Cosmic Whispers Tarot

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Through the Veil–Tarot Blog Hop for Litha

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305px-North_season

Welcome to the Litha Tarot Blog Hop, whether you’ve hopped from Kerry Ardilla’s blog or Chloe’s Celtic Lenormand Oracle.

Happy summer solstice! Being the big cosmology fan that I am, I borrowed a space illustration of how the Earth’s seasons work. That one on the far left is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. All that we are, and all that we live, is reflected again in the largeness of the universe.

Or this is Litha, as I am informed by our intrepid blog hop wrangler, Sharon Cumming. A very long-time celebration of warm weather, earliest harvests of summer foods (we have tomatoes already here in the subtropics of southeast Texas) and the burning of bonfires to reflect the heat of the sun in its longest sojourn of the year. I remember when I lived in England how much longer the days were at this time, with sunsets at 10 pm or later. Here in Texas, the difference is not so great between summer and winter, but 8:30 pm for sunset will do!

800px-Midsummer_bonfire

Sharon has challenged us to shine like the sun and show off our own personal creative impulses today (anything from recipes and knitting to writing and music and visual art).  Today is the longest session of daylight for the year, and it’s a good time to expand our own creative lights.

I’m not much in the way of a visual artist or craftwoman. My cooking skills are quite good, but I like to follow other people’s instructions. My husband is in charge of kitchen experimentation. 😉

gilded-royale-priestessI do indulge in a bit of verse-making, though, so I’ll share with you the Tarot card (from the effervescent Ciro Marchetti) that came to me as symbolic of the thinning of the veil between the worlds of the physical and the spiritual at these times of marking and celebration, when the faery folk dance and become more visible, and we find it easier to hear our own muses speak. And although the High Priestess is associated with the Moon and not the Sun, the Moon reflects the Sun’s light to pull back the veil and reveal the mysterious journey to the soul. Sit for a moment, eyes closed, breathing deeply, chest to belly, in and out. See her sitting, flying, or standing softly in the distance; hear her calling to your soul to go deeper to find your own light to lift and guide you to the peace on the other side.

As part of the design of my Cosmic Whispers deck, based on some pretty cool pics of the larger universe beyond the Earth, I wrote a little poem about the High Priestess, which I share here along with my image choice from the veiled moon Enceladus at Saturn as my gift to the solstice and the blog hop:

Incense and smoke wind
through a torchlit labyrinth.

She strokes the shadows,
traces marble cracks

where darkness oozes
black onto her icy feet.

The other side of visions;
the other side of stars

she bows low before it,
a bright white veil waving.

Behind it, an altar looms
but no blood nourishes

these gods, only a great book.
Bound she is to its secrets,

alone she stretches hands,
raises dark gray eyes.

She murmurs sybillas
through scarlet lips.

Her curved skin shivers
along its length, shifting.

Behind the veil,
beyond the stars,

She flies into darkness
to bear a message back.

Look upon her pale form,
gaze into those smoky eyes,

and fall yourself into the deep.
Time for consciousness to sleep.

And spirit to awake.

 

Thanks for joining me for this Sun and Moon celebration of all the worlds. 

Poetry of the Gods—High Priestess

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high priestess in thothBig challenge I’ve been procrastinating on for Alison Cross’s Tarot study group lesson she titled “storytelling.” She wanted us to make up a story (beginning, middle, end) for cards we’d pulled over several days’ time. That was several weeks ago. Oh, I’ve kept up with other more recent lessons as I continued to put this one off.

At first, the challenge was, “I don’t write stories.” And I don’t. Not in prose, anyway. I’m far too lazy, in a way, to lay out a story with plot and character development over even a page or two. Great at nonfiction reporting, but making up a story out of my head? Nope. So I procrastinated.

Then I thought, well, I do tell stories, don’t I? I write poems. Haven’t written any new ones in over a year, though. Muse has gone missing. Well here’s a good poetry prompt, don’t you think? Then it took awhile to get into the poetry mindset again, but the muse has returned from her vacay along the shores of Ireland and has agreed to participate.

