Book Review – Tarot Priestess: Using the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve by Leeza Robertson
Book Review
Tarot Priestess:
Using the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve
By Leeza Robertson
Published by Llewellyn Publications
219 pages
Tarot Priestess is a 5 1/4 inch by 8 inch soft cover book with a matte finish full color front cover showing the book’s title and a closeup of an image from The High Priestess of the Major Arcana. My copy is an uncorrected proof (not for sale), with a back cover containing the publishing information and a brief bio of the author. I am assuming the final version would have a different book back. Tarot Priestess contains 219 pages with black print on sturdy off-white paper that is amenable to pencil notations (a useful thing in my opinion, as this book offers a unique learning
experience).
This is not a how-to-read-the-Tarot book with the traditional lists of correspondences and card meanings. Instead, Tarot Priestess offers a detailed description of a process that offers a way to deepen spiritual practices, heal devotional wounds, and open ourselves to be a vessel of the sacred feminine. Tarot Priestess provides the framework that connects our Tarot practice and the messages of the universal consciousness to a process that awakens perception of our individual roles in life in order to find out who we are and how we are meant to serve.
The framework offered by Leeza Robertson in the Tarot Priestess uses the cards of the Tarot to create a powerful process. In Part One containing the first three chapters, the cards of the major arcana are used to create three Gateways. The first Gateway introduces the reader to ritual and ceremony through The Magician through The Chariot (we, logically, are represented by the 0 card, The Fool). The second Gateway brings the reader into the outer world through Strength to Temperance, teaching pilgrimage, initiation, and rites of passage. The third Gateway brings the reader through the dark night of the soul by reclaiming the world shadow and dancing in the light via The Devil through The World. Each of these chapters speaks of the individual cards as well as offering devotional exercises, suggested altar setups, and spreads.
In Part Two we move on to the Tarot Court and the Four Steps to Initiation. Each of the 16 cards bring us from Neophyte/Page to Acolyte/Knight to Priestess/Queen to High Priestess/King, using similar card descriptions and devotional exercises, altar suggestions, and spreads as found in Part One. Part Three brings us to the four Temples represented by the four suits of the minor arcana, with each suit dedicated to a goddess who provides lessons, covering the workings of the mind, emotions, inner light, and connections to the material world and your body.
The book finishes with Conclusions by the author, a Recommended Reading lists, and instructions for writing to the author.
As stated above, this is not a book meant to introduce the Tarot and its intricacies to a novice who is looking to learn traditional information about the cards and to perform traditional readings for Seekers with questions to be answered. If you are a beginner who is looking for that kind of information, this should not be your first book. However, if you are interested in broadening your own skills with the Tarot and its symbolism and sometimes hidden messages, or if you feel a calling to deepen your connection to and understanding of the sacred feminine in all its forms, Tarot Priestess offers you an effective and fascinating process to achieve your goal.
Leeza Robertson is an international bestselling author with eight publications available across the globe in multiple languages. She has spoken to audiences, both live and virtual, across the world. Leeza is one half of Quantum Wealth Coaching, a luxury brand that helps seven-figure entrepreneurs reconnect to their passion, purpose, and mission by elevating them out of burnout and hustle, and into impact and legacy. When not working with her clients she is writing books and creating tarot decks, such as the Animal Totem Tarot, the Mermaid Tarot, and the Cirque Tarot and the upcoming Soul Cat Tarot. You can find out more on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and her website, www.leezarobertsonwrites.com.
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About the Author:
Raushanna is a lifetime resident of New Jersey. As well as a professional Tarot Reader and Teacher, she is a practicing Wiccan (Third Degree, Sacred Mists Coven), a Usui Reiki Master/Teacher, a certified Vedic Thai-Yoga Massage Bodyworker, a 500-hr RYT Yoga Teacher specializing in chair assisted Yoga for movement disorders, and a Middle Eastern dance performer, choreographer and teacher. Raushanna bought her first Tarot deck in 2005, and was instantly captivated by the images on the cards and the vast, deep and textured messages to be gleaned from their symbols. She loves reading about, writing about, and talking about the Tarot, and anything occult, mystical, or spiritual, as well as anything connected to the human subtle body. She has published a book, “The Emerald Tablet: My 24-Day Journal to Understanding,” and is currently working on a book about the Tarot, pathworking and the Tree of Life. Raushanna documents her experiences and her daily card throws in her blog, DancingSparkles.blogspot.com, which has been in existence since 2009. She and her husband, her son and step son, and her numerous friends and large extended family can often be found on the beaches, bike paths and hiking trails of the Cape May, NJ area.
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