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Ep. 23: Judgment
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EPISODE 23: Judgment

RUN TIME: 47’ 51’’

DATE: 6/16/2023

[00:00:00 Soft piano chords accompanied by light percussion, interspersed with a gentle harp and electric guitar plucking in the background. Music plays and overlaps with Sarah’s introduction.]

[00:00:03] Sarah Cargill: Welcome to Tarot for the End of Times. A podcast where we utilize the tarot as a tool to navigate through epochs of deep change.

My name is Sarah Cargill. I’m an artist, cultural worker, and your host throughout the duration of this series.

In each episode, I’ll take a look at the archetypal figures presented in the Major Arcana from the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck to discuss what each card has to say about navigating through cycles of change, chaos, and instability.  

Throughout each episode, I’ll offer reflection questions and suggestions for exercises that might support you in inviting the energy and wisdom of these archetypes into your daily life and practice.  

If you’d like to support this podcast and the person who makes it, you can make a monthly donation through my page on anchor.fm. Your generous act of community care and reciprocity helps me to access the resources I need to make projects like this possible and sustainable. You can also support this work by sharing this podcast with your friends and loved ones and, most importantly, by tuning in. Thanks for joining me.

[00:01:28 Music fades, introduction ends]

Hi there and welcome back. Before we get started, we gotta do some housekeeping. I think it’s about that time.

First, I wanna thank the folks who casted a vote in the poll section of the The Sun episode to help me decide whether or not we should have a special Q+A episode to celebrate the end of the Major Arcana series. I left that poll open for, like, I dunno, 40 days or something? And 98% of voters said “hell yes!” so it looks like we’re gonna green light this one and I’m so excited!

I wanna give you a head start by letting you know how I’m going to be taking questions. If you’d like to submit a question for me to consider answering on this special Q+A episode, I’m gonna ask you to do 2 things: First, find me on Instagram and follow me @snakeskin.tarot. Then, go ahead and slide into my DMs and tell me what your question is. I’m trying to keep communication channels tidy and organized, because otherwise I get super overwhelmed, so if you submit a question on, say, Spotify’s forum or if you email me a question, please know that I’m not gonna consider it. That’s my boundary. I’m only gonna consider questions that are relayed via DM on Instagram by my Instagram followers. And y ou are welcome to ask me any question that is related to tarot, divination, and other woo-woo stuff that you might be wondering about. This goes without say, but you know, keep it cute!

[00:03:10 ]

Next…  Because this episode is going to be released just before Juneteenth, in speaking directly to the themes of the holiday and the themes that this card covers, I wanna take a moment to address my White listeners, ‘cause we gotta talk, y’all. We gotta talk. And, you know, I don’t really address White people *specifically* all the time, um… In large part because that just takes a lot from me to do, and I think that White people get centered way too often in… in you know, these types of conversations, so… I wanna be clear in saying that this isn’t about centering White people, but I am gonna address y’all, because this… it needs to be addressed. Because I - because I’m noticing a pattern.

I recognize that, regardless of my personal intentions, this work reaches a mixed crowd. In sharing my medicine in mixed company, it’s my duty as the space-holder to let you know that in order for this exchange to work between us, we need to maintain a relationship that’s rooted in reciprocity.

Spirituality is, as the Judgment card suggests, fundamentally about the intention to be in right relationship with your immediate and extended community on both the material and ethereal plane. To be clear, this public offering isn’t just about self-improvement, it’s about community care, and community care requires a certain level of solidarity in action that goes in both directions. And, unfortunately, when it comes to the way that… I have experienced personally and have also witnessed externally how White folks tend to interact with folks like me online and in other public spaces, there is… there’s an imbalance. And this imbalance is starting to creep up in this space, and so we need to check this together, okay?

