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(Reclaiming Quarterly, 1998?)

I would like to take Reya's reading of the Tarot Fives and the Hierophant a little further, as we explore the cards' messages for our community. I want to thank Reya for starting a dialog and bringing hierarchy out from the closet so that we may look at its meaning for our community more fully.

In thinking about the ideas Reya presents, it seems to me that hierarchy is at least a part of the tension many of us feel as we try to figure out who is "in" and who "out" in the Reclaiming community, and how each of us fits into the group or not. But I disagree that these disquieting feelings are caused by a lack of "natural order".

I went to the Oxford English Dictionary to clarify the meaning of the words hierarchy and hierophant. As I had thought, hierarchy refers specifically to order people into grades "as in an Episcopate." That is, the word specifically refers to the ranking of bishops in the Catholic Church or to any organization of humans that is similar to this ordering.

We're accustomed to hierarchy, maybe as animals, as Reya posits, but also quite likely, because that's the only ordering we've ever known with other humans. Our families are often little fiefdoms: one of the parents rules, usually Dad, and everyone else must fall into line. And then there is school and corporate work. No wonder we feel uncomfortable without hierarchy, or, at least, when we experience less of this very familiar organization. Nevertheless, in the same meetings and rituals that Reya uses as examples of difficult, uncomfortable situations, I experienced my first real taste of power from within, my first empowerment.

When I looked up hierophant in the OED, however, it does not mean a pope, the head of a hierarchy. It refers to the keeper or priest of sacred mysteries, as in "the Hierophant of the Eleusinian mysteries". This really got me thinking about the symbolic meaning of "hierophant" and how it relates to the picture of the Pope in many Tarot Decks.

As Reya wrote, Fives numerically represent change, growth, dynamic power tensions and synergies. This we see in the Pentacle, consisting of a series of crossing lines of interaction. In the Tarot, the Fives embody the difficult situations, those things that bring out our most mysterious, gripping, and usually painful feelings. I see arguments won and lost (Swords), contests of wills (Wands), destitution (Pentacles), and depression and hopelessness (Cups).

How does the Hierophant sit as the key to the Fives? Using the Major Arcana as the master/mistress or keys of the Minor Arcana is a method for understanding the relationship between the Major and Minor Arcana.

One way to avoid arguments, battles of will, unfair distribution of wealth, and depression is with an established order - a hierarchy. The Pope is the very top of the Church's hierarchy, the Church's supreme ruler. The Pope's position also includes a hierophant function because the Pope is the keeper of the Catholic mysteries. Of course, the historical implementation of the Pope's functions has, in my opinion, left a good deal to be desired.

I think that one of the principles of the branch of physics called Chaos Theory is useful. There is resonance, which creates a standing wave out of the chaotic motion of many interacting particles. These waves are patterns that can be observed arising out of chaos. For me, this is an apt description of the patterning of life; it is the Goddess' dance of life, Her order - natural order. When the resonance, the wave, is broken, new patterns will arise. My friend, Phebe Fletcher, pointed out that it is the endless cycle of chaos, resonance, wave, and chaos again that is the great pattern in which we live, move and breath, that the cycle itself represents divine order.

The Tarot Fives are about tension and challenge, the difficulties that break the standing wave in our lives. When we encounter them, we enter into chaos. Out of the chaos of the Fives a new resonance is formed, a new standing wave, a new pattern. The Tarot Fours can be thought to represent patterns of stability, the culmination of the Aces, Twos, and Threes, and the Fives break down the stability and move us on. Where do they move us? The Fives move us to the pleasurable experiences of the Sixes. Only when stability is challenged or left behind are we open enough to receive the Sixes. And, I think this progression is exemplified by the movement from Emperor, through the Hierophant, and on to the Lovers.

When we reach the Fives' point in our lives, where we've had enough of the daily descent into our own hells, we often turn to find a teacher, someone who appears to hold and speak for the mysteries, a guru, an avatar. The Hierophant offers energy to help us: she or he is a teacher. The Hierophant offers teachings and counsel, but he or she can also become the all powerful keeper of mystery, the ruler, the penultimate insider.

