The Hierophant
My Facebook series turned to tradition, teachers, and inherited ways here.
Card five. A religious elder in a triple crown and heavy red robes sits between two stone pillars, one hand raised in blessing. Two crossed keys sit at his feet, and two younger figures kneel in front of him, listening. This is the teacher in the old sense, the one who's done it before and is passing it down.
Upright, the Hierophant is the tried-and-true path. Learning from somebody who's already made the mistakes. Doing a thing the way it's been done for generations because the way exists for a reason. He shows up for weddings and funerals and recipes written on index cards, and there's real comfort in not having to invent everything yourself.
Reversed, the tradition stops fitting. It's the rule you keep following out of habit long after it quit making sense, and the card asks a fair question about it: who was this rule made for, and is that still you?
Mine is my grandmother's way of doing Thanksgiving gravy, which I followed to the letter for years because that's just how it was done. Some of it I still do exactly her way. Some of it I quietly changed, and the gravy survived.
What's one piece of advice from someone older that you rolled your eyes at, and it turned out to be right?
A Single Card Pull suits a question caught between tradition and your own way; I’ll deliver the written reading the same day.