Even as I transition this podcast from being a one-off creative project - which is, you know, what I thought it was gonna be -  to my actual work-work, I have kept these episodes publicly available for free over the last 3 years primarily so that economically oppressed Black, Brown, Indigenous and PoC communities can access this body of work for their spiritual care - for OUR spiritual care - while navigating a White Supremacist world. On a broader level, that’s what my magick seeks to accomplish. But on a more personal level, I’ve been lucky enough to have had access to many modalities of care throughout many stages of my healing largely due to the efforts that individuals have made towards creating a solidarity economy within my local community. This podcast is my way of contributing to this ecosystem that I’ve directly benefited from. This ecosystem that y’all directly benefit from because I’m sharing so much of what I’ve gathered with you all, directly with you all, through this podcast.  

But solidarity economies can’t exist without actual solidarity, right? And so, if you are a White person who has benefitted from this public resource, I really need y’all to understand  that I am choosing to share my overflow with y’all. I implore you to reflect then, on what that means, especially if you HAVE the means…like… what are the implications… you know, within the circumstances under which we live, right, what are the implications of continuously benefiting from my free labor, essentially  - and the free labor of Black diviners, spiritual messengers, creatives, etc.  - without concretely supporting the actual human behind the labor?

[00:7:45]

Of course, verbal affirmation and, you know, saying that you love the podcast… you know, great, wonderful, you know, love to hear it! I wanna know what y’all think! And! And… that can’t be the end all be all.

I’ve been waiting for the right moment to share this, and, you know, honestly, now feels like a good time. But just know, I’ve been sittin’ on this for a while. As an independent artist, I have my catalog of moments where I’ve been short-changed for my work. Right? Like… it’s something that just comes with the territory. So it’s disappointing and frustrating to then field additional requests for free creative labor in this space.

Despite offering a free resource, I have been asked multiple times by White people to contribute to their projects without any mention of compensation, and when I DO get far enough in the conversation to ask about this, 98% of the time I get ghosted. That’s a waste of my time, that’s a waste of your time, like… what goes on here?! Right?! Now, there are exceptions to this, of course, of course… but even as I say this, I invite you, still, to think about the implications of that - of what it means to assume absolution as the exception in a world where White Supremacy is still a deadly, hegemonic force that you directly benefit from, whether or not you like it, that’s the nature of privilege, right?! So, you gotta ask yourself,  what is your attachment to that self-perception of being “the exception”. Again, in the spirit of today’s archetype, I hope y’all are asking yourselves that, because that, too, is White Supremacy at work.

It takes a lot… it take a lot  for me to maintain this podcast as a free resource for the people it was intended to be free for. This podcast was intended to be free for US while we navigate White Supremacy and everything else that comes with it, so that we can actually, literally survive, not just become a “better” person. We need this shit in a whole different kinda way?

You also must understand, I’ve had White people literally invoke the machinations of the state on me - from the police, to the court system, the goddamn fire department - because I practice what I practice. Do you understand this?! Even as a coastal gay who lives in the relatively insular bubble of the Bay Area, I’ve been subjected to months of harassment - literal witch hunts -  initiated and led by a particularly well-resourced, well-connected Karen with a vendetta, all because I openly practice and am comfortable - I’m comfortable sitting in the seat of my power. Thanks to my magic and the protection of my Spirit Team, I have survived these threats, these direct threats  to my physical and emotional safety, threats to stable housing and income, threats to my renter’s rights, threats to the sanctity of my very name, all of the misdirected vitriol… I didn’t just survive I, made somethin’ of it because, again, this is my contribution to community care, and I wanna make sure that my community has all the tools that we’re gonna need to make it to the other side of this. Without sharing the traumatic details of these concerted attacks, because, you know, I shouldn’t have to do that for my humanity to be legible, I just wanna ask, like,  do you see how the stakes are different for me, for people like me who do this work -  that is not a game? That this doesn’t begin and end at self-help. I need y’all to understand what the stakes actually are for me, and for practitioners like me, and the tension that I hold on this end of our exchange. I can’t ignore the fact that I feel just.. I real funny about this, you know? So I wanted to talk to y’all about it…because I need to actively think about how to be in right relationship with y’all, too. This is an active, ongoing conversation, and I’m asking y’all to show up to this conversation and to put these conversations to action in some kind of concrete way.

