April 13, 2010 - Judgment

This card has come up a lot this last year since my bypass.  And it has been a time of reckoning, of separating the wheat from the chaff, of taking a stand and making the hard choices of life.  I've had to look at my outer life and my inner life.  I'm not sure my heart troubles can all be laid at extreme grief's door, but it certainly played a part.  And while one of the primary goals of life is to come to death when it comes to you, with Grace, I'm not sure we need to rush our end.


Ends are a part of life.  I know this but I keep telling myself over and over in the hopes that I will come to accept this given with equanimity, with the "yes" it deserves,  with curiosity of what will come and when.  Judgment is about ends and new beginnings, about the inexorable and beautiful cycle of life.  It's about hearing the call, your call, and the deep knowing that comes with that.  


In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Judgment card is a lovely, hopeful scene.  Instead of an angel calling souls to the final judgment, it depicts the primary characters of Emma, each of whom has come to the place of accepting life's changes with joy, celebrating the possibilities.  Emma and Mr. Knightley are married.  Mrs. Weston, Emma's governess is married to a good man and expecting a child of her own.  Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father, so fearful of life changing, having been so devastated by the changes the death of his wife brought, has accepted Emma's marriage and come to celebrate it.  


It doesn't matter what deck you draw from, the Judgment card is about a major change and ushering in a new phase of your life.  It asks you to evaluate your life, not a cursory glance but a deep and thorough reflection.  Make the changes you need to.  You never know, a lesson driven home to me a little over a year ago.  Jonathan Swift wrote, "May you live all the days of your life."  May it always be so.