This post is part of my “Journey through the Tarot Major Arcana” collection. This is the twenty-first post in the series, which is an offering for paid subscribers. We focus mainly on the Gaian Tarot and the Herbcrafter’s Tarot in this series, which includes a look at the card’s themes, card comparisons, creative sparks and crafts, journal prompts, and even a song inspired by the card. These posts are longer than most of mine. Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your responses in the comments.
“Judgment, carrying both the metaphors of a call to adventure and resurrection, asks: How do we continue to live life in accordance with what we hold to be right and true, even as the world crumbles around us?”
— Jessica Dore, Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth
“Make an offering to the sacred. Awaken to your life purpose. Devotion to your calling is devotion to the world.”
— Latisha Guthrie, Herbcrafter’s Tarot guidebook
Dear Ones,
The Judgment card (like the Hierophant) can be challenging, especially for people who have experienced religious trauma. It’s why so many deck creators (myself included) have revisioned and renamed the card as “Awakening” or “Liberation” or “Aeon.”
The imagery on historical decks, including Rider/Waite/Smith, depicts the Christian story of the Last Judgment, when the angel Gabriel blows his horn at the end of the world. The righteous dead arise from their graves, to be resurrected into the Kingdom of Heaven. The King James Version of 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 reads: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” I believe this verse is the source of Christian teachings about the “Rapture.”
Rachel Pollack notes that many Renaissance paintings of the Last Judgment show masses of people headed downward to the gates of hell, their faces covered in shame, in addition to a smaller group of “righteous” who are headed up the hill to Paradise. In Tarot Wisdom, she points out that no one is going to hell in the tarot’s version of Judgment Day; everyone on this card is rising up in celebration. Everyone is resurrected.
Rachel often said that she changed the name of the Judgment card to “Awakening” when she created the Shining Tribe Tarot because she wanted to make it clear that no judgment takes place. She had noticed that many people shied away from this card in readings because it made them uncomfortable and fearful of judging or being judged. “In psychological terms Awakening means to move from a fragmented state to a state of wholeness,” she wrote in the Shining Tribe Tarot guidebook. “From isolation to oneness with others.” I love that definition of Awakening.
I followed Rachel’s lead when I renamed the card for the Gaian Tarot — for me, the Judgment card has always been about hearing the call of the Spirit and responding to it. When Latisha and I created the Herbcrafter’s Tarot, we kept the same name. Today the name feels a bit ironic, because “woke” has become such a pejorative term in right-wing circles. Yet the original meaning of “woke”, rooted in Black culture, was being conscious and alert to racial discrimination and other social inequities — an excellent reading of the Awakening card.
In Tarot for Change, Jessica Dore writes about the two metaphors inherent in this card: the call to adventure and resurrection. She defines a call to adventure as an invitation to change, to remember who we are — perhaps to live in a more authentic way. She notes that after hearing the call, we get to choose whether or not to answer it. Resurrection, she says, follows the answering of the call. I can definitely relate to the sense of spiritual uplifting, calm, peace, and joy that comes in when I’m aligned with something I recognize as part of my calling or purpose — like writing this post.
In Tarot for the Hard Work, Maria Minnis says that when you get this card in a reading, “It’s time to begin a new stage of life. A new era is dawning.” She sees the Judgment card as indicating discernment, for example the evaluation of an action or a project. What went well? What could be improved? First we heed the call and take action, then comes evaluation, followed by repair and reconciliation if necessary. I love her affirmation for this card: “I am more than my inner critic.”
How do you relate to this complex card? How do you read it when it turns up in readings?
(For anyone who has experienced religious trauma — or is still coping with the aftermath of it — I highly recommend the work of Tia Levings, author of the memoir A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy and I Belong to Me: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery and Hope after Religious Trauma. Her books are excellent. On social media, I especially appreciate the way she explains much of the ideology in the current U.S. administration through the lens of Christian patriarchal fundamentalism. You can follow her on Instagram and Substack.)
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