The High Priestess of 2012

 The next card in the Major Arcana is The High Priestess (2M), a symbol of wisdom, intuition, divinely guided thought and action. As you can imagine, she is therefor quite quiet, as she hardly ever has to use words to communicate.

Not surprisingly, the night between The Magician and The High Priestess was filled with vivid dreams. I remembered 7 dreams last night, and woke up quite exhausted.   A few were some high-anxiety nightmares, which I was really surprised by because I haven't had any of these feelings in my day to day, so here they are to remind me!  I asked for it though... before bed I was reading (for the third time!) Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck, and the chapter was about Map Making for your Soul's Purpose, and one of the symptoms being vivid dreaming, and how to interpret this guidance from beyond. So there. I did. I asked for it. I take full responsibility!  The frustrating thing though is that even though I KNOW I need to face my fears in my dreams, I ran away from all of them. My gut instinct of danger was too strong. Are you supposed to follow intuition in dreams?!  Anyway, back to the High Priestess.  She often shows up in my dreams as my Anima in dreams, but more often it's my Animus that shows up to guide me.  She is a shape-shifter, here to show me and communicate with me in ways other than words.

The imagery of the card can be a put-off to some tarot readers because of the Religious implications, but since Religion does not apply to me, I simply see her as a dedicated student (always holding her book, or Torah, or Bible) and blessed healer (her staff, or mudra of peace and healing).  The High Priestess should certainly be studied more carefully by me, because she helps The Fool, who has learned so much from the Magician, narrow down what he wants to do with all the tools he has learned. As a kid I thought I was expected to become all things: carpenter, doctor, fireman, teacher, vet, ... I thought at some point I was meant to do all of those things, it was truly overwhelming. The High Priestess is here to help me listen and light my path, narrow down the choices and possibilities, and move forward on my Soul's journey.

In my dreams last night, a running theme was darkness. In a few of the dreams there was a small area illuminated and the rest was darkness. The High Priestess is now telling me that the darkness was her gift, so that I could focus on the things in the light. To have too much illuminated is to be overwhelmed by options, and there are some things that need focus and attention this year.  She reassures me that she will be there to keep me in the light and show me my path.

Now rest! She says. Let it all unfold.

Thank you, High Priestess.

zzZZzzz