FURTHER EXPLORATION OF THE HIEROPHANT (V)

It's been a long time since I've done a thorough post exploring THE HIEROPHANT (V) and in that time I've gathered many more thoughts and "meanings" for this card, which I'll share later below. But first, here are some more unusual versions of this card.

The Hierophant (V) in the Gothic Tarot of the Vampires

This is a rather unusual imagery in some ways for V, yet it carries that sense of bowing to a greater power and/or knowledge. It almost looks like a torturous baptism. BTW, I like this deck as a whole, even considering its occasional bloody images.

The Hierophant (V) in the Mother Peace Tarot

I'd waited it seemed for ages "back in the day" for this deck to be available. But was somewhat disappointed as much of the artwork leaves a bit to be desired. Simply as artwork, without even considering the content/meaning of the images. V in this deck always gave me a bit of a giggle as The Hierophant (in the black "skirt") looks like a man in drag. Which, given this is a feminist deck, can be rather meaningful, actually. Is the power and wisdom V is seeking to bring through and in that process identify with, that of the Great Mother Goddess? Of course, if that figure is meant to be a woman, the same might be true.

The Hierophant (V) in The Xultun Tarot

This one of my all time favorite Hierophants. It's so rich (pregnant? or has V been swallowed by the mystical Jaguar? etc., etc.). I'll leave it to you to explore on your own what it may be saying. (See that Jaguar patterned "speech balloon" in the upper left?)

The Hierophant (V) in The Rider/Waite/Smith Tarot

And for comparison, this RWS deck version is probably the most commonly recognizable Hierophant.

I would have had a very hard time choosing which card to post more exploration about today, as I have a huge folder of notes, covering all 78 cards. However, each year at Samhain (Halloween; ancient Celtic New Year) I randomly pull one card from the Majors to represent and offer some guidance for the New Year. This year I got The Hierophant. The first "meaning" below is the one I keep coming back to when seeking to ease anxiety about my inner-self and outer-world relationships.

MEANINGS/INSIGHTS/READINGS FOR THE HIEROPHANT (V) (a/k/a The High Priest or The Pope), SOME LESS COMMON OR EVEN QUIRKY -- Please note: The below is not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of this card; a quick Google will produce a wider variety of takes should you not be familiar with it. (Given my heavy reliance on projection of my feelings and experiences onto the cards, I recognize that I may very well reveal more about myself here than I do about any particular card. However, this is exactly my point: I use the cards as a path to self-discovery and healing. I hope what I post here that comes out of that process will be useful in some way to other seekers.):

-- Secrecy is part of life ... can one know the Great Mystery's mind? Most deception is simply ignorance wearing the disguise of knowing what's going on.

-- Two paths for one sacred energy. Choose the less conflicted, if less exciting one.

-- Don't take things at face value. Wait for your intuition's whisperings.

-- Be more in your body, and less in your head.

-- Clinging to traditional thought in order to deny possibly disturbing new thinking and (especially) the subtle prodding of intuition.

-- Understanding is not an end in and/of itself. What we do with it; how we live it out in the world is the fruition of that knowledge.

-- Domineering personality, at the very least, intensely charismatic.

-- Can sometimes herald a mediumistic state on the part of the reader. If V doesn't offer enough connection on its own, surrounding (or additional) cards should.

-- Time to hear what established wisdom has to say about this. As opposed to your own creative or intuitional sources. You need not give over to that conventional thinking in order to learn from it.

-- Heavy handed, fundamentalist, narrow minded guilting at its worst.

-- The moral underpinnings are what are important here. Not the details, or emotions and fuss surrounding it all.

-- Can indicate someone like a snake oil salesman. Impressive, giving a good show, but selling worthless stuff. And watch the snake oil salesman within: Don't believe everything you think.

-- Don't waste your time and energy trying to thoroughly explain to others what you believe to be true. Attend to your own beliefs as they evolve. They are both guiding and reflecting your actions.

-- Having trouble learning from others and sometimes one's own intuition. The very newness being defended against may herald a treasure's advent.

-- Information; i.e., that which bridges the mental and physical aspects of being. (A similar triangulation is seen on The Lover and The Devil cards. What differs may be where that bridging is being done. Maybe: V = Conscious; VI = Superconscious; and XV = Unconscious.) BTW, that old name for V, The Pope or Pontiff, means bridge builder.

Lastly, for an abstract Hierophant card, scroll down to The Found Tarot post just prior to this one.

And if you'd like to read other posts on this card, click on the "THE HIEROPHANT" Label at the bottom of this post. Then scroll past a repeat of this new post to get to the older.

* * * *

N.B. A small thing, but just in case: some of the extra reference links offered at the very end of my oldest (years old) posts no longer work. As there are so many posts here to go through I am choosing not to search for and change all of those links that are "dead." (Though I immediately delete any I now stumble across that lead to questionable sites.) If you are interested, you can try Googling for the name of the site or article referenced. I'm finding that some are still around in new locations or incarnations, some not.

'til next time, keep enjoying The Tarot, in whatever ways it comes to you in your life,





[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing, please email me for permission (under "View my complete profile")**** SEE ALSO: United Haiku and Tanka Society (UHTS) (charter member); Roswila's Dream & Poetry Realm for Tarot poetry; Roswila's Taiga Tarot for taiga (illustrated tanka); Trying to Hold A Box of Light for digital photos only; and THE MARKER TAROT.

THE SUN (XIX) in The Gothic Tarot of the Vampires

Before I go on with this post I'd like to say I feel as if I've been cheating on this and my dreams & poetry blogs with my new Yahoo group, DREAMJIN (see sidebar for link to its introduction). DREAMJIN is for dreamku, BTW, a haiku-like poetry form for night dreams that I've been developing for some time now. Getting my DREAMJIN group up and running is taking even more of my time than I'd anticipated, but that's not a complaint; I love doing it. Now, to this blog.

