Courting the maiden

[Minyatur]

But... there isn't one maiden. There are two maidens. They represent polarity. You say you see polarity, but then at the end of your post, you say "There is only one maiden". The card is about walking the path of polarity within third density, and making The Choice. Of course outside of the illusion there is only one maiden, but we are trying to talk about within the system of polarity.

Semantics... there is two facet to the maiden. We can word this in many ways while not losing the original meaning.

I did not say it is solely about wisdom, but wisdom can't be totally unrelated. We speak of the mind, any newly gained awareness forces one to make new choices based upon love, which then can come to bring transformation.

Yes, but there is a difference between "making a new choice based upon love" and "making a new choice based upon STO, green-ray love", and the card is about both but choosing the latter if you want to be harvested 4D+.

I never denied that, just that wisdom is intertwined to STO green-ray love also. I don't understand how you can perceive one without the other, sure you can be as loving as it can get in your desire to serve others, but you still learn from your experiences which creates change in how you perceive the world that surrounds you and forces you to make new choices in how you desire to interact with it in your desire to serve others. That does not keep you from loving any part of it, and can probably do more of allowing you to love more of it or love it more deeply with more understanding of it all.

I see the fool quite differently than you do. The fool that desires to be wise in it's ways will take the required detours to find within himself to be wise. He knows where to go but may take wrong turns upon the path. This is how I am a fool with my High Priestess, I seek her wisdom and awareness and although it has lead me to strange places like the bible or any seemingly off path set of thoughts, each step had a purpose in teaching me something and acted as a gateway. The fool gets somewhere through his inherent faith and pure intent to seek.

You think the Fool's Journey is about obtaining wisdom, no matter what detours you have to take?

No I don't, I am talking about myself. I did not come into this world for the same reasons you did and have not programmed myself the same path and steps and they would most likely not be consonant with myself.

This is third density, shifting into fourth. The archetypes are a teaching tool for the third density experience. I just can't get past that you insist wisdom is more important than love.

Not more important, they go hand in hand with one another and one cannot truly be without the other. Wisdom is knowledge that comes from experience of love.

I think whether one has a wisdom/love balance or love/wisdom balance does not prevent anything regarding the archetype and is more related to how they will be personified within self, which is supposed to be unique to each.

This is how I see the Fool's Journey in the context of the archetype. The Fool has found the potential for love all around him, but to progress through the density (continue down his path), the Fool must decide if it wants to love carefully and with an always open heart, or without thought to the state of their heart chakra. This is the need to choose betwixt the light and the dark. As the Fool lets go of the prostitute and chooses to carefully court the maiden, this is the process upon which he hones his intuition, because through the veil in the mind complex, our initial unconscious impulses aren't "pure" I guess could be the word for it. We are working towards the athanor of the alchemist. As we take the time to carefully court her, that which she returns is greater in value. Ra says if we refuse to transform or use the left-hand path, "that which is gained is rough, prostituted, and without great virtue" - therefore, the High Priestess isn't giving you her best, because you aren't giving her your best. It's like when Ra talks about the blue-ray transfer between mated entities being a "jewel dearly bought" - it requires dedicated, conscious, willful effort towards polarizing on the STO path i.e. crystallizing the heart chakra.

I don't really disagree with any of this. Although I'd say the High Priestess is not like a universal thing and the essence of it is highly personal to each. I do not resonate with imposing the image of either a maiden nor a prostitute upon my High Priestess, because to me she is neither of those. But I still don't not deny the whole polarity aspect of it all nor the conscious choice that comes with it, and that there is an equivalent to maiden/prostitute to be made as they hint to an actual duality that is there.

I work on crystallizing each of my chakras, so it's not like I try to deny the heart either.

The Higher Self too is without polarity. We choose the polarity, and then the priestess goes that way. And we can't abandon her hand and run back to the other priestess, or, clothe her in a different guise from time to time, because we undo the transformation. The paths are diverging.

You can ever change path, if it is what you are consonant with. I'd say it is unlikely once a path has truly been taken though and would require strong external catalyst.

What creates a need to choose in your opinion? To me that is heightened awareness. And then the choice is between the light and the dark in mind, which to me implies that it is love as known to the mind. To me this is what the first quote means, it is the distortion-less version of the archetype. The subsequent maiden/prostitute analogy, is a more colorful image that potentially provide a better opportunity of insight for one who resonates with it.

Yes, the need to choose is created by the heightened awareness given by utilizing the Catalyst/Experience duo. Ra's referring to the previous set of cards as he leads into #6. Is there something else you would say in the imagery of the Lovers card that points to "heightened awareness", other than the closed eyes, since we disagree on their meaning?

Well outside the imagery, it's position within the archetypes of the mind and that the transformation(s) leads to the great ways of the mind. The male in the image represents what has been built up by the conscious mind, which then leads to the choice. The point of transformation needs to be reached by the magician.