Card 20: Judgment

We rise up into Judgment as a lived threshold. This card is an invitation into acceptance of what has already changed, devotion to purpose, and service shaped by love. In this episode, we see how to embrace the flow of life, lean into love, and willingly step through and forward into something new. We look at this card's invitations in the light and in shadow. We also look at the symbolism from my favorite depiction, the Guardian of the Night Tarot.

Main Themes:
• why Judgment signals evolution, purpose, and rising
• numerology of 20 and defining the divine for yourself
• Rachel Pollack’s liberation lens on change
• acceptance, devotion, service to the Divine, and spiritual awakening
• love as an antidote to fear and stagnation
• from the Sun to Judgment as a lasting identity shift
• doorways: Lovers, Death, Judgment as enduring love
• shadow work: refusal, not feeling ready, self‑righteousness
• practical supports, rituals, and next steps

Book with me via the link in the show notes; note if you want to meet at the Wolf Den at Rocky Mountain Punk or on Zoom

Links:

• My links
• Judgment Blog 
• Rocky Mountain Punk Tarot Workshop
• Chat with Me on Patreon- Free conversation in needed times
• Buy My Poetry Book 
• Background track is As the Light Unfolds by Anna Landström

Chapters

• 1:32 Welcome And Gratitude
• 2:16 Collective Care And Counseling
• 3:50 Community Chat And Support
• 4:54 Rocky Mountain Punk: Readings And Workshop
• 7:02 Booking, Walk‑Ins, And Logistics
• 7:13 Enter Judgment: Nearing The World
• 9:25 Purpose Of The Deep Dives
• 11:10 Judgment As Evolution And Rising
• 12:29 Numerology And Defining The Divine
• 14:05 Rachel Pollack On Liberation
• 15:58 Personal Stories Of Turning Points
• 18:54 Refusal And The Cost Of Staying Small
• 21:16 Love As An Antidote To Fear
• 22:52 From Sun To Judgment: Lasting Change
• 25:04 Beyond Self: Interconnection And Service
• 27:02 Life Purpose Without Job Pressure
• 28:41 Listening To Spirit And Ego Work
• 30:51 Willingness To Enter The Unknown
• 32:52 Doorways: Lovers, Death, Judgment
• 36:55 Grief, Enduring Love, And Gratitude
• 41:01 Pluto, Sheen, And Purifying Fire
• 45:16 Shadow: Refusal And Not Feeling Ready
• 48:46 Support Systems And Rituals
• 51:58 Beware Self‑Righteousness And Martyrdom
• 55:56 Symbolism: Snake, Thorns, And Poppies
• 59:51 Crocodile And Butterfly: Transformation
• 1:01:20 Patron Thank‑Yous And Poem
• 1:02:23 Poem: Judgment

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the Wolfchild Magic Podcast. My name is Ashley, your tarot reader, Rocky Mountain Witch, and overall Wolf Child. And I thank you for being here with me today. I also have to thank you because last month was the best month that the podcast has ever had. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for lending me your ears, your time, your attention, wherever you listen to me in the shower, in the car, when you're doing laundry, whatever it is, wherever I come into your day, I am just so grateful. Thank you so much for being a part of this and for helping to make January the best month that the podcast has ever had. I also just want to say that wherever you are at right now, I hope you are well. There's so much going on in the collective space, the political space, the space where we just are interconnected into other people, into community, into the external world, and there's just a lot happening right now. So I just hope that you are taking care of yourself, breathing, tending to your needs, trying to slow down, trying to maybe take some mental health days. I know I have been doing that. I have actually also started going to counseling again, and I don't say this in the form of any sort of pity party or feel bad for me. I'm actually quite proud of myself for making this decision because I've just recognized that there's a lot of stuff that I've been carrying as we all are, and I am so blessed. There's so many blessings in my life, and sometimes I feel like I'm having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees right now. And I just want to be in a better space. And some of this is even going back to 2024 with my kitties, you know. So I'm just now seeing this, recognizing that it's time. And like I said, I'm actually very proud of myself for putting myself first, for recognizing that there's this need, and this is a need that I need help in fulfilling the need of just getting me back to some of these spaces I want to be at. We can't do it all alone. And if you are struggling with anything in any way, you are not alone. I would also like to mention that I do have a chat going on the Patreon, even at the free tier. You do not have to pledge any sort of monetary value to me to engage in this chat over on Patreon. And I wanted to do that as a way just to make the Wolf Den be inclusive to the people who do pledge, but to not make it just simply about money. So if you were just needing someone to listen to you, to hear you, you can always go over to the Patreon play to the Patreon page, excuse me, pledge to me for free. And there, you know, we can just have some general dialogue. And of course, I am also always available for a tarot ring to help you get back on track. More than anything, you just deserve to be grounded, to be safe, to be seen. And however you need to do that, if that is through tarot and spiritual aspects, if that is through counseling or more Western medicine, whatever, however, wherever, whenever, uh, just take care of yourself, okay? We're we're all moving through a lot right now. The last thing that I want to mention before we move on to this episode is that the Rocky Mountain Punk location has now been open, but their grand opening will be on Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day weekend. So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I will be there Friday and Saturday. If you want a tarot reading, you want to sit in the Wolf Den with me. It's a private space, it's not right where everyone is shopping now. You can get a complimentary coffee, tea, or hot cocoa. It's so amazing. I'm so blessed to have this space. I am also going to be teaching my tarot workshop there on Friday, the 22nd, starting at 12, going till 2. I have learned the hard way that asking people to do three different events, like just the majors and then come back for just the minors, then come back for just the core cards, that's too much. It wasn't conducive to people's schedules. I totally get that. So now I am doing a two-hour workshop of intuitively learning the tarot. So the tarot workshop has now been condensed. You're gonna get a very bulky handout because I want you to still have this information, but it will still be based in intuitively exploring the tarot, wildly reclaiming the tarot