Tarot Priestess: Using the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve

By Leeza Robertson

Deepen Your Tarot Practice, Heal Spiritual Wounds, and Rise as a Daughter of the Goddess

Become a modern-day priestess with this book on using tarot cards as both devotional and divinatory tools. Tarot Priestess presents a spiritual framework—organized around the court cards, major arcana, and minor arcana—through which you'll heal the wounds of the sacred feminine and expand your practice with an open heart and dedicated mind.

Leeza Robertson brings you closer than ever to your tarot cards, showing you how to unite your daily practice with goddess energy. She cleverly ties the four stages of your initiation to the court cards, links goddess temples to the four suits of the minor arcana, and organizes the major arcana into three priestess gateways that you pass through on your journey. Whatever your skill level is, this book shows you how to serve with purpose and spiritual fulfillment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: May 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780738765488

Leeza Robertson

Leeza Robertson is an international bestselling author with Llewellyn Worldwide. She is a girl from the Aussie bush living her best life in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her wife. When she is not writing books or creating decks, she is helping other writers bring their dream of publishing into reality. Connect with Leeza on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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About the Author

Leeza Robertson is the author of Tarot Court Cards for Beginners and Tarot Reversals for Beginners, and she’s the creator of two tarot decks: the Mermaid Tarot and Animal Totem Tarot. When she doesn’t have her nose inside a book or her fingers dancing across a deck of cards, she runs her online class with her business partner, Pamela Chen. Together they are the Head Witches at the High Vibe Tarot Academy, which you can find at bit.ly/uftamagic.

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Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Tarot Priestess: Use the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve © 2022 by Leeza Robertson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition © 2022

E-book ISBN: 9780738765488

Book design by Colleen McLaren

Cover image courtesy of Lo Scarabeo

Cover design by Cassie Willet

Interior art by Llewellyn art department

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Robertson, Leeza, author.

Title: Tarot priestess : using the cards to heal, grow & serve / Leeza

Robertson.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Publications,

2022. | Summary: "A blend of tarot card meanings and a goddess-based

spiritual path. Includes spreads, meditations, and exercises"— Provided

by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022004501 (print) | LCCN 2022004502 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738765334 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738765488 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tarot. | Women priests.

Classification: LCC BF1879.T2 R61328 2022 (print) | LCC BF1879.T2 (ebook)

| DDC 133.3/2424—dc23/eng/20220208

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022004501

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022004502

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Gateway One

From the Magician to the Chariot: Ritual and Ceremony

Chapter Two

Gateway Two

From Strength to Temperance: Pilgrimage, Initiation, and Rites of Passage

Chapter Three

Gateway Three

From the Devil to the World: Reclaiming the Wild Shadow and Dancing in the Light

Chapter Four

The Four Steps of Initiation

From Pages to Kings

Chapter Five

The Temple of Pentacles

Connecting to Earthly Devotion: Priestessing with the Daughters of Danu

Chapter Six

The Temple of Swords

Truth, Knowledge, and Light: Priestessing with Saraswati

Chapter Seven

The Temple of Wands

Lighting Your World on Fire: Priestessing with Lilith

Chapter Eight

The Temple of Cups

Healing with the Priestesses of Avalon

Conclusion

Recommended Reading

Introduction

Womxns’ spirituality is a complex and oftentimes traumatic path. Throughout history, womxn’s spiritual practices have been mocked and ridiculed and have oftentimes led to persecution and death. I am not just talking about cis womxn here either—I am including all who identify as womxn and all those who seek out feminine spiritual practices. You will notice that womxn is spelled in the inclusive manner, not the one given to us by patriarchy, the spelling that defines us as an addition to men. The goddess is not an addition, she is equal, her own whole being, sovereign. Which is why despite the danger, the call of the goddess comes to all who share her lineage, even though many fear the call and do not know how to serve her. For how does one step onto a path littered with so many wounds with an open heart and a devotional mind? Despite the efforts of the patriarchy to eliminate sacred feminine practices, we have seen a rise in womxn healing the devotional scar. From the Red Tent Movement to the Rise Sister Rise community to the swelling kundalini yoga community, the goddess is awakening and with her the call to service and leadership is being blasted out throughout the feminine world once again. Tarot Priestess taps into one of those rising paths, one that is also seeing a renaissance and calling all who identify as womxn from all over the world to come and serve at the feet of the goddess once again—the priestess.

