Sunday 4 August 2013

Fairy Lights Pairs: High Priestess and 7 of Wands



Today's pair from Fairy Lights Tarot (LoScarabeo 2013) is the High Priestess and 7 of Wands. Let's have a look at the whole picture. There's a lady in a pointy hat reading a small book. She's reclining on a hillside. At a distance, at the bottom of the hillock, a smaller figure creates a swirl in the air with her arm. She's wearing a vivid pink dress and facing away from the nearer lady with the book.

Maybe the reader is the nanny or babysitter of the little girl in pink. I don't get the impression that she is her mother, but rather someone who is simply there to monitor or keep an eye on her. Both of them are lost in their own imaginations. The reader is immersed in her book, her inner world is occupied by someone else's imaginings, someone else's words. The little girl in the clearing, in contrast, is creating her own magic using her own vivid imagination. Neither is superior to the other; both are valid ways of using the imagination. That's the story I see in the card combo.

Looking at the cards as separate entities, the High Priestess has many elements of the traditional RWS: a headdress, a white pillar and a black pillar, a book. A throne of sorts. An air of detachment, and of being tuned to the inner rather than the outer. The 7 of Wands, however, is a sharper contrast to the RWS image, which usually shows a youth defending himself from an onslaught coming at him from below. The girl in the pink dress in the Fairy Lights 7 of Wands is creating her own 'onslaught' of magic and loveliness from her own imagination. Is she creating this fantasy world in defense against a childhood where she is largely ignored by those around her? I do get that suggestion from the book-reading childminder on the hill. The girl has to play alone, she must amuse herself. It's rather a sad scene, a well-off child, a child who seems to have everything, but who lacks the one essential thing for a happy childhood: companions. She has to make her own. And if she's going to make them, they might as well be beautiful faeries. (Which begs the question: did she make up these imaginary friends, or have they been provided by a higher source?)

Have you ever indulged in elaborate fantasy as a defense? How did it help you? Did it hurt you? Has it, as implied by the presence of the High Priestess, deepened your connection to your higher self, your inner Spirit?

4 comments:

  1. Interesting take on the combined image, and some very good questions there! Don't think I've created an elaborate fantasy, but where does visualisation and pathworking fall in that framework... :)

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    1. Well, I personally would be inclined to class that as elaborate fantasy...but with a purpose! It has to come from somewhere, after all.

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    2. I guess I don't really count that as fantasy, because I don't feel it's "me" making it up. Sure, it comes from somewhere inside me, but it's not my everyday "me"...

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    3. Well, we've all got different opinions about these things. I guess it depends on what is meant by the word 'me'. I don't suppose it matters much...another positive of the solitary practice. No explanations needed. :)

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