meanings, witchcraft, trusting yourself. That will not change. That is how I teach tarot. I can't teach it another way because I don't read it another way. I am also available for walk-ins Wednesdays and Thursdays most of the time. If there's any changes, please look to social media because that's where I will be announcing it. The best way to sit with me is to book an appointment. Appointments are going to always take precedent over walk-ins, even though I am available for walk-ins Wednesdays and Thursdays, like I just said. But if someone books with me on Wednesday or Thursday, that time is guaranteed. Whereas walk-ins, I do love the organic, natural connection that I make to some people that way. It's beautiful, but I just can't always guarantee that I'm free at that time. So if you want to sit with me, please go to the link in my show notes and you can put in the notes after you have picked your reading option and scheduled it. If you want to meet at the Wolfden at Rocky Mountain Punk, or if you are out of the state or something, but you still want to sit with me, and then we can meet via Zoom. Alright, let's get on to today's episode now. We are almost done with the major Arcana deep dives. I can't believe it. It's been such a joy to sit here and talk to you and go into these deep dives. I mention a lot of the time, maybe not all the time, that in these deep dives, my goal is to take you with me on this journey of this deep intuitive path that I have created with these tarot cards and share that insight with you. In these episodes, I'm gonna talk about the symbolism that we see, the meaning of the cards in the light and in shadow, and I'm going to finish by reading my tarot poem. Once I get to the miners, I will not have a poem to read. I need to get on writing those poems. I won't get there, I promise. I'm just a very busy girl right now. But that is my goal is to just take your hand and have you walk into the forest of this tarot card and its meetings with me so you feel immersed in it and you have a better understanding of it when you come out on the other side and you sit with this card in your own practice. The blog post is also linked. Please go and look at that because not only will you get this content in written format as well as audio, you can also see every depiction of judgment that I have from my tarot collection. I can't go into the symbolic depictions of every card anymore because it's just too much time. Now in the podcast, I will discuss one, maybe two, maybe like three very quickly, because some depictions are just gorgeous and I want you to know about them, but that's why the blog post is helpful as well. And I also have captions under each card image so you can see which deck this is from and if you want to bring that deck into your collection. So, judgment. We are at the end of the major arcana. The only card we have left after this is the world. Now I do recommend going back and listening. I mean, you can go back and listen to the full all the way to judgment, and I do recommend that because again, these deep dives are an immersive way of how I read the tarot and giving you all of that information and insight. But I would definitely go back and at least listen to the sun episode or read the sun podcast so you can start to see how these cards are lily padding off of each other. We've been moving through a very significant process, starting again with the fool, and then now being almost to the end of the major arcana, we have moved through this journey, moved through each and every card and exposed that level of undertaking of self-discovery, the forging and losing and forming of identity. And the ultimate goal of our evolution and rising into something better, moving more into a space of expansion and growth and alignment. Judgment is where we are at the end of that evolution. Like we have been doing the process, and now we are in that space of rising, expanding, aligning into something bigger. Judgment trumpets us into the divine. And we can see that with the writer wait image. We are asked with judgment. We have now pulled ourselves out of our old skin. We have awakened to our wild reclamation. We have come home to this evolution. We have done the growth, the expansion, the alignment, and now we can rise into something new and bigger and better because we have gone through this evolutionary journey through the whole of the tarot, not just the evolution line. With this card, we find purpose, we find absolution, we find the freedom to grow past who we were and become who we desire to be. Now, the entire third line of the majors is connected to the themes of evolution. However, we had to have the creation of the first line, the destruction of the second line, in order to have the evolution in the third card. So, really, the evolution has been a journey through the whole of the major arcana. But starting with the devil and now moving into judgment, all of the themes have been around this evolving space, creation and destruction together, so we can find that freedom and rise up in our energies and in ourselves take up space, connect to our purpose, connect to the divine. So now that this new chapter is starting to open, which means that the chapter we're in is coming to a close, we're at this point where with judgment, there's kind of no turning back, really. I mean, I guess you could, but it's kind of like you're already in that space of evolution. So I don't see how you would even want to turn back because you've already done the work, and now that old part of the journey is ending. When we look at the numerology of judgment, which is 20, Google says in numerology, the number 20 signifies a highly sensitive, intuitive, and cooperative energy, often acting as the power behind the throne due to its supportive nature, representing a blend of two, which is balance and harmony, and zero, which is limitless potential. 