High Priesstess of Fire

The High Priestess of Fire in the traditional deck is the Queen of Wands. Wands represent the spiritual, the passion, active movement, and male energy. Many books, depict Wands as representing career, work and business, but my tarot mentor (Barbara Stott) felt it represented the spiritual. This makes sense to me, in that Pentacles represents the material and financial world, so having Wands representing career is redundant. When court cards come up in a reading they can either represent an aspect of yourself or someone you might know. Someone who has influence on you or has a relationship that is meaningful either in the past or the future.

Correspondence: In yoga the 3rd Chakra (manipura) is fire which corresponds to the solar plexus (mantra of RAM). In Ayurvedic Tridosha Theory fire is Pitta and in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) five element theory (http://www.tcmbasics.com/basics_5elements_applications.htm)
Heart, Pericardium, small intestine and triple warmer with circulation, warmth yang. The astrological signs are: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. The direction is South.

Card meaning: The Queen of Wands represents the aspects of fire that are most important to us. She has warmth, sensitivity, gentleness and faithfulness as well as strength and determination. The personality of the Queen of Wands combines the positive fire energy of the Wands suit with the inward focus of a Queen. With Queens, the emphasis is on your inner state. The Queen of Wands denotes sympathy and understanding to your situation. She is charming in her demeanour and practical in her approach of solving problems. She is a loving figure and worthy of her position.

Jenni represents the spirit of fire. She is passionate and caring in all aspects of her life. I used the lotus flower to represent not only her own spirituality but to symbolize that the fire within the Queen of Wands is tempered and gentle. In the background the Queen of Spades corresponds to a regular deck of cards. (controversial, because some reference that the Queen of Spades corresponds to Swords, while others say it corresponds to spades) I have based my cards on fire=wands-spades, although most say it should be fire=wands=clubs. All of the Priestesses have regular playing cards incorporated into their images which symbolizes their importance within the deck and ties them together with the High Priestess, who is the heart of the deck. The number of the domino is the number of the card when added together, (1+3(13)=4).

The first cards

The first cards began with a photo shoot in Drake Park with Erica and Jenni. They came as the high priestess's that they are, complete. At this point I had no idea's about the content of the cards or visual presentation other than they represented two women who blew me away, their confidence, how they seem to be comfortable in their own skins, and their own femininity.

The structure of the deck

This deck in grounded in female archetypes - the high priestesses (Queens, in the traditional deck) which corresponds to the five basic elements - earth (Kelly), air (Erica), fire (Jenni), water (Simone), and ether (Shelby). Each element corresponds to a direction earth (Kelly)-North, air-(Erica)East, fire (Jenni)-South, water (Simone)-west and ether (Shelby)-the center and the circumference.

The starting point

It started as ,a "what if " moment.


I have always been drawn to photographic portraiture, landscapes don't do it for me. For me it is all about people, their faces, their energy, their creative expression. People are fascinating. By the same token photography is mystifying, the capturing of a moment in time, a moment that will never occur again - it is the closest I can get to performing magic. Making time stand still.

For many, many years I have incorporated photography or photographic images in my art. Most recently I have been photographing people who captivated me. Trying to capture their spirit, their place in time. Photography is the ultimate spirit catcher.

The High Priestess Tarot Series began with combining disparate things in my life, a class I was attending on the tarot and my art. My Gemini spirit tries to cope with my diarrhea of the mind, and is always trying to combine seemingly random strands into one thread. Hence the "what if" moment. What if I took used photographs of people I know and made a tarot deck. The making of the deck serves so many purposes, strengthening community, learning more about the tarot, learning more about people, learning more about myself and finally having a deck that has"personal meaning." Probably the most important is that the high priestess in me wants to reclaim the deck from its traditional male dominated representations.