Your business is entering a season of defining what it stands for, establishing its authority and becoming known for something beyond its products and services. Here are five ways that you might read this:
Your business is being called to become an authority. It’s time to become recognized for your expertise. This could mean developing a methodology, publishing your ideas, teaching, speaking, or establishing your business as a thought leader in your industry (and beyond).
Your business needs a philosophy not just a strategy. What beliefs underpin your business, your product and your services? What principles guide your business decisions and partnerships? What values does your business hold? What are you unwilling to compromise, even when compromise means profit? The Heirophant is inviting you to clearly articulate your convictions in business and leadership.
Your business may be transitioning from founder-led to corporate or institution building. It may be time to extend Founder Wisdom into Organizational Culture and Wisdom (going from 1:many). This could look like documenting processes. It could look like developing leadership frameworks, culture or traditions. It could look like shifting into a more sustainable well-oiled machine.
Your business has something to teach the world. The Heirophant archetypally represents the teacher, mentor, or keeper of wisdom. Maybe your business isn’t just about the products or services it sells. Maybe it’s here to change how people understand something (or maybe changing how people understand something will be the key to more sales). There is an opportunity to educate your market, to challenge assumptions, and/or to introduce a new way of thinking.
Your business is being asked to examine its relationship with convention. Who’s norms are you following? If you are following industry norms, are you doing it because they’re effective and aligned with your values? Or, are you following norms because that’s how things have always been done, or because other people do it and find success? Now is a time to examine the rules you’ve inherited, whatever rules you’ve been playing, and consciously decide what you’d like to do or follow. Quite honestly, it may be time to develop your own rules and playbook. Maybe you’re not playing the same game that everyone else is!
The Heirophant asks us to question everything, and it reminds us that the answers we seek can be found from within. It represents wisdom, tradition, authority, institution, and the impacts of our beliefs systems. It almost always comes as an invitation to examine what we believe, who taught us to believe it, and whether these beliefs still deserve our devotion.
Typically, The Heirophant indicates a season of reckoning with authority, truth and the systems of meaning that govern our lives. A central question that this card brings could be: what is sacred to you, and are you living in accordance with that?
Additionally, The Heirophant sits at the intersection of wisdom and power. And often it shows up when we need to reconnect with truth. Some questions that are always wonderful to ponder when we see this card, include:
Who gets to decide what’s true?
Who benefits, or profits, from this truth or belief?
When does tradition preserve something sacred, and when does it preserve an unjust power structure?
Therefore, The Heirophant in tarot asks us to develop the wisdom within ourselves to know when to trust ourselves, when to learn from others, and when to challenge the systems that taught us (and others) to begin with.
When we overlay this with business, we are entering a season or a chapter where what you believe (as a founder, or as a business entity) becomes just as important (if not more) as what you do, or how you serve.
Personally, I believe that any business should provide services that are extensions of their very belief systems. However, that’s not always how business works, or where business begins. Sometimes business begins simply by solving a problem. Sometimes business begins simply with a good idea.
The Hierophant, then, becomes an invitation to connect your work and your services with what you believe and then to do something with that.
Does this resonate? What are you thoughts on The Heirophant and where is it showing up in your business?
