and squarely rooted in one aspect or state of being. Quite the opposite, in fact: It is important for us to explore the elements of us that exist in the other, and elements of the other than exist in us. To go further, we are invited to investigate the ways in which we may in fact flow from one state (like for example experiencing romantic attraction only to a specific gender) to another (such as being asexual). This theme of flow also connects really well into the gender and sexual ambiguity of the angel here.
To bring us back to a more practical realm, this can look like an encouragement to explore further our masculinity (for those who are more female-identifying) or femininity (for those who are more masculine-identifying, or non-binariness. It may look like exploring one’s own potential for attraction to, or relationships with women (cis and trans alike), if one has mostly given thought to dating or having relationships with cis and trans men, and vice-versa. For greysexuals and greyromantics — including demiromantics and demisexuals — it may look like probing deeper into one’s asexuality and aromanticness (for those who have been more sexually or romantically involved in their partnered relationships with others), or it may look like further exploring how one’s own sexual or romantic attractions work in dating and relationships (for those who may historically identify themselves as being less interested in sex or romance in their life). These personal explorations may be prove to be very useful in helping to set up clear and healthy boundaries in future relationships around sex and romance, especially when we think about how to set up healthy expectations around sexual and romantic acts and behaviours.
For others still, it may be an encouragement to explore other relationship configurations like polyamory and queerplatonic relationships, and how those may offer a more meaningful and healthy fit for their relationship needs.
For me personally, Temperance holds special meaning as someone who currently identifies as Demisexual. As someone who identifies themselves in the aseuxal spectrum, I find myself in that strange liminal space where I am placing one foot in the realm of the allosexual world of dating and relationships, while placing another foot rooted squarely on the ground of my own asexuality. The tension is real; I find my sexual attractions — when and if they do arise — to be very real, and very powerful in how and where they draw me. Yet at the same time, I find myself firmly turned off by how the world treats, and discusses sexuality. I find myself feeling cold at the thought of one-night stands or one-off sexual dalliances, and I think about times in the past where I found myself in such a tryst and was completely puzzled as to why the other person — at that time, a close friend of several years — clearly did not want to pursue a stable, committed and emotionally intimate relationship with me. At times, Temperance has to me meant a call to engage and explore my asexual self more, and how being ace has shaped my expectations for my relationships. At other times, Temperance has called me out to be more bold in embracing my more sexual side; to not feel ashamed, embarrassed or wrong over the times that I have felt sexual desire in the relationships I’ve experienced in my life. After all, as many point out, there are many in the ace and aro community who would not identify as acespec or arospec, but nevertheless do participate in sex and romance with their partners for a variety of wholly valid reasons (including deriving a real and visceral sense of pleasure and satisfaction out of the act of pleasuring a valued partner).
Temperance is probably one of the few singular cards among all of the major and minor arcana that truly express the core meaning, beauty and mystery of the tarot, and aces and aros of all stripes would do well to take to heart its message of balance and moderation. But beyond that, to me, Temperance also embodies a lot of what it means to be an ace person “in the grey zone”.
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