So, this is the first of my poem-stories to fulfill the lesson, and also contribute to my Tarot companion book. Nothing like capturing two birds with one pen. My first draw for this lesson just happened to be the High Priestess/Popess. I thought of going all historical with the Marseille Tarot version of this, but what came out was more like the Thoth version of this lady, and so the picture fits.

Before the Veil

Incense and smoke wind
through a torchlit labyrinth.

She strokes the shadows,
traces marble cracks

where darkness oozes
black onto her icy feet.

The other side of visions;
the other side of stars

she bows low before it,
a bright white veil waving.

Behind it, an altar looms
but no blood nourishes

these gods, only a great book.
Bound she is to its secrets,

alone she stretches hands,
raises dark gray eyes.

She murmurs sybillas
through scarlet lips.

Her curved skin shivers
along its length, shifting.

Behind the veil,
beyond the stars,

She flies into darkness
to bear a message back.

Look upon her pale form,
gaze into those smoky eyes,

and fall yourself into the deep.
Time for consciousness to sleep.

And spirit to awake.

Thoth Journal, Virtues II: Temperance and…Prudence?

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high priestess in thoth

Thoth is back! Back in September during my Tarot study group where I was taking the challenge to understand the Thoth Tarot, I wrote about the first two of the four virtues in the Adjustment/Justice and Lust/Fortitude cards. You can review that post here.

In my study group, we were asked to relate the High Priestess and Temperance to the cardinal virtues (Temperance, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude). The Tarot explicitly addresses Justice, Fortitude (Strength card), (see previous post) and Temperance (in the Thoth, it’s called Art–as in alchemical art), but Prudence is not actually visible as a specific card. So, could it be hidden in the High Priestess?

In the Thoth, which is the deck I used in this study, the High Priestess and Temperance/Art have lots in common, actually. It’s amazing how when I look at the cards, I see certain things, and then I read Duquette’s analysis (Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot) and find I’ve missed all sorts of symbolic details. Not sure how the High Priestess goes with Prudence, though.

In the Thoth, Temperance is called Art, and the High Priestess just Priestess. Temperance and the Priestess are linked through the Qabalistic symbolism amongst other things. There’s a strong link in terms of the use of symbols for Artemis/Diana, the virgin goddess. Art has abstract bows and and an arrow as well as multiple breasts (these are in a statue of Diana somewhere), and the Priestess represents the virgin goddess Isis and also has a bow and arrows in her lap.

In Art, the alchemical theme in Thoth and some other decks is paramount, with a transformation based on the union of opposites in the Lovers card earlier. The hermaphroditic person has two heads from the Lovers and is mixing fire and water (difficult feat to say the least), and has transformed the essence of the lion and eagle into each other (they are now different colors than they were in the Lovers card). Fire and water hang out in friendly fashion at the bottom of the card. A miracle of mixture has occurred!

The High Priestess guards the gateway to her sensual and spiritual secrets governed by the

art, better known as temperance in thoth

moon with a huge veil running across the card. With the help of her Hebrew letter symbol, Gimel, the Camel, she will carry you across the abyss of your mundane self to access the secrets of the soul.

Links to the other two virtue cards, Adjustment/Justice and Lust/Fortitude: Justice I can see because of the emphasis on balance in Temperance, and even in the Priestess as we couple the inner with the outer, so to speak. Lust is, of course, a vice and not a virtue in the usual interpretation, so Crowley has turned it on its head in a way. But it is about the fortitude to accept one’s entire self, both light and shadow, but probably hold the tether of the beast with the light of the high moon of the Priestess.

In a reading, these two, Priestess and Art, would call deeply to the inner self’s psychological/spiritual journey and maybe not so much to the events of the mundane world. One may be called to meditate (possibly by the light of the moon), integrate one’s shadow self (self-forgiveness) in order to become whole. And then, we presume, life in the outer world will improve.

Now, let me know what card from the Major Arcana is your candidate for the virtue of prudence. Comments are open!

© 2013 – 2020 Joanne Sprott