Practitioner · 14 min
The High Priestess and the Empress
Knowing and nurturing: The High Priestess's quiet threshold and The Empress's ripening garden, read from their pictures, across their range and against the Queens they are confused with.
In this lesson you will
- Recognize The High Priestess and The Empress from their key symbols.
- Read each card across its range, upright and reversed, in love, work, self and money.
- Tell The High Priestess from the Queen of Cups and The Empress from the Queen of Pentacles.
In a new relationship you sense something that neither of you has said yet. At the same time you keep cooking, planning and looking after the other person. One part of you is listening; another part is giving.
Knowing and nurturing
The High Priestess (II) and The Empress (III) are the two receptive cards of the first row. The High Priestess knows: she sits still at a threshold, holding what is felt but not yet spoken. The Empress nurtures: she sits in a garden where everything she tends is growing.
Neither card pushes. The High Priestess waits until she understands; the Empress feeds what is alive until it ripens. Both teach a kind of strength that works by receiving rather than by forcing.
When one of them appears, ask whether the moment calls for quiet attention to what you already sense, or for care, comfort and patience with something that is growing.
This lesson is part of Plus
Plus opens every lesson of the Practitioner, Reader and Advanced tiers, with practice that explains every answer.
What the lesson covers
- The High Priestess: the unsaid
- The Empress: what grows
- Commonly confused
- Practice
Foundations and the first lesson of every course are free.