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[0:13] The archetype of Justice in Tarot: accountability, fairness, and the law of cause and effect
Aloha and welcome to Your Heart magic and illuminating space where psychology spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright, the clinical psychologist with a mystic mind.
Hello, hi, everybody. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright, and welcome to Your Heart magic, we are celebrating your heart magics one year birthday today I released this podcast on January 29, I think was the official publication date. And that was just about a year ago. So I am making this episode with a smile on my face because it is beautiful to see something grow. And to start from the beginning and have the opportunity to organically grow something from like a tiny little seed that I had in me for a long time to being able to look back and see what's been accomplished in a year's time.
And I wanted to take a moment and start with a little request that if you have been enjoying your heart magic, I would absolutely appreciate it, if you feel at all moved to leave a positive review. And if you would like to celebrate our birthday with us, that would be magic to my soul. I always forget to ask listeners to leave a review. But that would be an amazing thing to do to help us celebrate so others can discover this podcast and I love to hear from listeners and read what has felt meaningful to you or how you're connecting with these words. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you if you so feel moved.
All right, getting on with today's episode, we are working our way through our archetypes of the Tarot series. And we are talking about card justice today. And we are looking at the archetype of justice. And I have to admit that when I sat down to bring together the information for this one, it had me a little bit stumped. Usually when I'm working with any of the tarot cards so far, I feel I kind of see the pathway of not only what is this card represent, but what's the direction I want to take it in, to encourage listeners to connect with this archetype for themselves.
And I think part of what stumped me about justice is it is such a big concept, isn't it? Like when we think about the word justice and think about the idea that justice is an accounting for actions, it's meant to be impartial, it's meant to be fair, it is meant to be about the law of cause and effect and karma. And what goes around comes around.
There is a lot that we could unpack with that word. And I think if you are walking around in this world paying attention, it is really easy to look at how things are set up and say there's a lot in our world that is not fair. And is not just and I think many of us relate to that time as a child, one of the first times maybe that we didn't get what we thought we wanted. Or maybe we were actually cheated out of something, we thought we should have gotten this and we didn't. And we say something like, but that's not fair.
[3:58] Learning to accept life's unfairness: working with ideals and reality
And a parent or a teacher or somebody in authority says to us, well, life isn't fair. And it's this really hard lesson that we have to begin to learn to accept from this early age that circumstances and life and some of the things that might happen on a day to day basis might not necessarily seem fair in the moment.
And so it's interesting to work with a card when we have been asked to throw out this concept of fairness and the expectation that everything needs to be fair part of our personal development. And I think psychological development is learning that there's many things that might not feel fair, they might not feel just it might not feel like some impartial decision was made, where all factors were weighed, and the best most equitable way forward was forged.
And we work with that and we learn a lot From those lessons, we learn how to forgive, we learn how to accept challenge, accept failure, accept defeat, we learn how to work with things in our life that might feel dark or unjust or personally become these obstacles or stumbling blocks that maybe make us want to close our heart to life or to the world. And I think, ultimately, part of our spiritual growth is being able to grapple with those challenges.
And as we grapple, hopefully, what we eventually get to is some space, a resolution for yourself, where we are able to find some sort of acceptance or forgiveness or compassionate detachment, something that allows us to let go enough to keep staying on our journey and opening our heart to life, opening our heart, just spirit and opening our heart to the concept that, no, there's many things in this world that might not seem fair, and many things that might feel challenging.
And we might not always feel rewarded for the good effort that we're putting in. And that's the tough stuff in life that we learn to work with. At the same time, the world is still so beautiful, and there are so many gifts of abundance and prosperity. And we could look at that and say, I've done nothing to merit this. I've done nothing to necessarily deserve this grace, or to be surrounded by this. And here it is anyways.
So these are some of the interesting tensions that we work with on our journey, and incomes, the archetype card of justice, which is reflective of on a very surface level, this idea of fairness and equity and being impartial. Justice is really the sword that cuts through all factors and says the fairest decision will be made. And on a very superficial level, if somebody were to pull this card in a Tarot reading, let's say they're asking about a conflict at work or something like that.
