Monterey Bay Aquarium
ellievsbear
roma★
occasionally subtle
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
🪼
tannertan36
tumblr dot com
we're not kids anymore.
Claire Keane
ojovivo
Jules of Nature
No title available
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
taylor price
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Origami Around
hello vonnie
Misplaced Lens Cap
seen from Germany
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Türkiye
seen from T1
seen from Germany
seen from T1
seen from Switzerland
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from T1
seen from South Africa
seen from Argentina
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from Germany
seen from United States
@notesfromthedeck
About Me 🐍
Yume · 40 · she/her/they
This blog is a study log. Tarot is approached as a symbolic system and reflective practice. Interpretations are tentative and evolving. No readings, predictions, or advice are offered.
✶ — — — — — — — — — — ✶
🔞 DNI / INTERACTION RULES
MINORS / AGELESS BLOGS DNI. BOT BLOGS / SPAM ACCOUNTS / GHOST BLOGS DNI. UNSOLICITED PICS / PROMOTIONAL REQUESTS DNI. NO READING REQUESTS. NO DMs FOR PERSONAL ADVICE.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
⚙️ The Wheel and the Bridge
If we observe Arcana X — The Wheel of Fortune — it often precedes Justice.
The Wheel turns. It rises and falls. It distributes chance without apparent reason.
Divine Justice (Themis–Nemesis–Adrasteia) is the framework that contains this movement: even if we don’t see it, there is order.
Human Justice (Dike–Justitia–Shamash) is the attempt to apply that order in concrete matters.
The Tarot card is the midpoint.
It is the bridge.
Between cosmic order and human judgment.
🔥 And that is why its number matters
Whether VIII or XI, it is always in tension with Strength.
One rules with the heart. The other with the scales.
One integrates. The other corrects.
They are not opposites. They are complementary.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
Human Justice — Applied Judgment
Here we descend from Olympus to the agora, from the Egyptian heavens to the earthly court.
Dike — The Verdict
Daughter of Themis. If the mother is principle, the daughter is application.
Dike judges specific human actions. In Orphic texts, she reports every mortal injustice to Zeus.
She is the eye that sees. She is the voice that accuses.
In the Tarot: Justice as concrete discernment, case by case.
Justitia — The Image We Inherit
The Roman goddess synthesizes centuries of iconography:
Blindfold → impartiality.
Scales → weighing.
Sword → executive authority.
But the blindfold is late (Renaissance). Before that, Justice looked.
Shamash — The Solar Judge
Mesopotamian god of justice. His main attribute is light.
From sunrise to sunset, he sees everything. Nothing can escape him.
He judges with truth: he needs no evidence, he was a witness.
Here the connection to the Rider–Waite–Smith deck is clear: Justice is not blind. She looks directly.
That is Shamash. Not blind justice, but conscious justice.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
Ma’at — The Fragile Balance
Ma’at represents truth and the cosmic order of Egypt. She is not a goddess who punishes. She is the very condition of harmony.
In the Judgment of Osiris, the heart of the deceased is weighed against her feather. Not against a stone. Not against a sword. Against a feather.
And that fragility changes everything.
🪶 The Feather and the Scales — the Detector of Silence
Ma’at’s feather is so light it barely weighs anything. This means that even the slightest impurity tips the scales:
A small lie.
Self-deception.
A twisted intention.
No great crime is needed to unbalance the order. A mere internal misalignment is enough.
Here, Justice ceases to be a moral spectacle. It becomes structural sensitivity.
In the Tarot
Justice is not necessarily a final verdict. It is a position maintained or lost at every moment.
That’s why in many decks the figure holds the scales, not executing a sentence.
Justice operates in the subtle. It evaluates not only visible actions, but the inner truth of the querent.
Sometimes it appears when someone lies to themselves, even when everything seems “correct” outwardly.
Before human justice acts, the universe already has its natural scale.
Right and wrong are felt. They balance. Or they tilt.
📜 The Connection with Thoth (the god, not the deck)
Thoth records the result of the weighing in the Judgment of Osiris.
But he is also the inventor of writing, mathematics, and measurement.
This is crucial:
Ma’at is not mystical chaos. She is measurable order.
Balance is not vague intuition. It is exact proportion.
Ma’at must be weighed to manifest.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
Divine Justice — The Law of the Gods
Themis — Cosmic Law
She does not judge particular human actions. She embodied the principle of order itself that makes any judgment possible.
Her connection with Gaia (Earth) and her seat beside Zeus places her at the origin: before written law, there is natural law, the “thus it must be” that sustains the universe.
In the Tarot: Justice as a fundamental structure of the world, not as a verdict on a specific act.
Nemesis — Retribution
Her name means “to give what is due.”
She does not punish out of malice. She corrects imbalance.