[00:13:11]

Every element of this podcast - other than, you know, the royalty-free music you hear at the beginning - all that, all of this, comes from me. I divine, I write, I edit all my transcripts and scripts, create cover art, produce the episodes from start to finish, and pay for the platforms and equipment that allow me to do these things. And so, as I say this, I hope y’all hear me when I say: reciprocity and reparations, for that matter, is spiritual work. There’s a deeply spiritual element to this kind of economic accountability. So, this Juneteenth, I invite you to consider what it’s going to take on y’all’s end to support the efforts and sacrifices made by Black folks to make this kind of work publicly available, despite the risks that are involved in doing so. And, you know, not just how are you gonna support our efforts - how are you gonna support our rest?  What are you doing to help decolonize and decenter Whiteness and White Entitlement in spiritual spaces, including digital spaces, and how are you putting those considerations into practice? This is me extending an invitation for y’all to get in right relationship with me, and, listen… this doesn’t happen often. And you know, if it begins with me, y’all, I hope it doesn’t end with me. I invite you to extend your support to other Black spiritual teachers, writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs whose work you’ve benefited from, whose free work you’ve benefited from,  because putting it out there is a risk that is much bigger than simply being perceived online… although… that’s a growth edge for me to… but you hear what I’m saying?

And so, as I say this, I do wanna extend my sincerest gratitude to the handful of folks who have engaged in concrete acts of reciprocity throughout the course of this experiment in community care. So please know, I see you, I send you metta often, and I deeply appreciate the efforts made to be in right relationship with me and my work. For those who are yet to put this to practice, imma leave my Venmo handle in the show notes, so… do what you will with that information. For the Black people and people of color who have been listening to this, I hope that it just gives you the courage to be in community with folks who are as ready to give to you as they are to them.

For the sake of maintaining an open discourse, I’m going to go ahead and leave the comments open on this episode, but fair warning: don’t start with me. DON’T…zon’t… zon’t, zon’t zo it. ZON’T ZO IT! The way my ancestors take care of ME… trust me, you don’t want it, alright? [laughs] Keep it respectful, keep it dignified, keep it accountable, and keep it on subject, please. And with that, thank you for listening. I’m ready. I’m ready to get on with the show.

[Gentle transition music plays. Light harp and piano chords accompanied by sparse bass beats.]

[00:17:15]

Ok, so… this episode [mischievously giggles in Gemini Rising]  This episode one goes out to everyone who has ever snidely asked what I was going to do with a degree in music. My answer was and still is: whatever I want.

Today, we’re going to structure this conversation around the work of one of my favorite composers who just so happens!... who just so happens to be Beyonce Giselle Knowles Carter’s 8th cousin, 4 times removed. Y’all, we are gonna talk about the Jewish and Austro-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler… I fuckin’ fell out, y’all, when I found out about this! This is so wildly bizarre but, also, so is the Universe. The little red thread runs long… and you’ll understand what I’m talking about in a bit. But first, let’s talk about Mahler.

Despite (or, depending on your perspective, because of) Mahler’s brush with death in February of 1901, he had, by the summer’s end, produced the sketches for 3 out of 5 movements of his 5th Symphony. After numerous revisions, Symphony No. 5 later premiered during the autumn of 1904, thus solidifying a grand stylistic departure from his previous works. This was a notable time that demarcated a serious juncture where his artistic and personal life intersected. He was, in a word, at a crossroads.

The symphony opens with a trumpet solo that, for me, never fails to invoke the spirit of today’s archetype. The opening line sets the tone with a musical quote, a repeated triplet pattern reminiscent of the Generalmarsch of the Austro-Hungarian Army, a call to action signaling the command to get in formation… [laughs at her own pun] sorry, you see what I did there? To get in formation [struggles to stop laughing at her own pun] and prepare for departure.

Having grown up near military barracks, this was, for Mahler, a familiar trumpet call that accompanied his earliest memories. A metallic burst from the percussion section then flings open the gates, catapulting us face-first onto the conveyor belt of a sweeping tutti entrance courtesy of the brass section and strings who then drive us up to the peak of our first melodic climax. We teeter on the edge of this high terrace, only to be pushed over by the french horns who drive us down a rapid melodic descent where we crash land straight into the Trauermarsch, a sobering funeral procession. All this within the first 45 seconds of a 70-minute piece.