20 is associated with emotional depth, diplomacy, and a need for close relationships. Judgment invites us to awaken and to move with our purpose and to be in service to the divine. And the divine is whatever that means for you. The divine is what you choose it to mean. So it could be faith-based, could be nature-based, could be community advocacy, could be family and ancestry. It does not matter. Whatever the divine means to you, judgment is telling us that we have done such great, heavy, big, hard fucking work to move through this journey that we've moved through. And we've been changed because of this journey. And because we've been changed, we, like I said before, can't really go back because now we know the lessons. We have the experiences. Because we have the experiences, all we can do now is go forward and meet the divine, whatever that means, in a way where we rise up and claim it, where we rise up and are of service to it because we see it how it's been pulling on us and helping us expand. I would actually like to read a couple paragraphs from one of my favorite tarot books, Tarot Wisdom, Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings by Rachel Pollack. Rest in power, amazing, infamous, could not ask for a better tarot teacher collectively. But in relation to judgment, it says in readings, card 20 indicates a fresh start. I do not recall seeing any reworkings of this card that emphasize anyone, human or divine, judging anyone else. Instead, we see various forms of rising up. With this card, I often think that at some level, usually within a person, but sometimes in outer circumstances, change has already happened, and the challenge is to accept it. A person who has stayed a long time in a job she hates realizes that she has already committed herself emotionally to quitting, no matter what will happen. A blocked writer goes back to an unfinished novel and knows that something has called him to it. An alcoholic buys a bottle of whiskey, looks at it, and throws it away. All these examples involve liberation. We might also see judgment when a couple revive their marriage, or someone disillusioned with a spiritual experience rediscovers hope or the power of belief. What matters most is the sense of dynamic change. So with judgment, we are in this space of evolving, and that often includes an initiation into a new choice or a new behavior. We recognize that we cannot do things the same way that we have done before. Sometimes that's very easy. It's almost innate, it's just now a natural decision that we make or a natural behavior that we engage in. We don't even really have to think about it. Other times it might be much harder. For me personally, I know one of my biggest judgment moments was after my divorce, I had been, you know, going through the grieving process, the healing process, figuring out who I was, working a chaton, just kind of doing all these things. And of course, during that, I was incredibly emotional. And there were nights where I was angry. There were nights where I wanted my ex-husband back. There were nights where I felt so alone and abandoned. And I remember one morning I just woke up and I was like, I'm kind of past this. Like I'm just past this. I don't have to make or do anything significant because I don't have that emotion or that energy within me anymore. Like it's just almost like overnight it vanished. It just kind of poofed out the window, and I woke up ready to just kind of be excited and to date again and to meet friends and to have new experiences. And of course, you know, looking at where I'm at, I'm so blessed. But sometimes our judgment moment can be a very easy, natural change or dynamic shift because it's just this natural progression of events. Other times we may have to initiate it, initiate it, initiate it, or even have the help of someone else to help us do that. There is nothing wrong with any of those options. It's more just about the point that when judgment comes forward, we are in a dynamic shift and we have to accept certain things that come with this dynamic shift. And we'll talk about the other side of that more when we get to the shadow side, but refusal is a huge shadow side of judgment. Refusal to accept that this dynamic shift happens doesn't mean that the dynamic shift hasn't happened in many ways. And when we refuse, we're often staying small, staying in that old self. We're kind of trying to deny our evolution from happening. And what that does is it stifles any sort of further growth that we could experience, but because we're constantly seeking out an old self, an old formula, an old memory, an old story, an old narrative, because maybe we're too scared. We're refusing in some way to embrace this new narrative and these new opportunities that are coming, and that can often come through hardship. Like judgment for me with my uh cats was another one. Now, that one was obviously much harder, and it's one that I'm still working through, but the dynamic shift within me has already happened because going through an experience like losing three cats in a month, or losing a marriage, or changing jobs, or getting fired, or whatever it is, those things change you. And what we can do to help our to help ourselves in that evolutionary process is to say, I am going to embrace this, I'm going to accept it. I will not refuse this door being opened to me, even though I'm scared, even though I'm heartbroken, even though I may not feel ready, which is another kind of shadow aspect of judgment, is like waiting till you feel ready. That's never gonna happen. Taking advantage of those situations, not refusing those doors being opened, even when you don't feel ready, means that you are already in the process of growing and expanding and of rising up. Sometimes, again, that's really hard. And it's okay for it to be hard. There's nothing saying that the judgment card has to be easy. Some moments it will be easy. Again, it's just different moments and different times, different situations in our life. I just woke up one morning and was tired of crying for a man that made me cry all the time. Made me cry when he was there. I was like, why am I crying for this? Like, I am crying for a man that even if he was here, I would still be crying. So what's the fucking point? And I was over it. I just woke up one morning and the grief and the hurt, the heartache, the abandonment was just gone. It's very different with my cats. And for all of us, we have moments where these shifts, these changes have been very easy. Other times it's been incredibly fucking hard. And it is okay for it to be hard. It is okay to mourn a decision that you know you have to make. It's okay to mourn a good decision. Like you're excited to make this decision. It's okay to still mourn a part of you, a different life. Um, anything around that, you know, when we step into judgment, it's okay to have hard feelings or to mourn or grieve any part of that process, but we still have to rise up. And that's where judgment calls on us in a big way. We have to expand and devote and be of service and step into something bigger than us, even if we don't feel ready, even if we don't feel scared, even if we are missing already or grieving something from our past, we need to rise up. We need to expand, we need to be in that growth and that alignment. And I just would point out here that it seems really hard and it seems impossible sometimes, but I can also say when you see people who have truly refused judgments, invitations, they refuse to evolve, they refuse to grow, they refuse to step into something bigger because their refusal, their fear, whatever it is, is so big that they have