Shadowscapes Tarot

THE HIGH PRIESTESS

The High Priestess opens herself to the sky. She basks in the radiance the stars cast upon her upturned cheeks. She soaks in that tremulous incandescent light, feeling it glow within her mind, opening corridors and dancing into filigree patterns.

The stars chant:

We were here when the mountains were young
and the sea was only a dream...
we've seen the hills bloom with countless millions of seasons...
we've watched the clouds paint their visions
in a slow language across the centuries...
let us speak

The owl hoots in the darkness, calling out to his mistress with the music of the night. His white feathers gleam in the moonlight, as if with a light from within. He glides through the darkness to come to rest near her.

In the gloam, the night is full of whispers - the secret knowledge of the stars, of the trees, and of the earth. The spirits of each murmur their collected stories and their wisdom in a sibilant descant.

She weaves those sounds through her fingers, drawing the voices into physical being, and in her fingers, a filigree key coalesces. She calls the owl to her. "Take this, and be the bearer of secrets," she tells him.

Meaning:

Wisdom, knowledge, learning, intuition, purity, virtue. The High Priestess lifts her arms out, and in that gesture, her very body becomes the living symbol of a chalice. The Owl is a keeper of knowledge, and he bears a key to unlock mysteries. The pomegranate is an icon of Persephone, who tasted the seeds and thus tied herself to Hades; it is a fruit of fertility and death. The moons embroidered upon her garments wax and wane, the new crescent and gibbous moon that create the full cycle, embraced in one.