EPISODE 14: JUSTICE
RUN TIME: 43’ 31’’
DATE: 7/3/2021
[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]
Hieeee! [Laughs] Venus just moved into Leo, so I have to ask: did ya miss me? I missed y’all! I was intending to release this episode during the month of June, but goodness, the energy of the Justice archetype is just...not quick-moving energy. All this to say: *whew!* happy to be here. And while, in true Libra style, I’m a bit fashionably late for this, I wanted to say happy pride to everyone who celebrated, no matter what that celebration looked like for you. With Venus in Leo right now, the summer is definitely giving me, “move, I’m gay!” energy, so [burst of laughter] exercise that at your will and at your discretion.
First, a heartfelt thank you to those who have been showing support for this work with donations and earnest feedback about the impact that this growing body of work has had on your relationship to tarot and how it has held you along your own personal journeys. Of course, I will do my due diligence in maintaining appropriate privacy around the content of y’alls messages, but I have to acknowledge and appreciate the… the rawness and the depth at which you all are meeting yourselves along your respective journeys. Though I’m only getting, you know, what is in essence a 60 second sound byte of what seems to be some pretty significant epiphanies and realizations and things of that such - and I may not ever know your full extent of your story - but, as a clairaudient and clairsentient femme, as someone who experiences those types of “seeing”, I do get a sense of the emotional topography that y’all are navigating, and I am in awe of the bravery and courage with which y’all have been facing your wounds and scars and, let’s not forget, gifts, because those also take courage and bravery to face, too. So, good on y’all for that!
[00:04:23]
As I mentioned in the previous episode, conceptual understanding of the tarot is not enough. I can’t do this work or call myself a tarot reader without the experiential data to back it up. These episodes are living documents that reflect my real-time experiences, so when you offer your feedback and share parts of your story that resonate with parts of mine, it helps me feel a little less alone in this world, too. So, if you have sent me a message and, if in the following days you randomly feel a boost of the warm fuzzies, just know, it’s meeeeee! [Playfully giggles]
Three more things before we get into the meat of this episode. One, a reminder that I’m no longer accepting DMs in regards to the podcast and that the best way to share your thoughts with me about the podcast is either through the voice message feature on the Anchor platform, or by directly commenting under the appropriate post on my Instagram page. Thank you to those who have been honoring my new boundaries and requests. It’s heartwarming to be on the receiving end of y’all adjusting the ways in which you engage with me and this work in accordance with my boundaries. And, also, thank you for announcing them to your folks when you share my work online. I don’t expect for people to uphold or enforce my boundaries for me, but it’s always so nice to get some communal support around my energetic self-care practice. This is one way that we keep each other safe, you know?
Two, I want to thank the listeners who have reached out to me for personal readings. Opening up my practice in this way has been a leap of faith for me and it has been an absolute pleasure to work with this community. So, as much as y’all have shared with me that this podcast has and continues to support y’all in your unfolding, this has also been a space where I get to stretch my proverbial wings as I unfurl in my own process of expansion. Thank you for that gift. If you’d like to book a reading with me, you can follow the links in the show notes and we will take it from there. I very much look forward to hearing from you.
And three, in the spirit of today’s archetype, I’ve left some links to organizations and mutual aid funds that could really use some ongoing community-driven support. If you have the financial spaciousness to share your abundance with others, I encourage you to check out the links so that we can all participate in reshuffling resources in ways that engender more justice in this world.
Without further adieu, let’s talk about the Justice Card.
[00:07:55 Gentle transition music plays. Light harp and piano chords accompanied by sparse bass beats.]
Among the assorted assemblage of salvaged plant clippings, sun-bleached playbills, porcelain teacups and well-loved books, we find Justice in her private headquarters, kneeling in front of a crackling hearth, sharpening her double-edged sword against a slab of cool whetstone. Her scarlet robe spills omnidirectionally in red ripples that rise and fall with each stroke, the sound of metal against stone punctuated by the occasional “splat” as beads of sweat collide against the surface of the blade. She pauses periodically to deftly glide the pad of her thumb along both the edges of the sword, checking for evenness, striking a meditative rhythm, elegant and foreboding.
