High Priestess – Tapping in to the Divine Feminine

An old, close friend was here, today, visiting, for the full Moon in Aquarius. She uses the Thoth deck and had recently pulled the High Priestess, depicted with outspread arms, so different from the traditional image of her, sitting on a throne, holding a book. We got talking about what that signified. What is the Goddess or Deity, exactly?

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me…

In Tarot and numerology, 2 is considered receptive. The Arabic numeral is in the shape of an ear, because it has to do with hearing, listening. 1 embodies vision, literally a first ray or bolt of lightening. [As a side note, Taurus rules the second zodiac house. Though Aries rules the head in general, ear, nose and throat are more Taurus’ jurisdiction.]

Grimaud TdM

If one puts the Marseille Juggler (Magician) beside the Priestess, one could imagine him as listening to her. The wand he holds is parallel to the strap across her front, directed to the book she’s holding. That he is ‘merely’ a performer means he himself is not the source of this magic, but a trickster who, by listening and creating space, can ‘bring it.’ Interestingly, by casting cards, you yourself become the Magician, with four types of tools, while the vehicle of space, as personified in the Papess revealing sacred wisdom, is Tarot.

Hear me, you hearers
and learn of my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;
I am the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.

In ancient times – as with any rock concert or belly dance performance or Baptist sermon, today – the performer or priest had to connect with and exchange energy with the audience. The uplifted audience then became as one, through synergy. The Deity was the collective spiritual experience, larger than the individual, but felt inside, by each. The sacred space being accessed (or summoned) for the spirit to flow through and become alive in – one could say that was the feminine principal, regardless of whether people considered the Deity to be male or female. She was/is present in connectivity itself. Sometimes psychogenic substances were used to enhance the experience (or maybe a forbidden fruit?), just as they are today, although now people use substances solely because they have lost the ability to open.
This ever-present, but invisible space was concretized as the temple or church, but nature was the original temple, and birds her priests.

We spoke of singing to both people and animals – my friend, to a Tibetan lama, me, to a crow – and how the subject inspires the song. For this giving, receiving and returning to occur naturally, a space needs to open, sesame. That is the threefold way of Goddess. Every time you open space to listen to and understand another living thing, or to receive inspiration with which to playfully create something (as opposed to having to do it for work, noble as that may be), you bring the Divine Feminine into being. The resulting creation then embodies spiritual aliveness, and can be a catalyst in opening space for others.

The modern world seems to be set on eliminating space and imposing will, in one form or another.  Rather than listen to a tree, we think of it in terms of how it can be useful to us. We keep other living beings in cages or kill them for sport and raise our children in institutions, where the same lessons are imposed on everyone of a certain age. Few of us have any energy exchange with what we consume in the way of food – energy just means caloric intake. We want things how they ‘should’ be, not as they are. Silence is feared, space is the blackness ‘out there.’

I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.


Merely replacing the male godhead with a female is a superficial and symbolic step, but unless we begin to re-open the space that is the living Goddess, through which the spirit flows between every living thing, we will continue on the path of death; eating dead food, wasting knowledge, being ignorant to the root of illnesses, plundering nature/each other, and so on. Then and only then will we finally experience space, for she is also the space between lifetimes and lifeforms, through which both karmic and genetic information is passed. And if we die without listening, we are in for more of the same. That is probably why the first words in the Tibetan Book of the Dead are ‘Oh nobly born, listen undistractedly.’ Passages are recited to the dead person’s soul, to which they must be receptive, instructing them on navigation of the in-between realms.

To the attached person (and we all have some attachments), space feels like a void, equated with Death, and must therefor be a-voided. Silence, stillness and aloneness must be filled with sound, motion and other people.  Their experience of the Goddess space is finite – an empty vessel, from which one might hear an echo, but little else. Patriarchal religion sees the Divine Feminine only as a vessel for the male God, imposing will on that which has no form, but silently provides, sustains and returns life to all creation.

This is not to deny the importance of masculine energy in creation. Going back to Tarot, we see that the Juggler/Magician is the Mercurial spirit that exists in everything. He has all his tools set before him, and will use the appropriate one, based on what he hears and where the energy wants or needs to be directed. When spirit and the space are combined, we get the threefold return, a directed movement that is a reverberation and microcosm of the original.

