Connolly: The High Priestess

Sophie-David

wandking said:
This is next post describes the RWS High Priestess, while offering overall meanings that might apply to the card and clarifying some of the symbolism. One modification in the Connolly card is no "B" or "J" on the pillars. I have seen information that suggests Smith didn't place letters on the columns either and letters were added later at the print shop.
Yes, isn't true that one of the variants of the RWS didn't have the letters?

wandking said:
2 – THE HIGH PRIESTESS
The High Priestess is perhaps the most difficult card in Tarot to fathom. Embracing a power veiled in mystery, the card bears a broad scope of interpretations in readings. She communicates directly from the subconscious plane through intuition. As expression of the intrinsically mysterious nature of human existence, she balances power brandished by The Magician. Her powers are as divine and mystical as those the juggler of external influence wields but the nucleus of energy is different. While The Magician directs power outward, The Priestess suggests using internal force to achieve a meaningful effect on the psyche. With transformations less dramatic than The Magician, she exerts greater impact on personal existence. The Magician introduces red and white, the main colors of Tarot; however, this card symbolically predicts most other hues in the deck. Offering unlimited potential of Yin, she provides symmetry necessary for The Magician to serve as Yang of creation. This essential balance of Yin and Yang controls the entire universe.
Yes, "she exerts greater impact on personal existence", don't I know it! Interesting point about the colours too. I was just reading the book by Tracy Hoover which comes with my newly arrived Ancestral Path Tarot, and she was suggesting the Empress and Emperor were the progressed forms of the High Priestess and Magician. I'm not sure I quite agree because I think the first two cards really can't be superceded, for example the Empress is NOT all that the High Priestess is, but its an interesting point of view.

Oh, and for the first time she explained reductive numerology in a way that made sense to me, e.g. Card #21, World = 2+1 = 3 = Empress. What I mean is that I could understand the addition before of course, but for the first time the actual result made sense: Empress does relate to the World, that has been my personal experience. Anyway I digress, which is all too easy to do.

wandking said:
The High Priestess shows that dreams may now become very significant.
Yes, I've come to the conclusion that dream reality is just as real and as important as waking reality. And that both overlap much more than is immediately apparent...

wandking said:
If The High Priestess appears in a spread, it suggests an unseen negative side of your personality emerging. Negative does not necessarily imply evil; it simply represents the opposite of positive. Many remain unaware of this less expressive more feminine side of the psyche. If you can accept this shadow within, subconscious powers will emerge. Since this is a passive side of your make-up, the card may indicate a need to be passive in a situation. Inaction is often as effective as action in achieving goals.
Hmm, I don't care for the word "negative" there at all. I prefer the word "darkness" to suggest the positive feminine. And if one is going to say "Negative does not necessarily imply evil" then one needs to also say "Positive does not necessarily imply evil" if you catch my drift. If we keep using up these polar words then all were left with are cumbersome circumlutions like "less desireable", "less beneficial", etc.

wandking said:
As mistress of the inner voice, The High Priestess epitomizes an ideal woman. Like the Lady of the Lake in the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, she surfaces with a mystical gift and may signal intuition is sending you a message. The subconscious offers messages veiled in symbolism and to hear the inner whispers we must remain alert. If an important decision is at hand when this card appears, it is likely signaling that your subconscious may reveal a path in upcoming days. By patiently waiting and remaining receptive to messages from within, you soon hear subtle whispers of the mind. Open your heart, as the awesome power of this card enriches and transforms you on an internal level. She teaches that all knowledge exists beyond your conscious veil, at a deeper level of the psyche. Her message emerges from two words by Linnaeus, a scientist and philosopher, who said, “Know thyself.”
Perhaps not "an ideal woman" but "a feminine ideal" - an ideal woman, like an ideal man, is a person who successfully balances all the archetypes, not just this one. If it were possible for the pure archetype to be expressed in a person, it would be a pretty dysfunctional one. A High Priestess would not be very effective as a human being - I'm not sure she could cross the street successfully, let alone get to where she needed to go, and forget about schedules! Linear time? What's that? Trust me, I wouldn't let Sophie out unescorted! :)

