The High Priestess
Written by Kevin J McKee for the SoJournal and Personal Guide 2026. Reprinted with permission.
Once he learns how to use the physical tools at his disposal, our friend Everyman, is released from studies with the Magician, and moves further along the path, coming across the High Priestess.
She is sitting on a plinth, with the Moon at her feet, between two pillars, the dark “feminine” pillar on the left of the card, and the light “masculine” pillar on the right of the card, with a veil covered in pomegranates behind her, and a scroll labelled TORA in her hands.
Her robes are flowing and almost appear liquid, but calm and peaceful.
As with the circle and line, the High Priestess card represents the balance between the physical and spiritual, the darkness and the light, the masculine and feminine.
For the more feminist-minded, the connection of the dark pillar to the feminine and the light pillar to the masculine is a point of concern.
Consider this though. No life is naturally created in the light – the light destroys when introduced too early in the process.
Think of a tree, the seed will only germinate in the dark, but expands as it grows toward the light, but its roots are always in the dark, if the roots are exposed to the light, the light destroys and corrupts them. The feminine is related to the darkness in a spiritual context for this reason.
It is also the reason why many religions “demonise” the feminine and try to supress it. The power of creation lies in the hands of the feminine, she takes what the masculine gives her, nurtures it, supports it and allows it to grow with the support of the masculine energy. The Divine Marriage, the perfect balance between masculine and feminine, creates life.
Back to the card. The High Priestess is the key to hidden mysteries, she holds spiritual awareness in her hands, balanced emotions, supported by physical prosperity and abundance (pomegranates). Her way is internal, based in the heart.
In terms of the Journey of the Fool, she teaches Everyman that, although learning to control the physical world is an important first step, you also then need to balance it with spiritual awareness and love, balanced emotions and spiritual inspiration.
If you do not balance it with love/spirit, the power corrupts, excess activity drains, and the constant external focus blinds you to the bigger picture of things and leads to destruction of everything around you.
Meditation
Read through the instructions below, don’t be scared to open your eyes and check something rather than hope you are doing it right. The answer to the questions; “Am I doing this right?” and “Am I meditating?” is always no. If you are thinking, you are not meditating. Meditation is a heart-based process, not an intellectual one.
Trust yourself just a little bit, you can do this. Everyone meditates in their own way, don’t panic, do the best you can right now and surrender to the process.
- Prepare as you normally would for meditation if you are an experienced meditator. If you haven’t meditated for a while, or ever, use a place you can be undisturbed, maybe light a candle (white would be good for this purpose), light your favourite incense, put on some instrumental music, lyrics will disturb your concentration. Sit comfortably on the floor or on a chair, wear loose clothing or at least loosen belts etc.
- Take a few slow, deep breaths focussing on relaxing, releasing the thoughts in your head, your mind will start running around a bit, that’s ok, acknowledge the thought, let it go and focus back on your breathing. Meditation is an exercise and like any exercise it takes a bit of practice to “get it right”.
- An important thing to remember about meditation is that it takes place in the inner planes of your mind, so release your expectations of what is going to happen, release your expectations about what is correct or right and relax into the process.
- If you try to control the meditation you are not meditating, you are just breathing deeply. Be open to receive, even if what you receive is not what you expect or hope for.
- If your attention “skips”, that’s ok, take another deep breath and focus again. It will get easier with practice.
- If you have already done a meditation to create a meditation temple or inner temple etc. you can use it for this process, if you haven’t created an inner temple or something similar, you can imagine your mind and awareness moving down from your head into your heart (PS – apparently your physical heart has brain cells in it too – called the heart brain – more about the heart space in the article on (0) or the blank page).
- Once you are in the heart space, hold the card in front of you, you can open your eyes, then once you think you can visualise the image, close your eyes again. Don’t panic about getting it 100%, go with what you can do
- Imagine stepping through the border of the card and speak to The High Priestess. Ask her what she is trying to tell you, if you “can’t see the wood for the trees”, ask her for insight into the bigger picture and the spiritual aspects of the situation.
- Drop your expectations and anticipated answers, listen and let the thoughts flow and when you are ready continue
- When you feel you have absorbed everything you can for the moment, focus again on your breathing, you may feel disconnected from your body, that’s ok, take some more breathes focussing on balancing your mind with your body, rub your fingers and thumb on both hands together until you feel centred, calm and grounded.
- Take a massive breath in, blow yourself up like a balloon, then exhale in a rush allowing all the air to rush out of your lungs, then breathe normally and when you feel ready open your eyes.
- Remember to make notes in your journal/mediation journal.