In a moment of transitional pause, Justice straightens her back and places a new log in the pyre, quickly lifting her sleeve in front of her face to shield herself from rogue embers that hiss and fly in protest of the disturbance. She reaches for her pan balance, a well-loved heirloom weathered by tarnish and delicate fingerprints that dance along the surface of each brass plate. She reaches behind her to drag a small bowl of lemons to the fore, hovering her hand over the glowing yellow orbs. She makes her selection, carefully examining the thickness of its skin - glossy, porous, firm but with a slight give. With harvest in one hand and a freshly sharpened blade in another, she adjusts her position, tilting the edge of her sword upwards to glide the citrus across its razor’s edge. The lemon splits in two, leaving behind a streak of acrid tears along the tip of the sword. She dips the lemon halves into a bowl of salt, turning the golden wheels left and right to ensure an even coat. Then, taking her pan balance apart piece by piece, she polishes the body of her instrument with the salted lemon to restore its luster, periodically checking for progress through her reflection in the plates.
The once-roaring hearth now smoulders in a pile of hot ash. Birdsong replaces the hiss and crackle of burning wood, and dappled light scatters across the floor. Shifting her weight from side-to-side, Justice rises as she wraps herself in a green mantle, pushing herself up from the floor to make her way over to her throne. She reaches behind the backrest to draw close her violet curtains that block out the daylight. She takes her seat, adjusts her crown, and procures a cloth from the depths of her voluminous sleeves. She wraps the cloth around her eyes - once, twice, three times - gingerly adjusting the wrap to keep her third eye free of obstruction. With her sword in her right hand and her pan balance in the left, she draws in a deep breath to recite her daily prayer: “May the choices I make today create the conditions for a more loving tomorrow.”
[Thematic transitional music plays]
[00:14:24]
I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called “Coded Bias”, and learned quite a bit about how algorithmic bias infiltrates and shapes our daily lives, often without our knowledge or consent. Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, algorithms are praised for their neutrality and, as such, are used as tools to predict and enforce penal consequences in our material world. These digital self-fulfilling prophecies that we call algorithms touch the most intimate parts of our lives and, within the context of the United States judicial system, engender outcomes that are a far cry from neutral or inconsequential, let alone fair. One of the major takeaways for me was data-based confirmation that justice cannot be found or enacted or served through the machinations of algorithms. The overreliance on algorithms to make human choices within a human system lead to devastating and, ultimately, unjust material consequences. This kind of cyber injustice is what happens when we become arrogant enough to believe that the digital glove can neutralize something as deeply biased as the human touch. Though not always the case, we must remember that the myth of objectivity can, ironically, blunt the sword of justice.
In the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and in many of the other decks that I use, the Justice card is represented by a human figure symbolically lifting two objects: a double-edged sword and a pan scale. Most interpretations that I’ve come across describe these objects as tools for neutral deliberation. The scale represenst how we come to a third truth through the reconciliation of different perspectives and how we bring logic into balance with our intuition. We can use this tool to check for alignment between words and action, intention and impact.
A few months ago, I was listening to a Dharma talk through the BIPOC-centered meditation app called “Liberate”, and - pardon my forgetfulness, I can’t remember which talk this was - but one of the Dharma teachers mentioned the Buddhist theory of two truths. Now, I have a limited understanding of Buddhist teachings so I encourage y’all to look into this at your own leisure and pleasure, but here’s what I understand so far. The theory of two truths is, broadly, another way to say “both/and.” It’s a way to describe how Universal truths coalesce with conventional or material truths and describes how we might come to terms with reconciling its distinctions. Material truths reflect the external conditions and constructs of the world we live in. These conditions - conditions that we might call White Supremacy, cishetero-patriarchy, and so on - have real material impact on our lived experiences and intimately shape our day-to-day lives. However, material truth can, ultimately, be dissolved, reconstructed, and experienced differently by others depending on their proximity to that truth. So, it’s mutable. These conditions may be true at the moment, but there exists a possibility to change it, or to do away with it all together.