And they get the card justice and the spread, particularly of justice is facing upright, that could very well indicate that whatever happens with that conflict, a resolution will be reached, and it will be one that is if it's not necessarily in favor of the individual having the reading, it will be in favor of fairness. And in favor of equity. I think of a time that I pulled the Justice card it was after a breakup. And this is years ago. And there it was a it was a messy one and important conversation that needed to happen had never taken place. And that wasn't on me it was kind of on the individual who really pulled the ghosting thing. And it was a difficult time in my life.
Obviously, I kind of laugh telling it now because it feels so long ago, but I was really heartbroken at the time. And a time came where there was finally a talk. And finally, really honest, kind of put your cards on the table. And some secrets had been covered up and some of that stuff came to the light with the individual. And I really left that conversation feeling like I really saw things clearly. And that that person had finally truly come clean with me and kind of taken an accounting of their actions, and that we had been able to have a truthful conversation.
And I remember very clearly that right before we were going to sit down and have this talk, I done a Tarot reading, and I pulled the card justice. And it was from one of my favorite decks, the shadow escapes Tarot. And I really went into that reading, thinking like whatever's going to happen here. This it felt positive to me.
This didn't feel like it felt like I might finally get some of the closure and some of the answers that I had been seeking, in that cards always stayed with me. This just happened like well over a decade ago. And I still remember how true that card felt that day. It was like something that had been kind of covered up and hidden, was brought to the light or wrong was righted. And while it didn't necessarily like fix some of the pain that I felt and the feelings I had. It did allow a sense of having a reckoning and an evaluation of what happened and having truth be a healing balm.
[9:51] Applying archetype of justice to personal life: beyond the surface
And I think that is really representative of justice at its best when we are applying it to our individual journey. which is what this series is about. It's really looking at the archetypes and how do they apply to us? Like how do we take these archetypal concepts and work with them in our lives and feel inspired by them. And I think Justice at its best with us is when we are able to see things move towards wellness or balance in our life. Now, we might not always have control over that.
And this is where I got a little bit stumped today with figuring out what can we talk about with how do we apply justice to our life. And I remember that like every other archetype just because justice is perhaps not a character, it's not the Empress, it's not the Emperor, it is an idea. It is an aspiration, it is a spiritual law. So it's not as personal perhaps, but that doesn't mean we can't take it and make it personal.
And if we sit around waiting for things in our life, to feel just on the surface, in order for us to feel free, we might be sitting around for a while, I think most of us if we kind of looked at some of the pieces in our life, and looked at different situations, some people might say, You know what, I really feel like things are going my way right now. And I feel like I did a lot of work around this. And I saw these beautiful fruits and these beautiful labors.
Somebody else might say, I feel like I've been doing all this good work and things are not going my way. And I'm second guessing myself. And I'm wondering, did I mess something up? Am I being punished is something going on? Some people might have a little bit of both of those experiences. And I don't think that we can evaluate the archetype of justice necessarily, on every little thing we see in our lives. I think Justice is meant to be inwardly applied.
And so we really look at am I taking accountability for myself? Am I moving into a space of fairness and balance and equity with myself? Am I moving towards wellness and myself? If I feel like Miss stepped on my path? Am I working constructively with that to bring things back into a space of balance? Am I applying the concepts of fairness to myself, and by fairness, I thinking about how many of us are really hard on ourselves, and are maybe really punitive and the language sometimes that we use with ourselves.
So working on compassionate self talk, and self loving talk and working with kind of old stories and old thoughts of a lot of self judgment and criticism, I would not call those kinds of thoughts, justice. I think Justice is really about learning to take a compassionate look at ourselves through the gaze of compassion, and doing that kind of honest reflection. And when we veer into this really hateful or violent self talk, that doesn't necessarily bring things back into balance within ourselves, even when we feel like we've like royally screwed up.
And we are dealing with shame or thinking like, oh, my gosh, I'm can't believe this happened. How in the world am I going to dig myself out of this, and we have those really difficult human emotions, like if embarrassments there, or this urge to just like hide or something like that, you know, even then I think that occasionally, we might give ourselves a stern talking to that might be like, remember your wings, hold your head high, you are going to make it through this. And yes, this is scary and hard. But you're going to be okay, you're stronger than this.
So I need you to back up a little bit, you know, we might be able to give ourselves kind of a loving pep talk like that, that's got a little bit of steel in its spine. But I think that ultimately, when we are able to compassionately say, Yeah, this happened. And this is not me at my best. And I'm just ready to face it, that we actually move through whatever it is a lot quicker, and begin to find some form of resolution or softening of the energy.