Opening with a funeral march is a bold choice. Indeed, it’s one that captures the essence of a Plutonian archetype like Judgment. Much like the opening of Mahler’s 5th, Judgment takes us straight into the catacombs, one of the few places where we can’t outrun ourselves. As the cross on Archangel Gabriel’s flag suggests on this card, we meet this archetype at the center of a crossroads where beginnings and endings intersect. Here, we experience a kind of growing up as we are asked to consider the wild notion that, perhaps, when it comes to choice and the choices that we make, the dichotomy between right and wrong isn’t always so cut and dry - certainly not as often as we think it is. That, whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the cumulative consequences of your choices, that, ultimately, they have all led you back to this place - to the center of who you are - and THAT’S what you are being called to face.  

[00:21:31]

So, what makes the first movement of Mahler’s 5th so… disquieting? Is it the funeral march? The military reference? For me, it’s something a little more insidious. The opening trumpet solo is not only evocative of the Austro-Hungarian military, but also of a troubling heart condition. You see, given what we know about his childhood, Mahler likely struggled with untreated PTSD and this was probably exacerbated by a heart condition that he inherited  from his mother which, ultimately, led to his death at the age of 51. Just as the distant sounds of traveling military bands lingered in his memory and informed his musical language, music historians and musicologists often note that his own heart murmurs were embedded into  his works, too.

But back to the question at hand: why is this opening movement so disquieting? Sure, we can account for Mahler’s personal history and musical influences, but I first wanna speak specifically to his writing. After the opening theme is initially introduced to us, we hear it ping-pong across the orchestra from one section to another throughout the entire movement. Despite the unrelenting torrent of sound, it somehow finds a way to emerge through the thicket of organized musical chaos, over and again. Chopped up, remixed, but still decidedly recognizable, no matter where you go, it keeps showing up. The movement ends like how it starts. The trumpet solo climbs up to the stratosphere, handing off the final four notes to the principal flute to complete the phrase, then a single snap from the lower strings drives the final nail into the coffin. This is foreboding music.

So this uneasy, disquieting feeling - it’s akin to a recurring dream, as though you’re being chased by a ghost. Now, for those of you who are really paying attention, this insistent rhythmic triplet pattern is meant to invoke the Ghost of Composer’s Past. It’s a nod to his predecessor, Ludwig Van Beethoven. Mahler was more than likely haunted by the ghost of Beethoven and his untouchable symphonies, joining his contemporaries who also struggled with this impossible exorcism. Johannes Brahms, for example, didn’t complete his first symphony until the age of 43, and that took 14 years to complete, largely due to the pressure of Beethoven’s looming post-mortem presence. Brahms is quoted to have once said, “I shall never write a symphony… You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” All this to say, the Judgment card feels a lot like a haunting, too, as if being chased by the memory of a private promises you made a long time ago. You can detect the approaching footsteps of this archetype - the tramp of a giant behind you. It’s that recurring dream where the thing you keep running away from, won’t stop running towards you.

[00:25:20]

The Judgment Card is just that, a chase that ends in a confrontation at the center of the crossroads. Here, you straddle the four corners of self-evaluation, awakening, accountability, and renewal, tools to help you make lucid, sober, and informed decisions about the next road to take. Archangel Gabriel, as one of many Divine Messengers who reside at this busy intersection, bears witness to this period of introspection, making his presence known with his inescapable tune. This is the tramp of the giant.

What’s striking is how Mahler tweaks and reworks musical themes to avoid exact repetition, yet, when the theme returns, it’s decidedly recognizable. Judgment, as an archetype, shows up in our lives in a similar way, pointing to the themes that you’ve adjusted and reworked throughout different stages of your life so that you can see what these patterns reveal about your essential truths. When working with this card, you’ll likely revisit recurring themes and dilemmas and choice points that are, much like the opening trumpet theme, chopped up, remixed, and repackaged but still decidedly recognizable, you still know what that is . That moment of recognition is like a tug on that throughline that sews together your life’s experiences. When this happens, it may feel as though you’re moving backwards and that, perhaps, you made the wrong decision or took a wrong turn somewhere. But when it comes to the million dollar question that this archetype often triggers within us, “did I make the right choice?,” Judgment retorts with another: “what do your choices reveal about you?”