[00:19:05]
Ultimate or what I’ll be calling Universal truth, on the other hand, describes the set of truths that are intrinsically fixed and cannot be reshuffled, altered, or destroyed regardless of the context that conventional truths construct in our respective realities. So, for example, systems of oppression construct our material truths that shape our material reality, but they do not diminish the Universal truth - the intrinsic truth - that maintains the inherent value of oppressed peoples. Returning to the example presented in the opening story, material truth can be thought of as the weight of a situation, which can change and read differently depending on the conditions brought on by external forces, whereas Universal truth speaks to mass, or what is intrinsically constant regardless of our interpretation or how we experience any given reality. The pan balance depicted in the Justice card is an instrument that works to reconcile material and Universal truths.
Within the symbolic structure of the tarot, the Justice card comes with a few archetypal counterparts. Justice is governed by the zodiac sign of Libra, a sign that governs partnerships and the astrological 7th house, so I think it makes sense for us to examine this archetype through the lens of relationships and partnerships. With this in mind, let’s first take a closer look at the partnership forged between Justice and the High Priestess.
The dynamic balance that Justice attempts to strike between Universal and material truths is emphasized through her partnership with the High Priestess. Broadly speaking, both Justice and the High Priestess manage information. The Justice card speaks to the laws that govern our material world, the laws of cause and effect, of action and of equal and opposite reaction. Justice is associated with the spiritually charged number 11. When read as a Roman numeral, we could also read the number 11 as the number 2, which is the number that we associate with the High Priestess who, as we know, is the guardian of Universal truths. While the High Priestess is tasked with guarding the gates to sacred information, the Justice card is responsible for translating and operationalizing that sacred information within the appropriate context of our material lives.
[00:22:19]
In true Libra fashion, the figure in the Justice card knows that no outfit is complete without the right pair of shoes, yes? Though subtle, the figure deliberately pokes out her foot from the sea of red fabric as if to say, as Muva Electra Abundance-Evangelista from the groundbreaking TV series Pose might, “get the shoes, baby, get the shoes.” Upon close inspection of the Justice card, you’ll notice that the archetype sports white footwear, subtly communicating her relationship to Spirit, the High Priestess, and, by proxy, the Akashic records that the High Priestess guards. Parenthetically, if you’re unfamiliar with the Akashic records, they’re basically the etheric library that stores all the world’s history, including every thought, every intention, every slight, every memory that took root on this plane. I won’t get into that here, again, I invite you to look that up at your pleasure and leisure. But anyway...While both archetypes are the keepers of information, Justice must contend with the structural limitations of human-made laws and the systems that enforce them. Justice, then, asks us to consider how material truths shape our relationship to the Universal truths we seek to live out and embody.
Justice, as an Earth-bound archetype, understands that their power comes with a set of material limitations. But, regardless of these limitations, Justice has a job to do, and it’s through their partnership with the High Priestess that they’re able to complete the task. What the white shoe suggests, and what Justice’s partnership with the High Priestess engenders, is the connection between material and spiritual consequences. The material world will, undoubtedly, fail to deliver proper Justice within the context of our material lives 100% of the time. [Disgruntled mumble] Or, shit, let’s be real, most of the time, right? However, no shitty deed goes unaccounted for in the Akashic records. Just because there were no human witnesses to the nonsense doesn’t mean that there weren’t other witnesses that you’ll have to answer to. Whatever doesn’t catch up with you in the material world will certainly find you in the spiritual. Whatever doesn’t land on the scales of Justice, will, inevitably, end up o n your permanent record in the sky.
The Justice card is governed by the element of air. The double-edged sword represents that element and, by association, our cerebral experience and the narratives we generate to process our material truths. This tool reminds us to consider how a given situation might cut both ways, depending on how one wields the sword. It reminds us about the relationship between cause and effect, action and consequence. The figure in the card holds the sword up to represent firm and final deliberations - there’s no going back on a decision made with the sword.
Both the sword and the pan balance are animated by the energy, experiences, perspectives, and priorities of the figure who holds them. These esoteric objects are infused with meaning, and as such, it’s important to reconsider the relevance of neutrality and the role it actually plays in this card. Perhaps, then, we might consider these tools as ones that help the archetype to widen their perspective, not neutralize it, per se.