And I think that is really the first principle that I want to highlight that part of how we apply justice, the archetype of justice to ourselves and our life is learning to take compassionate stock and inventory of ourselves. And I think it's helpful to do this on a fairly regular basis, that doesn't have to be rigid. Like you don't have to sit down once a month, and be like, how am I doing? You know, am I checking boxes here? Like, where are the checks?
And where are the pluses and minuses? That's really not about it. It's more about taking space at regular interval intervals, that kind of work with our own lives and work with our schedule. And we kind of can ask ourselves questions and say, like, am I showing up the way that I want to right now? Am I like, how am I doing right now?
How am I behaving acting thinking?
Is there anything that feels out of balance? To me? That's a great question to ask. Because when I think about inner justice, I think about moving towards inner wellness, and moving towards inner wholeness and bringing things inside of us into a space of balance and more of a space of peace.
So when we can ask ourselves, is anything out of balance right now. And something out of balance might be a little bit out of balance room, I realized, like, wow, like I've been, you know, whatever it is that we think is out of balance in our life. And that doesn't feel good. So how can I work with that something might be really out of balance. And we might think, to ourselves, yeah, I'm like really struggling with this, and I'm having a hard time facing it. Or I'm having a hard time knowing what to do about it. or so and so's really mad at me. And I kind of feel like I messed up, and I don't know what to do.
[16:39] Self-compassion and justice in personal inventory: compassion is key
Whatever it is, if we can find compassion, we can face it. Remember that there has been many, many, many, many, many human beings who walk this earth, many who've come before us, many who will come after us. And so as personal as our experiences feel to us, and as deeply attached as we are to our experience itself.
And rightly so it's, you know, our most useful experience, it's the only one we have is how we experience ourselves to remember that it's highly unlikely that we are feeling something that's never ever been felt before in the scope of human emotions in the collective, it's very unlikely that whatever it is that we are struggling with, or that we feel is out of balance in our life is something that somebody else out there hasn't experienced before, or at least experienced the essence of, I actually find this thought quite comforting, because it helps me move to replace if I am doing some taking stock and inventory. And I'm tempted to be hard on myself to kind of do a little bit of like, Hey, BethAnne, like maybe get over yourself on this, like, you're not unique, we're you're the only person who's ever felt this way.
Other people have felt this way. And if they found their way through it, and they found their way around it or figured it out. So can you I also will use this concept sometimes just to draw on a sense of inspiration or a sense of hope, or a sense of feeling connected to the greater web of humanity. So I think that is what compassionate self inventory looks like when we are applying this idea of justice, justice kind of being bringing things into balance, and bringing things into an accountability of actions.
That is how compassionate inventory and compassionate accountability. Look, it is not self punishment. It is certainly not berating ourselves. It's interesting, most likely, the more we do that, the more whatever it is that we're struggling with is going to really stay a struggle in our life, whether it's like an inner struggle that we don't want to acknowledge because we've got shame there.
And then we beat ourselves up for having all those feelings even if it's something in our outside world that we're really grappling with. The more we use energy inside of ourselves that is super angry, or, again, the negative self talk the self blaming the self language that I think it's a form of self violence and self harm when we do that to ourselves. Usually, the more it like clenches our energy, right? Like just even saying that right now I felt my chest get tighter. And when we're able to find a compassionate way to address it and find our compassionate self and a compassionate voice. It actually opens us up.
And when we open up, energy opens up and that's when we're more likely to have creative solutions or insights or just be Well to take a deep breath, it's when we are better able to hear from our guidance or receive a message that spirit might be sending us. But we're so like clenched up, we can't hear it. So we want to have self compassion when it comes to not only how we talk to ourselves, but in doing personal inventory.
The second thing is remembering that all things move towards wellness and balance in their own way. And in their own time, including us. And there's this interesting factor that I think many of us think of justice, as this idea of kind of like cause and effect. If I do this, I get this, if I don't do this, I don't get this. So kinda like if I'm a good person, good things happen. Like if I do something bad, and there's a consequence, I'm being punished. And I think that's a really one dimensional way of looking at things.
Perhaps there are times where we directly see like cause and effect and we're like, wow, like, it was not hard to put that together, this happened. And then this was the result. But when I truly think about the idea of justice, and the archetype of justice, I think it's a lot more multi dimensional than that. And something that I've often seen is this idea that people have a way of moving towards balance and wellness and the way that's right for them, at that point in the journey, at their own pace and their own time.
