Death & The High Priestess

[Lorraine1100]

Death, my arch nemesis and old foe has made an unwelcome return to my cards recently. What has followed on behind has been good.

Last year - to give you some background - huge changes took place in my life and allot of it caused considerable turbulence. Generally Death had the card such as the seven of cups following it which left me in a state of limbo. The only time last year that the Death card had a decent impact on me was when the nine of cups followed on behind it, although I did not see it instantly.

This afternoon, whilst having a cup of tea I questioned the cards and asked what was financially going to happen with me. Death and the High Priestess came out. I will say this is highly unusual because the High Priestess is a rare event in my card readings, for sure she comes up every now and then, but to have her seen right after Death is pretty significant. IMHO

I did some research on Aeclectic and the net in general to find any answers on this but the only thing I came up with was the HP before Death.

My feeling is that something obviously and clearly is going to end pretty abruptly and quite soon given the 28 day span for the High Priestess and that the High Priestess is about making things that have been covered known. I kind of took this to be a good omen given that it is a major arcana card and not a bad one and I hope I am not wishful thinking here. My gut feeling these last few days about my financial situation has been pretty good. I don't feel the crash and burn like I had last year with Death, I see this more as run in followed by a softer landing.

Rodney mentioned in another old thread that the High Priestess looks Death straight in face and does not blink nor is frightened of his presence. If that being so then I feel that something good is going to happen.

The High Priestess is my birth card, I am also a Moon child as I am a Cancerian and ruled by the Moon. I am also a water sign like the High Priestess. I don;t think this is something that has the effect on the Death card but I felt I should mention it just in case!

 

[rwcarter]

Rodney mentioned in another old thread that the High Priestess looks Death straight in face and does not blink nor is frightened of his presence.

I did? Guess I've said lots of things I don't remember in the last almost 8 years. I can still stand by that statement, although I guess I'll have to search to see the original context of the statement.

 

[Lorraine1100]

I found it this afternoon - now I am thinking was it you? Found the other link that Pamuya mentioned something very similar but that was HP & Death:-

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=231738

If I remember now it was something to do with the Pillars behind her and being veiled between light and darkness, life and death - or at least words to that effect. I will search back through for it.

 

[Lorraine1100]

Try this from this link

http://www.tarotforum.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2412303

Persephone stands at the bottom of the staircase that descends into Hades. She wears a golden crown. In her right hand she holds an opened pomegranate, showing its seeds, while white narcissi trail to the ground from her left hand. One either side of her are pillars, one black and one white. Behind her at the top of the staircase is the lush green landscape seen in the Empress.

Pomegranate

• the fruit of the dead, the fruit of conjugal love (because of its many seeds)
• suggests that which is fertile and full of undeveloped creative potential
• abundance, generosity, sexual temptation, wedlock, symbolic deflowering
• the regeneration that accompanies spring and summer, rejuvenation
• love and blood, and therefore life and death; immortality

Narcissus plant

• associated with the dead because of its ghostly color and its annual emergence from the winter earth
• self-sufficiency, self-love, vanity, mistaking shadow for substance
• coldness, death in youth
• madness caused by the scent of the flower as a result of self-love and vanity
• symbol of sleep, death and resurrection; it was planted on graves as a sign of the relation between sleep and death

Stairway/Staircase/Steps

• symbol of moving away from enlightenment, understanding and heaven; regression
• symbol of the difference between earth and hell or the conscious and subconscious
• Metaphors/Proverbs:
  • “to be out of step” is to act differently from the rest of a group
  • “step by step” means one segment at a time
  • “watch your step” means be careful of what you’re doing or where you’re going
  • “to step down” is to resign
  • “to step out” is to go on a date
  • “the first step is the hardest” means that making a start is often the most difficult part of an undertaking
  • “a journey of a thousand miles beings with one step” means that one shouldn’t be put off by the magnitude of the task ahead of them – the important thing is to make a start
  • “the only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping-stones is the way you use them” means that one should try to be positive in their approach to obstacles that lie in their path and try to turn those obstacles to their advantage

Pillars

• the duality contained in the underworld; the creative potentials and destructive impulses that are hidden in the unconscious
• the vertical axis which both joins together and separates Earth and underworld
• stability, the concept of standing firm
• one black and on white pillar symbolize all bi-polarities – the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge or Death, complementary opposites in duality and their balance and tension in combined action, spiritual and temporal power, the strong and the weak, tension and release, upward and downward movement, power and liberty, and the will and the law
• passing between them symbolizes entry into a new life or another world

Door/Doorway

• exploring one’s deeper reaches or unexplored regions
• reminder of one’s past life; transition to another state of mind or place; transition from realm to another; entryway to the realm of the dead
• Metaphors/Proverbs:
  • “every door may be shut but death’s door” means that death comes to everyone and is the only thing in life over which we have no control
  • “when one door closes, another one opens” means that disappointment or failure is often followed by a new opportunity

Persephone

• goddess of corn, the underworld and fertility; guardian of the secrets of the dead
• as guardian of the underworld and custodian of its secrets, she could never speak of what she learned there when she was back with her mother Demeter
• eating the pomegranate seeds caused her to lose her innocent girlhood
• image of the link to the unconscious; embodiment of that part of us that knows the secrets of the inner world, which is full of riches and potentials as well as the darker facets of the personality
• she appears through dreams and strange coincidences
• the unconscious, which can only be glimpsed through dreams, fantasies and intuition; trying to understand the unconscious or to master it for other purposes is futile
• the shadowy glimpses of patterns and movements at work within the individual in her world require patience and time before they can be brought into the light of day
• image of the natural law that works within the depths of the soul and governs how one’s destiny unfolds as it is revealed through feeling, intuition and dreams

I wrote the following in my workbook on 4Aug91:

My primary colors were light and dark blue, which I associated with clearness of mind, thought or purpose; truth (light) and secretiveness, lying (dark).

Rodney

 

[rwcarter]

Rodney mentioned in another old thread that the High Priestess looks Death straight in face and does not blink nor is frightened of his presence. If that being so then I feel that something good is going to happen.

Whether I said that or not, I can see it. Because Death is limited in its scope (one thing ends so that another may begin). But the Priestess has her secret book of knowledge that encompasses everything Death knows and then some. So she can stare Death down without even breaking a sweat.

To go back to your original question though, Death suggests that there will be a change in your finances. The Priestess suggests that will happen in a manner that can't currently be divulged to you or she may be suggesting that you go with the flow instead of trying to understand or control what happens.

Rodney

 

[Lorraine1100]

Well, thank you for this. You are probably one of the main ones here that knows how Death scared the heeby jeeby's out of me last year, yet oddly this year seeing it I am not so scared. Maybe because it's a major card next to Death I don't know, but I have a good gut feeling that somehow it's going to work out okay - yet I have no tangible proof it will.

I found that huge posting you did (above) elsewhere but I remember reading that yesterday afternoon and I was able to understand it and fit it in next to Death. Interesting that we are now coming into Spring and you mentioned the Spring/Summer element. Not sure where I found the 28 day trimester for her, but that being so it certainly fits according to the seasons we are in.

 

[swimming in tarot]

Lorraine, I'm thinking that the 28 days for the HP is just because of her link to the moon, which has a 28 or 29 day cycle. (But you probably realize that, and are looking for an erudite quote which goes into a deeper elucidation.)