Apart from these two nigglies, I really enjoyed this quotation. Its very well balanced, clear and concise, and of course I find myself in agreement with all the main points. I noticed you didn't mention the source - is it yours?
 

wandking

yes, whenever i post card meanings they come from a book I'm writing on RWS, which started out as some rough notes on card meanings and Tarot history that sort of evolved. I appreciate your feedback on these meanings, which causes the book to become clearer. In response to your constructive criticism, I'll post the very first paragraph in my book, which stresses to importance of not getting hung up on lables, like dark, negative and occult. To truly get in touch with ourselves, I feel we must accept all of the conflicting aspects of the personality, even those thoughts and feelings that are perceived as "evil" by many.

Tarot enlightens humanity to the occult. Although this endeavor seems sinister, it loses impact with a clear description. The Webster Dictionary defines occult as hidden from view or not easily understood. Occult shares a bond with Tarot because society gives both words dark, negative connotations. Like Tarot, dark and negative lack ominous implications, once defined. Dark simply means devoid of light. Without darkness, any organisms that exist on this planet would differ greatly from current forms. Life subsists in a delicate balance between contrasting energies that resemble a cosmic battery. Day means nothing without the contrast of night. Negative suggests more profound implications because a universe with no negative force conceptually lacks potential to offer a positive power. It follows, without both forces; there is no universe. Tarot satisfies an innate human desire to find deeper purpose in life or understand the meaning of existence. In history, Tarot emerges as a path to enlightenment but like any path, it remains hidden to a closed mind. A pearl of wisdom suggests; “Like a parachute, the mind only functions when open.” Considering theories and information with an open mind offers potential for a personal quest to enlightenment. Rejecting or accepting a theory without careful consideration is absurd but dismissing information based on pre-conceived notions represents a foolish path.
 

Sophie-David

Yes, I understand. And another piece of fine writing too, Wandking!

But I'm afraid I'm still going to have to use "positive" and "negative" in the same way, unless given a better choice. "Good" and "evil" are also useful but pretty loaded words. For example, "evil" is really over the top when one is just trying to saying "less beneficial" or "less desireable".
 

wandking

sophie david

In response to this entry; " Perhaps not "an ideal woman" but "a feminine ideal" Most divinatory interpretations in this book arise from consensus of a variety of sources, including A E Waite. I've seen quite a few live readers who interpret the Priestess as a flesh and blood person. In essense, I personally agree with you on this point but with so many opinions suggesting the possibility that the card might show more than a feminine ideal, I felt that the view should be expressed to some degree, albeit a lesser one. I think these modern interpretations might have hatched from this Waite quote on the card, which I use on the flip side of the High Priestess page: "the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge." Personally, I rarely read most trumps as flesh and blood people. I offer the opinions of Waite, Crowley, Mathers and Ettiella on each card and it goes without saying many of their interpretations differ from the ones I offer in the main body copy, which you recently read on The High Priestess.

As far as the Astral Path is concerned, though this is the first I've seen of it, I kinda like the ascension of Magician/ High Priestess into Empress/ Emperor... see how the polarities switch in card numbering?
 

Sophie-David

I realize why I look at the Majors as being strictly archetypes, not people. My creativity instructor and mentor comes from a psychology as well as an artistic background. When she approached the Tarot it was from this context. When she first read for me we were exploring the question, "What is my life mission?" The Empress came up and I read the definition "bringing forth new life" to refer to her personally. She told me about the dangers of archetypal possession, how destructive it can be, and that unless someone was really unbalanced a person would not be expressed in a Major. This is the context in which I in turn have approached the Tarot. It would seem very strange for me to think of a Major as a whole person, they seem so deliberately focused and defined.

It is actually The Ancestral Path Tarot by Julie Cuccia-Watts. There is no study group for it here, and regardless of popularity I'm not sure there could be. Tracey Hoover's companion book is so thorough she explores virtually every symbol and nuance - she must have driven Julie crazy with her questions!
 

