A Call to Stand-Up for Your Own Truth: Judgement in Tarot

Law 20 (Judgement/Destiny/All Elements Especially Air):  To transcend the judgement of others, we must foremost move beyond the harsh judgement we impose on ourselves so we may rejoice in our own truth.

When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears.”

This 20th Major Arcana of the Tarot represents the last stand or stage of reckoning before we reach completion of a spiritual journey.  At this critical stage, we are called to stand up for our own truth, to recognize and accept ourselves both in weakness and strength as well as shadow and light without judgement.  The key is to find “Wholeness”  or  holiness within.   This card typically shows humans stepping out of the grave with arms open to a trumpeting angel above.  There is a pause of consideration as to whether the people are worthy to enter “Heaven” and to embrace oneness with the Divine/God/Goddess.  Most documentaries on people’s near death experiences describe a being drawn to the light where one encounters a beautiful state of bliss.  This eclipse to a higher state of being is said to  include a meeting with a benevolent and compassion being  that observes while the individual reviews their life and experiences empathy and compassion for all humans in their life, including themselves no matter how dark and weak the acts or sentiments expressed had been.  So if someone is a murderer they must re-experience the act of each murder as well as the suffering and pain they caused to the one whose life they took.  See Dr. John Lerma’s incredible work with hospice patients to learn more about such experiences in his book, Into the Light.  In this way, the human comes to a state of wholeness and loving acceptance of all that is.

The question is can we arrive and remain in a state of wholeness and self-acceptance during our life and well before death?

Within our educational,corporate, and hierarchical systems and institutions, we are constantly measuring our success and adequacy in the world against others.  Those with the most points, marks, numbers, followers, members, friends, money, and so on  are considered the most successful.  Those with less are considered to be less on all accounts inside and out.  Yet then we hear that it is quality not quantity that matters and think then that if we had both quality and quantity then we’d really be something!  To make matters more grave, we judge and are judged by qualities of color, race, beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, style, looks, and so on.  In our world , white, wealthy males, men of God, with great style and looks appear most often as the ones we must measure ourselves against.  We are judged by qualities that we cannot change.  As such, the majority of us on the planet could never measure up. We end up feeling inadequate, unworthy, imperfect, insecure and vulnerable in one form or another.  This type of thinking is largely involuntary and repetitive due to social conditioning and early childhood programming.  We essentially need to allow more compassion for and acceptance of ourselves.  Then in time we can be more empathetic and compassionate towards others and even forgive and release their judgement of us.

To wash ourselves clean of such constant judgement and to just allow ourselves to exist and be and blossom as we are is a challenge.  Many enlightening writers and speakers are present on our planet right now to assist us with this challenge.  Consider Eckhart Tolle and his Power of Now that encourages us to release our past negative conditioning so we may experience the joy of being in the present.  Other effective but simple tools that may help us to release feelings of being less than perfect can be googled on the internet such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) , The Zero Point Process, NPA (Non-Personal Awareness).

Inspirational writer, Stacey Charter has this core truth to say, “There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me… or leave me. Accept me – or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should be and don’t try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.  When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you…”

Go on and free yourself and witness the wonders and joys that open to you!