The Twos and the High Priestess (aka the Nixie)
A logical approach to intuition

The Twos in Tarot are about Duality. Two options, two opposites maybe. I think the Nixie (aka the High Priestess) as an opposite to the Magician (who came before) symbolizes some of the most important dualities.
The Magician is consciousness, will, activity, light, masculine energy, Yang, if you want to call it that. And now comes the Nixie (or High Priestess), who is the opposite of all that: the vast unconscious, passivity, darkness, feminine energy, Yin. Letting things happen instead of making things happen. There’s a big difference.

I came to the conclusion that a proper High Priestess of whichever deity (like the severe woman pictured in the Rider Waite Smith Deck) would have to come much later in the deck and in the Fool’s Tale. At this stage (it’s only card II, we’ve just started) he’s not yet ready for the great mysteries of life or gods. He’s just a Fool, he can’t reach spiritual enlightenment yet.

So here it’s about just realizing that there is more. That there’s something underneath the surface. That darkness doesn’t mean there’s just emptiness or nothing-ness.

On the card we see the Nixie in a completely passive drowning pose. (Btw: the motif of drowning will reappear on card XVIII The Moon or The Companion, also a very »unconscious« and dark card. But the drowning experience of the Fool will be completely different …)
The pose of her arms was taken from Antonio Canovas statue of Amor and Psyche. Amor, I’m sure, is the Magician, Psyche is the Nixie or High Priestess. He visits her every night, just like our ideas, goals and inspirations visit our psyche every night in our dreams. With the Nixie’s card we are allowed to just accept and receive these visits, open our mind, open our psyche.
Oh, and then there’s this massive fin which I hope reminds you of Moby Dick, the White Whale, the obsession. The vision that haunts us. Every. Damn. Night.

It’s a duality in itself, the duality of the sea: On the surface we see the fin of a majestic whale. Or the creepy fin of a shark. Or the proverbial tip of an iceberg. And we have absolutely no clue what’s beneath the surface. It’s up to our imagination (which is usually based on our past experiences) to conjure up images of the mystery below.
On the card we see some shiny treasures and the wreck of a ship at the bottom of the sea. Impossible to see them while we are still above, in the light. We have to dive, to sink, to stop swimming, paddling, fighting, to be able to discover them. But of course we don’t know if the treasure chest is full of gold or if some sea monster will come crawling out of the wreck. Tough luck.

The impulse card – or stash key, as I think I’ll call them – of the Nixie asks »What’s (still) below the surface?« And offers a layout where you consciously pick one card that represents your current perception, and draw three cards, which will connect to the chosen card.
The layout addresses this feeling we sometimes have: You know something, but you can’t quite grasp it. You know that there’s somehow more to discover. Maybe something doesn’t feel quite right yet. I guess that’s our intuition at play. The layout of the Nixie is a quick brainstorming to explore this feeling, your intuition, and unlock a glance at your unconscious below the surface.

And then there are the four Twos: Two of Clubs, Two of Hearts, Two of Spades, Two of Diamonds. They are the first cards on which the Puppets appear, the first proper numbered cards after the Aces. All the numbered cards draw their »meaning« from the same logic: There’s one topic for the number (in case of the Two that’s duality), the Major Arcanum is some archetypical character of this topic. And now the four suits are confronted with the topic. How does each of them react?

The suits correspond to the elements and therefore to an aspect or quality of human life and ourselves:
Clubs (Wands) – Fire – Energy, Will
Hearts (Cups) – Water – Feelings, Unconscious
Spades (Swords) – Air – Mind, Rational
Diamonds (Coins / Pentacles) – Earth – Doing, Practical

Try to view the suits as caricatures, as someone who lives completely in the world of their element and is lacking the abilities or qualities of the others, like Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.
So what do they do when they are confronted with duality? How do they react to a second option or even an opposite?
Imagine a situation where you have (committed to) one thing (like a job, a partner, a project, an invitation for Saturday night) – and then something else comes along (a new job offer, some hot guy, a new project idea, another invitation for the same Saturday night – you get it, right?)

The fiery Clubs see a big chance, probably an adventure. The Hearts with their endless optimism will always try to connect the two to create something better. The Spades, trying to rationalize everything, start doubting right away and think through aaaaall the consequences each choice would bring. The Diamonds are the most practical, they just try to juggle them, balance them.

It is important to say, that none of these options is good or bad in itself. They are all legitimate, they can all be »right« or »wrong« in a certain situation. None of them is a lasting strategy for life. If you rely solely on you energy / feelings / mind / doing and ignore the rest, you will make yourself (and others) terribly unhappy.

In the long run we always have to balance our suits or elements. I believe we all gravitate towards one or two of them which come most naturally to us. So it’s our job to incorporate the others. Take me for example, I’m a total head-person, always overthinking, rationalizing, overanalyzing. That’s my natural state, everything else (like just feeling, being present in the moment, just doing, enjoying) is hard work. But thinking alone leads nowhere, so I have to practice the rest.
What do you have to practice??

Once you understand this system, you are pretty much able to conclude the meaning of every card for yourself without learning their meaning by heart.

