The High Priestess

The pillar on the left is black. Its name is Boaz.
The pillar on the right is white. Its name is Jachin.
She sits between them.
That is all she does.
The sitting between is everything.

Behind her, a veil.
Pomegranates embroidered at the threshold.
The veil separates what can be said
from what cannot be said.
Behind the veil: the sea.
Not the sea you can swim in.
The sea before swimming was invented.

She holds a scroll. Half of it hidden.
The visible portion says: TORA —
Instruction. The law. The text.
The hidden portion says the rest.
There is always a hidden portion.

The Magician wore the lemniscate above his head.
She wears the triple moon — waxing, full, waning.
Not a symbol of cycle but of simultaneity.
The three phases present at once.
This is what is meant by knowing the moon:
you stop asking which face it is wearing
and begin to see all of them at once.

Gimel: the camel, the bridge between oases.
The camel does not question the desert.
It carries what it carries.
It arrives.
Between knowing and not-knowing there is a crossing.
She is the crossing.

The Fool leapt. The Magician laid out his tools.
The High Priestess does something harder —
she waits.
Not passive waiting. Custodial waiting.
She guards the threshold between what is asked
and what can be answered.
Some knowledge can only be received.
You cannot hunt it. You cannot force it.
You sit between the pillars,
you become still,
and if you are ready, it crosses the veil
and finds you.