Sophie-David

Sophie-David said:
The goddess Moon is her guide: celestial
in the night sky, immanent at her feet.
Fulgour said:
This has interested me since I first read it. Can you elaborate
on the guide aspect? Many here feel The High Priestess is the
heart and soul of the Tarot, and you have a well thought way
of joining the Moon's forces from a slightly inderect viewpoint.
The limitless possibilities are here seen with refined reverence.
I think I was referring to the two opposing dynamics of divinity: transcendence and immanence, i.e. the divine as existing apart from the material world and not directly accessible to humanity versus the divine as dwelling within creation, as close as breath. The High Priestess can be seen as the connection with the divine feminine in both aspects, as she sits between the celestial and the worldly. From the psychological approach, she connects the feminine super-concious - the Moon above her head - with the feminine unconscious - the Moon below her body and at the very edge of the pool. Each crescent moon is a vessel that contains feminine wisdom, but from different layers of reality.

In my meditational and dream experience, the High Priestess was the guide and gatekeeper to not only her only card, but to the Empress, to the numerically correspondent Justice and Judgement (I experienced but only just analytically realized these numerical correspondences), and the interpreter to the Hermit and Tower in the octaves, and to the Moon. I suppose the Moon relates numerically to the Hermit at Nine, which is the High Priestess in the second octave.

In any event, the meditation on the Moon card was prepared and invoked by the High Priestess as a priestess would, but the actual encounter with the Moon as goddess was a direct one, without intermediary. I just looked up Drawing Down the Moon for the first time. My perception is that I, meaning the integrating self, was the actual agency rather than the internal High Priestess in isolation, and in the meditation the Moon was quite literally drawn down to both of us. I am analysing a very subjective experience as I write this, so if I'm not making sense, please ask. I had no previous knowledge of this Wiccan tradition.
 

wandking

I didn't put the symbolism together before but I like this Sophie David "she connects the feminine super-concious - the Moon above her head - with the feminine unconscious - the Moon below her body and at the very edge of the pool." I previously wondered why the card features 2 Moon symbols and that's a good interpretation.
 

Sophie-David

Meditation on the Connolly High Priestess

Oct 2, 2004: A Meditation on The High Priestess. The music is Enya's The Celts. Incense: Night Queen.

She rises from her throne, her eyes sparkling and expectant, "I have been waiting, welcome to my temple."

"Greetings, Imzadi*, one more moment," I reply, and take off my shoes and socks.

She whispers gently, "There is no need, between us".

"I would cleanse myself in your sacred pool, as in the Goddess ocean." I walk through the iridescent green water towards her, "Please stay still, My Beloved." Kneeling in the pool before her, I kiss the tops of each of her feet, then rise to her and we embrace.

Sophie unclips my blue cloak and it falls back into the pool, "You wore your true colour today."

"Yes", I smiled, "and avoided a nasty accident."

"Always let your intuition go ahead of you, not behind. Or even better, let her ride always with you," she returns sweetly, with a touch of gravity.

We remove our clothes and make love on her throne together, long, tender as the Moon rises. Then she rests, enfolded on my chest, in perfect union until her moon shines full in the sacred green pool. She lingers deep in my eyes, "It is our time, Beloved. I am thine forever."

"And I am yours."

She leads me to the golden gate, "Only the Sun can open the gate of the Moon." I swing the gate wide, we walk reverently into the sacred Garden of the Moon, closing the gate behind. The air is warm on our naked bodies, and soft we walk across the yielded grass, the shadows of roses red and white on either hand. We come to a second pool, deeper and much darker than the first - caressed by its darkness we laugh and play in scented rose water.

She stands full before me in the reflection of the Moon, "I must travel with you always." Approaching her, we embrace, her long dark her surrounds me until but one body stands in the pool, and even that oneness flows gently down, surrendering form to the darkness.

_____

*Imzadi, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Betazoid for "Beloved", used to express an unbreakable intimacy between lovers, as between Deanna Troy and William Riker.
 

