Honoring Lady Justice: A Card for the 4th of July

The Justice card from the Connolly Tarot

Does she look familiar, this crowned woman of quiet strength and profound wisdom?

She has had many names in many civilizations, but whether you call her Lady Justice or Lady Liberty, she represents balance in both a personal moral sense and a universal natural one. She is the personification of freedom in thought and word and deed, which means she also personifies our collective responsibility to fairness and mercy, and to each other.

Liberty for all or liberty for none.

Justice is a fitting card for the week following the 4th of July, Independence Day in the United States. On this day 248 years ago, we codified the great experiment that is America, an imperfect construction, yes. But on that day, we also committed to be ever moving forward, ever pursuing a more perfect union.

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice." — Theodore Parker

The tarot has many queenly figures in it. Each suit has its reigning feminine monarch (for four in all) plus there are several major arcana cards traditionally depicting women upon thrones, including Lady Justice.

Wisdom. Clarity. Fairness. Consequence. These are the values associated with this card. She carries both a sword, representing severity, and scales, representing mercy. She is not blindfolded, however. She is objective, yes, but her sense of fair play comes from being able to see a situation deeply and clearly. How else is she to prevent a conniving thumb from sneaking onto those golden balances? How else will she ensure that the verdict she renders is truly right and not simply legal?

And that is what she asks of us now, not the detached disinterest of the scale, nor the edged vindication of the sword—Justice requires that we keep our eyes wide open.

This is how the arc of the universe bends, after all. Not through passive inaction. Not by simply trusting that everything will work itself out. This arc is bent by the work of hands. But before we act, we must choose the right and correct action. This is the true work of Justice.

This week, consider how you can help bend the arc of the Universe. What small action can you take to move yourself—and therefore the entire Universe—toward that result?

Previously, I said of Justice, "You already have the long-enough lever—she's simply showing you where you might stand." That sounds exactly right for this moment too.

I hope you had a peaceful and profound 4th of July, my friends. May it be so next year as well.

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To learn more about the Connolly deck: https://www.usgamesinc.com/connolly-tarot.html

Read more about Columbia, one of the US’s earliest symbolic personifications: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/before-lady-liberty-lady-columbia-180982722/

Read more about the Statue of Liberty at the National Park Service website: https://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm

A Tarot Card for the Spring Equinox

I’m not sure what the groundhog said back on February 2nd, but regardless of that particular rodent’s prognostications, we were always going to have an early spring, at least calendar-wise. That’s because the Vernal Equinox, traditionally hailed as the day when winter departs and spring arrives, will be on Tuesday, March 19th at 11:06 pm EDT.

We have February 29th to thank for that, as the equinox typically occurs on March 20th or 21st. But not always. That’s because our calendar and the Earth’s rotation are not perfectly aligned. So we have to adjust our portion of the process:

From the BBC: “The Mathematical Muddle Created by Leap Years”

As a rule of thumb, leap days come around every four years. But there are exceptions to this rule. For example, at the turn of every century we miss a leap year. Even though the year is divisible by four, we don't add a leap day in the years that end in 00. But there's an exception to this rule too. If the year is a multiple of 400 then we do add in an extra leap day again. At the turn of the millennium, despite being divisible by 100, the year 2000 did, in fact, have a 29 February because it was also divisible by 400.

The Eight of Beakers

Regardless of the calendar, spring sets her own pace. And the equinox, with its roughly equal days and nights, is a great time to contemplate cycles and seasons and out place within them.

To celebrate this equinox, I chose the Eight of Cups from the Science Tarot (you can read my review of that fantastic deck HERE). The Science Tarot uses different names than the Smith-Waite tarot—you’ll notice from the photo that this card uses a beaker instead of a cup as its icon—but the meanings remain comparable even if they are interpreted through the lens of their respective scientific fields (in the case of cups, those fields are biology and ecology).

In traditional tarot, the Eight of Cups of about moving on after a loss, releasing yourself to a new experience. There are shadows of pain in this card—grief will follow you like a lonesome dog, no matter how cleanly you try to cut yourself free—and the Eight of Cups acknowledges this difficulty.

The Cocoon card takes this idea of “leaving the old behind” and references the next step in the process: transformation. Cocoon time is active, not passive. It is both chemical and alchemical.

As the Science Tarot describes it:

Encased within a protective cocoon during its transformation, the caterpillar utterly loses its form. Every cell takes on a new purpose, and for a time the creature is neither caterpillar nor moth. Only when metamorphosis is complete does the stunningly beautiful Luna moth emerge from its cocoon and spread its wings to the sky. Times of transformation can demand a protective distance from the world, a total retreat. When the dissolution and recovery is complete, the world's challenges are not so threatening. Until that time, growth must take place in safe isolation.

I like this reframe, which centers the literal and metaphorical shapeshifting inherent to this card. It's not an easy or pretty process. But in the end, you’ll discover fresh new wings.

