~ Discovering the Wild Unknown: High Priestess ~

Today’s card draw in the Discovering the Wild Unknown series is The Wild Unknown High Priestess.

I want to start off by providing an important notice, which will be included in all of this series. However, other things that will be included that you can skip to are:

• Card Description
• Considering the Card, where I look at how I would interpret certain imagery used
• Traditional Rider-Waite definition

I only include the latter as a comparison, to show how wandering down your own understanding of images and symbols can bring you to a similar meaning, though along a different path with different experiences. This is to help expand knowledge of the card.

I will not, however, be including the definitions from the guidebook, as that is not the point of this. Also, I don’t have rights to that material.

Important Note

I started this series because I had read that people struggled with the deck purely because the definitions in the Little White Book were very Rider-Waite-based, and that there wasn’t much wisdom regarding the animals and symbolism chosen.

This series is to help you to decipher the meanings yourselves. I am by no means saying what I have to say about the cards are correct for anyone outside myself. However, I am providing my daily journal entries regarding the deck to act as a guide so that you can begin your own journey.

When I started tarot, I had no idea what to write in my journal, and thus didn’t. Instead I obsessively read and re-read the Little White Book belonging to the Spiral Tarot (which is why today I can completely quote the book). I didn’t trust myself to know the cards, even when I could recite the definitions. I was afraid to put the book down.

To this fear of lack of knowledge, Kim Krans, creator of The Wild Unknown, writes:

You do know enough. You’ve been a person on earth every day since you were born. You’ve experienced all the emotions and situations these cards depict. Quiet the naysayer…don’t let it prevent you from sitting down with a friend (or yourself) and using these cards to help talk about what’s going on in your life. It will be positive. It will be radical. You’ll find things start to reveal themselves through the cards that have been hidden away, covered with dust.

pp.10-11 The Wild Unknown Guidebook

Description of the Wild Unknown High Priestess

The Wild Unknown High Priestess shows a Siberian Tiger sitting on a white landscape. She is content, with restful eyes looking in front of her. While only the front of her is seen, she angles toward the left of the card. Above her right ear toward the top left of the card is a crescent moon. The sky is black behind her.

Between her paws is a purple and dark blue orb/globe/sphere.

Traditional Card Meaning

The High Priestess is the whisperer of intuition. She is the one who reminds us to listen to the inner voice guiding us. She is the one who connects to our depths and lets us know whether something feels right or wrong. The High Priestess can be the call to still yourself, take a breath, a moment, and listen to what’s going on within you.

What I derive from the Wild Unknown High Priestess

The tiger seems so content and serene. I could almost hear her purr when I look at her. She has settled herself on this white, blank mound, and is the divide between the light and the dark, the known and the unknown. That the darkness is above her shows that her focus is more on the unknown than it is in the seen world.

The moon indicates intuition and the subconscious. It conjures images of dreams, and calls for paying attention to what might seem skewed. To me this asks that we examine them not just with our logical mind, but with our intuition, and see if we can make more sense of it.

The orb between her pause is almost like a crystal ball. It is shrouded in purple and dark blue, both the colors of the unconscious, the mystical, and intuition. Crystal ball gazing is a form of scrying, in which a meditative state is called upon in order to focus on what the crystal ball reveals. It’s a form of divination. Thus, this card also calls on uses of divinatory tools.

About the Deck

The Wild Unknown Tarot  is a 2016 Harper One publication, created by Kim Krans. The deck is widely available at most bookstores who carry Tarot cards, but also on Amazon. Kim Krans always wrote The Wild Unknown Guidebook.