Sophie-David

Sophie's Analysis

Oct 5/04: [After the Meditation on the Emperor] It was a late last night when I came to bed, 0020. There was a lot of writing to do after the meditation, and then it had to be typed up also so that I could focus properly on the work of today. I also didn't sleep for quite a while, the trials of The Emperor were... trying. I woke early this morning, and after some time noticed that Sophie was waiting for me.

I do not recall her ever looking so poised and confident, or so beautiful and happy. She wore a long silver dress with a plunging neckline, silver heels, and in her hair the diadem of the moon, her body in exquisite shape. Most wonderful of all, her skin radiated a cool blue light. I asked her, "What has changed?"

You see the Moon exalted by the Sun. This is my wedding dress, come lay with me on my chest.

I did so. I felt as though my head were in a different plane, although my mind continued to race, nonetheless there was an new inner peace.

You have given me a new gift. I can reflect your own healing energy back on you. But I cannot calm your mind, for you need that energy to empower you for your work today.

"Sophie, you speak as you first did to me, when we were newly united."

When you gave your life for me, and opened your bed to me, I had almost your whole unconscious at my command. But it was an unstable mixture that I could not completely control, one in which I tainted [your mentor's] trust. For growth to happen, in particular for us to destroy my cell, you had to surrender to me, and then I to you. In the Fire of Purification, we both allowed ourselves to disintegrate. We had a tremendous energy together in those early days, but it could not be sustained, for the foundations were corrupt. Only by surrendering our identities could we start to deal with the shadows.

...each have their roles to play as separate entities, and still do. The most healthy psyche is the one who can continually adapt, combining and separating, flexible to the needs of the moment.

As you now journey in the ascent of the soul, we will achieve a new more flexible reintegration. You notice now that I speak as I first did, with the voice of intuitive analysis. On the first day, you surrendered your ego, becoming the fool again, innocent and trusting, separated from the divine, yet still in tune with the cosmos.

On the second day, Inu [the Gandharva, evocative of the Magician] surrendered to you. You did not use that power for yourself, but automatically surrendered to form, becoming the blue wine in the chalice, again laying down your ego in service to the life story, in humility accepting your true path. I was prescient of what you needed to do, at least partly, and sent you the dream of the car crash, to be sure that you remained in your blue energy, in service to your mission.

But on the third day a miracle happened which I could not foresee. Although we both knew that we must unite upon my throne, what you did before me was unexpected and unlocked the mystery of the Garden of the Moon. Many men would have seen The Beloved, yielded and expectant, and skirted the Pool of Life, taking her with dry feet. Others would have taken off their shoes and socks in the drama of the moment, or to avoid their getting shoes wet, and would have strode across the pool in high pride to take my favours. Very few would have knelt to me at that moment, but some would have done so in false humility, with their knees on the floor. Others would have done so in perversity, as if they were not my equal, and inwardly I would have scorned them. But in your spirit of open eyed devotion, you kissed my feet as Christ had washed the feet of the disciples, as Mary had kissed his feet with her tears, and you won the heart of God.

In doing so, you were the key to the Garden of the Moon, you became the Sun and opened the gate as easily as if there were no lock there, without even thinking about it you transcended into the divine. No one, not even me, has ever dwelt there. We walked like children together in the garden, a new Adam and Eve, and you embraced me in the moonlit pool of the deepest unconscious, the light of the Sun embracing the light of the Moon. By your love you have transformed me again. As you had recently united with Inu on the day before, you gave him back to me as your gift. I align with my life companion and thus you have me again, Intuitive Analysis.

Even more wondrous, again you surrendered yourself, not taking the powers of Sun and Moon to your ego, but submerging into the pool, surrendering again to the story. The gift of your unseen companion, Pallas Athena, serves you well, she is the masculine instinct of form who adapts you to the story, going beyond what Eirian and I can know or do.