[00:26:58]
I’m reluctant to uplift objectivity as the pinnacle of fairness, because it’s, foundationally, a Eurocentric construct that often works within the machinations of our justice system to gaslight oppressed peoples. Our experiences, perspectives, and motivations are often illegible - unintelligible - within the framework of a justice system that refuses to acknowledge, let alone center, the voice and dignity of oppressed peoples. Therefore, in discussing the Justice card, I’m choosing to elevate dignity over objectivity as a central theme that anchors the ethos of this archetype.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that objectivity is inherently oppressive or that there’s no place for it in our world. What I AM suggesting is that the way that we currently conceptualize objectivity, rationality, and what’s “fair” or “reasonable” within our current cultural and socio-political landscape is a product of late 17th through early 19th century European cultural, political, and scientific discourse which has historically been used to undermine the dignity of those who have and continue to be Othered by the State on the basis of race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, citizenship and so on.
When set against the general color palette of the RWS deck which tends to lean towards lots of yellows, reds, oranges, blues and greens, purple is a shade that really stands out, so it’s only appropriate that we also discuss it here. Before the creation of synthetic colors and dyes, purple dye and clothing - specifically, Tyrian purple - were extremely rare and highly valued. To produce the color, makers had to extract the dye from the shells of over 9,000 sea snails - the Bolinus brandaris - to yield one gram, one gram (!), of the dye, which is an obscenely minimal amount given the resources and labor it takes to produce it. It was so difficult and costly to produce that it became a color associated with royalty and high-ranking religious officials - basically the people who could afford it.
The Justice card is governed by Venus, the planet that oversees our relationship to our emotional and material resources. It’s a planet that is associated with material comforts, opulence, and, shall we say… Rococo sensibilities. Within our cultural and socio-political context, Venusian energy is often dismissed as shallow, excessively materialistic, hedonistic, and just.. lacking of any kind of depth. Now, I will not deny that every light also casts a shadow - of course Venusian energy has the capacity to take shape in those ways. And… we cannot be solely defined by our shadows, yes? So, while opulence is not what dignifies us as humans, per se, opulence is an expression of personal dignity and can be a potent tool to revive, embolden, and publicly claim our sense of selfhood, inherent dignity, and humanity.
When we center people’s dignity, even and especially through conflict and, specifically, in this case, legal proceedings, we sharpen our depth perception and widen our lens. The purple veil in the background of this card suggests that, within the context of this card, the backdrop of our justice systems should, ideally, seek to center the inherent dignity of all those who are implicated under its governance, not just the people who can afford to purchase justice. The Justice card asks us to widen our lens by examining the relationship between legality and morality, between rules and ethics. At the apex where what’s right meets what’s humane - that is where we find our sense of ethics and morality.
The purple backdrop, for me, also signifies the combined energies of the High Priestess, who wears a blue robe, and the Emperor, who wears a red robe. With this in mind, let’s turn our attention towards the second archetypal partnership that shapes the energy of the Justice card.
[00:32:51]
Let’s bring back the Emperor.
The figure in the Justice card is wearing a red robe which, if we look back in the Major Arcana series, echoes the outfit choices of both the Emperor and the Hierophant. For the sake of contextualizing what I’m about to say, I’ll be focusing on the relationship between Justice - again, governed by Venus - and the Emperor, who is governed by Mars. As discussed in previous episodes, this red robe signifies the Martian qualities of authority and personal power. Cishetero patriarchal societies like to manage, devalue and dilute the potent essence of Venusian energy and, as such, there seems to be a general forgetfulness around the fact that Venus is, traditionally, a planet that governs both love and war, specifically the strategy and interpersonal dynamics of wars waged on or by us. And so, when we are working with the Justice card, it’s critical to strike a reasonable balance between listening to what others might have to say and trusting your own authority, as the Emperor might, trusting your own enough to take your own experiences and observations seriously.
