EXPLORING THE JUSTICE CARD

TODAY'S CARD is JUSTICE (XI or VIII). This first version below is from the gorgeous Voyager Tarot by Jim Wanless and artist Kim Knutson and is probably one of my favorite versions of this card:

This second Justice card is from The Manga Tarot, a very different take; posting this card today has revivified my interest in this intriguing deck:

FOR COMPARISON, here's Justice in the Rider/Waite/Smith deck (RWS):

THE JUSTICE card for me tends to just lie there in a reading and not resonate a whole lot. Not always, but often enough for me to think "uh oh" when I turn it over. However, there's an intriguing flag phrase I use for it (not mine, I read it somewhere ages ago): "The earned is given." And it's a card with a lot of rich background to it. (E.g., the Egyptian Goddess Maat connection -- She was said to weigh one's heart at death against Her feather and only if it was lighter was one allowed to move on to the spiritual world.) I have found Justice good at pointing out legal issues, but mostly I relate to the "balance" aspect of this card. Inner balance, though as I've aged it's also warned me of new challenges to my literal balance (increasingly arthritic joints). However, what I'd most like to address is how to me inner balance is not a static thing. We don't attain it and then stay there. Balance is more like an ideal center that our lives weave toward and away from, eventually returning to it, then wandering from it again out of need or accident or foolishness. The point is to believe that it is there and then learn how to return to it. In my conception, at best we more or less gracefully live our ways along a mobius strip, visiting balance every so often. And therein may lie the reason for my somewhat uneasy relationship to this card: it can be so tentative or transitory in nature and yet so central. By the way, if my aging memory serves me well, Justice has been said to be the female counterpart to The Fool.

N.B. I tend to adhere to the Justice card being numbered XI, with Strength being VIII. There is a difference among decks and readers on this, with some numbering Justice VIII and Strength XI. Again if memory serves, it has to do with switching the order of Strength and Justice to fit within an astrological correspondence sequence, back when the RWS deck was being developed.

DIFFERENT OR LESS COMMON, EVEN QUIRKY MEANINGS FOR AND INSIGHTS ABOUT THE JUSTICE CARD (Please note: The below is not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of this card; a quick google will produce a wider variety of takes should you not be familiar with this card.):

Don't wait for things to be fair or just. They aren't, and aren't going to become so. Move on. Conversely, someone once suggested to me that for those seeking well-deserved justice this card can indicate that it will come. If not in the material world, certainly in the spiritual.

Why are you blaming yourself for this situation? You neither did anything to cause it, nor do you deserve it. But blaming others is no better. Do whatever may be needful and then move on.

Injustice and possible loss. It happens. Don't waste time fighting this reality. Get on with responding the best way possible.

These consequences of your choices are not judgments of you. They are results. Plain and simple. Deal with them as such.

Deep soul or life-changing choices that may seem contradictory. But in "weighing" them things will become clearer.

What is going on is a necessary rebalancing, even if hard. In a way it is a clearing of your path so that you can move on to a newer place/space.

Conditional love (as could be expressed by "the earned is given") can be more comfortable to some folk than unconditional love. They feel less taken over by it, and that the demands will be fewer and have limits to them. There's a nice distance or breathing space to it. If they can live with the insecurity of the love's conditionality. Weigh this with respect to your inquiry.

Balance may be rather a challenge. The demands of inner life and outer are both high, and not complementary right now. But try not to neglect either one. Ultimately, you will become more flexible and able to switch gears with more ease.

For those dealing with special diets and/or body weight issues: Stick to whatever you are doing. You're on to something essential that may simply require some time to make its effect felt. Or, conversely, move toward a new balance by starting to eat right and/or do more exercise.

Calculated risk, i.e. considered and thought out. As opposed to the more impulsive or innocent risk The Fool might take.

Persist in what you know is right to do, no matter how hard it may be to do so. "To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest is to act in accordance with your thinking." -- J.W. von Goethe

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'til next time, keep enjoying The Tarot, in whatever ways it comes to you in your life,





[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing, please email me for permission (under "View my complete profile")**** SEE ALSO: United Haiku and Tanka Society (UHTS) (charter member); Roswila's Dream & Poetry Realm for Tarot poetry; Roswila's Taiga Tarot for taiga (illustrated tanka); Trying to Hold A Box of Light for digital photos only.