The woman in the picture symbolizes the higher self, which resides at the heart of mankind, guiding, protecting, and inspiring all souls from within. You may also know her as the small, still inner voice, described by Rumi as a voice that doesn’t use words. It is also the quiet voice Elijah heard. Her religious title is the Holy Guardian Angel. The law of attraction refers to her as the universe.
The respective power of consciousness is intuition. Intuition forms the link between souls and the higher self. Through this link, guidance and inspiration arrive in people’s minds.
If we cultivate intuition, we will enjoy the higher self’s guidance, protection, and inspiration. Accidents, failures, and creative blocks will be a thing of the past. That’s why ageless wisdom assigned to this card the spectacular epithet the eternal and triumphant intelligence.
To improve our intuition, we need to distinguish it from hunches, instincts, and inklings. Hunches, instincts, and inklings come from below, i.e., subconsciousness. They are ambiguous and unreliable. They can serve as indicators, but we need to verify them using reason and intuition.
We owe quite a few scientific breakthroughs to intuition. For instance, Mendeleev discovered the periodic table in a dream, in which the elements arranged themselves in a table. The idea of the atomic model came to Niels Bohr in a dream, too. He saw the sun surrounded by all the planets of the solar system tied together with little strings. Albert Einstein dreamt that he rode a sled in the snow with increasing speed. The sled accelerated to the speed of light, and the surroundings faded, and all colors blended into one. These weren’t dreams-dreams, these were intuitive dreams. And they were the climax of years of scientific reasoning.
We communicate with the higher self through the language of consciousness. Pictorial representations and symbols make up the vocabulary of the language of consciousness. Naturally, we are not apt in the language of consciousness and can’t converse freely with the higher self. If we asked the higher self a question like, What shall I do? we would receive a complex stream of symbols, which we wouldn’t be able to make sense of. For this reason, we need to ask poignant questions. To ask the right question, we need to ponder our challenge and gain insight first. That’s where reason comes in. That the Reason card precedes the Intuition card shows this. Intuition goes beyond reason, but not without.
A querent may have unreasonable expectations concerning this process. She may be too weary to ponder her challenge and may have come to the Tarot reading to cut corners. You may need to explain to her the importance of thinking long and hard about the right question to ask.
The woman in the picture is the patron of Tarot readings. She reveals — through the Tarot cards — the principles that apply to the querent’s challenge.
An auspicious Intuition card calls for listening to the higher self and cultivating reason. For that, we need to ask our ego to shut up and stand aside.
An inauspicious Intuition card may indicate that the ego’s rejection of the higher self’s guidance is the reason for the querent’s challenge. An inauspicious Six of Swords [pride] would confirm this. Did ever a calm voice in your head say something like, You better do this or You better don’t do that? And did you brush it off, thinking that nothing would happen, but it did? That was your cocky ego, thinking it knows best, refusing to listen to the higher self.
An inauspicious Intuition card may also indicate that the querent has relied on hunches and personal experience while dealing with (changing) circumstances.
On the Tree of Life, the path of the Intuition card connects the spheres Wisdom (2’s) and Grace (4’s). The woman’s crown signifies the 2’s. The two kneeling ministers stand for creativity and intelligence. This path brings down abstract, cosmic wisdom and makes it accessible and benevolent for humans.
The titles and the five core meanings of the Intuition card are:
Enlightenment Tarot title: Intuition
Traditional title: Hierophant
Power of consciousness: Intuition
Constructive use: Receptivity to the higher self
Unconstructive use: Lack of receptivity to the higher self
Auspicious state of mind: Guidance, protection, inspiration
Inauspicious state of mind: Desolation, feeling lost and abandoned
On the spiritual-intentional level, the Intuition card stands for initiation into enlightenment arcana.
On the creative-feely level, the Intuition card signifies creative genius. Mind, we are not geniuses. We have a genius, and that’s the higher self.
On the intellectual level, the Intuition card represents inference. Inference means drawing conclusions from available information.
On the bodily-practical level, the Intuition card stands for the sense of hearing, as well as subconscious alerts, hunches, and psychic sensitivity. Mind again, on this level, intuition is unreliable. An inauspicious Reason card may also indicate, in particular in children, sensitivity to the following afflictions: illnesses of the throat, palate, larynx, tonsils, neck, lower jaw, ears, and the lower part of the brain (see body zone below).
More Attributions:
Number: 6
Letter: Vav, meaning nail (uniting the mind and the higher self)
Astrology: Taurus
Color: Red-orange
Body zone: the lower part of the brain, the neck, its vertebrae, the veins, arteries, and ears