Good morning, All,

I opened my box of cards today for the first time in several weeks and was stunned by the brilliant color.  It was like coming back to an old friend.  It was, however, easier to open the box of cards than to get my computer going, so there are still some twitches to be corrected, but as long as I can get out today, I’m gonna.

When I looked back at our postings, I saw that we had discussed The Fool and The Magician, but not yet The High Priestess, so that’s where we will resume—the gorgeous blue lady standing in the center of a stone circle in the forest in moonlight, holding her billowing cape behind her.  Her shadow along the pathway suggests that in her psyche she contains the “horns” of the crescent moon above her.  Being the color associated with the Ajna chakra, she is third-eye intuition.

Doesn’t she just inspire you to go outside right now and dance in the nude?  Stay calm, ladies, stay calm.

Our High Priestess, always closely in touch with the intuitive realm of our psyches, calls upon us to discover how we can be more ourselves and listen to our intuition, not only with respect to our food choices, but more importantly, with respect to the process occurring as we re-evaluate our relationship with food.  She asks us, and guides us, to determine what healthy and satisfying food habits we want to adopt—not those imposed by others, but those that work for each of us individually.  She influences us to evaluate and make those choices that will fulfill us, not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually.  We might think of her as our inner food oracle, nutritional intuition.

What information does she offer you at this point in time?

A large part of her task, however, is to emphasize that in our discovery of our food relationship we are also being called upon to focus on our spiritual life.  The two cannot really be separate, though some dieticians and diet book authors (definitely not the same) would have us believe otherwise.

Our journey is one of discovering the spiritual longing(s) that our various food relationships not only hide, but also have the potential to reveal.  She keeps us in touch with the notion that consciousness of the process—of the things we are experiencing and learning through those experiences—is more important than the final goal, and will ultimately unequivocally influence the final goal.

In many Tarot decks, The High Priestess sits or stands between two pillars and is considered to represent the middle pillar of the cabalistic Tree of Life, the pillar of equilibrium.  She becomes a priestess of balance.

The two pillars are often connected with a veil of some sort.  In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the veil is patterned with palm trees and pomegranates, representing the masculine and feminine polarities.  The veil also serves as a barrier—and a potential opening—to numinous, sacred tradition, which asks, “Who or what is there on the other side of the veil?”

In the case of the RWS High Priestess, part of what stands behind the veil is a waterway (the unconscious).  Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With the Wolves) presents us with the task that The High Priestess represents, when she writes that our naïve nature begins to mature when it starts to question that which is behind the visible, and to understand that there is a secret something that needs to be explored.  She says, “Those who would develop consciousness [awareness] pursue all that stands behind the readily observable.”

In The World Spirit card, The High Priestess is framed by two trees.  The shadows of the moon and of the night clearly tell us that her wisdom is also shadow wisdom, and that we must pursue her mystery, “until the substance of the matter is laid open” to us, as Estes says.

I think this lovely High Priestess is reminding us that:

1.                   it is time to acknowledge that there is more to our relationship with food than we may previously have acknowledged or realized.

2.                   our meditational and dream images must be attended to for insight into that relationship

3.                   if we can tolerate what sometimes feels like chaos (the dark night in the card?), we will discover that ultimately a new balance is being created.

If you were to develop a relationship with a goddess to whom you could dialogue with about your food issues, who would she be?  What do some of you know about the goddesses that might guide us all in our food/body learnings?

I think the affirmation that goes with this card is:

I acknowledge, listen to, and nourish the needs of my inner being.

Do some of you have others that might be appropriate for you and/or working with this card?

Love to you all,

Sandra

Sandra A. Thomson, Ed.D.

Sthomson1@...

440 N. Norton Ave.

L.A. CA 90004-1563

Phone 323-464-6584

Fax 323-462-2555

-----Original Message-----
From: bevconcepcion@... [mailto:bevconcepcion@...]
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 10:20 AM
To: diningwitharchetypes@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [diningwitharchetypes]

Welcome back Sandra,
I was going to post something yesterday  just wondering if we were still active.  :)
I'm not even sure if I remember  the  fool or magician posts you mention, I can go over to files and reread it  I suppose  so happy you are back.


Bev