XI Justice
Hi! If you are new here, WELCOME! I am so happy you happened upon my weird little misty corner of the intuitive tarot world. I recommend you start with the Intro to The Caravan Tarot post to get your bearings before risking the rickety steps of Justice. Or not! It’s all invitations here. xo.
Keywords
Upright: Truth, balance, discernment, harmony, rightness
Reversed: Bigotry, bias, excessive severity, rights lost, understanding comes too late, miscarriage of justice.
know this
Justice in a reading with me will likely ask, whose side are you on? The legal cooptation of the scales of justice is a bastardization of the process of balance. Because the scales in the hands of a systemically oppressive colony are already skewed in favor of the state. So I ask, in what ways does your existence and action undermine the state and serve the people? The earth? Can you radicalize to save us?
There is this perfect conjunction of spirituality, art and politics that takes place in the tarot. We get to call it in holistically when the Justice card comes up. The personal is political, especially if you live on politicized land or in a politicized body.
We get to look at what is happening in the world with nuance and curiosity and also be righteous in our defense of the sacred animism all about.
Invitations
Crystal ally: Purple Labradorite
Like all associations I intuit this shit, and let the internet do its thing. I try to hyperlink where possible. Thanks for the grace. So with that said, the purple tapestry on the Justice card is said to represent the veil between the conscious and subconscious. I imagine this comes from Jungian theory, they are obsessed with psyche stuff. It is purple because it is the mixture of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors of the wheel. (The color wheel, not the wheel of fortune…BUT maybe some relation!?) Making purple the middle road, the road of balance, or justice if you will.
Now, have you ever gazed at labradorite? It is brilliant! Mind blowing, blissfull! I invite you to gaze at a purple labradorite when you are trying to see the other side of something, when you are trying to access a deeper knowing, that of empathy for the living and consequences for the machine. Crystal gazing is a thing…partake my friend, just like scrying, the mind can be set free to new perspectives, visions and knowledge by simply taking in the natural element before you.
Plant ally: Bay Leaf
Okay so we just happened to be designing with bay branches at my day job when I was first intuiting the plant ally for Justice. (mm yes, at the time of this writing, I am working in floral design). I took a few leaves home and wallah, Bay. And it is wild because it actually feels very aligned historically. Well as a reader, anything can be relevant lol. iykyk, which you do because you are still reading these blogs lol.
Anyways, the oracle of Delphi was said to chew on bay leaves and rattle a bay branch during prophecy. It is said to help see and speak the truth. It’s association with victory and success has to do with one, Apollo and he was kind of a dick? But apparently based on this one other blog, he learned divination from these three Melissae pre patriarchal takeover? and now there is even something called daphnomancy, that involves looking at the shape of leaves and burning them to divine and manifest things.
If you want to commune with truth no capital T, I invite you to ritual with Bay leaf, if you want to commune with Truth, capital T, I invite you to read some Frantz Fanon.
Animal ally: Shark
The shark shows up in quite a few cards in The Caravan Tarot, sorry, it will be friggin years before those blogs are written because one is on a court card and the other is on the three of swords. But the sharks tooth as a symbol has been so profound to me, that I got it tattooed over my heart too, just like Justice and the Temperance bear, whom you will meet four cards down the road.
I watched that documentary about Cleo and noticed that she wears a sharks tooth necklace too. Just one of those weird synchronicities, that feels like something to pay attention to.
sharks tooth = protector of the earth and the creatures that exist here, protect them and they will protect you.
Shark of the deck = imperialism, colonization, and capitalism.
So here is a loose tooth I’ve been wiggling in the mouth of the shark, the idea of Israel never really sat well with me. I felt like Jewish survivors were used as a front to establish a colony in the Middle East. I decided not to do a “birthright” trip when I was 18 after being encouraged to take advantage of the free travel. I was a sociology student and a practicing Marxist lol, there was no justification for supporting this particular colonial project “for fun.” I could even become a citizen, just have to do two years of service in their military? huh? Even thinking about it now, gives me the ew David. So, I knew I was opposed to the conspiracy of this place but I didn’t know how woven into my deck it would be. It is like the dudun dudun of a shark orbiting its prey in a film and also the mystical delight of finding a sharks tooth amid the seashells. The struggle for sovereignty, land back, and decolonization is threaded throughout.
From the heartbreak symbolized by the 3 of Swords— a Palestinian woman standing in front of her demolished home, with a shark circling the deep waters of her experience. Nearby, the Empress and Emperor rise as indigenous figures, embodying strength and resistance. A small Palestinian child plays on a tank in the Hanged Man card, suspended between innocence and violence.
Finally, we return to Justice: a grandmother carries water, a shark’s tooth hung over her heart, taking a piece of the pain and turning it into a remembrance of truth, a tool to fight for what is right, what is Just.
Dating Justice: Go looking for sharks teeth on the beach. These are tiny slivers of truth. Create a small altar to Justice, put a sharks tooth on it and a purple labradorite and some bay leaves. Be creative in your resistance.
Card Analysis
Lady Justice crosses a shallow creek with a container of spring water balanced on her shoulder. Her step does not falter on slippery rocks because she has befriended the daily path. She is smiling to herself because she knows the scales, first name basis, even middle name knows them.
The twin tree houses are those scales, wavering in the wind and crackling with the truth of a ring a year. They provide a bird’s eye view, for there to be justice there must be perspective. One cannot right the abuse occurring in a relationship if they are simply trying to survive it each day. I mean this interpersonally and societally. If we are struggling to pay rent in our system we do not have the distance from it to see clearly how to find our right relation with the earth. Climb the rickety steps if you are feeling brave enough to confront the sharp truths of the bird’s eye view.