The Emperor has all the ducks lined up; this is a card of stability and stagnation. He represents, among other things, an established order. Whenever I look at the Four of Pentacles in the Rider-Waite deck, I see stability from having enough earthly goods, the King's feet firmly planted on his pentacles, but I see great boredom, too. This is the nature of the square Fours.

In the pictures on the numbered Wands in the Rider deck, at least one of the wands in the picture is being held or manipulated by a person. This manipulation symbolism is used on every numbered Wand card except for the Four of Wands and the Eight of Wands. The wands on the Eight are in motion. However, on the Four, the wands are free standing. They form a square with the garland of flowers connecting the wands' tops and through the ground upon which they stand. I think this difference in symbolism is used to indicate stability. Our energy is at rest as we celebrate the successful completion of a project.

In the meditation of the Four of Cups and the repose or sanctuary of the Four of Swords I also see stability and at least the possibility of stagnation. The Hierophant can break open the Emperor's stability, just as the Minor Arcana Fives are the experiences that break the stability of the Fours. The Hierophant offers us teachings that move us forward.

But, we cannot stay in the Hierophant, we must proceed, for there are dangers on both sides of the Hierophant, student and teacher. That is why it bears the number five. The danger is giving over one's power to a teacher and never forging one's will and empowerment. And on the other side, the danger is losing humility and getting stuck within the teaching role, no longer wielding our own power, but thriving on the ego gratification given to us by our students. We can forget that our students teach us as much as they learn from us. The teaching relationship, the relationship between the holder of the mysteries and the seeker, serves both sides. For me, the bottom line is humility - realizing that I will never have control of my shadow side, that I will continue to be fully human with all the beauties and pain that that position entails - saint and despot and everything else rolled into my complete being.

I believe that there is a tension between the name of the card and the picture of attendants and Pope. It is the tension between the Hierophant, who is the keeper of mysteries, and the very human, patriarchal ordering of Bishops in the Catholic church. I think this tension is intentional. It is meant to help us move through the cycle of our growth without getting stuck in either side of the the Hierophant. The dangers are clearly pictured on the card. We must not stay in the Student or the Teacher role. These positions must be relinquished to move on to the Lovers.

The Lovers bears the same key relationship to the Sixes as the Emperor to the Fours and the Hierophant to the Fives. Each of the Sixes involves giving and receiving. There is the token of friendship of the Cups, the journey, relief, and hope of the Swords, the surplus and charity of the Pentacles and the accolades of the Wands. These experiences are rich in themselves, but they also lead me to my deeper desires. In the context of the Sixes, I desire union with another and, ultimately, union with the divine. I seek the sacred in everything, and especially, to express it in myself.

On the Rider Lovers card, we see pictured a man, a woman and an angel above them. We can think of the man as talking self, the woman as younger self and the Angel as deep self. Talking self, the conscious mind, acknowledges that it must go through younger self, the subconscious, intuitive, symbolic mind, by looking at her. Younger self can connect to deep self, our divine spirit self, represented by the angel. The angel looks at both talking self and younger self, unites the two selves, and unites with them. The circle is complete. Talking self has integrated divinity by acknowledging and working with younger self. Deep self has entered into the conscious mind. We see here what Mary K. Greer calls, "Involution of spirit into matter", her phrase for the nature of the Sixes.

To experience union, we must be empowered, not led. To unite with another and to express our spirit fully, we must remain open to our own complete self and to the other's complete self. It is humility, my feeling of being fully human, with all the foibles and joys that this implies, that opens me enough to another to experience union, and to bring "spirit into matter". The lesson learned from the Hierophant, the keeper of the mysteries, is the ability to move power through us without causing power to become stuck or blocked. This is our journey through and past hierarchy, and on to consensual, empowered relationship.