Judgement • PORTALS Tarot Print
- Divinatory meaning: The Waite-Colman-Smith tarot deck’s Judgement card features a scene that is familiar in the hearts and minds of all good Christian souls: The archangel Gabriel breaks out their trumpet to wake ‘em all up, living and dead, on the last day of Earth, and call them up to be with Jesus. The ones that were good ascend up from their graves to heaven; the ones that were bad are not invited to the party. It’s a grim party, to be sure, and one that frankly doesn’t sound that fun to me, but the imagery of this scene that so many people in the Christian faith are waiting for is certainly evocative. An old depression-era gospel song I used to love to hear at bluegrass and old time shows when I was growing up in Georgia captures the thrill of a God-fearing person at the prospect of this ascension: “Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down)”. Give it a listen and you’ll get the idea. The card asks a lot of the reader. It does not speak of literal, physical death, but the shedding of skin to peel back the layers of our old ways. It is a call to arms, to real change. We don’t have a trumpet-bearing angel in our version, only the people doing the ascending. Awakening is a choice. We’re near the end of the journey of the tarot here - The Judgment card is the second-to-last card in the major arcana. In recent memory sits the Death card, who gifted us with the lesson of what can be gained when we finally relinquish that which no longer serves us. Now, we arrive at the next level of that ego-death, and the only beast guarding heaven and separating us from divine freedom: the voyage of ascension. We’ve been through a lot, learned much, and now we are prepared for the final reckoning. Who do you want to be?
- Our card: A land of liminal light oozes and overlays, melding together the pale pinks, lilacs and violets of early morning or twilight. The landscape builds like a pyramid from the bottom to the top of the card, echoing the shape of the luminous snow-covered mountain in the center of the scene.
At the base of our Judgement card, we see larger-than-life weedy flowers and textures of water, as well as what look like fisherman combing through those waters for their daily catch. Behind them, mountains emerge in a dreamscape pattern of peaks in pastel. They have an air of softness and simultaneous imposing mastery, and they ground us, even though our eyes float up to follow the young women in the foreground, who ascend with painful countenances toward we-know-not-what. The women are surrounded by candles and flickering lanterns. They lie flat as if on earth, and yet they are rising over it: the mountains and people below seem far off, and clouds of all shapes encircle them. At the crown of the card is a small, single opening flower with a glowing center. We’re pretty proud of this one. It manages to convey, I think, both the agony and the ecstasy of the story of Judgement.
Original Art by Savannah Green
Insights by Eryn O'Sullivan
• 10 mil (0.25 mm) thick
• Slightly glossy