Further Reading

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

The 13th Path --- the path of Gimel

Key 2 - The High Priestess - Gimel - Camel
Gematria Value: 3


The High Priestess veils herself in mystery. When we hide behind jargon and acquired paraphernalia and seek to generate mystery through concealment, innuendo, and suggestion so as to appear "the guardian to the secrets of the sanctuary," then we are constellating and identifying with the High Priestess within ourselves. This should not be understood to mean that there are not things that need to be concealed, nor should this view of the High Priestess be seen as an attack on concealment per se but on its intent. Key 9, the Hermit, is also a card of concealment, but does not do so to stage an effect, be it wonder, admiration, allegiance or power."

Intuitively feminine virginal guardian of the temple of the mysteries; enigmatic mistress of the night. First path of contact between the human and divine worlds. The longest path without a stopping point, the most dangerous.

The virgin Priestess, reserved for the God, and trained in the highest Magic, meets the Horned One at Beltane, to conceive a Mystical Child.

The High Priestess is the Virgin Mary, Hera, Diana, or Hecate, who has all of the secret powers of nature at her command.

The Empress and the High Priestess are the two halves of the female archetype. The High Priestess is the Veiled Isis, while the Empress is Isis Unveiled.

Da'at is a "conjectured" sephira that falls on the path of Gimel. In Hebrew, Da'at is "knowledge, perception, or learning." It is not really a sephira; it is a "result" of it's location on the Tree of Life. It is midway on the longest path, and central in the upper hexagonal array. Binah and Chochma straddle the polarity between undefined knowledge and differentiation; Keter and Da'at straddle the polarity between cosmic consciousness and individual consciousness.

The High Priestess represents the essential division in creation, with her concealing veil, and the spiritual quest that arises from awareness of that concealment from Eden, and the brushes with Holiness we are gifted with.

The pillars, from Solomon's Temple, also express this division, and choices we confront. These are also the pillars of Mercy and Severity mapped on the Tree of Life.

The pillars are named Joachin and Boaz, the names of two of Solomon's sons. The Hebrew letters would be Yud and Bet, showing the infinite spark (Yud), and its "housing" (Bet)


Taken from The Tree of Life