For You to See Life - 4u2c.life

The Justice ~ symbolic meanings painted in the card.

The card of Justice portrays a severely beautiful young woman, dressed in silver helmet and battle armour, seated on a silver throne. In her right hand she holds an upright sword. In her left she holds a pair of scales. Her pale hair and white robes echo the purity of the two white columns and portico which frame her. Beneath her feet is a floor patterned of black and white marble. An owl perches on her left shoulder.

The black and white patterned floor suggests the mind’s capacity to integrate both dark and light into an orderly and coherent design.

The owl, Athene’s bird, reflects her clarity of vision, because it can see and hunt its prey in the dark.

The scales symbolize the capacity to weigh one thing against another to arrive at an impartial judgement. In myth, Athene was said to have invented the first human jury.

Major Arcana ~ The Justice

Here we meet Athene, goddess of Justice, whom we earlier encountered in the card of the Lovers. In myth, her father was Zeus, king of the gods, who had been warned by Uranus that if he had a child by his first wife, Metis, goddess ofWisdom, it would be more powerful than he. To forestall this eventuality he swallowed Metis before she had given birth to the child she was carrying. Shortly afterward, Zeus was tormented by an intolerable headache. To cure him, Hephaistos, the smith-god, split open his head with a bronze axe, and from the gaping wound sprang the fully armed Athene, shouting a triumphant cry of victory. At the sight, all the Immortals were struck with astonishment and filled with awe. The goddess became Zeus’ favourite child, and his preference for her was so marked that it aroused the jealousy of the other gods.

Athene’s warlike prodmties were immediately apparent from her birth but she was different from Ares the war-god in many ways The arts of war which Athene cultivated were not based on love of conflict and bloodshed. Rather, they sprang from high principles and the cool recognition of the necessity of batde to uphold and preserve truth She was a strategist rather than a brute fighter, and she balanced Ares’ physical aggression and force with logic, diplomacy and cleverness. She protected the brave and valorous, and became the guardian of many heroes. But the protection she offered to Perseus, Odysseus and other famous warriors always consisted of weapons which had to be used with intelligence, foresight and planning.

Athene was a striking exception to Olympian society because of her chastity. She also rendered valuable service to mankind. She taught the art of taming horses, and fostered skills and crafts such as weaving and embroidery. Her activities were concerned not only with useful work, but with artistic creation as well. Thus she was a civilizing goddess, although a warrior when it became necessary to protect the peaceful civilization she nurtured.

On an inner level, Athene, goddess of Justice, is an image of the uniquely human faculty of reflective judgement and rational thought. To the Greeks, this faculty was divine, because it differentiated man from the beasts. Thus they envisaged Athene bom from the head of great Zeus, uncontaminated by a corporeal mother who might link her with the physical and instinctual world which we share with the animals. Athene’s judgements are not based on personal feeling, but upon impartial objective assessment of all the factors contained in a situation, and on ethical principles which stand as firm guidelines for choice.

Athene’s chastity may be taken as a symbol of the intactness and purity of this reflective faculty, which is not influenced by personal desire. Her teaching of the civilizing arts also reflects the capacity of the mind to hold untamed nature in check and transform it throug clarity and objective planning. Her willingness to batde for principles ratner than passions springs from the mind’s capacity to make choices based upon reflection, holding the instincts in control.

The card of Justice is the first of four cards in the Major Arcana which were traditionally called the Four Moral Lessons. These cards - Justice, Temperance, Strength, and the Hermit - are all concerned with the development of those individual faculties necessary for us to function effectively in life. They all contribute to what psychology calls the formation of the ego, which means the sense of ‘I’ that each of us must have in order to experience a sense of worth and value in life, and to cope with life’s challenges from a stable and truly individual base. The Fool, having passed through the two great challenges of youth - erotic desire and aggression - now faces the necessity of building his character and developing faculties which will help him to deal with the great range of life’s experiences.

Thus, when the Fool meets Athene, goddess of Justice, he must learn how to think clearly and how to cultivate the faculty of a balanced mind. He must learn to weigh one thing against another - something he could not yet do in the card of the Lovers - and come to the most impartial judgement possible. Justice is not possible unless we respect fairness and truth as important ethical principles rather than as nice behaviour which we adopt because we want to be liked by others. Athene raises us above nature, and represents our striving toward a perfection conceived by the human mind and spirit.

On a divinatory level, the card of Justice appearing in a spread implies the need for balanced thought and impartial decision-making. But like Athene’s sword, this card can be double-edged. There are spheres of life where Athene’s cool reflection is too chilly, too idealistic, and too destructive to the warmth of personal relationship. Her sword can cut the heart with general truths which are inappropriate for a particular situation. Thus Justice is, like all the Major Arcana, an ambivalent figure. The Fool must develop what Athene represents, but he cannot stay forever in her pure temple, and must pass on to the next Moral Lesson.

I will explain in my readings what each card means, this is a general interpritation taken from the Mythic Tarot Deck

Information Source: Mythic Tarot Deck
[published in 1986 by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene and Illustrated by Tricia Newell (not the New Mythic Tarot)]