just truly walked away from it. That is that's worse. It is. And I don't say that to be judgy, I say that because we should be growing, we should be expanding, we should be able to connect and move into something more bigger and beautiful. And again, that that sounds very love and light and trite, and I totally get that right now, but we should be doing that in whatever way we can. And one of the ways that we do that is through love. Doesn't have to be romantic love. Um, it could be friendship love, platonic love, familial love, um, love of nature. You know what I mean? One of the ways that we counteract the shadow of judgment is to step into brave, vulnerable, intimate, radical love. That helps with the shift. That helps with that dynamic change. But also, like I said, if we look at going back to the sun, the sun highlights this shift in the spirit and this raising of energy. The sun highlights that shift because once we fiercely take up space that the sun invites us to do and to radiate our spirit into the external world, judgment raises this energy within us towards long-term change. We're doing it in the sun, and then judgment comes in and says, now this is part of who you are. This old part of you that was not willing to take up your space, that was not willing to give and move into this brave radical illumination of the world and to shine on a new day and radiate your spirit out. Now that you've done this, we cannot go back. We cannot truly unring this bell. After sun or after the sun card, we have invited to take all that life force within the sons of our inner fires and radiate that towards the world in a collective way. Perspective from the sun to judgment. I don't want to say it's been totally um self or a perspective on the self because we've seen moments where it has not been true. I'm thinking of like temperance, um, the lovers, especially. So we see where there's been cards that have invited us to have a perspective past ourselves, but we could say that a lot of that is still self-based. But the sun to judgment takes this perspective and shifts it. That it's no longer a perspective of the self, but one that honors the interconnection of forces, energies, peoples, moments, everything that helped get you here, where you can radiate outwards and rise towards something bigger and more beautiful than before. And that is such a gift that our evolution gives us is that we recognize that we did not do this in a vacuum. And so we're more committed to showing up and being of service because we see where that has happened for us. So the first way that I read judgment is that this card speaks to awakening to our life's purpose, sacred service to the divine, that sense of giving, what has giving forward and giving those blessings that have been given to you. So awakening to your life's purpose, that sacred service to the divine in all things. When you are connecting into that awakening of your life's purpose, and to be clear, I am not talking about a job that fulfills your life purpose. It could be that, sure, but it doesn't have to be. A lot of times when we think of someone awakening to their life's purpose, that means like, oh, I used to work in IT and now I'm gonna go sell baked peach pies out of an RV in the Appalachian Mountains. It does not have to be that. So just little caveat, little asterisk there. Um what it means is that when we are awakening to this purpose, we awaken that wild part in our spirit that is connected to the wild, beautiful majesty of this world. Our purpose, whatever it is, is an act of sacred service to the divine because you're you're putting that love language of yourself out into the world. And again, that love language transcends you. That love language transcends past you, and it helps you step into judgment, especially during the times where it's really hard to accept and embrace that. The next way that I read judgment is that it speaks to tapping into divine roots, the divine within the self, and bringing those messages into consciousness for interpretation and action. So when this card comes forward, it is an invitation to listen very closely to the whispers of the spirit to receive the messages of big S spirit to connect to the divine, again, whatever that means to you. There is an invitation to let the messengers of life, ancestors, nature, dreams, guides speak to you in a way that moves you into understanding towards a bigger perspective. There is another thing that's happening here, and it's been happening for a while, almost essentially since we got into the destruction line, which is this relinquishment of ego. When this dynamic shift happens, when this riptide comes in with judgment, it pulls us away from the known, the comfortable, or the conforming. But at this point, we no longer care that that is triggering for ego. Like we care is in the sense of like that's part of ourself and we know how to manage it, but we're not going to try to placate ego. And when we step into the destruction line and then into the evolution line, we're doing a lot of ego work, even if we're not actively doing ego work, if that makes sense. When we step into the destruction line and then into the evolution line, the third line in the major arcana, we've already been doing a lot of ego work. Ego wants things just immediately known. It wants questions immediately answered, it wants us to be immediately validated. Ego wants things in very convenient boxes so that we move through a world of immediate give and response. Life does not work this way. We know it doesn't work this way, but more than that, especially once we've gone through the destruction and then we move into evolution, we see it how we don't need things to be immediately known, comfortable, or conforming. We see this with other cards, but here with judgment, we finally see that there's no reason to fear this change. We've learned how to embrace the flow of life and rise to meet it in our wild spirit. We elevate ourselves towards a form of connection or awareness that we couldn't have done before. And we're willingly, hopefully, taking this on or at least creating a level of acceptance and guidance and willingness to step through this door with judgment. When it's an absolute alignment, this energy looks like not only are we willing to step into the unknowns of life, but we're excited about it, but we're hungry for it. There's that hunger that comes from the sun and it comes from our own wild reclamation. We are so willing now to embrace and accept these situations in life, maybe not all the time, but in general, because we've learned how to manage this going from destruction now to evolution. And if we're not totally in that alignment, which to be fair, most of us never are, it at least looks like okay, I'm scared, I'm