The High Priestess in Tarot: Sharpening Intuition, Discernment and Creating Space for the Depths to Emerge

The High Priestess is a tarot card that represents our intuition and our connection with our intuition.

The High Priestess is a tarot card that directs us to pay attention, not just to our intuition or what may be dropping in, but also to our relationship with our intuition.

As humans, we are ever-changing.

Moment to moment, we can be anyone and anything. We may wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or wake up feeling disheartened, and at any moment the entire ecosystem and lived experience of our being can shift. We can go from the depths of despair to completely blissed out at the drop of a pin (or perhaps with some really great news).

This is to say that our states of being are consistently inconsistent.

And thus, our relationship to what is coming in (the information we are receiving) is constantly shifting.

Our relationship to our intuition is constantly shifting. Which means sometimes the intuition will speak to us loudly, and sometimes it will be much more subtle.

Sometimes our experience of intuition will be visceral. Sometimes our experience of intuition will be in the background.

It all depends.

But just because we are constantly in flux, does not mean that our intuition or our connection to it ever goes away.

Your intuition is ever present.

And. No matter what is happening within you, beneath the surface — no matter how much you are changing, how different you are today than you were yesterday, no matter how certain you are about who you are or what you are doing —

you are (always) still you.

So, in this interpretation of The High Priestess, I invite you to explore the ever present connection with yourself and also with your intuition.

The invitation is to drop back into your own rhythms, your own ways of being, from your own autonomy

Now, this requires courage, compassion (for self and others), a level of distinction or separation from others (external pressures) and discernment.

Intuition always invites discernment.

An underrated take on intuition:

Your intuition is simply another input or channel of information. We don’t have to always listen to it. This is important to understand because when we ignore our intuition, we often feel ashamed or guilty or like we should have listened to it.

It’s not that the intuition is always right, or that we should or shouldn’t listen.

The intuition is simply a source of information.

There is no reason to feel shame.

Even when you are not listening to your intuition, you are still (and always) listening to yourself.

You are practicing discernment, and personal accountability and autonomy.

This requires courage and strength.

And, nothing is conditional — if you ignore your intuition, it doesn’t go away. It’s not going to stop. It will always still be there. You can always come back to it.

However, your gut and instincts can be trained or conditioned (note to be conditioned is not the same thing as conditional) based both on your experience and on the experience of your ancestors.

The instincts, experiences and intuition of your ancestors are actually transferred into you through your DNA and cellular structure. If this piques your interest, there is a book called “It Didn’t Start With You” by Mark Wolynn.

Our intuition and our instincts can always be sharpened and can also always be interrogated.

If we have experienced or inherited trauma, then our gut reactions may not always be accurate or reflective of what is real and true.

And this is why practicing discernment is important.

We can do this by slowing down — by pausing to listen, to see what is in the space between the inhale and the exhale.

• To see what is in the space between someone’s statement ending and your response to it.

• To see what’s in the space between your thoughts and your feelings and your impulses.

• To practice stillness and to invite in space for what is underneath the surface to arise.

• To allow the depths come up within us.

Oftentimes when we are struggling with our intuition or to hear our intuition,

it’s because we are trying to force it. We are trying to meet it, to go where it is, to hear or receive on our own time in our own terms.

Sometimes, we forget, that we don’t have to try, to force, to do anything.

We can simply pause.

If you pause, if you sit in stillness for long enough — what arises?

Let the High Priestess be an invitation to drop back into your own rhythms, into your own distinct ways of being, autonomously.

In order to do that, you have to create space for your rhythms to emerge, for you to observe them, for you to experience them fully — suspending judgement, suspending control, suspending assumptions, suspending pre-mature actions or reactions.

But by creating space so that you can simply notice.

And discern.

What shows up for you?

What arises within you, from the depths?

__

If this post resonates and you’d like to work together, reach out.
If you’d like to bring tarot or some other intuitive magic to your workplace, reach here.

__