At the Threshold: The High Priestess and Inner Wisdom

In my last post, I wrote about the power of the Magician to take action. The Magician card is all about taking what is within and bringing it out into the world. The Magician can be seen as one expression of archetypal masculinity, and one that is generally celebrated in our western, especially US culture, that highly values action, output, and productivity.

The High Priestess brings another message that in many ways counterbalances the external- and action-oriented focus of the Magician. She is one expression of archetypal femininity, inviting us to find the wisdom that resides in stillness, quietness, and non-action. She understands that sitting with mystery can provide a different kind of knowing. She is often associated with the moon, and therefore with the night time, sleep, and unconscious. She asks us to seek the truth within ourselves and suggests we already have within us the answers that we seek.

I have been thinking about the High Priestess as a kind of liminal figure or a mediator. She sits at the threshold of our experience as embodied beings and our inherently divine nature. She mediates our every day lived reality with our experience of transcendence, of spirit, of that which is larger and wiser than our individual conscious minds. She straddles the borders our conscious rational knowing and our unconscious wisdom. We experience her archetype when we interpret dreams or sense a deep intuition, an inner knowing of what we need to do.

A defining characteristic of the field of coaching is the conviction that the answers to our deepest questions lie within ourselves. I've met a lot of people who think that coaching is about providing advice, suggestions, or strategies for getting where you want to go. There are other kinds of practitioners, such as consultants, who fulfill that valuable role; coaches partner with clients to do the hard of going within and mining for the resources that are already there. This is what makes true transformation possible.

Much of what we do in coaching is digging deep into what we really actually want. It is becoming aware of what is truly important and aligning ourselves to that. There is so much noise all around us that it can be surprisingly difficult to know what we actually want for ourselves at the deepest level. We may have internalized the desires of our parents or the values of the culture in which we grew up. There is nothing inherently wrong with some of those values, many of which we need to function as members of society.

However, sometimes those other voices can become so loud that we no longer can hear what is most important. This can lead to a feeling of being misaligned and conflicted internally, maybe having what we think should make us happy but still feeling unfulfilled, experiencing burnout, and even symptoms of physical illness.

In some ways, engaging with the archetype of the High Priestess can be more challenging than channeling the energy of the Magician. Going deep requires stillness and quieting the mind; and if you've ever tried to meditate, you know how incredibly difficult that can be. In general, our world today is so loud and overstimulating - there is so much constant input that it requires real discipline to slow down and listen to the quieter voices within. In addition to meditation, this quiet listening can look like prayer, tuning into dreams, practicing bodily mindfulness, or experiencing art, including the symbolic imagery of tarot, and noticing what it brings up for you.

Since the High Priestess is often talked about as a card about intuition, I want to share a bit about my own experience of intuition and why that word has felt somewhat loaded for me. I've always struggled with the idea of trusting my own intuition. There is a pressure to know something I might not know and an anxiety around incorrectly misinterpreting something as an intuitive nudge. I think my experience has a lot to do with living with anxiety and chronic illness and a sometimes fraught relationship with my body. Intuition has so much to do with being in tune with our bodies and recognizing that sometimes our bodies are wiser and more in touch with our unconscious experiences than our rational conscious minds. Yet, when there is an uneasy relationship with the body, either due to chronic illness or trauma, we may need to work harder to learn to hear and trust our bodies.

All of this to say that it is okay to struggle with the idea of trusting intuition and that embracing the mystery and ambiguity is part of the process. Coming face to face with the not knowing can be just as powerful. And I have seen for myself that with patient and gentle work it is possible to learn what intuition feels like without forcing or pressuring oneself to have it look a certain way. Perhaps the wisdom of the High Priestess is not that we must always know, but that we can learn to trust ourselves enough to remain present with what has not yet revealed itself.

How do you engage with your own inner wisdom? What practices support you in gaining clarity within yourself?

What obstacles have come up for you as you seek to go within? How do you work through those obstacles?

What does intuition look or feel like to you?