May your equinox bring balance and harmony to your life, and may you experience a transformation that enlightens, enriches, and energizes you for the coming spring.

When Death Kindly Stops for Us

One morning many years ago, my daughter and I baked bread to take to a family in bereavement. I pulled out an old family recipe, transcribed decades ago by my thirteen-year-old hand. Eventually my kitchen was fragrant with yeast, the oven warming as the loaves finished their second rising.

In another season, that flour was not the sifted pale powder in my kitchen — it was thousands of whole grains waiting to be milled and processed. And before that, it was growing in a green field until it was mowed down by the combine, gathered and collected. Seeding and growing, reaping and harvest.

Death is often referred to as a Reaper and presented as such in the tarot — a pale rider on a pale horse, children and kings and priests alike falling before him. There is certainly a frightful aspect to the card, and to all losses, especially those of people we love, who have loved us. But there is also a promise. In the tarot, Death may be a reaper, but he bears a reminder of the season of renewal as well—the white rose on the banner, the symbol of the soul and rebirth. For this card describes not a singular moment, but a process. One step in the cycle.

And there is a kindness to Death, noted by Emily Dickenson and other poets. It’s one of the reasons I am fond of how the card in portrayed in The Phantomwise Tarot — a young woman, her face hidden behind a cheerful umbrella. her scythe lying lightly across her lap.

Many years ago, I explored the Death card in a pilgrimage to Antietam, the site of the bloodiest day in Civil War history. I expected to feel some kind of horror there, some pervasive sadness, on that once battlefield, now farm. But the sky was blue and the fields were green and the corn in the field grew high and strong. That night, I dreamed of the Death card, and I wrote about that dream in my journal the next day:

"It is an unsettling card, Death—the black robes, the complacent relentless skull. In the dream, though, I flip it over and reverse it, and the image is now a chalice, overflowing with water, emptying and receiving simultaneously. Death is not static. It moves too, with time, a point on a continuum that really isn't a point, that is as fluid and forward moving as life. The two are inextricable."

And so my daughter and I baked bread, the sun barely risen. And we gave thanks for life and for the harvest, kneaded that gratitude into each loaf. For everything there is a time and place. Tomorrow I will write. I will connect once again with the work that nourishes my soul. And though I did not eat any of the bread we made, it nourished me too.

I have heard it said that love is attention. As writers, it is our job to pay attention, so this week, do it well. Be grateful big and be grateful small, for both the expanding edge of the universe and a fresh new page. For the rising sun and the cup of coffee. And for whatever love surrounds you, for surround you it surely does.

Here Comes The Sun!

image @philipmackie

Happy Summer Solstice! (for those of you in the Northen Hemisphere anyway)

Often celebrated as the longest day of the year, the summer solstice (like its counterpart the Winter Solstice) takes its name from two Latin-language morphemes: sol (sun) and -stitium (stoppage). This meaning refers to the Sun’s apparent stillness in the sky, which is a trick of perspective, as the Sun doesn’t actually move, it’s the Earth speeding around in a wobbly circle like a big spaceship held together with gravity and cosmic glue.

Despite our persistent geocentric attitude, the Sun is the center of this galaxy. And on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 10:57 am EDT, we Earthlings will celebrate the solstice moment. Which is when, to quote National Geographic, “a planet’s poles are most extremely inclined toward or away from the star it orbits.” On Earth, that star is our Sun.

On this year’s Summer Solstice, Southeast Georgia will have 14 hours, 15 minutes, and 7 seconds of daylight, one second more than the day before, and two seconds more than the day after (you can see the specifics for your own home base HERE). It’s a perfect time to remember the Sun’s importance in our lives, both literally and symbolically.

In a natural sense, the Sun is the engine of our universe. Without it, Earth would be a lifeless hunk of rock, spinning and sterile in a cold empty sky. But with it, we have life. A brilliantly simple equation.

The Sun card in the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck

Such it is with The Sun card in the tarot. If you were looking for a yes, the Sun is about as affirmative as it can get. If you needed a jolt of optimism or vitality, turn your face toward it like a flower. If you've been feeling sluggish or out of sorts, let the heart of our very own personal star, our own solar combustion machine, energize you.

And if you've become disconnected from your playful, innocent, hopeful self, then The Sun has a special message for you. As creative folk, we appreciate the importance of joy in our lives and in our work. Those are hard to cultivate sometimes in the world of the one-star review and the hateful e-mail and the snarky blog post. Everybody's got a criticism, it seems, and some weeks, every single piece of it seems to be coming right at you.

The Sun shines on the crazy and the cruel too, even if they can't feel its warmth. Pity them that. But this does not diminish the radiance being bestowed on you. The Sun is an impartial and generous lover. And it loves you very much. Smile for it, won't you?

PS: You can get your own reading this summer, including my Cycles and Seasons reading, which is 30% off at my tarot shop.