By Gary Meister, CTM
Tarot is an excellent tool for meditation to enhance spiritual growth. With Tarot, in our readings, we each have subtly different meanings for the different cards, meanings which work well for ourselves - better than anyone else’s meanings. In Spiritual Tarot it works the same way. We each have our own path and we each see subtly different things in the Major Arcana to help us along that path.
With this series, I’m sharing my journey, in hopes that it might help to shine a little light on yours. I’m using the Rider/Waite/Smith Tarot on this spiritual journey.
The World
A nude woman dances in the sky. In each hand she holds a wand, perhaps showing that she has mastered the “magical” works of Spirit, and can use them at will. A green, living wreath surrounds her, a reminder of the livingness of the Universe and everything in it. Across her left shoulder and crossing her body at the midriff, hiding her sexuality, is a long scarf. According to some Tarot mythology, this scarf covers the fact that she is a hermaphrodite, a being of neither sex, or of both sexes, depending upon how one looks at it.
At the corners of the card are variations of the same creatures we saw on The Wheel of Fortune: a human, an eagle, a lion, and a bull, representing Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Great freedom is symbolized in this card, the freedom of spiritual attainment.
This is what we have been striving towards through all our visits on this Earth Plane, spiritual “at-one-ment” with The Universe, The One Great Whole, The Universal Mind, God. The World symbolizes the final accomplishment of all our spiritual goals.
This may or may not be the final end of our final visit, here. We may decide that the lessons that Earth has to teach us have been learned, and there’s no further point in returning. We may decide to do it again to learn a new set of lessons on the earth plane. Whatever decisions are made at this juncture, we make them ourselves; they are not made for us. But, for a little while at least, we have the opportunity to feel our oneness with The All.
At this point, if we decide to return for another class, we again become The Fool, entering this life without the memory of what we have experienced on the Spirit Plane. After all, if we brought that memory with us, how could we take this life seriously, how could we even begin to learn the lessons we set before ourselves?
So, at this point, we either finish our lessons and “graduate,” or we pass on to the next grade and do it all again. Either way, we have the opportunity to at least temporarily remember what it’s all really about.
When I meditate on The World, it reminds me that I am, indeed, here for a reason, and, sooner or later, I will re-learn what that reason is. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep striving to learn and grow, as I was meant to do, until I return to The Source.
That’s what The World means to me.
The World card is from the Universal Waite Tarot published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. The Universal Waite Tarot copyrighted by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. and is used with permission.