In Tarot, cups are indeed feminine vessels, but the Ace is usually depicted as a threefold fountain, rather than just an empty cup, wherein the waters of life are flowing. It’s the natural space, depicted as a church or censer in the Marseille Ace of Cups (not to be taken literally).

And yes, of course the Goddess takes many forms – the Earth, the Moon, and everything in between – but ultimately this initial space is her ‘formless form,’ via which she gives birth to the infinite manifestations of herself.

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
and the finding of those who seek after me,
and the command of those who ask of me,
and the power of the powers in my knowledge
of the angels, who have been sent at my word,
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,
and of spirits of every man who exists with me,
and of women who dwell within me.                     

 ~ Excerpts from The Thunder: Perfect Mind, Nag Hammadi Texts


All written content herein, except the Nag Hammadi excerpts, is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff 2016 and may not be reproduced without permission. Ok to share the article via link, however.

 

Zero in the Tarot by M J Stone

A little retrospective, now that we are officially in the Age of Aquarius. This piece was originally published in Parabola, Fall 2001 issue. It illustrates the Fool’s 2000 year journey through the Piscean Age of western civilization, via Tarot imagery. (Appreciation to the author for providing me with an English version and for giving me permission to post). Enjoy!

. . . . . .

ZERO IN THE TAROT
Whirling through the Major Arcana
by MJ Stone

Here I go again, spinning round and round, eyes closed, a quantum leap just waiting to happen. Flirting on the brink, whirling like a dervish, I am the primordial force, the Nijinsky of the cosmos. To most I am a fool, but to friends I am fondly nicknamed, a zero. Descending, inexperienced into the world, I am air, the breath of life, pure oxygen.

Some call me an eccentric and a know-it-all. But like the Latin, Follis, meaning a bag of wind, I am the conscious impulse that breathes life into the Tarot and my 21 Arcana companions. Beyond comprehension, I am a trickster, a sly fox and a vigilante rabbit, the roadrunner who defies Wiley’s scientific grasp.

Lucky are the mortals who catch a glimpse of me.  I am the burning bush of Moses, jump starting life’s evolutionary process. Manifesting in archetypes, in fleeting glimpses, in your dreaming: I begin my dance with the Major Arcana’s Magician, and continue to spin and bedazzle throughout the Piscean Age.  By card 21 I complete the circle drawing you into the Age of Aquarius by handing you the World.

Two thousand years ago, I was the essence of the fish and manifest in the man who walks on water, in the shaman who cures the sick and draws Lazarus back from the grave. I am the spirit of that first-century’s quantum leap. I am the message that lives in the heart of the Son of Man; I am card number 1, the Magician.

I represent the spirit of the people where the Christian leap of faith is about to occur. I live in the hearts and minds of Pagan Rome and amongst Northern Europe’s nature-worshipping Druids. I am an incarnation of Morgain, the archetypal goddess and Western, second-century, animistic state of mind. I embody the essence Gaea; I am card number 2, the Druid light, the High Priestess.

I celebrate the union of opposites, where the archetypal Christ marries the Lady of the Lake. I am fertility, the birth of the new faith that catches fire in the third century. I manifest as the pagan projection of Venus transferred onto Mary’s Immaculate Conception. I am card number 3, the Empress.

The quintessence of the Age of Aries is embodied in the Roman Empire. But by century four, the folly of the fish has usurped the pioneering spirit of the ram. From 392 to 395 Theodosius the Great reigns as the last Emperor of a United Rome. Representing the advancements of a previous age, I embody the spirit of the Tarot’s King Arthur. I am card number 4, the Emperor.

The spark that ignites the fire and seizes hold of your imagination is the fifth-century form that I take. I am the inspiration that fires the mystic hearts of Saint Augustine and Saint Patrick. Saint Augustine wrote City of God in 411 and Saint Patrick returned to Ireland in 432. I am the Rumi of devotion manifest in card number 5, the Dalai Lama of the 22, the Hierophant.

My dance turns transcendental when century six gets under way. I am the love affair that develops between Byzantium and Rome when they are reconciled in 519. I am a united Christian Empire, Venus and Mars in love. I am the harmony and peace  projected by card number 6, the Lovers.

I am a seventh-century noble and heavy-metal warrior for the Christian world, inspiration for the Silver Tower, the first order of knighthood that was established by the High King Balmord the Red in 653. I emerge in the legend of the Holy Grail. I am the archetypal Lancelot, card number 7, the Charioteer.

