The Empress has a great self-awareness. She is very aware that she functions as a symbol, and she is comfortable with her role....The Empress is the card which represents the concept which many call the Great Mother: she who is the Queen of Life. She also represents birth, the heterosexual woman and intuition over intellect....The Empress is strongly related to time, cycles, being born and dying, seasons. Demeter is a good classical example of the Empress.
--http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2282/tarot/3.htm

Her throne is one built of endurance, tenacity, loyalty and sheer determination. She stands for the mother, and for the daughter.....who will in turn become mother. ...In recent times we have tended to overlook the importance of the innate strength in womanhood. We can get blinded by the dynamic power inherent in male strength, and completely forget the necessity for the counter-balancing influence of female power. There's nothing mushy about this power - it's no accident that many Goddesses are regarded as destroyers - but it is infinitely different to male strength. The entire dynamic of its expression is unique and enduring. --http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/empress2.html

While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born....The Empress card is one of the easier trumps to read. She's Mother. Generally, Mother in a good sense. Patient, loving, giving, generous. --http://www.aeclectic.net/basics/empress.html

This Empress is a pregnant woman from the fertile crescent between the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates, where historic civilization came into being...The Empress wears red because she personifies the bleeding and fertile woman, and red is the color of her life-blood. Red is a symbol of the living creature and the passions of life, and represents action that leads to creative change. --http://www.mcn.org/b/thewheel/EmpressText.html

Here is also found initial sensation. This is the first really physical experience of the world that The Fool has entered. The Empress has a rich understanding of the world based on her five senses. In a reading, The Empress represents pregnancy, actual or metaphorical. --http://occult_symbolism.tripod.com/tarot/trumps/empress.html

I am the keeper of hearths.
Barley is mine, and corn.
Kitchens warm by my decree,
malt gives rise to heady mead,
bread is born of wheat and fire.
....
I am the priestess now wed.
Creation is mine, and growth.
--http://www.eosdev.com/Illustrations_Quotes/Cyndi/eos_fool_empress.htm

The Empress is the only card in the Tarot that shows a simple natural unstructured scene as a background. --http://www.psyche.com/psyche/tarot/trumps/empress.html

Maltese Cross: Union of the spiritual with the material ; Lotus: Represents the feminine, passive power ; Revolving Moons: Represents the need for opposition to maintain balance --http://www.tryskelion.com/empress.htm

She is fertility of both the species and of the universe itself. --http://www.earlham.edu/~rinehca/tarot/empress.htm

She blesses, she rules, she loves, she creates, and she sustains all that is in her empire... --http://www.lunaea.com/tarot/tarottour/tour3.html

Is it sad that I had to go look up what the next card after the Priestess is? Yes, yes, I believe it is. I obviously haven't been doing nearly enough work on this. Did a reading last night with my old Rider/Waites and it made absolutely no sense. Absurd.

So. The Empress.

Pretty straightforward matriarchal figure, here. Now, of course, to find appropriate images and all, but pretty straightforward, I should think.