She intervenes when hybris appears: the arrogance of one who receives more than their due — fortune, power, beauty — and forgets their mortal condition.
In the Tarot: Justice as inevitable consequence. The scales that, sooner or later, balance themselves.
Adrasteia — The Inevitable
An epithet of Nemesis: “the unavoidable.” But also the nymph who secretly nurtured Zeus, preserving him from Cronus.
Here emerges a subtler layer: justice that protects the future order, safeguarding in the shadows what must grow until its time.
In the Tarot: Justice as destiny. No escape. No permanent concealment.
🔱 The Triptych
Themis → the order that founds.
Nemesis → the balance that restores.
Adrasteia → what cannot be avoided.
Three faces of the same question:
What happens when someone violates the cosmic order?
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
⚖️ Justice — The Axis That Holds
First, the simple image.
The scale, in its purest form, is two symmetrical pans suspended from a central axis. Without the axis, there is no balance. Without a top point to hold, opposites cannot be measured: they collide and destroy.
It is unity in duality. Like a double-edged axe. Like day and night. Like creation and destruction.
Justice does not begin with the verdict. It begins in the structure.
🪶 The Weighing of the Heart
Before the human court, there was the divine scale.
In the Judgment of Osiris, the heart was weighed against Ma’at’s feather. Thoth recorded. Anubis guided.
No great crime was necessary. A slight inner twist was enough.
The feather is so light it detects the invisible.
In the Tarot, Justice does not accuse: it reveals.
🏛️ The Scale Across Civilizations
Hermes weighs souls. Rashnu evaluates spirits in Persia. Archangel Michael holds the scales at the Last Judgment. In Tibet, white and black stones measure deeds. In China, the constellation Libra balances the Big and Little Dipper.
The scale does not belong to a single culture. It is an archetype.
There is always an axis. There is always something heavier than it appears.
🕊 The Vertical Line
The scale is not horizontal.
It has a vertical line.
That axis connects:
the manifested (the pans)
with the invisible (the hand that holds them)
In esotericism, it is the spine. The two lateral currents — like Ida and Pingala — exist only because there is a center.
Without an axis, there is no justice. Only collision.
🃏 In the Tarot
Justice is not “balance between opposites.”
It is the ability to hold them. It is internal integration. It is the moment when you can maintain your contradictions without fragmenting.
The scale does not decide. The scale reveals.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
🏛️ The pillars
They are the same archetypal pillars that appear in: The High Priestess The Hierophant (implicitly) Some versions of the Temple In the RWS Justice, the pillars are gray. They are not B and J like in The High Priestess. But they function the same: a framework of structure. Are they the pillars of the Tree? Not literally. But they do evoke: Severity Mercy Justice sits between them. She is not a sefirah. She is the axis that balances polarities. Gray is the color of ash, of mixture, of that which has passed through fire (Gevurah) and earth (Malkut). Her throne is the central pillar, the pillar of Equilibrium, of the Man (or Consciousness) that reconciles opposites. She is not a sefirah in herself, but her seat is the axis that connects all the sefirot, the middle path that allows for the harmonious manifestation of the tree.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
The Throne of Justice
In nearly all traditions, the throne is not merely a piece of furniture. It is an axis mundi, a fixed point around which everything else revolves.
In ancient Egypt, the enthroned pharaoh did not simply represent political power: he was the manifestation of Horus on earth. The throne was not where the god sat—it was where the god governed the cosmos from.
In Christian iconography of the Last Judgment, Christ judges from a throne. He does not stand among men: he is seated, because the sentence belongs to a plane that precedes time.
In Byzantine art, the enthroned Theotokos with the Child is not merely a mother: she is the Throne of Wisdom, the seat that holds the Logos.
In the Tarot, the figure of Justice is seated because her authority has no need to move. She does not go in search of the facts: the facts come to her.
The throne is the point from which everything is seen and everything is judged, without the need to pursue anything.
Elevation and Perspective
The throne is usually placed in an elevated position, often beneath a canopy. It is not only so that everyone may see the sovereign: it is so that the sovereign may see everything.
From below, you perceive only what is immediate. From above, you see the whole, the relationships, the context.
Justice that judges from the same level as those involved becomes contaminated by their perspective. Justice that rises does not become cold—it becomes structural.
In the Tarot, the elevated Justice reminds us that true judgment requires distance. Not emotional distance—that would be indifference— but systemic distance: seeing the full board, not just the piece that hurts the most.
Immobility and Time
He who is seated does not run. He who is seated waits.
Justice is not haste: it is the time needed for the scales to stop swaying and reveal their true weight.
In many cultures, judges would sit beneath a tree: the council tree, the tree of the law. The shade and the waiting were part of the process.
