The High Priestess
Tarot investigations
For 78 nights in a row, I slept with a single tarot card from Aleister Crowley and Lady Freida Harris’ Thoth Tarot under my pillow and recorded my dreams each morning. One day I would love to transcribe these from my journal with a bit of commentary on each dream and create a book because, wow, one night after the next, each dream was not only relevant to the card but gave me unbelievable insight into each of the meanings and images. I can’t recommend this practice enough if you are tarot-curious at all. Perhaps even one day I’ll illustrate these and create a true Dream Tarot. Ah, so many amazing projects, so little time.
I have a very special relationship with the Thoth Tarot deck probably because it was the most intense dreams I’ve ever had in my life. One night, in dream magic, the High Priestess card spoke to me loud and clear, “Paint me real. Oh, and while you’re at it, paint the rest of us real too.” What did “real” mean in this case? It was apparent to me that she was referring to my way of painting rather than the also incredibly gorgeous style Lady Frida Harris painted in. The High Priestess wanted to be depicted as fully human in high clarity. That’s what the mische technique is good at and it’s what I do. But I hemmed and hawed about how to paint Her. It felt wrong on some level to change Her because She asked me to only to change one thing. She didn’t ask me to create a whole new card, plus I was already working on that with my Parrot Tarot project, which is Thoth-based. She asked to be Real and that’s it. So instead of reinventing the card at all, I decided to stay true to the original and only change the style of the painting and add in one detail. I decided to make it a self-portrait.
I chose self-portrait because when you work with tarot, you always put the reader into each card and in this case, that was me. And let’s not forget She has tasked me with painting “All of us” real too, which I took to mean all of the Major Arcana. How do you make the Death card into a self-portrait? So far I have painted the image below as well as the Lust card. I’ve got the Star card and Empress in the wings.
This is going to be a lifelong project and journey. I’m in no rush here. Like for many people, tarot for me is a lifelong journey in it of itself, and creating this body of work over the many years will just deepen my connection and understanding of the mysterious workings of this incredible medium.
The High Priestess is the Moon. She is the mysterious feminine energy, the secrets that lay behind the veil, the clarity and sharpness of the moonlight as it cuts through the darkness like a razor blade.
Opening this Saturday! You can view the Instagram video HERE of everyone’s artwork. The video of just the images and artist info will be coming soon as I am still editing it all together. But at least you get a good feel for the exhibition.
Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of your week!
I’ll have a new YouTube video out for next week as well. Stay tuned.
Cheers!