Justice and the Emperor are also divine counterparts. They sit along the Aries/Libra axis, so there’s an inherent connection between those two energies. Governed by opposite signs and planets that represent the celestial lovers, Venus and Mars, this pair highlights the teachings of the Aries/Libra axis. Aries, being the first sign of the zodiac and the astrological ruler of the 1st house, teaches Libra how to stand firm in their own experiences and convictions. Libra, as the ruler of the 7th house of partnerships, teaches Aries what it means to widen and enrich one’s personal understanding by integrating the perspectives and experiences of the other. So, if Aries asks, “who am I?” then Libra asks, “who are we?” and also, “who am I when engaged in relationship with you?” While the energy of Libra encourages the Emperor to place trust in partnerships, the energy of Aries encourages Justice to trust herself. By alluding to this potent axis, the Justice card asks us to give weight to our own convictions and insights as much as we give to the convictions and insights of others. This dynamic also underscores how our individual choices, inevitably, impact others.
[00:36:12]
This has been a rather cerebral episode, so let’s get concrete. If the Justice card appears upright in your spread, this could be a time when court cases are settled or outcomes of disputes are revealed. More broadly, it indicates a time of karmic retribution where you may witness the outcomes and consequences of past actions and decisions either made by you or by others. This is the card of accountability and integrity, of meticulous deliberation, and confronting a more holistic version of the truth. If this card appears in the midst of a decision-making process, it would behoove you to consider the long-term and far-reaching consequences of your actions and choices. If you have had to make some challenging or heartbreaking choices in the past and you feel haunted by the question “what if?”, this archetype encourages you to find grounding and comfort in the quiet voice of your fucking integrity. Justice may show up in your life to firmly and consistently remind yourself of what’s true for you. Finally, and on a more personal note, this archetype reminds me that, sometimes - most times - someone else’s karma is none of my goddamn business and my biggest responsibility in the moment is to maintain my peace by detangling myself from someone else’s karmic unfolding and to, instead, be a witness to my own experience.
[00:38:10]
In reverse, this card points to the energies of dishonesty, legal corruption, and other clandestine methods of skirting around responsibility. The inverse energy of the Justice card illuminates areas in our lives where we’ve missed the accountability train and have some things to sort through. This energy also brings awareness to the mental traps of punitivity and toxic self-critique. Self-flagellation is a type of self-indulgence that, at its most extreme, has the potential to devolve into an egoic one-person performance that, ultimately and ironically, undermines true accountability by, instead, offering temporary relief for our guilt and shame.
We’re all capable of doing shitty things, but getting stuck in our guilt and shame is, actually, a way to avoid the work of accountability. I think that this is what is meant when folks say that accountability is inherently tied to our liberation practices, right? In the heat of playing out our deepest wounds in the face of conflict - wounds that stem from the fear of being wrong, the fear of being abandoned for being wrong, what have you - we may forget to apologize or just generally act upon our capacity to do better. Shame loops, as torturous as they are, can actually lead us away from accountability because shame says, “I’m a crap person who does crap things and, therefore, accountability is futile because I’m just gonna let people down anyway.” This isn’t to shame you about your shame, let’s be clear. I’m just saying that we can have compassion for the tender parts of ourselves that take shelter in those familiar narratives, while also watering the parts of ourselves that believe in our capacity to do better next time.
Conversely, when we become overly responsible for other people’s behavior - when we over-identify with the role of the Karma Courier - we risk mistaking self-righteousness with integrity. So, Justice in reverse asks: how might overindulging in a cycle of shame and self-criticality actually prevent you from taking true ownership of what IS yours to hold and be accountable for? On the other end, in what ways do you habitually turn toward the neat, shiny packaging of virtue signaling to avoid the grimy work of self-excavation? How might the reclamation of accountability serve to bolster your sense of personal agency and power? Getting in right relationship is fucking messy, non-linear work that requires us to get some dirt under our fingernails. Keeping your hands clean does not absolve you from the work that is yours.
[00:42:07]
For me, transformative justice is heart-centered work. It looks like learning to center each other’s dignity and sovereignty in the quietest corners of our mundane, day-to-day lives, in the places where we think no one is watching - that’s where the real test is. If, as Dr. Cornel West famously said, “justice is what love looks like in public,” then this archetype urges us to also consider love as the vehicle through which we experience justice within the context of our private lives and interpersonal relationships. So, with that, may the justice we fight for publicly mirror the justice we practice privately, and may the love we practice privately become a portal to a more just world.
Thanks for listening, and until next time.
[00:43:14 Outro music fades in, plays until the end]