This is a card of…

Higher calling

Sound decisions

Accepting challenges

Self-realization

Taking the high road

“But beware of this about callings: they may not lead us where we intended to go or even where we want to go… if the calling is true, though we may not have gone where we intended, we will surely end up where we need to be.”

-Steve Goodier

The experience of the previous card, the Sun, left us able to inhabit the world without a mask. It is only from this place of authenticity that we can hear the clear trumpet calling us to live as our best selves.

Sometimes the trumpet is fearful, we must face a wrong we have committed: apologize, confess to a lie, admit a long-denied mistake. Sometimes it is glorious: we know our calling in life, we understand where we belong. Usually there is a little bit of both.

Those trumpets may be a more classical sense of a “calling”. The experience of understanding, finally, what profession or cause we are meant to dedicate ourselves to is a meaning for Judgement.

While depictions of Key 20 can have a bit of a fire-and-brimstone look, this is a positive card. We stand at a crossroads, not dreading the tougher high road, but hearing it beckon us. We know we are ready to take it.

When we feel in our bones a calling to embark on a career path or begin a creative work, when we can no longer stand by while an injustice is committed, when we realize we have wronged someone and are released from the prison of playing victim to escape blame: we are living the Judgment card.

So close to the final card of the majors, maturity and spiritual clarity ask us to raise ourselves up to our highest and most righteous potential.

Advice:

Heed the call.

Warning:

If you do not heed the call, go directly to Key 16. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.