Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
So there we are, travelling along the road marked “Life.” When we first started out, we did so with no idea of what to expect, but with a light heart and a spring in our step.
On the way, we have encountered parts of ourselves that have added layers of complexity to the tabula rasa we once were. We’ve also met fellow travellers, and known what it is to relate to an ‘other’. There have been moments when the road has widened and our path has been eased; there have been others when we have had to call on our inner resources to meet the challenges in front of us; there have been times still when we have felt utterly alone with a need to seek strength in shelter and introspection.
Suddenly, the path changes direction unexpectedly. We follow it around a bend, and we are stopped short. There, in our way, is a gate-keeper. There is no way around her. We cannot reason, argue or persuade. We cannot threaten or bribe. The only thing that will meet her requirements is a reckoning: a weighing-in of our actions to date, and the decisions we took to get here; and an adjustment of our course if she finds that we have taken an injudicious route. We can then continue, knowing that we have had an encounter with Justice — from the Rider-Waite Smith tarot — or Adjustment — from the Crowley-Harris Thoth tarot.
Let’s look at both cards individually, and see how each one portrays this idea of the gatekeeper.
XI Justice – Rider-Waite Smith
The Rider-Waite Smith version is a more traditional depiction of justice.
A woman sits squarely between two pillars, holding a pair of scales in her left hand, and a sword, tip pointed upward, in her right. She is clothed in what seem to be heavy garments from the way that they fall: a long, red robe, and a green cloak, fastened at the neck and with two ‘lapels’ that fall over her knees. Red and green. Blood and nature. Two colours that symbolise life, but also complementary colours. Internal and external. The spectrum in balance.