ASTROLOGY Moon

NUMEROLOGY 2

The High Priestess sits before a veil that divides the seen world from the
unseen realms of feeling and spirituality. They are the gatekeeper of the
knowledge that lies beyond the veil. They quietly and intuitively sense
who to lead out of their daily reality into a deeper spiritual experience.
Pulling The High Priestess indicates that you, or an important figure
in your life, are deeply intuitive, even psychic. The High Priestess is a
spiritual teacher (regardless of whether or not this is their title) who
offers profound wisdom beyond the illusions of this life to those who are
willing to open their eyes.
A mystery is at hand. Something is hidden. You must solve this one
by going inward. Then, like Persephone from Greek mythology returning
to the land of the living, you must forge a bridge between your inner and
outer life so that you can live in integrity with more serious truths.
Since The High Priestess’s alternate name, The Female Pope, does
not denote an actual position within Catholicism, this card is suggestive
of religious figures who do not conform to dominant or patriarchal
religious structures. This card values spiritual ways of knowing that are
private, personal, and possibly secret or hidden.

Reversed
Reversed, The High Priestess suggests secrets or secrecy. You may be
keeping a secret in order to deceive someone, or someone is hiding
something from you. You may be ignoring or denying your spirituality.
Your intuition and premonition skills are latent, but you are brushing
them off. Allow them to come to the foreground.

Symbolism
CRESCENT MOON, WATERY GOWN Intuition
CROWN Waxing, waning, and full moon; maiden, mother, and crone; Isis,
goddess of wisdom, magic, and restorer of souls
PILLARS Solomon’s Temple; the B and J stand for the pillars’ names,
Boaz and Jachin, which combined mean, “In him it is Strength, He shall
establish.”
BLUE Clarity of consciousness

TORA The Torah

POMEGRANATE SEEDS Persephone, who lived half the time above and
half below ground

Mystic Meanings
In numerology, the number 2 carries the meanings of duality and
balance. The High Priestess creates balance between her inner and
outer life. Though the number 2 represents partnership, The High
Priestess emphasizes our relationship with ourselves and our
relationship with the divine. The High Priestess values privacy and
solitude. Twos also represent choice. The High Priestess insists that we
trust our gut when making a decision.
The High Priestess is associated with the moon and with the element
of water. The moon connects us to our subconscious, intuition, and
emotions. It attunes us to our inner fluctuations, questions, and
transformations. Our inner knowing is fluid and constantly changing.
Like water, our intuition flows anywhere, taking whatever form it needs
to, easily shifting and adapting amidst change. These facets of The High
Priestess remind us to trust our inner knowing, even and especially
inner knowing that precedes thought or subverts reason.

Posing a Question
What is important for me to know about my romantic life at
this time?
When you pull The High Priestess in response to a relationship
question, the cards are telling you to focus on your connection
 with yourself and your spirituality. To do this, you need some
degree of solitude. This solitude or separation doesn’t have to be
drastic, but The High Priestess does insist that, right now you
prioritize nurturing your inner world over your romantic life.

Supporting and Opposing Cards

The Two of Swords supports The High Priestess’s inward focus,
intuition, and patience. The Moon is another card of intuition, though
The Moon’s focus is on instinct, while The High Priestess emphasizes
calm inner knowledge.
Cards that represent entirely outward action and rational thought,
such as the Knight of Swords, oppose The High Priestess.
 III. THE EMPRESS

ALSO KNOWN AS The Mother

KEYWORDS Beauty, Motherhood, Creativity

ELEMENT Earth
 ASTROLOGY Venus

NUMEROLOGY 3

The Empress is the creative state, embodied. She, he, or they are a
mother, endlessly creative and absorbed in love and the sensuality of
creativity. Inspiration knows no bounds. The Empress surpasses
ordinary boundaries in many spheres of life. As a mother, pregnant with
ideas or a child, they create through love. They nurture their children,
relationships, ideas, and projects, and help all people in their life grow.
If you have pulled this card for yourself, you cherish your emotions
as ways of knowing the world and connecting with yourself. You are
connected to your body, and you luxuriate in sensual and aesthetic
pleasure. The Empress’s aesthetic sense is embodied in their
comfortable throne marked with the symbol of Venus.
When The Empress becomes exaggerated or imbalanced, they care
for others but neglect themself, they are overprotective or overindulgent
with their children, or they use their role as mother to define their
identity or to manipulate others.

