The High Priestess

Easter and the days leading up to it, in conjunction with Spring, have always been important to me, and it's the time of year I love the most. I have joyful sweet memories of going to yearly Easter Sunday service with my mother when I was little. I affectionately remember our usual special bonding ritual of searching for the right Easter bonnet , and then being all decked out in our outfits on Easter Sunday, where my mother would play the organ in Church.
Although my religious practices have changed and evolved, I still feel a very strong attachment, with great love for this time of year.

Drawing the High Priestess today reflects many of aspects of my spiritual beliefs today. I do not see these as being in contradiction to how I once celebrated Christian holidays. The liturgical seasons have simply been absorbed into part of my own spiritual journey.

There is something so beautiful to me about Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, because it speaks of humility, and service to others. The symbolic ritual of the washing of one another's feet reminds us to love one another as we are loved by the Creator.

The High Priestess symbolizes this spirituality, our spiritual mother, where I find the womb of the unconscious, the inner workings of perception, the pattern, and the purpose of life. The High Priestess stands between two pillars, one black, one white representing the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge or Death.

She wears her gown of personal growth and the crown of truth. The Narcissus is symbolic of death and resurrection. The pomegranate she holds represents the fruit of the dead, undeveloped creative capacity, and immortality. Passing between the pillars heralds entering a new life, or another world.

I don't get an Easter bonnet any more, but if I did, it would be this one.

The Secret Unconscious - The High Priestess

I have been thinking about this card a lot this week. After reading the cards for some time, you start to develop a relationship with them, appreciation for them deepens, and the connections you make between the cards, with life, and with living every day increases.

 I have always found the High Priestess a card I very much identify with, and relate to. This past week, having done a reading where this card came up, it has been at the forefront at my mind. At the same time while I was in Halifax at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, I got to see a wonderful exhibit and collection that spanned a life time of the great Canadian artist Mary Pratt, whom I admire greatly.  Looking back on these events I see this is where I really made the connection to The High Priestess, and Persephone.

Her painting entitled, Threads of Scarlet, Pieces of Pomegranate,  had a room all of it's own in the gallery, as if it was something almost sacred. Mary Pratt's painting of two pomegranates, one whole, and the other split open, revealed it's seeds and juice, as it spilled onto the table they were placed on.

I had a visceral response to the subject matter, and to the way it was rendered, as it was both beautiful, and disturbing on a level I couldn't pin point, until I read Mary Pratt's explanation of her painting, and under what circumstances she created it. Then I began understand.

Threads of Scarlet, Pieces of Pomegranate - Mary Pratt, 2005

She stated this was one of her favourite paintings, and had been done unconsciously, at at time of great emotional upset, after having divorced her husband Christopher Pratt. Upon seeing this painting, of course my thoughts went directly to the High Priestess ( Persephone), who holds a pomegranate in her hand, which is symbolic of both the fruit of the dead, and conjugal love, because of it's many seeds.

In Greek mythology lies Persephone's hidden, mysterious inner world, of the unconscious. Her's is the intuitive world of dreams, fantasy, and visions. Persephone is fertile and full of undeveloped creative potential and does not speak of her secrets.

The inner workings of the unconscious requires patience and the passage of time to reveal the seeds of change and new potential. Not surprisingly, today's card, I drew the High Priestess again.

I found this picture a few hours ago, and it immediately made me think about the High Priestess and Persephone, because she is the intuitive spiritual mother of the underworld, the womb of the unconscious and of the depths of the soul.