Ch.2 Ignoring Your Intuition Can Be Dangerous

The Reversed Fool, the Devil, and the High Priestess: Tarot Reflections on the Bluebeard Archetype

Chapter 2 of Women Who Run With the Wolves, offers a stark warning through one of the oldest cautionary tales in the feminine psyche. The chapter opens with a tale of a failed magician named Bluebeard, who turns out to be a terrible choice for a husband! At first he is charming, charismatic, a little ‘odd’ because his beard is blue but the young woman overlooks these quirks and decides to amrry him anyways. As she soon discovers, he is not what he pretends to be.

For this chapter I pulled the following cards: the Reversed Fool, the Devil, and the High Priestess. Together, they illustrate the cycle of deception, awakening, and reclamation that Bluebeard’s tale demands we confront.

🃏 The Reversed Fool: The Naïve Woman

In many tarot systems, the Fool is a symbol of trust, innocence, and a fresh journey. Upright, the Fool steps into the unknown with open-hearted curiosity and divine protection. But reversed, the Fool becomes heedless—blind to danger, disconnected from instinct, and vulnerable to manipulation: Naïve.

This is the naïve woman at the beginning of Bluebeard’s tale. She has not yet learned to distinguish between charm and threat, between the glittering surface and the rot beneath.

The Reversed Fool

“When the predator is invited into the home under the guise of something else, we begin to see the true danger of the naïve psyche.”

Where in your own life have you ignored your instincts in favor of giving someone the benefit of the doubt?

When has politeness cost you clarity?

The Devil: The Predator Archetype

The Devil in tarot is the trap, the illusion, the seduction that fools the Fool.

The natural predator of the psyche is not necessarily a person, but a force. It’s the voice that says, “Don’t ask questions,” “Don’t make trouble,” or “You’re imagining things.” In the Bluebeard tale, the Devil shows up as the husband who forbids his wife from entering a certain room, a symbolic attempt to silence her inner knowing.

But the Devil doesn’t win through force. He wins through consent. The woman agrees to follow the rule. She agrees to silence her curiosity. That is how the trap is set. In many ways, when we encounter the Devil in our own lives, we invite them in. In our ignorance or naievity, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable prey. We arent honest with ourselves because we dont want to acknowledge these unpleasant truths.

The Devil archetype reminds us that the predator’s power lies not only in deception, but in our own willingness to pretend we don’t see the signs.

The Devil

“The predator’s main intention, whether internal or external, is to keep the woman from gaining any kind of consciousness.”

Where have you been told not to look too closely?

What parts of your inner world have you locked away to avoid disrupting the peace?

The High Priestess: The Inner Voice That Knows

If Bluebeard’s tale is a tragedy, it is also an initiation. The moment the woman opens the forbidden door, she begins the journey from innocence to awareness. She becomes the one who sees. This is the High Priestess—the keeper of intuition, mystery, and inner truth.

In tarot, the High Priestess sits between the pillars of darkness and light. Its the part of your gut feeling that tells you, “Something’s off.” Its that little, nagging voice you hear when you meet someone and can’t explain why, but you just don’t feel safe.

The High Priestess (in ourselves) cannot be awakened until the Reversed Fool experiences loss or revelation (usually triggered by pain, the need for growth and internal evolution). Intuition grows sharper when we honor it… and duller when we ignore it.

Bluebeard is not just a myth about danger. It is a mirror held up to the parts of us that want to stay asleep, that want the world to be as kind as we imagine it. But the world is not always kind.

And predators—whether people, addictions, ideologies, or self-betraying habits—do exist.

The High Priestess

Have you been listening to your inner knowing, or silencing it in order to be liked?

What would it look like to live in deep loyalty to your own perception?

Ch.1 Wild Woman

Resurrecting the Wild Woman: A Tarot Reflection on Chapter 1 of Women Who Run With the Wolves

In the opening chapter of Women Who Run With the Wolves, titled The Howl: Resurrection of the Wild Woman, Clarissa Pinkola Estés invites us to remember what we have forgotten. She calls us to listen for the soul’s howl, that ancient, emotional cry that rises from the deepest parts of us. This is not a gentle awakening. It is the kind of resurrection that requires us to crawl into the underworld, gather the bones of who we used to be, and sing ourselves back to life.

