January 31, 2010 - Judgment

Today I drew Judgment. Again. I wanted to ask "How many times are you going to tell me this? I get it." Of course, if I really got it, the card wouldn't keep coming up. Like one of the ladies of a Jane Austen novel, the iron hand may be softened a bit by the velvet glove, but you still feel the weight of that iron hand.

What is depicted on the Judgment card is the Final Judgment, when living and dead are called and the faithful rise to heaven and the rest well, let's just say if you had your druthers, you'd choose to rise. When it comes up in a reading it suggests you might need to make a judgement (separate the wheat from the chaff, make an honest appraisal, take a stand, get off the fence, make the hard choices); hear a call; finding absolution. You may feel reborn and transformed, see everything in a new light, find joy. If I could set my intent to one thing, it would be this.

In the dictionary, synonyms for judgment are 1. determination. 2. discrimination, discernment, perspicacity; sagacity, wisdom, intelligence, prudence. As I searched the definitions I came to a site that reflected on The Meaning of Judgment one of the courses of A Little Course of Miracles. Here judgment is seen in a more religious context. The first judgment is ego judgment. The fourth is God's judgment on Judgment Day. The third is the one that spoke to me most as I read, was the third type of judgment, the Holy Spirit's perception of everything as an expression of love or a call to love. I have been judgmental. I have labeled the loss of someone as unfair, as wrong. How could he let me go? The last few years have been marked by the stages of grief until I finally accepted (an acceptance frankly made easier by heart attacks and bypass surgery. It will tend to put things in perspective) and the healing at last could begin.

We are "still friends." I found this torture. It still hurts at times. But as I read this what came to me is that I reacted with ego. I did not see it as a call to love. And I will say I was not loving. I possessed determination, but not sagacity, wisdom, intelligence, prudence. If I had, perhaps things would have ended much differently. It seems love is all you need. All of this is love, either the expression or the call. I can stay in an ego place and demand my fair share, give this much for the same in return, or I can just love. I think in the end it costs me less than the strict measure, the balanced ledgers, the tit for tat.

In the Jane Austen Tarot the Judgement card depicts the end of Emma - the happy couple, George and Emma; wife to be, Harriet Smith, loved and in love at last; Mrs. Weston, pregnant, married, living her own happy life; and Emma's father, who decides it is best to change his thoughts on marriage for his youngest, Emma, choosing her happiness and finding his own. Love does that, makes allowances, bends, chooses love. I was so obsessed with fair that I forgot to love and so I lost and was called to love again. Haven't been able to but maybe I'm getting there at last.