Out of knighthood springs the flower of chivalry. I am the eighth-century dance that occurs when Charlemagne becomes king of the Franks in 771 and is crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor. Grace, courtesy and devotion form the trilogy his reign inspires, attributes best exemplified by the chaste and fair lady of the Tarot, card number 8, Justice.

Following on the heels of infinite hope comes infinite despair in the ninth century. Louis the Pious succeeds Charlemagne in 814. He is a conscientious Frank who demonstrates that he is an able general and administrator. But on the throne the kindly Emperor is easy prey to schemers, the worst being his own children. Having divided his Empire amongst his sons, he finds, to his grief, that not only do they war among themselves, but they turn on their royal benefactor, forcing Louis to abdicate and seek refuge in a monastery. Such is the dance of a lonely monarch, the King Lear of the Tarot, I am the spirit of card number 9, The Hermit.

When the tenth century rolls round, the Christian world is a ship of fools sailing for an unknown disaster.. Wild musings and millennial fears motivate the hearts and minds of the medieval collective. But by wheel of time proves kind and the thousand-year anniversary of Christ’s life passes without cataclysmic consequence. I am benevolent and kind, the embodiment of fate as represented in card number 10, the Wheel of Fortune.

The first quantum leap of the new millennium is inspired by social activism. I am the spirit that catches fire in the wife of Leofork, earl of Mercia, when Lady Godiva makes her stand. She persuades her husband not only to found monasteries at Coventry and Stow, but also obtains a reduction in the excessive taxes levied by her husband by consenting to ride naked through the town on a white horse. Only one person disobeyed her orders to remain behind closed shutters; that old fool of a tailor, Peeping Tom, peeks through his window and is immediately blinded by Godiva’s radiant projection. In the Tarot, I am fair and beautiful. I am seen holding open the jaws of that proud lion, Leo(fork); I am card number 11, Strength.

I manifest in the profound convictions of a man who is hung out to dry for what he believes in. A sword’s crushing blow extinguishes the life of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, on a cold December evening as he ascends the steps of his altar. The brutal event sends tremors through 12th-century Europe. Blame for the murder lays at the feet of Becket’s former close personal friend, King Henry II, who can’t bear that Becket would challenge his authority. I am the indestructible spirit that lives in the heart of martyrs. In the Tarot, I am the archetype of thwarted potential, card number 12, the Hanged Man.

The dance of the infinite is a single-minded and hostile interpretation in the 13th century. A low point in religious orthodoxy occurs when the words of prophets are manipulated to inspire fear. So begins the age of Crusades and repression. The dark hostility reaches a crescendo in 1231 when the Inquisition begins. Pope Gregory IX makes the Dominicans responsible for ferreting out heresy. Thus bloomed an age of torture and intolerance. Historically, I manifest as card number 13, a demon angel arriving on horseback who exposes heretics and burns them at the stake. I am Death.

In the 14th century, hope is rekindled when the Renaissance begins in Italy and balance is regained as a consequence of the middle path. So emerges a new age of  illumination, spurred on by the likes of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Giotto. I am an invigorated spirituality that rises above the black plague. You find me in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I am the archetypal, open-minded alchemist and an angel of rational intelligence, card number 14, Temperance.

The reactionary forces of an allied state and church obscure the light again. I am the pure heart of Jeanne D’Arc, burned at the stake, by the British, as a witch after her ecclesiastical trial. I am the essence of the Aboriginal people of the New World that 15th-century Europe discovers, demonizes and brutally conquers. I am card number 15, the face of European power, the Devil.

Against a backdrop of Martin Luther’s proclamation, the start of the Reformation and the publication of Machiavelli’s The Prince, I live in the spirit of the 16th-century humanist, Sir Thomas More, author of Utopia. He is locked up in “the tower” and beheaded as a traitor for refusal to acknowledge the authority of the excommunicated king, that fool Henry the VIII. I am the archetype of righteousness and the ghost that inhabits the murdering place. Struck by a lightening bolt, the inspiration for card number 16, I am the Tower.