As a Plutonian card, when confronting this archetype, it should come as no surprise that old shit is going to catch up with you. It’s Pluto, it’s Judgment, old shit is gonna get brought up in current arguments. So,  Judgment is concerned with the long arc of your story and wants you to review the CUMULATIVE data that each chapter in your life builds upon, especially patterns and themes. In doing so, Judgment reminds us that, if all roads taken eventually lead back to your center in some way, shape or form, being “objectively right” (whatever THAT means, right?) that matters less and less. What matters is the data you gather about what motivates you, what gives you a sense of purpose, and how you do or do not calibrate your decisions to your internal compass.

I’m going to take a moment to just double down on this because I’ve found that this is where people often get stuck with Judgment. Depending on the position of this card and the context of the rest of your spread, the Judgment card can be read through a more literal lens. Sometimes, this card is actually just about the judgments we’ve imposed on ourselves or on others. It can also speak to the external judgments that we’ve internalized over time and, ultimately, rely on to make personal decisions. This archetype is trying to teach us how to review, not ruminate and, ironically, the thing that often differentiates review from rumination is judgment. And so, when it comes to this card, your job is to review which choice points took you down a more direct path to your center, which took you down a more roundabout path and to use that data to inform your next decision. If you find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place, this archetype asks: how are your judgments about yourself or others getting in the way of your progress?

[00:29:42]

 

Now, let’s pivot. In my last episode, I briefly spoke to the symbolic function of flags in the Major Arcana. The coloration of the flag we see in the Judgment card is worth noting. We’re dealing with a white flag with a red cross in the center. As a hoodoo practitioner, I can’t unsee the red cross as a crossroads which, as I mentioned earlier, is that potent liminal space where beginnings and endings intersect. Now the color red harkens us back to the crimson flag depicted on the previous card, the Sun card, while the white background offers a nod to the white rose depicted on the Death card. I think y’all know where I’m going with this, so let’s talk about the connection between Judgment, the Sun, and the Death card.

As you may recall from the last episode, the Sun is governed by the astrological sign of Leo. Now, astrological signs are also associated with specific body parts and the sign of Leo is associated with the heart. With today’s archetype, it’s as though the Spirit of Judgment pulled a few threads from that baby’s oversized crimson flag and wove it into its own to remind us of the importance of including joy in our decision-making processes. Here, we’re also reminded of the importance of consulting your inner child. This partnership with the Sun reminds us that joy - or, more specifically, the truth of the heart, which often finds expression through joy - is a viable compass to work with when making important decisions. The heart knows things that the mind can’t wrap itself around and, believe it or not, that’s okay. Sometimes, the tension from that heart/mind dissonance builds the pressure that we need to move out of inertia. I think I’ve talked about tensions that make living possible in a previous episode - I’ve definitely talked about this in my art before, but… that’s essentially what that is.

Ok, but it gets deeper than that. When I conduct readings for clients, I often refer to “The Big Red Thread” that thematically and energetically grounds the reading, and I wanna share with you where that comes from, or one of the places where that comes from . In Japanese folklore, mythology, and also in contemporary stories there’s a concept that we refer to as Unmei No Akai Ito (運命の赤い糸), which translates to the Red Thread of Fate. This concept originates in China and has influenced a lot of other East Asian cultures and myths. There are slight variations to this story, but legend dictates that each of us are born with this invisible red thread that connects us to a soulmate we’re meant to find in this lifetime, and no matter how knotted and tangled it gets, it can never break. Each end of this string is tied to the pinky finger of one person and their counterpart, and regardless of where life and free will takes them, this string will eventually lead them back to each other.

According to legend, this string tethers you to your “one true love,” but as a polyamorous person, I personally believe that we can have many true loves so, instead, I like to think of this red thread as something that helps us return to the one true relationship that will forever be a work-in-progress, and that is the one we have with ourselves. In other words, the process that we undergo with the Judgment card is one that helps us to detangle this thread as we follow the pathway back home to ourselves, back home to the truth of our hearts.