I was initially introduced to the priestess in the nineties at university through my art history lectures; back then, these religious womxn were merely figures in a story. They belonged to a time that no longer existed, and history didn’t seem to paint them in a very favorable light. Fast-forward to 2014 when I first set foot inside the Temple of Sekhmet not an hour from my home in Las Vegas, where I met a living modern-day priestess. I knew in that moment I was being called back to the goddess but didn’t know how I was meant to serve her or what devotional practice looked like for me. It took me another three years to figure out that tarot was not only my priestess path, but also my way of serving the goddess. Never in my wildest dreams did I think there was a way to be a Tarot Priestess, but here we are more than twenty years from my initial invitation from the goddess and Tarot Priestess is exactly what I do.

What you are reading now is the pulling together of what I am calling the Tarot Priestess path. This book offers you another way to answer the call of these goddesses. You are invited to deepen your spiritual practices, heal devotional wounds, and rise in your own life as a daughter of the goddess. See yourself as a modern-day living priestess—a vessel of the sacred feminine, ready and able to serve in a way that is authentic to who you are while providing clues in answering the questions of why you are here in this life, in this body, and in this lineage.

Walking the Priestess Path

More than likely, you are already treading footsteps along your own priestess path and have been doing so for years without any conscious awareness of it. It’s okay—I was also a walking spiritual zombie for a long time. I too was being guided by the goddess without truly recognizing it. I was carving out my own priestess path without any understanding of what I was doing, which is why I felt so compelled to write Tarot Priestess. I believe this book might just rub the sleep from your eyes and allow you to see what has always been right in front of you: your priestess self. If you have been using the tarot for spiritual practice or even incorporating it into some form of daily devotion and ritual, you are a Tarot Priestess. If you have ever called to the goddess pantheon and asked for help while placing a tarot card upon your altar while lighting a candle and saying a prayer, you are a Tarot Priestess. If you have used your tarot skills to help your larger community or take your tarot wisdom to conduct a sacred circle, used the cards in a form of healing, or even just used them for their designed divination purpose, you are a Tarot Priestess. The sacred act of selecting cards, asking questions of the Divine, and tapping into the universal consciousness for answers are all very priestess things to do.

If you are like me (also according to my guides) and are a little slow on the uptake, you just connected the dots between your tarot practice and one of the oldest feminine spiritual practices we have: the priestess. More than likely, you had or have a preconceived notion of what a priestess looks like and does on a regular basis. I know for me personally, the whole costume part was my biggest block. I have always had a perception that deeply spiritual practitioners looked a certain way, wore very specific clothes, and lived in some sort of religious, monastic way. It wasn’t until I realized that this was me viewing feminine spirituality through the bullshit lens of the patriarchy that I was able to shift my perception. The old masculine rules of the Piscean Age have twisted and obscured our lens of femininity and feminine spirituality and how we express both. We have become so used to such narrow views of what it means to be feminine that it has become harder for us to truly identify when we are, in fact, in service to the goddess. The goddess comes in varying shapes, colors, sizes, abilities, and costume, which means if you dig around long enough, you will find one that looks, feels, and presents just like you do.

Womxn have for too long given away their power. It is now time to step up and reclaim that power, but not in a masculine way. It is important more than ever to awaken our priestess roles, bring our own feminine selves back to balance, and find out who we are and how we are meant to serve. Our communities need us—we have been hiding in the shadows for too long, and the masculine cannot play the feminine role. It has tried for a couple of thousand years and failed badly. We have to stop expecting the masculine to change and be something it is not. Instead, let us roll out of bed, put on whatever costume we damn well please, pick up our tarot cards, and offer ourselves to the goddess once again. If we womxn don’t start putting ourselves back in positions of power, our lineage and spiritual practices will continue to erode, fade, and be desecrated until they are eventually lost forever. Writing Tarot Priestess is one step in the right direction; reading and using its content to deepen your own feminine spiritual practice is another. Sharing your own skills, magic, gifts, and self with your larger community is yet another step along the path of the Tarot Priestess.

Tarot as the Path, Initiation, and Temple

Tarot Priestess is structured to give you a framework to connect your tarot practice back to the goddess and recommit your feet to the priestess path. The chapters walk you through three priestess gateways and four goddess temples, and it also introduces you to the four stages of the initiation process. Some of the concepts within these pages may be new, especially if dancing with the goddess is unfamiliar to you. Or perhaps you may find the content reawakens your inner priestess and reminds her how confident and strong she felt when she was connected to a more conscious and structured practice. The tarot itself plays three very distinct roles in Tarot Priestess. The first is the path followed throughout the book’s pages, guiding you through the gateways and the temples. When I use the word path, I am referring to something we walk energetically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. It might be one of the listed ways, or it might be all of them. The path is what takes us from one point to another, or in this case, through one lesson to another. The three gateways you will pass through are in the major arcana: these twenty-one cards have been broken up into three groups of seven to illustrate the roles each row of cards plays along the priestess path.