By century 17 religious authority is determined to keep science in check. Astronomers challenge the church on the mechanics of the universe. After constructing a telescope, Galileo enlarges humanity’s vision and conception of the universe. In 1610 he sees the moons of Jupiter through his lens. Eight years later Johannes Kepler proposes the last of three laws of planetary motion. But in 1633 the Inquisition forces Galileo to recant his belief in Copernican theory. I manifest in the Night Watch painted by Rembrandt in 1653; I am the intellect that yearns for an ever-widening comprehension of the origins of the universe. In the Tarot, I am card number 17, the Star.

My rebel yell is a call that awakens democracy in the 18th century. In 1775 the American Revolution begins and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is adopted. In 1789 the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille. In 1793 Louis the XVI and Marie-Antoinette are executed. The door is opened for the ultimate rebel, Napoleon Bonaparte. In the Major Arcana, I am a wolf howling at midnight, an iconoclast who eclipses the sun’s bright light and undermines its authority. I inhabit the spirit of card number 18, I am the Moon.

Free of the limitations that church and state once imposed, the new world democracy throws open the doors of science. I am the spirit of invention inspired by the likes of Joseph-Nicephore Niepce, who takes the world’s first photograph in 1826. I shine in the brilliance of F. B. Morse, who patents the telegraph in 1844. I’m present in 1866 when Alfred Nobel invents dynamite, when Alexander Bell patents the phone in 1876, and, three years later, when Edison perfects the electric light. In 1892 I provide the impetus that led to the Diesel engine being patented and I’m present when Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium and polonium in 1898. The philosopher of the century is Nietzsche, who set forth some of the existential ideas that made him famous, namely, the proclamation that “God is dead.” Nietzsche’s atheism — his account of “God’s murder” — was voiced in reaction to the conception of a single, ultimate, judgmental authority who is privy to everyone’s hidden, and personally embarrassing, secrets. In the Tarot I am the bright light of reason, I am the spirit of the collective, I am an ego that imagines itself all radiant; I am card number 19, the Sun.

God is dead and the 20th century turns quantum. We are flying high, airplanes in sky, the dance is an automated, nuclear fandango. I am present in the advances of Einstein, The Wright Brothers and Henry Ford. But I am also twisted out of shape by two world wars, Hiroshima, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Holocaust and the ongoing wars in the Balkans. I am a small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind. But I am, also, hubris, egotism and greed. I am the glory of intellect and its despair when it functions disconnected from the heart. That’s when I manifest in the extinction of species, in global warming, overpopulation. I am the volatile environmental legacy that children are inheriting. I am the edge on which the collective dangerously waltzes. You recognize me as millennial fear. In the Major Arcana, I am the angel who trumpets the dead from their resting place, card number 20, Judgement.

And into the 21st century, arms extended, the cosmos whirling around, I give you the Aquarian age. I embody the new century. I dance the dance of the mystical mother, the provider of life and all your immediate metaphysical frontiers. I am the intellect and heart of the living, breathing earth. I am your goddess, your scientific, subjective point of view, as object of faith. I am your garden and worthy of worship. I am the third planet in the solar system, a mystic top, whirling on axis, perfectly illuminated in the sun of infinite Buddha light. I am the deity of the new millennium. The goddess lives. I am hope and promise, card number 21. I manifest in nature, I am the World.

Copyright ©MJ Stone 2001, reprinted here with permission.
Please share via link only. Thank you.

Featured Tarot de Marseille cards:  Dodal (Fool) and Conver (World)

Eleven Power and Twin Towers

Today, Americans are marking the 10th anniversary of September 11. Nobody will ever be able to forget where they were that morning, nor the striking footage – somehow shot so clearly from every angle possible – of the world’s tallest skyscraper disintegrating into smoke before our very eyes.

At this time every year, I am compelled to zoom out and view the extensive symbolism surrounding the the Twin Towers, which stood for three decades as the financial matrix of the world. Two images stand out and contrast in my mind; one of Philippe Petit playfully defying death, atop a tightrope, (the beginning), and one of people falling to theirs from the burning buildings (the end). Both are of mythic proportion, completely surreal and defy explanation within the scope of our ordinary reality.