afraid, I'm anxious, I'm stressed, I'm sad. I'm still gonna walk forward though. I'm going to accept this change and see where it takes me. I don't really like it right now. I may never like it, you know? And that's just the way life is. Moving through the cards as we have, even starting with the magician, starting with this creation, starting with the fool and the magician, but now here at Judgment, we have this resilience built because we've gone through so much stuff. We've gone through death, we've gone through the devil, we've gone through the tower, we've gone through getting off the chariot, we've gone through strength, we've gone through the hangman, we have gone through so fucking much. And now here we're almost just ready and willing to be like, yeah, take me, take me, let this shift happen, let life just alchemize me and continue to do it because look at what I've already been through. I not only have this, I've got it. I don't know all the knowns, I don't have all the questions answered, I don't have all of these boxes checked, but I now know that I don't need to. I now know that I don't need that in order to make the most of it. We also see this in the layout, like we've been talking heavily about moving from the creation line, the magician to the chariot, destruction from strength or justice to temperance, and then the evolution, which starts with the devil, and then it'll end with the world. But we also can look at the layout in the form of what I call the doorways. So in the doorways, there's seven of them. There's three rows of seven cards, and then there's seven doorways of three cards. And in each doorway, we have the energies of creation, destruction, and evolution together. And in the doorway with judgment, the doorway where judgment resides, we also have the lovers and death. We fall in love with the beauty of this world. We fall in love with life, we fall in love with people, and then we learn that the things we love and the things that are beautiful in this world do not last. And even if we have one love over here, we lose a love somewhere else. And in judgment, we resurrect this love by recognizing that eternal nature of love. We appreciate the blessings and the moments because now as we rise up, we recognize that even though we may not have all of these things the way we want them. Again, it's totally okay to grieve, but we give gratitude to the cycles of life and death, and we see it how they play out and on a very grand scale. And this is where I talked about before that eternal nature of love, helping us move through judgment, even when we're really struggling. Look at the doorways sometimes to help you in reading these cards. So the layout of moving through the the three lines can be helpful, but also looking at the doorways can be incredibly helpful as well. Because I can tell you, just again, just throwing my own personal experience in there, judgment was a card that anytime I pulled it after the loss of my three cats, I was just like, oh, I don't know, no, no, no, I've no, and I would kind of ignore it. It was a card I like if I pulled it, I was just like, nope, fuck you, thanks, bye. And then when I was looking at the doorway of it, where it starts with the lovers, and then the destruction card in that is death, and then it's judgment, I was like, oh, fuck. Like, shit, okay, because now I see that even though I am still so sad, um, here the example is just of a physical death, but it often really is. But even though I am so grieving the death of my cats, the love that I have for them is eternal. The love that they gave me, the ways that I became better because of my cats, is what allows me to actually now sit in judgment and be like, yeah, yeah, it hurts like hell. I don't like it. But the love endures, but the love carries me through, and that is one of the most beautiful lessons that we can take. Like, it actually almost makes me like want to cry because it is such a profound shift on the deepest of levels, and we may not get that with every judgment moment. In fact, we probably won't, but the moments that we do get that help us see how at how profound the shift of judgment is. When we rise into that energy, we can truly look back on even some of the hardest parts of our life and find gratitude and it find the love in it in that, and that is not easy to do. So doing that is incredibly radical work, and that helps us in that rising. It helps us in embracing that shift and the dynamics and accepting the change. Even if we look at some of the more um, like the example I gave earlier in this episode was the judgment moment where I was no longer grieving my marriage that did not last. And of course, that is not as hard as losing my cats was, but the energy is still there that I had this love. There was love in this relationship at one point. The relationship didn't last. And not only did the relationship not last, there was this death cycle of expectations. There was this death cycle of what I thought love was and should look like. There was this death cycle of how I engaged with love to this day. I do not engage with love the same way because I just won't tolerate certain things. And the judgment moment in that was me choosing me. The judgment moment in that and me no longer grieving, and I didn't even have to accept it. It just naturally happened, like I said, was I chose me. I chose to live a beautiful life. I chose to not cry and grieve for a situation that I was crying and grieving when I was in it. And more than that, I chose me. Even I mean, and at the time I was like, I'm so scared that I'm never gonna find romantic love again. And even if I didn't, I would rather be alone and just love the fuck out of myself than be with someone who doesn't love me the way I need to be loved, and the way that I should be loved, you know. So judgment helps us rise into this energy when we see where the love and the death has been in our journey, and the love is the enduring part. The death is also part of the enduring part, but the love goes deeper than some of the death cycles, you know. It really does. And that helps us embrace and walk through this doorway and go into the world card. So whenever you are struggling with a judgment moment, look to the love and the death cycles that you moved through in that journey. But also, if you were just struggling to understand what the card is literally saying to you when it comes forward in a spread or in your daily poll, look to the doorways and also to the layout linearly of like the three lines, but also to the vertical column. That is a great way to read the cards intuitively. And that's just a little tarot tip. The last way that I read the judgment card is that it speaks to movement and flow towards new spaces. There is a willingness