Legend: The Priestess Nimue

[Sophie-David]

Wow! it seems like you get quite a lot from looking at the cards through dreams David.

It is much psychologically safer for me and much less energy draining to dream them than to go into the cards using meditation. At this time, it is also unnecessary for me to go to the depth that meditation can take me, I still am internally processing the results from my meditational cycle through the Connolly Majors which started at the end of September. Nonetheless, dream work alone would have taken me much longer to achieve the results of the 22 days with the Connolly Majors since meditation can be much more focused and powerful - using both the conscious and unconscious mind together. Also, because I have so recently done the meditational cycle, this dream work is more for tidying up loose ends than covering a lot of new ground, so that also makes it less intense.

Like so many other things in life, there is a choice between the fast, intense, more encompassing and less safe method, or the slow, more relaxed, less complete but safer path. Overall, my journey since the union in April 2004 has been very fast and intense, like living a lifetime in less than a year - and I feel that I still have a lot to catch up on. There have been mistakes in the last year along the way, but I tend to look at life with the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" approach. It seems that I am being led or guided through it anyway, the Priestess at work.

So, it's like revealing to you something you hadn't thought about before, or not quite in that way?

I'm not quite sure how to answer that. As most significant dreams do, it is operating on several levels.

Firstly, the dream itself is a communication from the internal expression of the High Priestess archetype, Sophie, in a sense a commentary on herself, inspired by study of the Legend card.

Secondly, in the dream narrative, we see how the internal High Priestess functions in affairs of the heart, bringing up to consciousness what has been felt at the Self level, that the Beloved person and I have already connected below consciousness, Self to Self, in what is popularily called "chemisty". No matter how we may express this union physically, the union is already occurring psychically. It is likely however that physical expression will reinforce the psychic expression and vica versa, in a positive feedback loop. The High Priestess usually brings this hidden activity to consciousness in not so subtle ways, through excitement and arousal, telling you, "This is the one". Thus the dream ego reaches out in a caress from a level below his direct awareness and then bring to consciousness their mutual love.

Thirdly, the High Priestess or Intimate Beloved is an internal template by which all potential lovers are judged. It is she who selects whom it is a man desires, projecting her idealized and almost irresistable form and behaviour onto the object of love. The woman in the dream was erotically attractive because the Inner Beloved made her so. Of course if the Beloved is out of step with the needs and wisdom of the Self, her projection may be inappropriate (I am ignoring at this point the somewhat similar function of the internal Empress).

Fourthly, this dream was also a reminder of the function of the Priestess as a projection. I knew at some level during the dream, and certainly in full consciousness upon waking, that this was not just a wistful dream about an old girlfriend, but an archetypal dream. This was no ordinary woman - not that there are any ordinary women - but what I mean is that the dream girlfriend was idealized, she was the perfect woman who only exists as an archetype. She was numinous. Sophie was telling me, "That young woman you caressed on the bus was not only her, it was me". Now I'm not sure why she felt she needed to remind me of this yet again, but perhaps I have not been giving her enough conscious attention. On the other hand, I think that this dream was more intended as a gift, psychic candy if you like, as if to say, "I really want you to work through the deck this way by dreaming it - and I can make it worth your while!"

Which leads me to the final level of the dream, an illustration of the Priestess as interpreter of the will of the Self. The Self wishes to bring the psyche into wholeness, that is its lifelong purpose. For this purpose, the Priestess was directed by the Self, "Give him that dream". "OK, Boss."

Now, how this Jungian model translates into the feminine domain is problematic and many feminist Jungians are still thrashing it out. Its not as simple as saying, "Oh, the female equivalent of the anima is the animus. The animus projects himself onto her potential lover, take it from there." This would be like saying, "The Magician or Emperor is the model of your perfect lover." For some women this may be the case, but it is usually a lot more complicated than that. For one, the High Priestess must also have a part in this process, since she has the same function in a woman's soul, as gateway and guide to the unconscious.

 

[RedMaple]

Without realizing what I was doing I reached out my hand and stroked her face from her forehead, across her nose to her lips. Then I realized what I had done and felt awkward. I was surprised to see how much she had enjoyed it, she was in ecstasy. For the first time I realized that she loved me as much as I loved her. The dream ended.

The bus appears to be a flashback to my dates with [Asian Girlfriend], which normally took place by bus.

The dream ego reaches out to his date without thinking, acting from his intuition and emotion, not analyzing or preplanning, but in an unconscious way.

