The Judgement: Waking Up

First thing each morning, the sound of a hungry rooster calls. Gordon – the wild foul of our village – has come for breakfast. Nobody knows where Gordon came from: one winter’s morning he just appeared, roosting in garden trees and pecking up the fallen seed from the bird feeders. Nobody local has ever claimed him and so he comes to our garden each morning, crowing loudly, hopping onto our garden shed for a good feeding, this chubby flap of red, white and black. It’s delightful.

I often feed Gordon first thing in the morning. To go from a state of sleepy unconsciousness to one of complete aliveness in the morning is an energy that the Judgement card seems to point to. The literal experience of waking up from sleep and immediately stepping into the outdoors lends itself to the metaphor of ‘awakening’ for good reason. This card often points to ‘finding your calling’ (as well as a million other things for a million different questions) but this is the Green Tarot blog, and simplicity rules here. 

Above: Wild Gordon pecking his morning seed on top of the shed.

I am not from the countryside; I was raised a city boy (although out in the suburbs). Feeling the cold air against my face, first thing in the morning, is not normality for me: for many years I might not have even gone outdoors for entire days unless I had to. If I am able to keep my focus on my breath in those brief morning moments, not give in to the swirl of a thousand thoughts that want to plan, judge, remember or ruminate within seconds of opening my eyes, a clarity arrives – especially if I step right outside with the air on my cheeks. It’s as if one moment, I have been lost in the soft inner world of sleep in a sort of semi-death state, and the next moment, I realise physical life again, like the risen coming back from the dead. We do this every morning when we wake up: but stepping right outside calls us back to life spectacularly. I used to call sleeping ‘having a slice of death’ (an Edgar Allen Poe quote, although I found it in a ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ film!): an idea that I’m sure has contributed to periods of chronic insomnia throughout my life. But that’s another story! And so waking up can, in rare moments of awareness, feel like stepping into a brand new life. 

When I launch myself directly outdoors, responding to the alarm call of the hungry rooster, feeling the sun, wind or rain on my face, I am reminded that the true meaning of awakening – a term we use metaphorically to indicate a new, higher state of consciousness – is really just this, what is happening on the mini-scale in these moments. The metaphor and the reality are one. The mystery of me slaps me in the face. What the hell am I? Where did I come from? These moments are certainly not everyday: half the time I’m shivering with cold and running back indoors to find coffee. But when a little moment of awakening appears, unpredictable as a gush of wind (and usually coming alongside it) I feel like I am not only waking up to the world, but waking up as the world.

Above: A girl calls forth the faeries from underground in the Judgement card from Tarots of the Golden Dawn by Giacinto Gaudenzi

You’ve felt it when you’ve slept outdoors, whether wildly or when camping. There, it’s the sound of birdsong the second you open your eyes. It could be the sound of rain hitting the tent or tarp, or even sheep bleating, just the noise of earthly movement and life arriving before your thoughts have settled in. The outer world has its say before your inner world has a chance to hallucinate. The clouds up there, the air in your nostrils and the shapes and colours of this wide open world speak to you, letting you know that this is the meaning of life. This is the point. You are called by The Judgement’s horn into awareness of a vast, wonderful reality. 

In those garden mornings, feet move on the grass as bone, flesh and energy. Muscles are felt, energy propelling me forward, responding to mental impulses. So much energy! I put a handful of seed on the shed roof for the chicken, and I maybe take a couple of moments to look at the sky, or notice how my skin feels. Down Gordon flaps from his roosting tree, red skin dangling from his wrinkled head. The bird himself is a complete mystery, a little life that I assume has escaped captivity and found its own way against all the odds, the call of the wild demanding that he make his own way in life. He probably would have been eaten by now had he not escaped from wherever he came from. (He was no loved pet, that’s for sure: nobody cared to claim him in the surrounding villages.) But the mystery of Gordon is more than just his earthly origins, but what whipped him – and me – into life to begin with. What sends us to sleep? What wakes us up? What drives us two very different life forms – human and chicken – to meet each morning as our paths cross in this transient world? Who knows. One day, one of us will be no more, then the other. And that’s okay. For these precious moments, we are both called forth by the Universe to experience, just to experience all of this.

The Tarot can be very literal. Those three curious figures at the bottom of the Tarot de Marseille Judgement card, looking up and around, bewildered in their nakedness (or perhaps because one of them has a doughnut for a head, but that’s another story) seem as clear and free as I do in those rooster mornings.

Above: Judgement from Jodorowsky/Camoin’s Tarot de Marseille.

The Judgement shows the little moments that are always available after the flash of The Tower/House of God, if we learn to let it go, not grasp at it, and continue just being, as much as we can. It makes sense that between that slap of awakening thunder (Tower, card 16) and these moments of being called by the Universe (Judgement, card 20) are The Star (17), The Moon (18), The Sun (19). The celestial mysteries. The Judgement card follows, depicting a mysterious angel in the clouds: more celestial teachings, in a way. But this one is harder to pin down. If The Tower is a flash of realisation, The Judgement is coming back to that familiar truth, naturally and fully, time and time again, settling in with it more each time.

Any life worth living is one where you are able to recognise when you have enough. Knowing when to stop chasing a million plans and goals to ‘better yourself’ or to become famous in your niche bubble or make more money … or whatever it is that distracts you from the wind on your face and the call of the gull. You can’t take those things to your grave with you anyway, nor anything else. So watch, listen, experience. 

The fact that so many people are not able to sink into this joy because of the stress of poverty or war or oppression is rotten. But the fact is that those of us who can, most often don’t, because we always want more than what is here. All that The Judgement says in this context is, ‘You’re already here! Wake up! Remember! You live in the heaven that you have been looking for!’

That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen