Courting the maiden

[Minyatur]

And with wisdom comes transformation of the mind, letting go of distortions for higher ways instead as one becomes more and more aware to provide higher service.

I believe this is our fundamental disagreement. I believe, at its core, that the Transformation of the Mind is about love and specifically not wisdom. The male in the card has his eyes closed, he sees nothing.

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.

To me the closed eyes can mean to look through the unconscious, which was part of my example, and which does not negate unconscious wisdom. I don't think I rationalize with my mind as much as I may have made it seem, what I do is to put my inner feelings into words if it is required because my feelings already are the harvest of inner wisdom. I trust my feelings and intuition quite a lot and seek to hone them. Also, love and wisdom should not be separated in my view, because within this original thought of love we gain wisdom of love. I don't think I denied love having meaning either, I simply mean that love is extremely different for each of us and the mirror of this experience shows more about our pasts and prior experiences of love within this original thought. If I spent what seems like an eternity not desiring compassion, nor accommodation nor to simply receive loving feelings from others, then it'd be weird that the harvest of those experiences would be to seek to give what was always unlike myself, and it would seem those I can provide the best service of myself to, are not the kind of that would require this type of service and may require a service one who would be able to provide the other, would not be able to provide them.

I think it's possible you may be conflating the Transformation of the Mind with the Transformation of the Body? - in the Death card, we are consciously harvesting what we want to take with us to the next moment/day/birth. Wisdom and discernment are fairly paramount. But there is (hopefully!) little wisdom in courting a maiden, which is likely one reason why the analogy was chosen - we act stupid when we're in love. We're Fools. And within the archetype I believe comes the need to allow oneself to look/feel stupid. The dark imp serves the right hand path in the Significator.

I don't think I have mixed those although I can see how they could be seen as linked.

I feel like the Q'uo sessions I shared described what I've been saying, one thing especially being about the point of catalyst is never to suffer through it, the point of catalyst is to rise above it in love and harmony. So yes, I do see where there could be some scenario where I'm not actually supposed to feed a hungry person, but the chances are that if I do feed them anyway, they'll still find the catalyst they need eventually. And I don't think it would be depolarizing, because I don't think a properly courted High Priestess would "depolarize" me for not listening to her to be selfish. That seems pretty twisted from my understandings of the Confederation teachings, which is that love is always more important than wisdom. Wisdom refines love. Only in 3rd density would we ever consider to put the cart before the horse.

The High Priestess is not punishing you, it is but your unconscious awareness/wisdom. By not listening to your High Priestess, I'd say you would simply betray yourself in some way. Your High Priestess will most likely talk to you through feelings, which can then be put into words if you so desire. So you would feel a resistance or have a feeling of doing what is wrong, which would be what is depolarizing in the scenario.

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.

The funny thing about the Ra material is that we can all take the same quote and use it to justify different points of view. Yes, the "haunt rather than explicate" quote is the one I had to use to defend myself for pages while you took umbrage with the maiden/prostitute analogy. You may have been talking about the Transformation in context the whole time, but the problem is, when you disagree with the core image of the archetype, how can we relate anything to any of the other imagery? How do we talk about it in context? How do we talk about what the closed eyes mean, or the arms crossed holding hands, or any of it? I asked what you let go of, and you say "these things fall away" but what things? And what about using the transformation consciously?

I transformed the maiden/prostitute analogy into a polarized relationship with your unconscious mind, which keeps the core element that one makes choice upon the principle governing the resources of the deep mind. I don't dismiss the tarot image either, the symbolism is all there for a reason. The courtship focus is there to represent the positive relationship with one's deep mind, but I don't think that is confined to that particular image of a focus of positive relations. I resonate with the idea of conscious partnership much more than courtship and I don't deny that courtship could work for the vast majority if that is what they resonate with.

I've never been one in my life to consider others as things to plunder, but I'd consider this a more accurate representation of the negative relation aspect. To me it boils down to doing things through harmony or disharmony and what falls away are old distortions as new choices are made through heightened awareness. Instead of courtship, I said that you can find the positive relation through respect and appreciation or teaching. So I do not think I deny the tarot image. I think the courtship analogy is another image put upon the first one as to hint toward something. It's not like I have denied the idea that there is a polarized duality in one's relationship with the deep mind or others, which is what I've been saying the core idea is.

About using it consciously, well that is what I talk about when I speak of heightened awareness. So let's take how Ra first describes the archetype :

the student of the mysteries being transformed by the need to choose betwixt the light and the dark in mind.

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.

All of this happening through heightened awareness of it all (transformation of the mind)

Rereading your post, I'm not sure how "heightened awareness of it all" is a good quip for transformation of the mind. Ra says, "In this image of Transformation of Mind, then, each of the females points the way it would go, but is not able to move, nor are the two female entities striving to do so. They are at rest. The conscious entity holds both and will turn itself one way or the other or, potentially, backwards and forwards, rocking first one way then the other and not achieving the transformation. In order for the Transformation of Mind to occur, one principle governing the use of the deep mind must be abandoned." I mean, Ra says in the Transformation that something must be abandoned. It seems incongruent to the idea that in the Transformation, one must learn to contain more within the mind.

You can't come in touch with your High Priestess without heightened awareness for one, and like I said above, heightened awareness allows you the opportunity to makes choices for the transformation.

It also seems like you could be talking about the Catalyst/Experience (of the mind)? The Catalyst of the Mind has a box with eyes upon it, looking around at and aware of all of the catalyst and all of Creation, and then Experience decides where to distill it. The transformation is a whole nother thing. I mean, "through heightened awareness of it all" could be referring to the Great Way and its lifted veil, but I don't think that it describes the core meaning of the Transformation as a card within itself. You could be talking about getting to know the High Priestess, but still, you have to choose which High Priestess, you can't have both/all of them for the transformation to occur. That's been my point this whole time. You can't have your cake and eat it too. There's a quip for the Transformation of the Mind.

The transformation is linked to all of the previous cards and refines the last one in my view. When you have stumbled upon this archetype, it created catalyst for yourself and heightened your awareness of yourself. This lead you to make conscious choices in regards to what you want toward yourself and others, and this lead to transformation of the configuration of your mind.

I get the letting go of process. To me there is not truly 2 women, but one. So it's a matter of how you will treat that woman and the direction toward which it will lead you, because the woman is not there to decide but to offer you both possibilities. The conscious mind decides as it was placed under a veil for this purpose, to find within confusion what it truly desires.