And I think that family systems have a way of slowly moving towards wellness that can sometimes take generations and generations and generations. ecosystems, systems in nature have a way of trying to heal themselves and repair themselves and move towards wellness, we might see something utterly destroyed, and nature finds a way often to regrow itself, to start to rejuvenate, to somehow resurrect new life again from that space, and to slowly grow and evolve.
And it might not ever look the way that it did before. But it grows something new. And I think there's many principles when we look at some of the systems around us when we look at the natural world, that show us that healing isn't linear. And wellness isn't always linear.
[22:36] Balancing masculine and feminine energies for personal growth
It's not always a plus b equals c. Oftentimes, it's a very curvy path, there's a lot of spirals, things look like they're going backwards, and then all of a sudden, they twist and they Quantum Leap forwards, we are capable of being extraordinarily stuck, and feeling like we're regressing. And then we could have this huge epiphany and have some insight and get this fresh burst of energy that really carries us forward, and gives us break through to the next step on the path.
There is something that is intangible about the process of healing and wellness and how systems move towards wellness. And we really need to account for it. It's almost like this kind of hidden ingredient. And I think it is spirit, it's alive. It is cosmic justice. It is, I think, karmic justice in a bigger picture of generations and generations and generations that takes into account things like soul contracts and ancestral lines and our individual purpose. There are all these things on an energetic and intangible and immaterial level, that kind of create this plot twist oftentimes.
So when we think about how we're moving towards wellness, which again, is justice is really moving towards balance, it's moving towards wellness, it's things evening out, and balancing out. We are already doing that. And there is sort of this interesting tension, I think this interesting kind of interplay between sort of the traditional idea of masculine active, I think, what is that yang energy, and more of a feminine receptive Yin energy, and when it comes to moving towards wellness, and I think that yang energy, that fire energy, that movement oriented energy would say like apply yourself, take inventory, take stock, you know, take steps to correct things if you find you're getting off. Know that if you are moving forward and aligned way most likely the path will line up. You might get a few curveballs along the way it's going to be okay.
You're going to deal with those, but you will attract into you and you will Create a life that is in alignment with the person that you're becoming. I think there's a lot of truth in that. I think that that is a beautiful philosophy.
And it's something that often helps me when I'm feeling stuck or feeling a little lost in the path where I will just draw on that good inspired fire energy of take the steps you can take, do the things that feel in alignment, and just know that even if things don't all make sense, right now, your life is moving towards wellness, it is moving towards balance, it's moving in the direction of justice and truth, and love and light, because that is who I'm trying to be in this role. Those are the things I'm trying to create in my life.
So I am there for that, at the same time. The other side of that is Yin energy that says, If I do absolutely nothing, and I'll still do my inner work that that if I just maybe meditate on the idea of bringing wellness into me, that I am more receptive that I say, I opened myself to receiving things to receiving balance in my life, I open myself to receiving whatever I need to bring balance into my system, that if I instead of figuring out what the next step is just take a deep breath and say, Well, I trust the path to unfold before me. And I trust that it's lining up the way that it's meant to go.
And I don't have to effort all that hard to have that happen. I just have to get into my heart and line my heart up with the principles that would represent justice and wellness in my life to me, and that is living in alignment with the truth in my heart, finding creative courage to stay with my dreams, and really trying to embody what it is to live heart centric in this world, and to be my most authentic self and find joy along the way, that if I'm doing those things, I don't have to worry about anything else I can just be and create from that space and trust, whatever comes to me is lining me up for that path.
And so there's this fun interplay between kind of this allowing and efforting doing and receiving, you know, the masculine, more fire, more yang energy and the feminine, more water, more Yin energy.
[27:27] Earthly justice, cosmic justice and personal growth
And I think that is part of balance too. And part of bringing the archetype of justice into us is finding out how do we work with those balanced energies? How do we put a little bit on each side of the scale? And how do we kind of keep going back and forth than back and forth and finding our own personal balance between what those energies mean to us in our life. The last thing that I wanted to say today is that we have to bring grace into this equation.
