The High Priestess

The high Priestess is Arcana number two, the second, and symbolises passiveness, the femenine energies, the yang aspect, completing thus the exposition of the pairs of oposites we'll see developing all along the sequence. In the traditional image we see her sitting in a throne, between two pillars, black and white, between which hangs a curtain, sort of hidding something, and with a roll in her hands where "Tora" can be read. Usually is crowned with a crescent moon, or some other lunar symbol can be found. We can see that in contrast to the almost violent yellow on the previous card, predominant colours here are blues, like in a mysterious night scene.

This eternal feminin mystery that the High Priestess puts us in touch with is the most important aspect here. If with the magician we learnt the valuable action, the High Priestess shows passive and content, and knowing both we can learn to balance them in the right measure, like the woman sitting between the two pillars seem to suggest. The drawings on the curtain represent palms and pomegranates, old symbols of unperishable (pomegranates don't decay). What we can glimpse behind the curtain is a sea or a lake, aparently calm. Water universally symbolise the unconscious, or also rebirth, and we can imagine then that the High Priestess guards gently the access to our deep unconscious.

Even so, this is not a sterile or hostile guarding. In other interpretations, particularly in Stewart and Janet Farrar's, we can see the High Priestess as a woman in her plenitude of life, surrounded by animals. Instead of two pillars, we see the waxing and wanning moon, and instead of a curtain we see a tenous veil covering her, almost inviting us to discover our inner mysteries with her. The forest in the background serves symbolical functions similar to the sea in the traditional version. Even so, the High Priestess always appears alone and somehow isolated, with a wisdom that could appear to us as almost innate, and for these qualities, we could also relate her to the Hermit, the card that appears inmediately under this one in the three lines disposition. Wisdom and isolation suggest a certain introspection, or someone we can go for when in need of advice. Where the Magician means an attitude towards our surroundings, pushing us to the outside, the High Priestess invites us to our insides, as if she was whispering "know thyself".

Divinatory meanings are, then, introspection, secret wisdom, secret, or advice from someone older or more experienced. Also can show us it's time to devote ourselves a little more to our inner life, looking for our very own essence, or learn that sometimes it's better to keep calm and cool and let things develop a course of their own.

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