David,

What a beautiful dream. I had a wonderful trance-dream about the Son of Cups in the Motherpeace deck a long time ago -- in that deck he is a flute player sitting on a lotus flower rising from the water. In that trance-dream, he played the flute for me, and the music enveloped me with the knowledge of his unconditional love. It was surprising and overwhelming. I imagine your dream was similar.

I can see why you interpret this dream as Sophie, that archetype is certainly there. But I see other things in the dream as well.

Maybe because my Soul card is the Lovers, I tend to think about the world that way. I see energy going out toward the world, and being returned.
In the Color Purple, Shug says to Celie something like: "the whole wide world just wants to be loved." I think when we act from our deepest selves, and send that love out, whether it's to a person, a tree, a rock, the wind, it comes back to us, and we are surprised by it. It is a way of sacralizing the world, making our relationship to it sacred. I see this very much in your dream. And perhaps that is part of the secret of the High priestess, as well.

I also love that the dream takes place on a bus! I, too, have had dreams in trains, buses, cars. I see it as a metaphor for being a traveler through life, the soul's vehicle, I guess. It's always interesting to me who else is in the vehicle at a particular time, who is sharing the journey with me.

 

[Lyones]

Originally posted by Sophie-David
Thirdly, the High Priestess or Intimate Beloved is an internal template by which all potential lovers are judged. It is she who selects whom it is a man desires, projecting her idealized and almost irresistable form and behaviour onto the object of love.

Originally posted by RedMaple
In the Color Purple, Shug says to Celie something like: "the whole wide world just wants to be loved." I think when we act from our deepest selves, and send that love out, whether it's to a person, a tree, a rock, the wind, it comes back to us, and we are surprised by it. It is a way of sacralizing the world, making our relationship to it sacred.

Thanks so much for sharing that. Other peoples experiences can teach us just as much as our own, and I'm finding that to be the case in this study group. This collection of thoughts and experiences is bringing out much more than I'd hoped for and I'm learning a lot from the different perspectives - it's great!

 

[Sophie-David]

I had a wonderful trance-dream about the Son of Cups in the Motherpeace deck a long time ago -- in that deck he is a flute player sitting on a lotus flower rising from the water. In that trance-dream, he played the flute for me, and the music enveloped me with the knowledge of his unconditional love. It was surprising and overwhelming. I imagine your dream was similar.

Oh yes, just from your brief description I'm there - that is it alright! The presence of the numinous Beloved. It is so wonderful when I hear echoes of her/him from others.

I can see why you interpret this dream as Sophie, that archetype is certainly there. But I see other things in the dream as well.

Because I live every moment in conscious communion with her, she is as recognizable to me as is my wife (28 years married), and it doesn't matter what form either of them may take in dreams or dream-like state, I know "This is her". The same goes equally for Eirian, and to a much lesser extent any of the other internal entities.

I think when we act from our deepest selves, and send that love out, whether it's to a person, a tree, a rock, the wind, it comes back to us, and we are surprised by it. It is a way of sacralizing the world, making our relationship to it sacred. I see this very much in your dream. And perhaps that is part of the secret of the High priestess, as well.

Yes, how very true, love makes all things sacred. Love itself is the binding force of the universe.

I also love that the dream takes place on a bus! I, too, have had dreams in trains, buses, cars. I see it as a metaphor for being a traveler through life, the soul's vehicle, I guess. It's always interesting to me who else is in the vehicle at a particular time, who is sharing the journey with me.

In psychological interpretation, vehicles express the libido, the psychic energy that moves us forward, which to me is just another way of saying what you just said, "the soul's vehicle". I think the bus and train are images of traveling in community. The dream starts as a college outing, and continues in community on the bus. But their erotic encounter transcends the mundane world, in that moment on the bus they are all that has ever existed. Their moment becomes an eternal celebration of the loving power of the cosmos.

There is a reason that Sophie takes me back to these moments, for the subject of these dreams was my first soul-to-soul love. As we all know, this is a love that never dies. It is from here that she can show me the nature of love in its purest and most archetypal form.

 

[Sophie-David]

There is a further aspect of the Priestess function which I did not touch on since it was not an obvious part of the dream. She is not only a gatekeeper to the unconscious, but a gatekeeper to the next card. In encountering one's intuitive and feeling self, the Priestess is preparing the Seeker for the further mysteries of the romantic and creative Empress.

Having looked at the Priestess in this way, I theorized that each card of the Majors had this function. The Fool initiates the Seeker for the encounter with the Magician, the Magician's analytical balance disciplines one for the plunge into the unconscious of the High Priestess, and so on until the World or Universe is encompassed. And then the cycle begins again on another level of growth, one Fool's Journey within another, all contained within the overall Fool's Journey of Life.