the sexuality of the priestess

[Grizabella]

A vagina, while it's a sexual "orifice" (not the right word, but close) is simply a female bodily orifice. It's used sexually, but it isn't sex and it doesn't, by itself, imply sex or sexual orientation. It only represents that this person is female.

Within the Karma tarot, maybe there's some other meaning that the artist/author meant by this picture, but to me it doesn't have anything to do with sexuality so much as female gender.

As I think of it more, to depict the HP as a vagina is almost a chauvinistic depiction. To depict any woman as a vagina would seem that to me.

 

[BrightEye]

Within the Karma tarot, maybe there's some other meaning that the artist/author meant by this picture, but to me it doesn't have anything to do with sexuality so much as female gender.

the association ofthe artist was more in terms of red=active and creative, blue=passive and reflective, the latter of which is what the priestess chooses to express, although she is in possession of both.

As I think of it more, to depict the HP as a vagina is almost a chauvinistic depiction. To depict any woman as a vagina would seem that to me.

don't really know what to say to that. i don't think the artist is chauvinist, at least that's not the impression i got from the rest of her deck. but maybe it's a case of me thinking she can't be chauvinist because she's a woman.

 

[Sophie]

don't really know what to say to that. i don't think the artist is chauvinist, at least that's not the impression i got from the rest of her deck. but maybe it's a case of me thinking she can't be chauvinist because she's a woman.

You have to place the Karma Tarot in its time...it was designed by a woman artist in a commune in Denmark in the 1970s, at a time when women were looking at their vaginas in looking-glasses and admiring their femaleness

I think the HP is very much woman - a female archetype, and not sexless or hermaphrodite. She is Pythia, Isis, Magdalene - woman, independent, wise and witchy in her way. She is also receptive, so the vagina is entirely appropriate.

 

[Adjustment]

I found this post by Umbrae about the High priestess to very interesting.

Ahhhhhh the High Priestess.

She knows all the answers…

However, she will never tell you...any of them. You must guess. (Or outwit her).

Some will say that she represents the fourth face of a woman (virgin – mother – crone -?) What is the fourth face? Some educated folks state that the fourth face of womanhood is the loose-woman (or the slut). She is manipulative and uses sex as a weapon/tool. I will not argue this – it has already been immortalized in print – go to your library.

Overall, the High Priestess uses her sex – and her secrets – and tells little.

In addition, she can be very dangerous.

...or not...

I love he High Priestess in spreads...

 

[Grizabella]

You have to place the Karma Tarot in its time...it was designed by a woman artist in a commune in Denmark in the 1970s, at a time when women were looking at their vaginas in looking-glasses and admiring their femaleness

Thanks for the chuckle this morning. I think it's a humorous visual. LOL

BrightEye, I wasn't really saying the author/artist/creator was chauvinistic. I just said it "almost is" and "as I think of it more". But that's an interesting thought---that a woman could be chauvinistic, too. I guess a woman could, don't you think? I was (and am) just exploring this in a "do bugs have muscles" sense.

I probably didn't make my coffee strong enough this morning.

 

[sharpchick]

But that's an interesting thought---that a woman could be chauvinistic, too. I guess a woman could, don't you think? I was (and am) just exploring this in a "do bugs have muscles" sense.

I probably didn't make my coffee strong enough this morning.

Chauvinism isn't male only. What about all the women who run front for pro-life groups, trying to argue for government control of women's reproductive rights?

Last week, our state legislature voted on a resolution for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment - several decades after the critical moment. One of the anti-ratification voices was that of Phyllis Schafly, who shows up at events regularly to argue against constitutional amendments granting women equal rights, as well as women's right to govern what goes on with their bodies. I'd consider her a prime example of a female chauvinist, and my list is pretty long.

 

[Anyankah]

Today I found my journal writings from the last time I went through a phase of being interested in tarot (in 2002.) Here are some thoughts from my entry about the high priestess:

She lives not for herself or for other people but for truth and the holy. To that end she holds black and white, joy and sadness, certainty and mystery within her. Knowledge, holding back from action, solitariness, self sufficiency.

I see her as about powerful knowledge but not action or interaction, holding that power and the power of dualities within oneself.

So I see her as knowing a lot about sex and passion, and in that way she is very sexual, but she doesn't actually do it as she doesn't share things with others that way. (How does she know without doing? She's mysterious and magical that way.) And I see her as bisexual, partly because of the duality aspect.

 

[Mi-Shell]

Hi Everyone!
I -very personaly- would go out on a limb and say that some High Priestesses I meet on my exploring different decks, also have a Spirit as a lover!
Very much like the Woman, who was married to a Bear in many First Nations myth.
She knows about the Sacred Union with the Divine......
At time she may shapeshift to merge with the Divine......
But will she tell????

 

[nelsleep]

As I think of it more, to depict the HP as a vagina is almost a chauvinistic depiction. To depict any woman as a vagina would seem that to me.

This process of birth is what springs into my mind when I think of the HP depicted in the Karma Tarot as the vagina.

I think the take on the Vagina as only a sexual part of physicality denies it's other (most important and creative) role as the entranceway to birth. What more ultimately creative act is the act of giving birth? The vagina is ultimate feminine/creative symbolism (as those ladies with their mirrors were to discover!)

The HP is about creativity in the material realm being linked with spirit from behind the veil.

The source of what we create is drawn from the ethers and through the veil and out into the material world. The link is not well known and not obvious hence the great secret of the High priestess is this.

The HP is often depicted looking very mysterious. The new take on the HP as the vagina, is far more obvious and in your face (unfortunately the meaning of the vagina synonymous with being of the 'lesser sex' is still around which totally negates it's interpretation as to being about creation in the here and now) No expression of physicality states this as openly as the vagina does in it's action and role. (but are the facts any less valid or important if displayed by the red-living vagina and not hidden behind the pale face,demure & mysterious smile and close guardianship of the traditional High Priestess.

The Vagina is so ulitmately a conduit for creative acts, that the meaning is bared and stripped in the karmaTarot version of the HP. Yet in the Karma Tarot, there is still the prescence of a veil for the powerful process of creativity is always subtle. The veil is coloured blue as in the traditional HP where it is a woman dressed in blue -usually a women depicted in a blue dress is symbolic of the Virgin Mary. Blue is also the colour of the feminine, the colour of distance, spirituality and calm. The perfect colour for the veil to have.

 

[caridwen]

i remember reading bits and pieces about the mysterious sexuality of the high priestess, but it might help to have it all in one thread.

i've been studying the karma tarot and the body of the priestess in this deck is depicted as a vagina. she's wearing a red dress underneath a blue cloak, the creative/ active vagina enclosed by passive/ virginal blue, which is the dominant colour of the card.

is this indicative of sexuality not expressed? and does she choose not to express it?

Yes I also see the High Priestess as a vagina, the Magician as a penis and the Empress as a womb - only as part of their meaning though not all