Three Justice cards: Rider-Waite-Smith published by US Games, Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti, Tarot de Marseilles (Conver) by Yoav Ben-Dov

Justice. Is there actually any justice in the world? They say “the sun shines on the good and the wicked alike.” 

But you work hard and struggle to keep up with your bills while there are some who have more money than they know what to do with.

Then you watch the news from around the world and some more powerful nation is trying to take advantage of a less powerful one, but the people who pay for it are never the ones making the decisions.

Where is justice?

What about the mother who lost rights to see her children because she didn’t have the money to fight back in court?

Or the wealthy person who certainly seems to be guilty as charged who gets away with it?

And then there’s the universal unfairness: “life’s a bitch and then you die.”

It seems the more we look for justice in this world, the more injustice we find.

They also say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” This certainly seems to be the case throughout history where people have enacted their own version of vigilante justice, convinced they're being fair.

But it wasn’t fair for everyone.

So where does the idea of justice - or equilibrium - come from? It’s a powerful ideal in most societies and civilizations.

If it doesn’t exist somewhere, where did the concept even come from?

Maybe justice isn't a human invention at all. Maybe it's something we're remembering.

Looking at the images above from two different tarot decks, you will see the similarities: the woman, the scales and the sword.

You'll notice one card shows the woman blindfolded, a symbol you'll recognize from Lady Justice in secular culture.

What does this mean?

Let’s start with the scales.

The scales are the symbol of balance or equilibrium. 

You could even say, karma.

Karma is the result of past choices. At some point, you have to pay the piper to balance the scales.

But with a tapestry of 8 billion or so souls on the planet, that’s a LOT of karma being balanced!

Do we really have the capacity to see it?

In my own life, I was an elite ice hockey player in my youth. I dreamed of being a star in the NHL one day.

One of the teams we played regularly had a player who I used to admire for his skill and just the way he held himself.

He ended up being the first round draft pick overall in his draft year and elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I recently came across something about him on YouTube and discovered he had passed away from cancer a few years ago. So young. Yes, leaving behind a legacy but also a loving family.

It shook me. I ended up on a different trajectory for various reasons but his story stayed with me.

There was a musician who had legendary cult status in Canada when I was in high school. He toured and opened up for bands that were big in the US but never crossed completely over into that market himself. 

He’s still working it successfully in Canada. 

What if the scales are weighing things we simply don't have the eyes to see?

Something I learned from Valentin Tomberg is that there is both a horizontal (karma) and vertical (Grace) set of scales.

This suggests that in the present moment, the only place life can BE, there is no karma.

Karma happens in time. It needs time for all the dominos to fall over.

Without time, there is no karma.

With the vertical balance there is a different order of life altogether.

Should Justice Be Blind?

Which brings us back to the two cards. And that blindfold.

But first, we need to judge. 

When Jesus said “judge not…” he didn’t mean never to judge on the timeline of your life!

You use your faculty of judgement all day long. 

What should you order off the menu? Should you purchase item A or item B? What time should you leave in order to arrive at your destination? Should you marry this person?

This is the realm of the blindfolded woman. As humans we can judge things in the world around us. But we cannot judge the Being of another person.

We may not like what someone does. That’s a judgement whether accurate or not.

But judging their Being is simply beyond our capacity; we don't have the full picture.

The card without the blindfold on the other hand, is the symbol of another spiritual lesson.

Why should we do the right thing? Why bother?

If nobody sees you, why go that extra step?

But this card is showing that there is an Intelligence that sees everything. Everything matters. 

Not in the way of being perfect. For there is a great deal of mercy involved which I will explain later.

But if nothing is ultimately seen or remembered on a higher order, then why even try? Why not just have a hedonistic the hell with it all life? 

You know why. You’ve experienced the consequences yourself. At least with the mundane things: a hangover, weight gain, trouble in relationships.

But any real love you give to this world in any form is forever. 

Any hate is something you will need to face in some way. 

But you always face it in yourself just as the love is always with you.

What If the World’s Not Broken?

What if it’s the medium that we’re meant to shape into a finished form?

Is Love even real in a world where nothing costs anything?

If the world were already “perfect” how would we make anything actual? How would fairness be fair if there wasn’t unfairness to balance?

These days there’s a tendency to call the source of life “the Universe.”

And in some spiritual circles it’s called First Cause or the Absolute.

But just as worshipping money, power or fame will lead to missing the mark in life, so will substituting these abstract concepts for the fiery, luminous and vibrant Being of Life.

A concept of water doesn’t quench your thirst. Water does.

The Meaning of the Sword in The Justice Card

The Justice card is here to defend your freewill.

You can choose to do the right thing, or you can let that seductive voice win. The one that says nobody's watching. Why bother. Nothing means anything.

And because the woman who holds the sword is wearing a crown, she is an aspect of Divine Intelligence.

The feminine principle shows that she is receptive.

She reacts only to what is. She doesn’t interfere. Freewill, remember?

With her sword, she is a guardian of something. That is freewill on the horizontal scales of time-space AND the Will of Heaven of the invisible vertical scales.

Heaven and Hell

Whenever we imagine heaven or hell we imagine some far off places where we somehow exist in the form we are now for a really really long time.

But these dimensions exist in the Universal Mind as a higher order that is beyond the reach of the intellect.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of sitting around playing harps in the clouds forever sounds hella boring! (pun intended).

And hell is some vague fiery pit with demons in red tights poking at us with their pitchforks.

These are obviously fairy tales.

Heaven and hell are real but not in the way you imagine.

They aren’t time based states. They are quality states of consciousness that transcend time.

We even get a taste of it here in the flesh.

When something we experience is hellish or even just boring, it seems to take an eternity.

When something is intensely pleasurable, time flies.

You probably know the hell you experience when you feel cut off from yourself and from life. When you feel completely isolated through contraction.

But forgiveness is the salvation that gets you into heaven even while here on earth.

Remember, you can only judge actions and behaviour but you do not have the capacity to judge someone’s actuality. Their Being.

As long as you can remember this, the forgiveness and mercy you extend to others will be extended to you from Justice on the vertical axis.

This cannot be overstated: you don't have to like what someone does or even like them. You only need to remember that beneath everything they've done or failed to do, the same fiery, luminous and vibrant Being of life is present in them that is present in you.

The Space that Doesn't Judge

So whenever you judge life as unfair and you feel that tightening surge in your solar plexus remember to pause.

Remember forgiveness and mercy as the ultimate spiritual meaning of the Justice card. And of Life itself.

There is meaning and everything is seen. 

The good you do isn’t just vanishing into some void never to be seen again.

And the “bad” you do or shortcuts you take can be redeemed at any time.

When you can breathe through that resistance or “seeing red” you begin to find the space that doesn’t judge.

This alive and vibrating space within you begins to dissolve the contractions.

It takes work, yes. It takes willingness. You’ll need to work with the material of your soul patiently. 

The space accepts. Not because it’s good or bad but because it is ultimately Love and Mercy.

In more practical terms, when you can be the witness of what you’re resisting, you’re no longer resisting it. Your individual freewill is balanced with Higher Will.

If you're feeling the weight of an unfair situation and want to see what's actually unfolding beneath the surface, a Tarot reading is where we start. The cards have a way of showing what the horizontal view can't reach.

If something in this article connected, and you want support to find that space that doesn't judge rather than just read about it, a Presence Session is exactly for that. People often leave feeling lighter than they have in years.