The Hierophant Soul Meditation

It's both interesting and totally unsurprising how many tarot readers just can not relate to The Hierophant card.  Organized religion!? No thanks!  Yet when I first saw The Hierophant image from the Shadowscapes Tarot, I suddenly loved the archetype of The Hierophant.  He reminds me here of the wise Ent in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  Yes, his is a community I want to fit into, his traditions are ones I want to uphold, and his world structure is something I want to support and perpetuate.  I didn't go into this Soul Meditation with the Shadowscapes tarot in hand, instead gazing intently at the Rider Waite Smith image that Biddy Tarot uses in the guidebook.  But my Ent friend must be firmly rooted in my subconscious because he crept into this beautiful meditation that I will now describe:

I entered the gate and tried to picture the building ahead of me. Perhaps I see too many buildings on any given day at my job as an architecture librarian ;), because multiple facades flashed across my mind.  When the entrance door to the building was described as wooden during the meditation, I immediately saw a fantastic gothic/victorian/germanesque wooden mansion against a day sky.  I passed through the door into a long, cavernous hall with nooks, crannies, bends, dips and various shelves and plants everywhere.  I saw large bookcases of beautiful books of every size and color.  I saw plants growing from the earth as well as floorboards beneath my feet.  Everything was brown but dimly lit by the warmest glowing light.  Ahead there was a clearing with the large Hierophant tree Ent person on the right and the disciplines sitting in chairs on the left. Before I reached the clearing I heard The Hierophant says that I could learn much from these books.  I wanted to grab armloads of them and plop down to read, read, read until I had soaked up all the knowledge that existed there.

I sat before The Hierophant and I listened to him tell me again that I should read books and also that I should find a community to join.  I went up to touch his hands and felt both the warm radiance of the sun shining down on my face, as well as the cool waters of the earth flowing up through my feet. I felt a sense of sadness in The Hierophant- that people were not abiding by the cycles of the earth, and this lack of nature worship was damaging to the earth.  The Hierophant urged his disciplines to be activists for the environment and to bring the importance of living with nature to people's awareness. The Hierophant let me sit high in his branches and gaze at the night sky but still I could feel the heat of the sun on my shoulders.

When I entered the body of The Hierophant I felt the tired worry I described earlier- that people do not honor the earth and treat it with sufficient reverence.  I then approached the table where the ritual box sat alongside the four symbols of the suits.  Perhaps this was the same table that The Magician uses! I opened the box to find a glowing, floating sphere that was a miniature moon.  The sphere floated above the table, demonstrating the phases of the moon.  There was also a journal and a pen inside the box (the same from the High Priestess meditation?) in which I could record my observations of the moon cycles.  I was delighted to keep the moon sphere and sufficiently awed by the vast views of Earth's nature and our connection to the stars to feel overwhelmed by all The Hierophant wants me to learn.  I will continue on my spiritual journey, read books related to spiritual themes I am interested in, study the moon, and look for community. And, of course, continue on with these Soul Meditations.  Next up- The Lovers!