[00:33:56]

Similarly to Mahler’s own preoccupation with impending death, the Judgment card seeks to remind us of this inevitability, too, not to scare us, but to whet our appetites for the savory-sweetness of a life well-lived. The white negative space of Archangel Gabriel’s flag offers a symbolic nod to the Death card whose archetypal flag depicts a white rose in full bloom. So, one might consider it a modernist take on a classical image. As it so happens, Judgment and Death have a lot in common. Both ruled by Pluto, these archetypes deal with resurrection and composting old material to feed new life. They call upon us to release outdated versions of ourselves to make space for the kinds of updates that might bring us closer to our most resounding truths about who we are and who we wish to become in this lifetime. Remembering death enriches our lives by reminding us that we can’t bullshit ourselves forever. What differentiates these two from each other is that the Death card often speaks to unexpected changes that are quite often out of our control - here, stillness, acceptance, and allowing is, you know, the name of the game. Judgment on the other hand tends to announce its impending arrival from a distance and demands our active participation. So what I’m trying to say here is, w hen push comes to shove, Judgment gives you a fair warning and tends to be annoyed when you try to act brand new when you show up at the crossroads, like… you know the path you took, you know why you’re here.

Given that the Judgment card speaks to the theme of life-altering decisions, it’s often compared and confused with the Justice card, so I wanna share with you how I differentiate the two. With the Justice card, you’re often dealing with a middle-man of sorts, usually institutions of arbitration, and the people who represent those institutions. So the court system and other institutions that mediate conflicts and arbitrate rulings often fall under the jurisdiction of the Justice card. Plutonian archetypes like Judgment, however, are the great equalizers and, as such, the Judgment card has a way of just catching the things that have slipped through the cracks while working with the Justice card, because these institutions of arbitrations and, you know the people who represent them, they’re imperfect structures, they’re imperfect systems. While the Venusian card of Justice deals with our values and ethics, the Plutonian card of Judgment deals with our morals. Forget arbitration, Judgment asks: how do you wish to be remembered? While Justice is a conversation between you and a Judge or you and a system, Judgment engages you in a conversation about free will, and THAT’S between you and your God, you and your Ancestors, you and your Higher Self. Do you see the distinction? Here, rank and access and privilege cannot shield you from the task of facing yourself.

This brings me to the numerology of this archetype. The Judgment card, as the 20th Major Arcana of the series, carries with it the numeric vibration of the number 2. This is made especially obvious when analyzing the Minor Arcana, but twos generally speak to choice points, which we’ve already discussed at length. But there’s more to it. The number 2 also connects us to the energy of the High Priestess who, as you may recall, is the Guardian of the Akashic Records. There’s a lot… a lot-a lot that could be said about the relationship between these two archetypes, but for the sake of being concise, I’ll speak to one key area of connection. Judgment wants us to combine the strengths of both our logic and intuition to determine our next best move. But here’s the thing, and this is where we often get tripped up: the very concept of the Akashic Records suggests that there are many “right” choices that can exist at once, and that some “right” choices may even conflict with another one. The inherent partnership between the High Priestess and the Judgment archetypes suggests that searching for a singular right or wrong choice is a moot point. The Universe may be rooting for us but, unlike us, it doesn’t have an attachment to specific outcomes. It simply restructures things to fit the shape of our decisions. Taking ownership over your life means taking ownership of what’s been given to you and you alone: your free will. That’s really what Judgment is trying to get at. And so, in this defining moment, the point isn’t to avoid mistakes, the point is to shake what your God gave ya! Your free will.

[00:39:48]

You know, Mahler 5, for me, from both a theoretical and sentimental standpoint - this piece holds a very special place in my heart - this symphony is crossroads music. This piece has quite literally followed me to the center of my own crossroads as the theme song to my most pivotal moments throughout my late teens and up to my  mid twenties. Every opportunity I’ve had to play this piece was either prompted by a pivotal moment or eventually led to one, and guess what, y’all… While I’m no longer an active orchestral flutist, Mahler 5, it’s back, and I’d like to report some of my findings.