Now, again, I think the collective sense of justice, grace is not necessarily a concept that you think of with that. When I think about justice on a very mundane level. I don't really think of people sitting in a courtroom, I think a judge might give leniency if they felt it was oriented, but I don't think of like lawyers and judges and courtrooms and justice and social systems and like the word grace does not necessarily come to mind. But we are talking about bringing the archetype of justice and to us today.
And I think ultimately, when we think about justice, the justice that I described is a very earthly one. It's based on kind of legal systems that have been set up, you know, on in various countries. And that is based on a whole lot of things from values, laws, norms, institutions, traditions, many, many, many things.
Ultimately, the true archetype of justice is cosmic justice, it is a greater sense that spirit, that love that source, that the universe is moving things towards wellness, it is moving things towards balance. It is moving things to a place of fairness and truth and light and taking all things into account. And I think that spiritual concept of justice is really what we can take and apply to ourselves and then that spiritual concept of justice, I absolutely think Grace is part of the equation.
I think Grace is the wild card. It is the ace up the sleeve, sometimes that gets pulled out and give second chances or give somebody a little bit more space to kind of sit with the consequences of their own action, which, you know, if we're not in a good place in life, usually those consequences sometimes we might have an external manifestation. But a lot of times, it's our the internal manifestation, whether it's the guilt, or the shame, or whatever internal dissonance that we're experiencing, that keeps us from feeling at peace with ourselves.
And that keeps us from feeling in integrity, I've often found that that is likely worse than some form of an external consequence, because that is what keeps us up at night. That is what keeps us from being able to be in a space of peace. That is where we really sometimes develop all sorts of fancy defense mechanisms and our ways to not look at ourselves and not face ourselves with the naked gaze. Not ultimately, it's just might what.
And that ultimately, is what potentially really keeps us from being authentic. And being vulnerable, and feeling like we can be our most authentic self in the world. And I don't say any of that, to say that if something's keeping you up at night, or you related to something I said, and thought, oh, my gosh, that's me that we should beat ourselves up for that this is just part of the human experience, we all get out of alignment. We all make mistakes, we learn from them, we grow from them.
Remember, everything moves towards balance in its own way in its own time, including us. And that is why I think when we apply justice to our lives, we have to take the wildcard of grace into account, because we are given a lot of grace to work with the energy of justice and our life to work with the energy of balance, to figure it out at our own pace and our own time.
Often justice, I think spiritual justice is less about a punitive consequence that sow fear based, something bad's going to happen to me if I do this. And it's really more of a love based consequence of like, well, you did all these things, and I still love you anyways. And I'm still inviting you into a deeper relationship with spirit with love with life with yourself. Sometimes justice is about second chances, third chances, fourth chances, it's an invitation, she continued to grapple with whatever it is that we might be struggling with.
And it's an invitation to kind of like like if we are a work in progress, a piece of art were these little sculptures, and we're slowly chiseling away at ourselves and chiseling away at the hard edges and chiseling away at the walls that we've put up that perhaps keep us from experiencing love and a greater way or authenticity in a greater way than Justice says, here's some grace so that you have a little bit more time to chisel and sometimes I'm going to step in with kind of life's chisel, and help you soften some of those edges and give you some things maybe to work with, so that you have some reflection points.
[33:17] Grace, balance and love in justice: concluding thoughts
But we have to take grace into account when we are working with this archetype and our life. And I think some of that too, is because there is a lot of fear based consciousness around ideas of karma, cause and effect. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. So this is my punishment things.
And it manifests because I did this. And that just does not feel quite right. To me. I don't really think that's what the spiritual concept of justice is about. And I don't really think that's what brings balance to systems balance tends to happen on its own timeline.
And it often happens in nonlinear ways that might not look anything like we expect. And I think we can ultimately know that there is a loving force that is supporting us and that it's not an enemy. It's not a punisher. It is just love continuing to help invite us into a relationship of being our best version of self and who we came here to be. All right, that feels really complete for today.
So we are going to wrap up the archetype of justice with that. Next week, we are going to be turning our attention to the Akashic records and looking at an Akashic Energy Update, and kind of checking in on so far, we're going into the second month of 2024. What have the record said so far about this year and any insight that the Akashic records might have for us.
So I'm looking forward to bringing that through. In the meantime, thank you for joining me For your heart magics birthday. Thank you so much. If you feel guided our move to leave a review I really appreciate it. Have an amazing week. Be well. Be Love, be you and be magic
You've been listening to your heart magic with Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your life.