In the Tarot, Justice never appears in motion. Cards like the Fool or the Wheel turn, fall, ascend. She remains still.
Her power lies in not being swept away by the current.
Ornamentation: The Engraved Law
The throne is often carved. It is not superficial decoration.
Each engraved symbol is a law written in stone, a precedent, a tradition that upholds the judge.
The judge does not invent justice anew each morning. He sits upon centuries of symbolic order.
In the Tarot, the thrones of the Empress, the Emperor, the Hierophant, and Justice are always ornamented. This indicates that authority is not personal: it is a function.
Justice is not opinion. It is structure.
The Empty Throne
In some Christian traditions, the Hetoimasia appears—the “prepared throne”—an empty throne awaiting the judge.
The empty throne does not represent absence, but potential. Justice is ready, even if it has not yet manifested.
In the Tarot, when Justice appears reversed, it may not signify injustice, but justice suspended. Judgment postponed. A throne that still awaits the one who will occupy it with true authority.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
The veil
The red curtain in the RWS is not a "theatrical" backdrop. It is a veil. In Temple symbolism, the veil (Parochet) that separated the Holy from the Holy of Holies was, according to Exodus, made of blue, purple, and crimson (red). The color red was therefore intrinsically linked to the most sacred and inaccessible mystery.
So the red curtain can represent: The veil of the Holy of Holies. The veil of the Temple. The separation between the human and the divine. Justice is in front of the veil. Not behind it. She is not divinity. She is the function that operates at the threshold. That explains the red: It is not passion. It is sanctuary.
In the RWS, curtains always indicate a separation between planes. Examples: In The High Priestess there is a veil between pillars. In Justice there is a curtain behind the throne. In The Emperor there is no curtain → he is in the manifest world. The red curtain behind Justice indicates: She operates before the veil. But behind it, there is something we do not see. It is not a blue sky. It is not a landscape. It is veiled fire.
Justice is not the ultimate mystery (what is behind the veil), but the divine quality that operates at the boundary, at the threshold. It is the function that makes the relationship between the human and the divine possible by establishing order, measure, and consequence. She is the architect of the bridge, not the other side of the river.
Red above and red below is not a physical sky. It means that the law which acts below is the same that governs above. "As above, so below" but in an operational key. It is not sweet transcendence. It is structural correspondence.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
🗡️ Justice — The Sword That Divides
The second royal symbol is the sword.
It is not merely a weapon. It is an initiatory instrument.
It symbolizes:
• Power • Justice • Knowledge • Reason
It is the axis that unites worlds. It is the solar ray that dispels darkness.
The sword separates.
It cuts the body from the soul. It divides heaven and earth. It expels from paradise.
Its power is twofold:
• Constructive — it establishes order and protects the law. • Destructive — it cuts through ignorance and malice.
It is associated with fire through its brilliance. It is purification.
As a chivalric weapon, it represents the ideal of the king-knight: authority legitimized by virtue. Not all sovereigns lived up to that premise.
In a broader symbolic sense:
• It is freedom and strength. • It is vigilance. • It is the active principle.
The double-edged sword represents complementary duality. Two opposing currents that form a unity.
Blade and guard form a cross: a conjunction of vertical and horizontal axes.
In the Rider–Waite–Smith Justice, the sword is upright, vertical.
It is not attacking. It is not defending.
It is in the position of sentencing.
It does not threaten. It determines.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
👑 Is the crown made of iron?
It is not explicitly stated as iron, but visually it is rigid and angular, not floral. In Western symbolism: Gold → solar authority. Iron → Mars, force, severity. Justice belongs to the Gevurah–Tiferet axis. Gevurah has a martial tone.
It is not an ornamental crown. It is a crown of function.
It is the supreme crown, but manifested through the filter of severe judgment. It is not a crown received by grace, but one worn by function. It is the authority of the judge, which must be incorruptible and immune to emotional appeal.
It is not beauty. It is investiture.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
👑 Justice — The Crown of Authority
Justice wears a crown.
It is not an ornament. It is distinction and burden.
The crown, since antiquity, has been circular in shape. The circle is perfection, totality, continuity without fissure.
It was a solar symbol, a funerary symbol, a symbol of royal power.
In Classical Antiquity, vegetative crowns (laurel, olive, oak) indicated victory and divine favor. Roman emperors adopted the triumphal crown as the ultimate expression of human power.
But the crown as an absolute sign of royalty was born not in Greece or Rome, but in the East.
In Ancient Egypt, the Double Crown (Pschent) united Upper and Lower Egypt. It was the integration of polarities into a single authority. It was not just governance: it was cosmic legitimacy.
The king did not rule by force alone. He ruled by a higher order.
The crown rests upon the highest part of the body.