I have withheld my exaltation from you although I dearly wanted to tell you and to thank you. Nothing is preordained, you are responsible for the choices you have made and therefore responsible for these victories. Therefore I thank you with all that I am.

...I know you are a bit concerned that you seem to be prethinking some of the encounters in the Ascent of the Soul, and you do not want to rob them of their power. Don't worry, I have helped you to see only enough for you to properly prepare. Connolly's course does not fit you exactly, although it is very stimulating. Enjoy tonight in heaven, my love. [The upcoming encounter with the Hierophant]
 

Sophie-David

Analysis of the Meditation on the Connolly High Priestess

October 28, 2004: The Sophie monologue following The Emperor card has already elaborated on the significance of the kissing of the Beloved's feet, and of the second surrender or initiation, this time to the deep pool of dark water in the Garden of the Moon. I would like to expand on this a bit. I think there is a deeper meaning to the words "the Moon exalted by the Sun" which goes beyond the astrological reference to the chart components, of the Sun which is the ego self or one's perception of the self, exalting the Moon which is the emotional/intuitive self. Similar to the phenomenon which I perceived on my hands following union with the divine feminine near Goddess Rock at Florencia Bay, this exaltation causes Sophie's skin to glow blue.

The pool in the Garden of the Moon is "the moonlit pool of the deepest unconscious". The deepest unconscious touches both the High Self and the divine. In the later meditation, the Moon represents not Sophie, and not only the unconscious or imaginative, but the touch of the Goddess herself. In the realm of heaven, experienced in the Hierophant, and in the Devil and Sun meditations, we meet the Son of God, represented here as elsewhere as the Sun. So an aspect of what happens in the pool of the deepest unconscious is an encompassing communion which involves the self as masculine and the self as feminine together with the divine as masculine and the divine as feminine. This is sacred marriage in the sense of a marriage between the divine and the self. The blue after-glow is a charisma which denotes the touch of the divine.

I do think it is a mistake to limit the concept of "Sophie" to be just a personification of the emotions. Like the Moon and High Priestess archetypes to which she relates, there is considerably more involved in "Sophie the Beloved" than emotions. Most importantly, the High Priestess is the "guardian of the unconscious" which is fully manifest in the Moon itself. This role of internal priestess to the unconscious gives her a key and potentially dominant position. I think this is part of the reason that when I first encountered Sophie I perceived her as the whole unconscious because only through her did I experience it. Sophie is still the most convenient and effortless way for me to invoke the unconscious. And the job of "guardian" seems to involve a protective and at times insulating role, controlling access between the unconscious and the conscious selves to allow "normal" psychic function and limit self-destructive or distractive influences between the two.

"Sophie", the expression of the archetype of the High Priestess, also has the key role of connecting to both the inner or High Self and to the divine feminine or Goddess. Lastly, she seems to have a special role as ambassador to the body itself. So, as I experience it, the High Priestess is the medium by which consciousness extends to at least four different layers: the unconscious, the body, the High Self and the Goddess (or perhaps the divine in general - I'm not so sure about that).

As the experiential modeling of the Fool's Journey continues I connect with many other components of the psyche modeled as more or less discrete entities, but I still see Sophie as the unique Rosetta Stone to the soul. In this respect I concur with Jung's model of the single anima as key to the full expression of the male Self.

But yes, does this really relate to the female experience? Is the animus really the key to the female's Self? I would say no, at least not the most essential key. The animus has two roles, its positive role is to activate the soul's psychic energy, but its negative role prevents a woman from relating properly to her essential feminine or anima. In Jung's layered model, perhaps the animus would rest just below the shadow and contain the anima underneath, which remains the primary intermediary to the central Self. I may be wrong, but I really can't see that the female model of the psyche should be that much different from the male, since gender is really a continuum rather than a polarity. But if the current model is not relating to both genders equally well, then it needs to be changed.

If there is a high priest who is the gatekeeper and medium to a woman's unconscious, perhaps the archetype would be the Hierophant, which in some decks is the High Priest, or less likely it could be the Hermit. Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius, would be the Astrological equivalent.