Courting the Mystery
The High Priestess card in the tarot deck is known as the gatekeeper of the mystery. To pass through her veils an initiation is required. Different as it may be for each person; the similarity is that the mystery cannot be entered into with the mind that knows. Our mental faculties by nature compartmentalize and classify, needed to be able to navigate our physical world. In excess though, the mind over defines & builds walls. An encapsulated prison that dominates over uncertainty to rule the known.
Ambiguity can feel uncomfortable. We see this in our restless culture along with its overdeveloped compulsion to know. Have a question? Google it! Want the details about something? Look it up on Wikipedia! Not to knock these and other resources, but if this is a bypass for deeper listening, we miss out on the opportunity to court the mystery. We are being asked to humble the mind, to bow with respect as we face the unknown. Allowing curiosity to arise without trying to appease it. Meeting the inner busyness without acting from it. Developing our capacity to be within these bodies, with life, nature and this moment.
I admit, I have tried time and time again to enter the mystery with my intellect. Attempting to grasp on to it in hopes of gaining some concrete insight I can hold on to. Yet by doing that I fall into the same trap I just described. Coming back to the High Priestess, she reminds me to turn within and use my inner ears and eyes to intuitively sense into the depths of stillness and silence. For how else can I hear Her unbridled whispers if there is too much noise in my being? It’s about emptying out. For how am I able to receive if I am clasping too tight? Then and only then do I even begin to feel Her wild nature, and yes, She defies domestication. For within these fertile untethered lands are the sparks of creative impulse, the seeds of inspiration. Summoning me to dance, draw, design and play. To try and express this inexpressible beauty, even if I fail completely. Even this writing here has a sense of futility to it.
She is the ongoing koan, enigma, the unanswerable question. The cycles of change and impermanence. She is liminal, daring me to drink her archetypal and primal waters of undulating contemplations. To discover again and again this inner oasis…the Mystery!
High Priestess from the Star Tarot | Artist Cathy McClelland