You know, my most recent crossroads moment was and, if I’m being completely honest, continues to be about choosing the path to go public with this spiritual care work stuff. Starting a business to create a container for this work has been… one of the scariest decisions I’ve ever made, and I have my reasons. I mean… Y’all remember what I said 3 years ago, right? That I’m not really here to offer readings to the public? Right, well I originally said that to keep this, I guess, at a bit of an arms-length distance because, I’ll tell ya, this shit isn’t for the faint of heart. It just opens you up to a lot of… stuff. So over the last 6 months in particular, as Judgment would have it, I’ve had to consciously choose this over and again, especially in those moments where I’ve had to close doors to open new ones. [Sighs] Keeping my foot in one door while trying to cross the threshold of another is a survival move that has, you know, it kept me safe up until this point but… it has reached its expiration date. This dance in limbo confuses the Universe.

When traversing the land of indecision purgatory, intuition is the fuel you need to cross over and, you know,  the other week, with the most impeccable timing, the Universe filled my tank. Someone recently moved into one of the apartments on my floor and, on move-in day, once the commotion subsided, I stepped out into the hallway to check my mail. As it turns out, I wouldn’t find any messages in my mailbox. Instead, I discovered that my new neighbor had propped the hallway door open with their trumpet case. No mail, but a postcard from the ether, hand delivered by the Angelic messenger himself.

[00:43:06]

When it comes to this card, there’s an interesting interplay between accountability and reciprocity. When we hold ourselves accountable to the responsibilities that come with exercising our free will, we engage in a reciprocal relationship with the Universe at large.The appearance of this card in your spread could also suggest that the situation you’re dealing with might benefit from group support. It is an invitation to lean into the support of accountability buddies and to actually listen to the people you trust, especially if they’re saying something that’s hard for you to hear. Remember: that shit was probably difficult to say. So if you get the Judgment card in the upright position, you gotta get real about what it’s going to take for you to do right by you in the long term. This is where you gotta extend your vision beyond this specific moment, weigh out the risk against the reward, and decide. Whatever is meant for you, will be for you - you got that little red thread - but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to making a decision about it. The cosmic level-up, when you get this card, is already happening, okay, but you still gotta choose it. Consider, then, the choices that need to be made in order for you to enter into a reciprocal relationship with the Universe. And if the Universe feels a little too big to begin with, start with your local community. Work in fractals.

The Judgment card in the reverse speaks to self-loathing, self-doubt, a super harsh inner critic, self-blame, malicious gossip, and patterns of unaccountable behavior (both with yourself and with those who are woven into your relational ecosystem). If you get this card in your spread, be mindful about slipping into rumination. Sometimes, intense self-critique can actually be a form of self-sabotage - it’s hard to be disappointed when you didn’t believe you could do it anyway. But if Judgment has entered the scene - if Judgment has entered the chat - it’s very likely that avoidance and other such survival mechanisms are getting in the way more than they’re keeping you safe. Again, there's a difference between review and rumination, the former is rooted in accountability and the latter typically won’t take you that far. Shame, guilt, and fear spirals are incredibly shitty and notoriously challenging to get out of, but Judgment wants you to also be real about how chronic spiraling can also become a way to sidestep true accountability. That’s that Pluto shit.

If the thought of losing something is what’s keeping you in indecision purgatory, I want to leave you with a quote by James Baldwin from “The Fire Next Time”. He wrote: “...renewal becomes impossible if one supposes things to be constant that are not - safety, for example, or money, or power. One clings then to chimeras by which one can only be betrayed, and the entire hope

- the entire possibility - of freedom disappears.” Dear listeners, there is no liberation without accountability. Own your shit and get free.

Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Tarot for the End of Times.  If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to rate this podcast, subscribe so you know when new episodes are published, and follow me on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot for updates and tarot tips. If you’d like to work with me 1:1, you can find links to book a reading or office hours with me in the show notes. Until next time. Take good care of yourselves and each other.

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