By Sarah Taylor
When a pairing appears in a tarot reading, you know something magical — alchemical — is afoot. When the pairing is from the major arcana, then it is about the furthering of our soul’s purpose through partnership and integration, whether with oneself, another, or others. And, to use an oft-quoted phrase, we are entering into something where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The Hierophant and The High Priestess are guardians of the spiritual realm, working in different but complementary ways.
Broadly, The Hierophant represents our outer spiritual observance, while The High Priestess is concerned with our inner connection to spirit. The Hierophant is collective, instructive, formalised; The High Priestess is individual, intuitive, free-form. We all have the potential to embody both, but it is how we do this that determines the results we get.
How does this apply practically to your life? It comes down to one word: meaning.
This is the work to bring meaning to your life, and by extension to life itself. This is what defines your life as meaning-full. It has little to do with what our fallible, finite selves would term meaningful: our human needs, wishes, and desires are often driven by fear (which we encounter in the third card), and based on the lie that we are somehow incomplete. It is about acting in accordance with the will of the Divine and aligning your outer (The Hierophant) and your inner (The High Priestess) worlds in the process.