Reversed
Reversed, The Empress indicates difficulty with motherhood. This
might come about as infertility, being forced into motherhood, dealing
with a stifling definition of motherhood or expectation to be nurturing,
or difficulties in your relationship with your mother or mother figure.
The reversed Empress can also suggest a negative relationship with
your body and sense of pleasure. The Empress, reversed, indicates you
may be feeling a lack of abundance and struggling with creative blocks
that result from denying your relationship with beauty, pleasure, art, and
your inner child. Take some time to address this.

Symbolism
STARRY CROWN Creativity, motherhood, unity
LAUREL WREATH CROWN Success, power

POMEGRANATE SEEDS ON ROBE Fertility, rebirth; Persephone, who lived

half the time above and half below ground
SYMBOL OF VENUS Femininity, beauty, love

WHEAT Fertility and abundance

SCEPTER Sovereignty

WATERFALL Fluidity

FOREST The unconscious

SCEPTER WITH GLOBE Sovereignty, earthly realm, ability to co-create

with a partner

Mystic Meanings
In numerology, 3 is the number of synthesis and creativity: two things
coming together to create a third, as two parents conceive a child or a
comparison of two things creates a third element of metaphor. The
dynamic balance of these three-part relationships concerns The
Empress.
This archetype is embodied by the element of earth. The Empress,
the mother, grounds us. She supports us and helps us know our roots.
Venus, the planet of beauty and love, is associated with The Empress.
The Empress finds, creates, and offers grounding through beauty and
relationships.

Posing a Question
I just started a neighborhood community group. How can I best
serve these gatherings?
Pulling The Empress in answer to this question affirms your talent
for fostering connection among people, leading others,
encouraging the group’s vision and growth, and bringing your
natural sense of beauty, creativity, abundance, and joy to the
 group. These qualities are needed and valued in your community.
Continuing to be a good leader will best serve the group.

Supporting and Opposing Cards

Cards of abundance, such as the Ten of Pentacles, emphasize The
Empress’s boundless creativity, fertility, and abundance.
The generous, nurturing Empress conflicts with the miserly, fearful
Four of Pentacles. However, cards of mature discipline and stability,
such as The Emperor, complement the flowing Empress.
 IV. THE EMPEROR

ALSO KNOWN AS The Grandfather

KEYWORDS Reliability, Fatherhood, Responsibility

ELEMENT Fire
 ASTROLOGY Aries

NUMEROLOGY 4

The Emperor is your most reliable family member, friend, or community

leader. They are the person you can always count on to take
responsibility for getting things done, who will follow through on their
word. While The Emperor’s counterpart, The Empress, overflows with
creative ideas and nurtures possibility, The Emperor deems which ideas
are most viable and effective, and carries them out. The Emperor plans,
delegates, structures, and carries out projects. While The Empress helps
us experience timelessness and cultivate love and beauty, The Emperor
helps us operate within a strict schedule and produce finite outcomes.
The arid canyon pictured in this card, with just a small river running
through it, indicates that too much emphasis on order and structure
alone can suck us dry. At their worst, The Emperor is a destructive,
power-hungry, authoritarian leader. However, when we have a
meaningful project to complete, and we work toward the common good,
The Emperor gives us the discipline and wherewithal to achieve great
things and provide support to many people.
If you have pulled The Emperor for yourself, you are in a position of
authority or responsibility. Through self-discipline and reason, you are
achieving ambitious aims that affect many people. Important decisions,
final decisions, and last-minute decisions all fall on you. Pulling The
Emperor can also indicate that you are working out questions relating to
authority, systems, and power.

Reversed
When The Emperor, reversed, reveals that the upright qualities of this
card are latent in you or in your situation, it is time to become more
assertive, decisive, and attentive to schedules, materials, and
productivity. Alternately, the reversed Emperor can indicate a coup,
revolution, or overthrowing of leadership. This might be a celebratory
event, or it might feel like sabotage or indicate an undermining force in
your life.