I pulled three cards from the Mary El Tarot. Their messages aligned perfectly with Estés’ (the author) mythic and emotional terrain.

The Moon was the first card, and it captured the entire essence of the chapter. In the Mary El, it depicts a blue vulture and a gaping-mouthed woman. It is raw, guttural, and wild. The Moon represents the mystery of the unconscious, the parts of ourselves that we hide, deny, or lose over time. Estés writes that every woman has a Wild Woman within her, but she has been exiled, buried beneath layers of social conditioning and silence. The Moon guides us into this buried terrain. It is not about light. It is about instinct. Grief. Emotion. And remembering. Like the vulture who feeds on what is dead to bring new life, the Moon signals that the path forward requires us to face what has been lost and forgotten.

Supporting this theme was The World. In the Mary El, this card asks us how our story ends. It speaks of afterlife, integration, and movement with the flow of the universe. La Loba, the mythic figure introduced in Chapter 1, does not simply collect bones for the sake of it. She gathers them to bring something whole and holy back to life. This is the message of The World. That the end of this journey is not chaos, but completion. If we can survive the descent, if we can howl through our pain, we return to ourselves in full. The World reminds us that healing is possible. Wholeness is real. It is not something we create. It is something we recover.

The final card was the Two of disks, a woman with two coins over her eyes. In Greek mythology, coins were placed on the eyes of the dead as payment for crossing the river into the underworld. This card carries that energy. It is the moment before the journey begins. A choice / A threshold /A price.

Transformation always asks something of us. The Two also symbolizes duality, the tension between the life we live and the life we long for. It speaks of the many roles women are forced to juggle, the perspectives we must hold, and the cost of not seeing ourselves clearly. To resurrect the Wild Woman, we must be willing to see with new eyes. We must be willing to pay the price of truth.

Together, these three cards tell the same story that the author does. First, we hear the howl and feel the stirrings of the forgotten self (The Moon). Then we remember that resurrection is possible if we commit to the journey (The World). Finally, we accept the cost of transformation and prepare to cross the threshold (Two of disks).

This chapter is not just a beginning. It is a summons. A reckoning. A return.

And if you listen closely, you might hear your own bones calling you back.

Checklist

Mary-El Workshop Checklist

Week 1: Introduction & First Impressions

Introduce your deck

☐ Anoint the deck with a fragrance of your choosing

☐ Intuitively introduce yourself to the deck

Art & Music Immersion

☐ Listen to the curated playlist

☐ Admire the artwork card-by-card

☐ Sort the cards into piles (like/dislike, understand/don’t understand)

☐ Journal your first impressions and emotional reactions

Start the Book

☐ Begin reading Women Who Run With the Wolves

☐ Pull 3 cards while reading and write down your reflections

Film #1 Viewing

☐ Do the Character Spread before watching the film

☐ Watch Film #1 (Pan’s Labyrinth)

☐ Reflect afterward: what did you get right? what surprised you?

Week 2: Deepening Connection

Book + Tarot Integration

☐ Continue reading the book

☐ Pull cards and take notes on themes, connections, and imagery

Film #2 Viewing

☐ Do the Character Spread before watching

☐ Watch Film #2 (November)

☐ Reflect on the accuracy and symbolism of your reading

Midpoint Spread

☐ Do the “What Does This Deck Have to Teach Me?” spread

☐ Journal your interpretation and how the deck is evolving in meaning

Week 3: Integration & Closing

Complete the Book

☐ Pull any final reflection cards and take closing notes

Film #3 Viewing

☐ Do the Character Spread before watching

☐ Watch Film #3 (The Shape of Water)

☐ Reflect and journal: how does the film echo the deck’s messages?

Closing Ritual

☐ Do the Conclusion Spread

☐ Write your closing thoughts: What did this journey awaken?

☐ Optional: Create a final art piece, altar, or ritual for integration