Illumination | Haiku

The Heroine

High priestess of illusion and mystery

Blue moon you saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own. Lorenz Hart

Long, long years ago

I was young, I was in love

Then the gods chose me

This is the story of an impoverished fortune-teller who has lived for many centuries, barely surviving in modern times. She has sensed a coming storm and has gathered her magical powers to stand against it.

I gather my spells Mysteries and enchantments Surviving the storm

Today I go back to her beginnings. She is a young girl in love. Then that life, with its hopes and dreams, is lost. The soldiers take her to the temple to become the high priestess.

The High Priestess is the second trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks….This Tarot card was originally called La Papesse, or “The Popess”….

In the creation of the Rider-Waite tarot deck the La Papesse card, which may have been confusing to non-Catholics, was changed into The High Priestess sitting between the pillars of Boaz and Jachin (which has a particular meaning to Freemasonry). She wears a crown similar to the Egyptian goddess Hathor and is depicted with the Marian imagery of a blue mantle and the moon at her feet….

The High Priestess is identified with the Shekhinah, the female indwelling presence of the divine. She 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 letters TORA (meaning “divine law”). 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….. Wikipedia