Symbolism
ANKH SCEPTER Authority, life

ARMOR AND BURGUNDY ROBES Warrior king

GOLDEN SPHERE Globe, dominion, territory

RAMS Aries, energetic, competitive

ARID CANYON Harsh conditions, harsh rule

Mystic Meanings
The numerological meaning of the number 4 is material achievement,
structure, and order.
As we see from the rams’ heads on The Emperor’s throne, this
archetype is associated with Aries—an active, rationally minded,
ambitious doer.
Associated with the element of fire, The Emperor has charisma and
energy. This active, outer-world energy can either drive big ambitions,
thereby sustaining big projects and productions, or this fire energy can
cause destruction.

Posing a Question
What do I need to be aware of in my leadership approach?
When you ask the cards about your responsibilities, authority, or
leadership skills and receive The Emperor, you are encouraged to
look into the areas in which more structure or accountability is
necessary. Be discerning about what structure you can and
should provide, and in what areas, ways, or situations you should
allow your children, students, employees, or team members more
room for discovery, exploration, relaxation, play, creativity,
 emotional health, interpersonal growth, and unconditional love.
Reflect, also, on your own relationship to authority, possibly going
all the way back to your relationship with your father or with a
masculine parent figure.

Supporting and Opposing Cards

The Justice card reinforces The Emperor’s values of reason and logic.
The Hierophant shares with The Emperor an emphasis on structure.
Although The Empress is considered an opposing card, The
Empress’s opposite qualities of creativity and new life complement The
Emperor’s stability and discipline. Appearing together, they often
indicate an influential couple.
 V. THE HIEROPHANT

ALSO KNOWN AS Pope, Teacher, Saturn

KEYWORDS Education, Knowledge, Religion, Conformity

ELEMENT Earth
 ASTROLOGY Taurus

NUMEROLOGY 5

The Hierophant interprets, protects, and teaches sacred mysteries. The

keys at their feet indicate that they hold the keys to unlocking wisdom,
spiritual truths, or the kingdom of heaven. These keys have been codified
within institutions of tradition, spirituality, and knowledge or any
organization or community formed to preserve, develop, and share
knowledge.
In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, The Hierophant is depicted as a
pope, but can be any benevolent and compassionate spiritual or
intellectual leader. In ancient Greece, a hierophant was anyone who
introduced others to holiness. If you have pulled The Hierophant for
yourself, you are someone who serves as a moral compass for others.
Your intellect, tradition, and knowledge allow you to bridge heaven and
earth, reminding everyone in your life of the unity of divinity and earth,
the unity of our souls and bodies.
As a bridge between spiritual and material worlds, The Hierophant
offers blessings and sacraments, such as marriage and last rites, and
generally communicates the divine to their students and followers.

Reversed
Reversed, The Hierophant can reveal criticism, poor leadership, bad
advice, and being misled by an egotistical authority figure. On the other
hand, The Hierophant, reversed, can represent a free-spirited visionary,
giving you permission to forge your own path.

Symbolism
RED ROBES Earth, as well as energy and action in the material world

GOLD SCEPTER Heaven, three crosses (holy trinity)

TRIPLE CROWN Holy trinity

HAND GESTURE Blessing

RED ROSES Love

WHITE LILIES Purity

PILLARS Law and liberty

Mystic Meanings
In numerology, the number 5 represents healing, as well as the link
between spirit and humankind. The Hierophant’s Greek mythological
association is the centaur Chiron, referred to as the wounded healer.
Associated with Taurus, an earth sign, The Hierophant offers us
spiritual grounding. Just as a Taurus promotes harmony but can be
stubborn in their methods, The Hierophant insists that conformity to
tradition is the ticket to harmony.

Posing a Question
I am at a crossroads. What do I need to be aware of to make my
next move?
Pulling The Hierophant in answer to this question suggests going
to an academic, religious, or professional mentor or to an
institution of teaching and learning for growth, development, and
answers. Rather than relying on speculation or pure intuition, it’s
time to learn facts and skills and become versed in a tradition.
Stay aware of your relationship to conformity, but overall, seek
and offer mentorship through a spiritual tradition or academic
institution. Right now, a conventional path will get you where you
need to go.

Supporting and Opposing Cards

If both The Emperor and The Hierophant appear in a reading, structure
is an important issue or theme. Combined with the Four of Wands, The