In energetic symbolism, it corresponds to the upper center — the place of connection with the transcendent. It is power conferred from above.
It is not ego. It is investiture.
In Justice, the crown indicates:
• Elevated function • Proximity to the higher spheres of the Tree • Legitimate authority • Terrible distinction
It is heavy.
It is not a light ornament. It is responsibility.
Justice knows too much. And because of that, she can issue verdicts.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
⚖️ Justice — When Fire Learns to Speak
If we observe the vertical axis:
🔴 Red below — vital energy, culmination, rubedo. 🟡 Yellow at the throat — filtering consciousness. 👑 Crown above — stabilized mental authority.
And in the hands:
⚖️ Scales — deliberation. 🗡️ Sword — decision.
The structure is clear: passion is not denied, it is disciplined. reason is not cold, it is animated by fire.
The yellow could be read as a stabilized citrinitas: the light preceding the final act of the rubedo. But in this card, both coexist.
Justice is not emotional neutrality. It is dynamic equilibrium.
It is not the absence of fire. It is fire that learned to speak with precision.
To attain incarnate truth (the red), the light of the intellect (yellow) must examine every aspect. But that light cannot be cold: it needs the energy of conviction.
Justice is not passive. It is exact.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
🟡 The brooch on the stole
The brooch on the chest, in the area of the heart, is small but it exists. In medieval art, the brooch or fibula indicates: Union of parts. Point of closure. Ritual authority. Location on the chest = Tiferet center. It could be read as: The point where external law is fixed in the internal center. It is the "point of coherence." It is not decorative. It is fixation. Placing the brooch on the chest marks it as the center, the point of union. On the Tree of Life, Tiferet (Beauty, the Heart) is the point of equilibrium between Gevurah (Severity/Judgment) and Chesed (Mercy). The brooch is the "jewel in the lotus," the point where external law (the structure of the pillars, the crown) becomes internalized and turns into a guiding principle from the heart.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
🟡 Justice — The Yoke of the Word
The Pallium or the Yoke
Upon the shoulders appears a golden-yellow band, similar to a pallium or a ceremonial yoke.
The pallium, in ecclesiastical tradition, is a band that encircles the shoulders as a sign of authority and responsibility. Its original symbolism refers to the burden of the Good Shepherd: carrying the weight of another upon oneself.
That is precisely what Justice does.
She is not free. She is bound to the law.
It is a yoke because it binds the judge to the truth and prevents personal whim.
Its placement is no coincidence:
• It lies just below the neck. • In the area of the throat. • Along the central axis of the body.
Below is the red (life, force, power). Above is the crowned head (reason and authority). In the middle, the yellow.
This yellow is not the brilliant solar hue of the Magician. It is not power before action.
It is a contained, tamed yellow.
In alchemy, yellow is associated with sulfur: the active, solar principle. It can illuminate, but it can also burn if unregulated. It is revelation, emergent consciousness, dangerous clarity.
Here, it is not an explosion. It is a filter.
Every red impulse must pass through the light of the intellect before becoming a verdict.
It is the Just Word. The speech born not from raw emotion, but from illuminated awareness.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
👣 The visible foot
In the RWS, Justice shows a foot barely visible beneath the robe. This is not accidental. In medieval iconography: Showing a foot indicates a willingness to act or to tread on sacred ground (like Moses before the burning bush). She is not static like the High Priestess. She is not completely anchored like the Emperor. A single visible foot indicates: She is seated. But she can rise. The sentence can be executed. It is the difference between deliberation and execution. And yes, it generates a slight unease. Because the decision is not abstract.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶
Justice — The Red Verdict
Red Garments The figure wears a red robe.
In alchemy, red corresponds to the final phase of the Great Work: the rubedo. Reddening symbolizes the culmination of the process, the union of opposites, and the realization of the philosopher's stone. It is matter transformed and spirit incarnate. It is not a search: it is achievement.
Alchemical red is fire that purifies and creates. It is energy in motion, active power, fulfilled transmutation. It represents not only spiritual awakening but its manifestation in matter.
Psychologically, red stimulates. It increases heart rate, draws attention, and signals urgency. It is passion, intensity, desire. But it can also be a threat: spilled blood, confrontation, domination.
Historically, it was the color of power. In Rome, it was reserved for emperors and generals. In the Middle Ages, cardinals wore red as a symbol of spiritual authority and sacrifice. In Byzantium, red and purple were imperial privileges.
Red traverses cultures as a sacred and dangerous color. It is fertility and marriage in India and China. It is redemptive blood in Christianity. It is Shakti in Hinduism: creative feminine energy.
In Justice, red is neither erotic nor emotional. It is executive.
It is not wild fire. It is fire that passes judgment.
Justice is not seeking the truth. It is declaring it.
✶ᛉumeᛟ✶