to go past what feels comfortable or known, kind of like what we've been talking about already. When we step into judgment or when judgment comes forward in a reading for us, it speaks to this energy's already in motion and how do we embrace it? And this is where recognizing that this is the fool's journey too can also be helpful because when we when we recognize and bring the fool into judgment, we see that this is what the fool has been working towards. Like the fool didn't know that this journey was gonna lay out the way it did because they're so unmarked by experience or wisdom or knowledge, but at the same time, the fool being so open and embracing with the rose and the dog and the knapsack in a way has a ripple effect that leads to the judgment card because this is where we get to rise up in our fool's journey and embrace the energy of the fool, but it's deepened and now wisened. It's the best of both worlds. Before we get into the shadow aspects of judgment quickly, I just want to highlight a few little pieces of information that may help you read this card as well. The first one is that judgment is ruled by the planet Pluto. So this signifies that transformation that we talked about, and that is where again looking at the doorway can be helpful because we've already seen how death is part of reading the judgment card. When judgment comes forward, we have this ruminating, permeating energy still of the death card and of death cycles because we have to relinquish some of these things so that we can rise into this transformation, move into this shift, and have this sense of rebirth, this evolution, this spiritual awakening. It also represents how we are not the same anymore, and we have to embrace that. We are not the same people. We have been through so much, especially when we look at going through the rows, the three rows of the major arcana, we see it how much growth is there, and we have to embrace it. Like I said before, we have to be willing to embrace the part of the death cycle that means we have to relinquish old parts of ourselves, old parts of ourself, shed those parts of us, and step into something new, something that's not entirely known, but something that has the promise of rising into newer, bigger, better, more aligned, more awakened energies. The Hebrew letter that is associated with judgment also has this correlating energy or these correlating themes of death cycles and order for rebirth. So the Hebrew letter is pronounced Sheen, I believe, S-H-I-N, meaning tooth or fang. So the tooth of fire brought down to purify. So the letter does have a fire elemental association with it. And this fire elemental association, I have also seen written about in a way of like a serpent's fang, the poison also has the purification, or the poison is also, in a sense, the cure, like in an antidote. When we are working with judgment, again, even with the Hebrew letter, we see this association of needing to go through this last and final death cycle. Like we've done the evolutionary work, we've already moved through some very big death cycles, like with death, of course, the hanged man, the tower, but now we have to embrace the moving away of not only those cycles, but the journey that we were on with those cycles as part of the journey. We have to recognize that because we have been changed by those cycles and those last parts fall away, that that purification kind of happens of these old things that don't serve and can't come with us. We have to let this final, the final remnants of that death cycle go. Finally, I would like to mention the shadow aspects of judgment because the shadow aspects can be helpful in recognizing how we stay in alignment with this energy, with this card, with its imitations in ways that serve. So the first and maybe one of the biggest ones that I mentioned is refusal. Refusal in the form of not accepting that some of these changes have already happened, are happening, and will continue to happen again. Because it's a major arcana card, that means that it's so big and cosmic and universal and symbolic that we don't have a ton of say or control in how it moves through our lives or just in general. We don't have a say in how this cycle kind of progresses. What we do have a say in is how we approach it, how we work with it, and how we use it to fit our wants and needs, whatever those are. Again, it can be a myriad of things based on when it comes forward, for whom, and at what time. And I hate to say it like this because I am not in any way trying to create a judgmental narrative attached to the shadow side of judgment. Um, I can just say that when I've seen this happen to other people that I've known personally, or even when I was kind of refusing to accept parts of this when I was going through my own examples, like with my grief, the days just keep on coming. The cycle just keeps on moving. And when we become so laser-focused in on something that we want, but we can't have, or something in the past that we want to resurrect, but we can't do that. It's taking powerful, beautiful, precious energy away from us accepting and opening into something new. And we don't have to love the transformation and the evolution that we step into when we step into judgment. We don't have to love it. Again, I don't love that I lost three cats. Who the fuck would? But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been beautiful moments in the process. There absolutely have been. And when we work with this card, it's a powerful card or it gives a powerful reminder that because we don't control a whole lot, actually, we actually control very little. Embracing and accepting and doing our best, trying to meet these moments as we can with the best parts of us, with our heart forward, with our chest up, with this willingness to live life, to not shut ourselves away because of something bad or hard that happened in the past means that we're staying open and vulnerable to beautiful things that are yet to come. Other than refusal, I would say another big one is not feeling ready. Like we need to feel ready before we can step into judgments, dynamic shift of energy or of change and of transformation. Well, this is so normal. We all have moments like this that is often again based in ego. Ego wants all of our questions answered. What's on the other side of this? What's gonna happen tomorrow? Will this happen? Will this not happen? We we want those, and that's normal. Here's the problem we rarely we never get that. We just don't ever get that. We don't get all of our boxes checked, we don't get all of our questions answered, we don't get an itinerary of our life. We don't get that. We have moments that we've planned for sure, but a lot of life is like happening and we're just in the middle of