I finally got my Tarot decks unpacked after my recent move to CA from New York city and put away. (Those in nice boxes and crocheted pouches are out on my shelves, however.) So I decided to just go to one of the two drawers of Tarot decks, reach in without looking, and pull out one deck. Then I'd chose a card from that deck at random. I got a deck I've posted about here before, The Gothic Tarot of the Vampires (published by LoScarabeo, distributed by Llewellyn), but picked a card I've not worked with here yet, The Sun XIX:


My immediate thought was a wry "But vampires have to avoid the sun!" I didn't get much further than that in my response to the card so I went to the little white book ("LWB") that comes with the deck. This LWB happens to be one of the more frustratingly unclear ones I've read. But as I went through it a sense of what this card is saying to me began to surface, especially once I sat just looking at the card for a while.

The LWB addresses each Major Arcana by its traditional name, a change within the metaphor of the vampire journey, and divinatory meanings. The change within the vampire journey for XIX is "The Truth." This really hit me. This vampire is digging, down on his knees, exposing various stone shapes (which I associate to bed rock or truth), and (as the LWB says) going "beyond the surface of things," and he cannot do this in the light of regular consciousness. This feels to me much like my task in this life, to work in the twilight of consciousness, digging always, exposed and vulnerable, revealing my scars as I seek, and then sharing what minute portion of The Truth I am fortunate enough to uncover. Here is my dream work, and work with the Tarot and poetry images. In all I feel my way in the semi-dark toward some shape that begs exposure and/or sharing. Only ultimately to see a glimmer therein of disatisfaction, that then becomes the urge to dig again.

And why is all this important to me now? I've been feeling a bit of pressure recently (from myself maybe even more so than others) to pull back on this sort of "digging" or introspection, to "let go," for instance. Getting this card now encourages me not to do so. We each have our areas and ways of work. This twilight digging is my life's work. (It may be gritty, dusty work, but somebody's got to do it! :-D) Which puts me in mind of an old dreamku of mine:

dream shard
children dig
for what's been buried

For comparison, here is The Sun in the Rider/Waite/Smith deck:


Very different images for The Sun card but, as I think on it, the "light" of full consciousness that XIX in the RWS deck has been said to represent can help us see beyond surfaces, also.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep seeking truth and enjoying The Tarot,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)**** SEE ALSO: Roswila’s Dream & Poetry Realm for Tarot poetry; Roswila’s Taiga Tarot for taiga (illustrated tanka); and Yahoo DREAMJIN: Group for Dreamku – Haiku-Like Dream Poems.****

THE NINE OF PENTACLES REDUX WITH A MINI-REVIEW OF THE GOTHIC TAROT OF THE VAMPIRES

Yesterday, for the umpteenth time, I sat down determined to write a full review of the Gothic Tarot of the Vampires. Well, I again gave up as for me it not only requires a great deal of thought, figuring out and explaining, but it also both moves and somewhat repells me. All of which makes for a very mixed and complicated writing project. But I decided to work with one card and as I did, a mini-review began to emerge.

To start, on going through the deck I was this time very struck by its Nine of Pentacles:

Nine of Pentacles in The Gothic Tarot of the Vampires,
by Riccardo Minetti & Emiliano Mammucari, published by LoScarabeo

My first thoughts were: A vampire in a church?! In shafts of sunlight?! How?! Why?! I could not, no matter how I stretched my associations, connect this version of the card to more traditional ones, like this in the Rider/Waite/Smith deck:



I then read in LoScarabeo's Little White Book ("LWB") about the Nine of Pentacles and it says: "Overcoming barriers, victorious challenge, exceeding limits." AhHAH! Now the card's images made sense. Although the traditional meaning of "accomplishment" can be seen then in this Nine of Pentacles, that still does not explain how the supposedly impossible accomplishment of a vampire in sunlight has occurred. In the more traditional versions "accomplishment" is well within understandable parameters; i.e. the image is often a woman in her well-tended garden, as in the RWS version above. (You can read my previous post on the Nine of Pentacles in general here.)

This deck's reliance on meanings that are extremely non-traditional to back up its even more non-traditional images, is common throughout the deck. Also, its basis in a vampire mythology that is only referenced in a couple of cryptic sentences in the LWB is frustrating and unenlightening (pun intended). But for all these frustrations, I have to admit this deck does have some very powerful and evocative -- if also often very bloody -- images and pointed meanings.

For example, when I read the LWB's meanings for the Nine of Pentacles I saw why I'd been intuitively drawn to it. As I began to relate those meanings to the specific limitations and fears thereof in my life, I felt encouraged. Afterall, if a vampire can be in a church and in direct shafts of sunlight, maybe some of my small-by-comparison limits can also be "exceeded."

Ultimately I would say provided that one is willing and able -- and probably not a Tarot newbie -- to deal with the challenges of its unusual images and meanings with very little explanation from the LWB of what its overall vampire symbolism is about or how it relates to Tarot, the Gothic Tarot of the Vampires does have a lot of intense insight and (sometimes bloody) beauty to offer. I am very pleased ultimately to have it in my collection and do use it for the occasional reading when I sense its dark and challenging images suit my inquiry. I do recommend that you visit the link beneath the first Nine of Pentacles image above to see a variety of this deck's images.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep enjoying The Tarot,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)**** SEE ALSO: Roswila’s Dream & Poetry Realm for Tarot poetry and Roswila’s Taiga Tarot for taiga (illustrated tanka).****