Temperance

Testing Our Tenacity, a Look at the Temperance Card in the Tarot Deck for Guidance. What does Tenacity as it relates to a tarot consultation really mean?

I often say when faced with a new challenge ‘here we grow again’. That is only if my own temper and reactionary nature don’t get in my own way. If I am thinking calmly about a new force in my life, something that must be dealt with, with forethought, I can think of it as a growing experience. This is when I can face the tests that life brings with courage fortitude and willingness, knowing that each time I move through a challenge in life, I emerge stronger. That is when I welcome life’s challenges.

Temperance can also mean abstinence. Tempering how you behave is also a form of abstinence from certain negative behaviours.

How often are you Temporary-Mental? How often do you have a hissy-fit and just lose it? Or do you become sullen and sulky or moody and morose and depressed believing that you have a right to the storm cloud you carry on the brim of your smile and an excellent reason to suffocate the light from yourself and those around you? Do you do this because you can’t get exactly what you want or even what you think you want or deserve? How often do we indulge ourselves in these behaviours because life isn’t giving us precisely what we believe we are owed?

Temporary-mental is what we become when we give into these behaviours. We usually become temperamental when we don’t get what we want. When our egos are demanding that our needs get met without thought or consideration, and are driven purely by desire or fear or some other negative thing — we get temporary-mental.

The spiritual tool that gives us the most information about these states of mind is The Temperance card in the Tarot Pack. This card has everything to do with testing our tenacity. Another way of looking at it is this is to think about what happens when you temper metal, you add something to it to modify it — usually to make it stronger.

The temperance card is about tempering the ego, adding positivity and resolve, even in the face of adversity it speaks to your strength of will. Ethics, values, and integrity, all form part of looking at the Temperance card when it comes up in a tarot consultation and when we are faced with adversities or our own mental blocks and challenges. Temperance is what we use to move through these challenges rather than giving in to them.

We often speak of metal having ‘integrity’. Temperance is the integrity of the mind and forms how we communicate and act accordingly. We often say someone has ‘nerves of steel’ or ‘a steely glint in the eye’. How about the alternative spelling of metal, as in ‘show me your mettle’, show me what you are really made of. It speaks of a firm will and a strong resolve, especially in the face of conflict, or challenges.

How do we attain temperance? By learning from lessons past. By realising that we have not been killed by life’s challenges and that we have come through and survived to be stronger and better. We understand that keeping a calm ego with controlled deliberation serves us better than ranting and having outbursts or sinking into self-indulgent pools of self-pity where we wallow at the cost to our own energy and those of the people around us.

Temperance teaches us to keep a calm head, and our eye fixed on the ultimate goal thereby staying in the present moment. Temperance says ‘I know it’s hard and it’s a challenge, but I’m not giving up and I’m not going to react angrily or be felled by this, I’m going to move through it anyway’.

“Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.”

Charles Kingsley

Moderation is another word that describes the Temperance card rather well. Self-awareness and self-restraint form the backbone of a temperate, tolerant and willful mindset. Temperance finds the sensible middle ground, keeping the centre point in balance.

The law of verification: ‘is it true?’ comes into play when we find ourselves making harsh statements and rash comments. Asking yourself the question ‘is it true?’ will often stop you in your tracks long enough to verify your situation without jumping to conclusions.

‘I can clear a tall conclusion from a standing start.’

Terry Pratchett — Masquerade

Past experience also helps, as you can reflect back and say ‘Is this statement true?’ ‘Is it true now?’ ‘Is it true of this situation?’ This is the card of character building. As clichéd as that sounds it really is. It is about genuinely working with yourself by not hiding or running away by either escaping into anger or depression as a result of things not going your way. Having a temperate attitude is about choosing to work through difficult circumstances in a mature and considered form, and accepting the learning that comes from any situation with self-awareness.

“Perfect wisdom has four parts, viz., wisdom, the principle of doing things aright; justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private; fortitude, the principle of not flying danger, but meeting it; and temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.”

Plato