Steve Hackett - Hands of the Priestess, Parts 1 and 2

from the album Voyage of the Acolyte, 1975

mediumaevum:

The High Priestess

In the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, upon which many modern decks are based, The High Priestess wears plain blue robes and sits with her hands in her lap. She has a lunar crescent at her feet, “a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place” (similar to the crown of the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor, but with the horns having a shape more like half-crescents), and a large cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands, partly covered by her mantle, bears the word TORA. She is seated between the white and black pillars—’J’ and ‘B’ for Jachin and Boaz—of the mystic Temple of Solomon. The veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palm leaves and pomegranates. Further behind all of that is what seems to be a body of water, most probably the sea.

• Knowingness – Love – Relationships
• Wisdom – Sound judgment – Serenity
• Common sense – Intuition
• Mystical vision – introspection – otherworldliness

Commonly this card is associated with the card reader or the querant (you), because it is also focused on ‘secrets’ it also interpreted when a secret is kept or revealed, when you are holding on to the truth or revealing it, the card associated with mystery, when powerful female influences and support currently in force for the querant. It can also represent the perfect woman in a man’s life, and to a woman it can represent being independently solo perhaps without a man.

(great article about the card)