Power and the Tower

In a previous post I mentioned how Tarot expresses ‘universal laws.’ It’s as if all the scripts were written (by us) long ago and we just keep re-enacting and revising them…and that is really what myths are – a record of dream-time stories from the collective unconscious, unlike history, which is a record of stories as events, as they occur in the outer world.
Sometimes the fabric between the two realms is lifted or torn and the effect is momentous, impossible to explain. It usually happens when the rational mind (masculine) has become too dominant, threatening the balance of life by depleting us of mystery, magic and awe (feminine). A grand act of surrealism, for better or worse, throws our rational minds into chaos, challenging our set notion of which realm, exactly, we are in. It’s a form of death, when everything familiar suddenly isn’t. And at this opening between the veils (in Greek, the word apocalypse means ‘lifting of the veil’), there is a moment of truth or grace, when time just stops and feels infinite at once. This is the expression of the ‘mute’ number, 11.  In  Marseille Tarot arcanum 11,  La Force, the Goddess’ hat is shaped like a lemniscate or number 8, signifying her infinite dominion over balance, truth, paradox, law and order in the natural world.

Grimaud TdM

11 is the master number of illumination and inspiration. If it shows up, that’s usually a sign. World players know of the number’s power and have tried to invoke it – Armistice was signed on 11/11 at the 11th hour and Prince William and Kate Middleton were married on the 29th (reduces to 11) day of the month at the 11th hour in 2011.  The towers themselves formed a colossal 11, as if standing in constant invocation to the heavens. And they were twins. In  both alchemy and cross-cultural myth, twins embody the duality (and paradox) that each of us must work with, overcome and unify, a theme that reappears over and over in Tarot. Another duality we create and reckon with is between ourselves and what we imagine as God. Any act of balance or karma takes the form of Judgement in our minds, as if we are being rewarded or punished by events we have no control over.
A tower is, of course, an overtly masculine symbol. It’s  La Maison Dieu, ‘God’s House.’ Putting aside Babel for a moment, in Tarot duality terms, that means the opposing and uniting force that knocks down the ego, blows it’s mind or brings it to climax is feminine – ‘La Force’ of arcanum 11.

The Supreme Mother Goddess, Durga, whose name means ‘Fortress’,  rides a lion or tiger. (Bengal, late 19th/early 20th c)


Enter the Solar Hero

Not surprisingly, the young man who heard the Towers calling him  to give them life is a double fire sign, Leo (the Lion) with Aries Moon.  He is an agile performer, the fearless star of his own show – an artist who creates from the heart and performs dramatically daring feats. Aries is also the Fool, the ‘wise child’ and the hero who lives for the next mission. Sun conjunct Pluto indicates a person who was born with a very strong feeling of destiny, of having something to show to the world that will transform consciousness. His Jupiter, Lord of the Sky is in Capricorn (mastery, the corporate world). Not everyone with this combination would use their faith and skill to literally ascend to the summit of the world’s tallest banking institution, yet, for him, it was the only way. Fire is known for it’s ego size and you’d have to have one as tall as the Towers themselves to want to perform a feat like this, or indeed to have built such monoliths in the first place. The difference is that Philippe, wise Fool, always maintained his connection with the universe and was keenly aware of his place in it:

Grimaud TdM

“At some point in one of the crossings, I lay down on the wire and looked at the sky, and I saw a bird above me. And again, because… my senses were [decoupled]. I could see that bird pretty high up, and I saw the eyes were red. And I thought of the myth of Prometheus there. But the bird was circling and looking at me as if I was invading his territory, as if I was trespassing, which I was. So at some point I thought the gods – the god of the wind, the gods of the towers, the god of the wire – all those invisible forces that we persist in thinking don’t exist, but actually rule our lives – might become impatient, might become annoyed at my persistent vagabondage there. So my intuition told me it was time for me to close the curtain on this very intimate performance…”

Zero Ground 

The archetype of the Fool in Tarot is one who has left the realm of perceived reality, of wealth, possessions, pain and attachments. It sounds a bit like dying, but it’s actually freedom from death. Transcendent, he wafts between forms like a breeze and has no fear of reaching the end. He knows there isn’t one, so is free to live life “1000%.”  Most of us find it hard to get past the more finite idea of death. It’s terrifying, like the Grim Reaper in arcanum 13 and to be avoided at all costs. The two figures strike a very similar pose (this feature is unique to Tarot Marseille), plus, one is unnumbered, while the other is unnamed –  it would seem they illustrate the dual experiences of facing imminent death, as depicted in the two photographs at the opening of the post.

We are eternal.   Peace.

 

All written content herein, except quotation, is © Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be re-used without my permission. Kindly share via link only. Thanks for respecting.