it, you know what I mean. So, one of the things we can do to help ourselves in that is to lean onto things that feel supportive. So, this could be a support system of people. I know for me, obviously, nature is a big one. And also my tarot practice. When I am in phases of my life where I'm really struggling, I'm pulling my tarot cards all the time because I trust in my tarot reading capabilities. I trust in myself to not be subjective. Like I trust that I can actually sit with the cards and have an honest conversation with myself. In fact, it's one of the only times I feel like I can have some of these honest conversations, is when these cards come forward for me. So my tarot practice is incredibly supportive because it helps me make sense of the bigger situation, but it brings it to me in bite-sized messages that I can easily pick apart and find understanding and meaning in them. This could also be rituals, it could be again going to talking to someone like a counselor, it could be a mentor, it could be so many different things, but finding the places where you feel supported can help you in embracing the parts of you that may not feel ready to step into this dynamic change or shift that comes with judgment, but it's gonna come, and again, we don't have a ton of control or say over that. Some other shadow aspects that come with judgment, I would say, are needing your life purpose to now be attached to your job or your career in any way. Now there's nothing wrong with your job, your career being your life's purpose, you know. Um, I am an example of that. There are so many people that make their life purpose their job, but to say that it now has to be often falls into a very capitalistic narrative. And I think it's just important to just be mindful of that and to put this narrative out there for consideration. I have talked to many people who have said that they would never want their life's purpose, the gifts that they put out into their world, their love language to be attached to their job because then it's attached to money, and now it becomes a fundamental piece of providing for their life, and there's not that freedom to just enjoy it or to be in it anymore. So, again, that's just something to consider. Does it feel right to make part of your career, your financial provisions, or is it okay to just leave it as something that you just truly enjoy and you just want to put out there into the world because it's important to do so? We could also say that just needing our life, this awakening to our life's purpose, there's this imitation of being open to how it flows, being open to how it manifests. Because if we try to just push it into a box, we're again not giving it that freedom to be unique to itself. So maybe being mindful of some expectations of what is on the other side of this spiritual awakening could be helpful as well. One of the last main shadow aspects of judgment, I would say, of course, there's layers and nuance to everyone's personal story and their needs for sitting and a reading. But in general, I would say one of the last big shadow aspects is the sense of self-righteousness, being holier than thou, or even a martyr in some ways. One of the last big shadow aspects I would give to judgment, I would say, um, of course, there's layers and nuance and complexities to each individual person and their needs in a tarot reading, but just kind of in general here, I would say one of the biggest general shadow aspects of judgment is the sense of because we've kind of gone through all of this, now there's this sense of righteousness, holier than thou, or even martyrdom perspectives. This is not to say that we shouldn't be proud of our accomplishments or the things that we have gone through, the trials that we have overcome. Absolutely. You got knocked down eight times and you got up nine. Hell yes, that's gorgeous. However, that doesn't mean that we now have all the answers. That doesn't mean that our way is the right way or the only way, and it doesn't mean that we are no longer a student to this path or to nature or to life anymore. We will be students till the day that we die, and we are also teachers. There's this reminder that we need to stay humble, that we need to stay kind, and that we also need to recognize that our way worked for us. And if we have someone ask us, or if we can give a colonel and a gift of wisdom or of advice or of perspective, of honesty, whatever it is, if we can give that, absolutely we should, but that doesn't mean that our space becomes more important than another person taking up space, especially on their own journey. And this is where we start to see it shift into a really problematic aspect of judgment. So, like, for example, I don't talk to many people in my extended family anymore. Um, because when they would do anything that was hurtful, that was unkind, that was just unnecessary, you know, just not necessary in any way. And the minute that I would try to talk to them, they would completely go on the defensive and blame me. They would say that I'm wrong, they're right, they didn't do anything wrong. And what that does is it prevents you from growing until you shift that behavior. And with judgment, as we've now been talking about, we want to be in this space of growing. We want to be in this uprooting, uprising energy that moves us into something bigger and brighter and better. We can't move into that if we're pointing the finger all the time, saying, I'm right and everyone else is wrong. You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't really work like that. When we are connecting to other people, when we are engaging with other people, or just moving on our journey throughout our lives, we do need to live our truth and we need to live it fiercely and be a leader. We need to be proud of our own personal path, but again, we need to recognize that our path is our own and hold space for other people's differences. And that is where the true beauty of judgment comes through because it comes back to that place of love. When it moves from a place of that righteousness or that holier than thou perspective, it's shutting down other people, but it's actually creating a sense of stagnation or dormancy in your own growth because there's this unwillingness to be open and to learn and to um have honesty and love be a guide through that journey. Before I close out with the poem, I just want to highlight some symbolism here that we see. And this will be on the blog. It's the first image, it will also be on my social media as well. But the depiction of judgment from the Guardian of the Night Tarot is my absolute favorite. And when you look at the photo, you'll see why. We see this beautiful snake just bursting out of these clouds. There's like these constellations and