January 13. 2010 - Judgement

The Judgment card has come up several times since I've begun my daily readings. In fact, I've gotten many major arcana cards, indicating this is a pivotal time in my life. I think I already knew that. In the Rider Waite tarot, the Judgement card is near the end of the majors, the card before the culmination, The World. It usually depicts an angel blowing a trumpet on Judgement Day and the dead rising. The faithful are taken to heaven, but what of the others? For this reason, the Judgment card is a bit unsettling. Blessings we want, but the other? And where is forgiveness in all of this, and redemption?

When the Judgement card comes up in a reading it suggests it is a time for judgement, using ours or facing being judged. You can feel absolved, reborn. Personally, I'm pulling for this but I know enough of the tarot to know it speaks in levels. The Judgement card can also signal that you've heard the call, maybe of your vocation, maybe answering a need, maybe knowing what must be done. It's also about absolution. I don't know if I felt I needed absolution but who doesn't want to feel cleansed and reborn.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Judgment card depicts the characters of Jane Austen's novel, Emma. Each of them is yearning to ascend to another level. Some desire a specific love, like Emma and Mr. Knightley. Some aspire to be a better mother, to have a better life. Sometimes you don't even know what you want next. There is only the longing and the pull to something more. Whatever it is, the appearance of the Judgement card heralds a new and major life phase. If you feel confined by your current life, know you can be free but you have to do it. For someone who waits for life to sweep her along, this is perhaps the most difficult thing of all, to act without knowing where I'm going, just the call for next and more.