Leaving the bright sunny hall of Strength you turn the corner and find yourself in a darkened mahagony hallway. You still feel the warmth of the sun at your back and you enter unafraid. You sense that you are being guided yet only by a presence until you catch a glimpse of your destination. Your eyes behold a shimmering light, and as you come nearer you see a large door guarded by a winged figure. She is an angel. Silently yet invitingly she opens the door so that you may enter.

You have entered the Hall of Temperence and she awaits your arrival. The Hall is circular and you realize that all around you are objects you are familiar with. Using your inner eye you create this space that houses what is precious to you. Look at the walls. What do you see? Is there a table in this room or do you find your daily tools arranged at your feet? Once you have scanned the room and become familiar with this warm place you turn your glance towards Temperence. Her appearance is even more striking than her guardian friend at the door.

Her appearance changes. Take a close look. What is she wearing? What facial expression does she bear? Is she an older figure or is she youthful? Does she speak or does she keep silent? As you become more familiar with her essence you notice that she is holding something in both her hands. Look at the object. Is it familiar or is it something you have never seen? You realize that you have come to this place to receive a gift. She offers you this precious item. What do you give back in exchange?

You turn to leave but not without the gift she has given you for you realize that this is what you need to enter back into the everyday.

**** Temperance is instructed to care for the balancing and healing of our everyday experiences. One of the fundamental tenets of many spiritual traditions is how to balance our existence. This hits us on the level of time management, making priorities, budgeting, and the general stewardship of all our resources. I find myself in league with the immoderate or the extremists in this "hall" of the Tarot's Major Arcana. Being an extremist in the Hall of Temperance leaves you with an exceptionally guilty feeling.

I remember one time when I was just about to go on a short vacation. I was worried about cash and I pulled the Temperance card. Some horrible "Scrooge-like" being emerged from my psyche uttering the thoughts: "If you truly followed Temperance at this time you would not blow your money on a weekend away. You would save your money and be temperate ... for a change!" Temperance took on the tone of a bad conscience for me. It was funny because I didn't want to pull the card anymore. My ego was there saying to the cards,"Don' t keep rubbing in the fact that I am an extremist."

Another problem with the Hall of Temperance for me was that in the areas of everyday decision making I was to try to strike the happy medium or the Golden Mean as it is called. The Golden Mean translates out for me as the Mushy Middle. There seems to be something mediocre about this so-called balanced life that strikes me the wrong way. It seems passionless. The very idea of Temperance seems to suggest that excessive commitment and idealism is to be sacrificed to a placid middle class value of comfort and ease. I thought that the Hall of Temperance had the feel I sensed when I heard a Jethro Tull tune playing as elevator musak.

I owe Temperance an apology for these untoward thoughts about her. Temperance is about the restoration of balance or equilibrium that occurs. She rights wrongs and makes sure that things that at first seem separate actually can be used side by side. She symbolizes the reality that there is a union of opposites that transcends emnity. So in the cash area it is not about swinging from being cheap and afraid to being wild and extravagant, rather Temperance gives us the deep tools that allow us to decide which approach to take in any given situation.

Before describing her I just want to point out who her Tarot Partners are. Temperance is charged with dealing with matters of love and commitment that are represented by the Lovers card. She is the guiding principle that allows the Charioteer not to be torn apart between the conflicting passions. Thirdly, Temperance allows us handle situations of being alone through getting us in touch with the wisdom of the Hermit who while in solitude is never lonely. Lastly, and perhaps hardest of all to deal with, is the realm of not being in control. Handling the turn of the Wheel of Fortune is difficult at the best of times.

Temperance enables us to combine the energies of love, opposition, solitude and fate. Why I ever thought that a legalistic application of a principle could ever harmonize these complex areas of life, I don't know. Eakins in her Tarot of the Spirit puts it eloquently: "Ultimately she is the power of adaptation behind the evolution of our consciousness and our world. She is the dynamic behind every bond."

A. Temperance described

When I was going to describe her to you I wanted to use the phrase "Lady Temperance" but Temperance wouldn't really let me call her a lady as such. She is imbued with feminine attributes but she is more like an angel than a woman per se. The word angel, angellos, suggests that she is a messenger of sorts. She is the mediator of a message. A message of guidance for those who struggle in harmonizing the above with the below. Her role is to creatively utilize spiritual energies in situations of pragmatics. She is a messenger who takes what is hidden in situations and reveals it to us in rightly apportioned doses so we can order our lives with a sense of rhythm.

She has two cups in her hands. I image them as silver and gold representing the unconsciousness and the consciousness. She is pouring the elixir of life from one to the other. At times a conscious willful response is needed; at another time Temperance pours creative unconscious contents from one cup of satisfaction to the other. The same theme comes up as we see her straddling both the land and the water. She combines deep groundedness with a sense of flow.

Temperance is a healer. She makes things right. She reminds us that she is like the story of the Fisher King with one foot on land and the other in the water. She calls us to be like the wounded healer who first finds healing for himself before he restores the wasteland.

In these difficult life situations she promises that the Source wants our best. This is represented by the rainbow that is in some cards above her head. She enables us to withstand our temptation for one sidedness and puts hysteria and excessive impulsiveness behind us.