They are as follows:

Gateway One, from the Magician to the Chariot: Ritual and Ceremony

Gateway Two, from Strength to Temperance: Pilgrimage, Initiation, and Rites of Passage

Gateway Three, from the Devil to the World: Reclaiming the Wild Shadow and Dancing in the Light

The second role the tarot will play in part two is the process of initiation, a process done via the court cards, as their built-in hierarchy is perfect for the many different levels to priestess training. Each court card has been assigned a position that one would hold within the temple. These positions give you a clear indication of how you will work your way up the initiation scale if this is what you choose to do. You do not have to work your way up, necessarily; a lot of people who enter spiritual studies find the position that is right and true for them and stay there. You started reading as one of these initiation personalities.

The stages of initiation are:

Neophyte/Page

Acolyte/Knight

Priestess/Queen

High Priestess/King

Perhaps you are the Page now, or maybe you are the Queen. You will find out as you make your way through the relevant chapters.

The last role the tarot will play is as temple—not a physical building but instead a temple framework. It is a sacred space of devotion, instruction, and connection. Your tarot deck will become the touchstone of your priestess work as well as the very vessel and space within which you will practice. The best part is that it is completely mobile, not tethered or restricted to one particular place. This allows for a sort of freedom in your spiritual practice to do it whenever and wherever you feel called, yet another form of breaking old stereotypes and creating new living models in which to align your new priestess identity. Instead of the priestess being tied to the physical location of the temple, your tarot deck becomes the priestess temple you can put in your pocket, place in your purse, or pack into your backpack and take wherever you go. Then again, you have already been doing this—you just didn’t know you were carrying around an entire temple with you!

You will find the temples in the minor arcana, each providing you with an invitation to join the goddess and learn the skills and lessons of their respective temple through the corresponding suits.They are as follows:

Temple of Pentacles: Connecting to earthly devotion with the daughters of Danu

Temple of Swords: Truth, knowledge, and light with Saraswati

Temple of Wands: Lighting your world on fire with Lilith

Temple of Cups: Healing with the Lady of the Lake and the priestesses of Avalon

Due to the structured format, it is recommended you work your way through the content from cover to cover, at least initially. Each gateway leads to the next just as each temple lays the groundwork for the next. You can come back to work on just one gateway or dive deeper into one of the temples after you have read the information. Purpose, discipline, and organization are keys to your Tarot Priestess success, so consider this book your first lesson in ritual—you always start at a specific point and end at another.

The Role of the Fool

The cards of the major arcana show a journey: we start at the Magician and travel through the rest of the cards until we end up at the World. Throughout that journey, we grow, we are tested, we are broken, we are healed, and we are reborn. Each time we make this journey, we do so in the Fool’s shoes. We may not always acknowledge this idea on a conscious level, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The Fool puts on multiple hats and plays various roles each time we travel these twenty cards. In these pages and for this journey we are giving the Fool a very specific role to play and are doing so consciously—the Fool is us. We are dressing the Fool in a newly acquired priestess costume and slipping into the Fool’s energy as we make our way through the three gateways of the majors. Your priestess costume will be different from mine and the costumes of other people who work with the content to come.

Your Fool will echo you and your journey, just as it does every time you pick up your cards. The only difference is that this time, you have given your Fool card a very specific role to play. Acting is second nature to the Fool, which is why it is easy for them to shapeshift and morph into any role we assign for them. The Fool is mutable and ready to embrace whatever shows up, quite excited to be on this new and deliberate priestess path with you. As you select your costume for the Fool, think about how you want to be seen as a priestess. What do these items of clothing mean to you? Maybe taking up robes and flowing gowns is something you get excited about. Or perhaps business casual is more your priestess attire. Just know that the costume you select for the Fool is the one you are the most comfortable wearing. It is the costume that makes you feel confident, strong, wise, and courageous. Clothing has the ability to change our mood, lift and elevate our energy, and allow us to tune in to our spiritual work in a more connected and focused way. Select your Fool’s and your own outfit carefully.

Next, you will need to think about what tools you want to pack into the Fool’s knapsack or bag. Although we don’t normally know what the Fool has inside their wrapped collection of things, this time we are going to pack it with a few items that are relevant to us. If you include crystals in your daily devotion, you might want to think about packing a nice palm stone. If you write, throw in a pen and a journal. Obviously there will be a deck or two (or