Storytime - Penny’s law
Kafiyah grins to herself as she collects the water for a long day's work as her appointed role as Grandmother Justice. She feels the weight of water slosh by her ear and pictures all the secrets it holds. Her feet walk her over creeks toward the town center, her cheek dimples in awe at her muscles, her own earthly body.
A line is forming already at the entrance of the treehouse where grievances are brought. She places the container at the base of the stairs and grabs her skirts with one hand and the rail with the other and ascends to her station. She has to pause halfway, out of breath, but looks around and smiles again in awe of her lungs and the air they still have.
A fan spins lazily in the treehouse and two attendants greet Kafiyah with her judicial adornments. “Good morning grandmother, may you be blessed with the clarity of water today.” She bows her head as they put the sharkstooth necklace on her. They cover her head with a scarf, a crown to feel where head meets air. She thanks them and sits in a rocking chair with a pillow under her, takes a few deep breaths and humbly says, “okay, I'm ready.”
A little one enters with two cups, both filled with the water Kafiyah toted up from the spring this morning. Kafiyah admires the strength it takes for such a small spirit to carry such secrets. The girl offers one to Kafiyah, they cheers and Kafiyah gestures to her to take a seat in the rocking chair next to her. She does and the tree house begins to slightly sway with their gentle rocking, signifying that Water Court is in session. Once the house stills their session will be complete and the next spirit may come up.
“What brings you here my dear?” Kafiyah asks. The girl sips her water and feels comforted by the rocking, by the grandmother next to her. “I need my murderer’s brought to justice.” The little girl states with the brave face only a ghost can maintain.
A chill rushes over Kafiyah as she prepares for the story, “I am sorry you were taken from your body too young little one,” “What is your name? Who killed you?” The attendants gaze at the grandmother but can’t hear her words, only can watch for cues that Kafiyah needs to come back from between worlds. “My name is Penny and they were soldiers, they came before the Treehouse people, the reason we have Treehouse now.” Kafiyah quick maths, she was just a girl before the war too, Penny would be an elder like her if she had survived the war. This ghost has waited a lifetime to bring her qualm to the tree.
“Why now Penny?”
“Because it is time for my rebirth and I need to tie up these loose ends before I return.” A very straightforward response.
“What would justice look like to you Penny?”
“I want a law made.”
“Okay, I can bring it to Fire Court for you, what would you like the law to be?” Kafiyah askes but no words leave Penny’s mouth. The sound of cicada grows louder building into a symphony of trance and Kafiyah feels her lungs fill deeply with air, like the first breath after finally crowning a fresh baby. Penny begins dissipating, turning into stardust, her cobweb form stretching to the treehouse windows. Kafiyah watches her enter the void, as she downloads the sweetest law one can fathom through deep listening. The smell of rain falling through mountain holly pervades her senses and the peppery taste of bay leaf tingles her tongue.
In honor of Penny’s story Kafiyah brought a proposition for a new law to Fire Court, and remember, Treehouse law like Treehouse court are bastardizations of what you associate with those words.
So the proposition goes: Every cauldron of community stew must contain a singular bay leaf and whomever is served said bay leaf in their bowl will share a children’s story during the meal and if the children laugh*, the storyteller will be allowed a kiss from the cook, if all parties are consenting. And so, Justice is served.
*Please standby while bylaws are being created in case the children do not laugh.
“Can you radicalize to save us?”
Can a tiny sharkstooth bear the weight of all the heaviness humans have created? Maybe one little baby tooth is not sufficient but a mouthful of sharp teeth in a living shark working together to dismantle what does not serve could?
justice side quest
I swear these blog posts are taking longer and longer to complete because the side quests are getting more involved. At the time of this writing, we are nearing a year long genocide of the people of Palestine. My government playing a huge financial role in its execution. This year has felt heartbreaking in a way I haven’t experienced before, I think about my Oma and the damage escaping the Jewish holocaust did to her and her line and how, now millions of other family lines from Gaza and Palestine at large will suffer. Not that they haven’t been dealing with occupation since Israel’s creation in 1948. The escalation feels abusive and against all that is right and true in this world. So the sidequests.
As you know, I started making a piece of art before writing the blogs for each card and so I auctioned off the piece I made for this one and sent that money to an organization helping feed the displaced in Gaza. I feel like it is so Justice of this art to help with something I care deeply about.
The second plan to align my actions with my spiritual politics was to host a book club reading one of my favorite books, The fifth Sacred Thing because the author Starhawk denied partnering with an Israeli publisher in an effort to boycott. I respect and admire her action and wanted to support her by inviting friends to buy her book and read its prophetic tale. I am grateful to those who read and discussed for sure, but just buying the book felt like a tiny success in tipping the scales towards what I feel is just.
The third sidequest is to get involved with the local Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) in my city. I attended a teach in and will try to attend more actions as time goes on. I would love to hear your ideas of ways to get involved and help guide our feet on the path of Justice.
Golden Dawn moved Justice
I learned to read with a Rider Waite Smith deck, that is why I use them in my picture for these blogs. This hermetic order took liberties with Strength. Historically, Strength is the eleventh card of the major arcana, Golden Dawn switched it with Justice, the original eight. It is said they did this so the cards would better align with their astrological associations.
I currently don’t have qualms with this move, as I don’t have qualms with any reimagining of the tarot because it is a living, shifting, growing game. I do think it is important to mention though, out of respect to the history of the cards.