Centaur
linabeet said:Are the items at the bottom offerings?
In his book, Understanding the Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot, Duquette writes, 'The objects that appear at the bottom of the card are not lunar symbols per se. The camel is, ofcourse, indicative of the Hebrew letter Gimel (the Hebrew letter attributed to the High Priestess), but the other objects, the crystals and the seeds, are suggestive of the hidden and mysterious secrets of the beginning of life'. So, perhaps these are not so much offerings as they are symbols included in order to emphasise the whole secret and hidden nature of the Priestess.
Duquette writes, 'The Abyss she traverses is, quite literally, the desert of the soul, and like the desert camel, she is the only vehicle capable of crossing that terrible wasteland'. When I read that, I had in my mind the image of the Priestess, embarking upon a journey through a barren desert, using a camel as her mode of transport.
Interestingly, Duquette also suggests that the bow held by the Priestess is actually a harp: 'If you look carefully, you will see that her bow is actually a three-stringed harp 'for she is a huntress, and hunts by enchantment'.
Harris used projective geometry throughout the Thoth... using a wild array of lines, and such like. I think that the Priestess is a great example of this. Duquette suggests the following: if you turn the Queen of Cups upside down, and place her above the High Priestess, then it looks almost like a reflection. Very neat!