Maybe think of a recent situation in your life, where something new appeared, this new (not necessarily second) option of the Twos …
I think most of us immediately jump to making a decision: either – or.
Actually, I decided to assign the »Decision« to the Three of Spades, because before the decision, there’s usually doubt. After the decision, too, but then we are stuck in a loop and have to decide again. 😉 So first there’s doubt and only once we acknowledge it, we can make a decision. Without doubt there is just nothing to decide.
So think of a recent situation where you were trying to decide something. What if you instead tried to see it as a really cool chance of some kind? Or found a way to connect the options from the heart? Or left room for you doubts and explored them? Or could balance them, so that there’s some kind of equilibrium?

The Creative Tarot doesn’t have an accompanying book yet (that’s why I’m writing this blog post …), but it has this really cool poster which shows you all the card meanings at a glance. Each card just has a handful of keywords, so there’s always room for your own interpretation of the card. My keywords are not THE truth, they are just my own interpretation of the Tarot cards.

Here are the keywords of the High Priestess and the Twos:

II THE NIXIE: soul, the unconscious, inner depths, receiving, immersion, trust.
2 of Clubs – OPPORTUNITY: possibilities, new perspectives, two paths forward.
2 of Hearts – CONNECTION: unifying two things, finding a middle ground, love.
2 of Spades – DOUBT: hesitation, worrying, right or wrong?, incomplete information.
2 of Diamonds – BALANCE: juggling, striking a balance, equilibrium, centering oneself.

So what do the Twos mean when they appear in your layout or as a card of the day?
Well, in my opinion, the cards never tell you what to do or what the future holds. They rather show you an option, open your mind to a certain point of view, or just pose a question.

Here’s some inspiration; questions you could ask yourself when you draw a card of the day. I personally don’t work with reversed cards, but I’ll give you two questions for each card, the second one having a darker and more »reversed« meaning:

II THE NIXIE
1. If you let yourself be still and trust that the answer is already inside you: What comes to the surface?
2. What are you afraid of? If you really let go, gave up control, stopped censoring yourself – what could come to light?
2 of Clubs – OPPORTUNITY
1. What if it were possible? How would you make it happen? Take the blinkers off, find the chance.
2. There are always two ways, two perspectives, two sides of a coin. Are you ignoring one of them?

2 of Hearts – CONNECTION
1. What if you could connect those two things or points of view? What would happen? How would the situation transform?
2. Could it be that you are sick and tired of the middle ground? What if you stopped compromising?

2 of Spades – DOUBT
1. Doubt is part of the process and you are allowed to move forward anyway. Is the picture still incomplete? What information is missing?
2. Why are you doubting yourself or your decision? What is the rational and what is the irrational cause behind it?

2 of Diamonds – BALANCE:
1. What would equilibrium look like? And how can you create it? What do you need to do?
2. Juggling takes a lot of effort. What if you stopped doing it? Let the chaos happen and allowed yourself to focus on one thing instead?

If the Twos appear in your spread or layout, you can use the same questions and the keywords mentioned before, obviously. But the Twos, standing for duality, are really interesting in combination with other cards! Imagine them in the middle between two other cards: They might show you the two different possibilities, the two things you could connect, the two options between which you feel obliged to choose – or the two poles you are trying to balance out.

When you are reading tarot cards in combination, always check their direction, their dynamic: Where do the characters look? Left can mean a look back into the past, right a look forward, into the future. Upward, I’d say, is usually more positive than downward. Upward can also mean looking for guidance, a higher power, downward a more down to earth approach.

But also consider what the charters would see an the cards in the direction they are looking. The »picture« of the card doesn’t end where the cardboard ends. By laying the cards out you create a bigger picture, like a puzzle. If the character on the card is looking left, like the puppet on the Two of Spades, it doesn’t just doubt »past decisions« (that’s a very single-card-interpretation) but also whatever it sees on the neighboring card. If that card, left of the Two of Spades, is for example the Nixie / High Priestess, it might mean that you are doubting your own intuition, your own unconscious. Or that you are doubting your decision, because you have some unconscious or half-conscious nudge that something is wrong – even if the option seems right.
Do you get what I mean? 😉

And here’s a specialty of the Creative Tarot: The Strings. Some of them stay within the confines of the card, some are going from outside the card. Follow them in your Tarot spread! Where do they lead you? Where are they going or coming from? An what could that mean?
Let’s take the example with the Nixie / High Priestess on the left and the Two of Spades on the right again and imagine another card on the right where the string of the right spade disappears. Let’s put the Fool there: Naivety, peace and sunshine. Fun. Beginnings. Freedom.

Some interpretations off the top of my head:
Something about the »great opportunity« you are suddenly presented with feels off. Not just too easy, but genuinely off, though you can’t yet explain why, it’s just a subconscious nudge.
Are you avoiding a great opportunity simply because you are too tied to your own shadows? Are you standing in your own way? So much, that you can’t even see it?
Staring left, at the fin of the White Whale (or listening to the siren’s song): Are you ignoring how simple, easy and fun it could be, if you just turned your head in the right direction and grabbed the spade on the right that is handed to you?

That’s really cool, isn’t it? As soon as you combine Tarot cards to create a bigger picture, there is so much room for exploration and interpretation. And, honestly, you don’t need a Tarot book to find your meaning. You don’t even need a system (like the one I explained earlier) or keywords for the cards. They are all just means to help you if you are stuck. Hints that are supposed to help you moving if you are blocked.

I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into the world of the Twos and the High Priestess – and of course I’d love to know how you interpret these cards!