flowers and all this growth, and we see that the snake has actually shed its skin. What I love about this image is multi-layered. So the first thing that I love is that at the bottom where the snake shed is, which shows us this death cycle that we have literally just outgrown this version of ourselves. But we also see all of these thorns around the snake shed. Now, this is something that we want to move away from because it's painful and it pokes us, but it's also helpful for removing, how should I say this? Snakes will actually use things like that to help them in shedding their skin. They will rub up against things because the skin will catch and it'll more easily pull the skin off of them. So this goes back to that sense of the poison is also, in a way, the cure, or that when we're seeking to find a sense of healing and gratitude and relief, this rising of energy moves us into something bigger and better and brighter. One of the main catalysts for that is the pain and the transformative moments of shadow, of darkness, or of hardship in our life. You know what I mean? So using the branches, the thorns in there as a way to help us even more cast ourselves into this uprising of energy is so beautiful. I love that we see that in the card. Here, our angel is depicted as this beautiful little house finch with its bird song trumpeting kind of that snake up into the sky. Also, I love here that this call to the bird song is also a return to our wild nature. That as we rise up into our energies, we're also called into the deepest and most purest parts of ourself. And then finally, the last symbolism that I want to mention is the poppies at the base, again, kind of near where the thorns and the snakeshed are. Now, poppies have a ton of symbolism. Mostly they represent peace, eternal sleep, and resurrection. There's also this symbolism with remembrance and sacrifice. The red poppy was famously worn to honor soldiers who died in war, a tradition rooted in the flowers growing on battlefields. Now, I am not trying to say that me sitting here when I pull over judgment in my daily polls or whenever is similar or comparable to someone in any country who has taken the oath for their country and maybe unfortunately has paid with the ultimate sacrifice with their lives. No way am I saying that is comparable. That would be gross. What I am saying, or at least what this image evoked within me when I saw this with the poppies in there, I think those are poppies. I took it more as this sense of having reverence for the journey and the past that we had to walk to get to where we are. When we hold reverence for the past, when we take a moment to honor the journeys, the emotions, the peaks and the valleys in this process that helps us not only be willing to embrace the threshold of judgment and step into that rising of energy, but it also helps keep us grounded, which is something that the snake symbolizes being so connected to the ground, so connected also to energy and creation and evolution and transformation. There is this sense of honoring the light and the shadow together, is the only way that we can really step into the process of judgment. Kind of the only way that we can do it. I mean, this image is just so beautiful. Again, this is a deck that I would recommend you maybe looking at getting. We'll talk about that when I do my review of it. But then the snake moves into this threshold where there's greenery, there's flowers, there's stars. It's just kind of this feckin' fertile new space that the snake is moving into. And that's the beautiful part about judgment is that we don't know what's on the other side of the threshold, but there's this promise that it's not going to always be beautiful, but there are going to be incredibly beautiful moments, and that is worth it. One final thing I want to share before we move on to the poem that I wrote of Judgment. I want to read a little bit from the guidebook of the Spirit Animal Tarot because this is hands down the best guidebook I have ever seen come from a tarot deck. And you guys know I am so picky about guidebooks. So for this one to be one that I want to read from is quite remarkable. But as you will see further down on the blog post, that the animal associations with judgment are the crocodile and butterfly as masters of discernment. And it writes, Surprising allies, crocodile and butterfly, two power powerful representatives of transformation, bask in the sun. By releasing assumptions and expectations of life, we open to beauty. Crocodile and Butterfly recommend self-honesty so we may celebrate our true identity. Guide to Primal Waters of Self, Crocodile uncovers hidden emotions and forgotten aspects of psyche that continue to weigh us down. The croc offers powerful initiation for those ready to embrace the last dark secrets of self. Sensitive to timing, symbolic of the evolving human soul, Butterfly's delicate touch encourages us to let go, spread our wings, and soar into the new. This card signals profound transformation. Be willing to accept and forgive. Have courage and be patient. You may feel drawn to your deepest depth and raised to your highest potential. Waking from the dream of ordinary consciousness, we claim the fullness of our true self. Liberated from self-imposed constraints, we feel renewed and live in the moment, present and aware. Crocodile and Butterfly announced that awakening is now. I just really love the way that she writes about the cards, so I wanted to share that. And because I want to end with my poem, I want to now thank my patrons. Depp Guy, Bobby McDermott, Lisa Zimmerman, Tracy Lanham, Kim Hartnett, Chris Ree, Miranda Snow, Colleen Tue, Charlie Ruggles, Shannon Konendike, and Danica Favorite. Thank you all so much for your support in me and in Wolfchild Magic. As always, it means the world. And now here is my poem Judgment from my book, Major Arcana, a poetry collection. Judgment. I am the size of a sparrow, carrying my small thunder across this formidable realm. The wind calls me by a name I never took, yet I turned in acknowledgement. I start to become prairie mad, recall myself as a creature, full but always hungry. I awoke with her name in my mouth, thick on my tongue like honey. Now we are both wailing goddesses, keeping to the fringe, choosing desert over oasis. We use fire to claim this night, sometimes forgetting the drink of water. I hung her in my heart like a bell, blessing the cathedral of my body. It was divine all along, but now I choose to light a small candle at the altar of the belly, like how a dragon must feel. I take the name of which so that death always leaves the boat tethered for new life to find. We are all waves, but in my rite of passage through this holy tempest, I finally see the glory of getting swept away.