Truth and others
Justice is blind. I find the image of Justice blindfolded is the most honest dispenser of truth. She cannot use her sight to discern the truth but instead must evaluate the information available and render her verdict from there. It illustrates the challenges in being honest with others. The Justice card is given the sign of Libra and represents the balance between Venus and Saturn or Love and Limitation.

I had a client recently bring up their desire to be more honest with the people around them. We spent some time talking about what they meant by that and it came out there were a couple of hidden desires at play. The first was a desire to tell people what this client really felt about them and their actions. The unspoken goal behind this desire to speak ‘honestly’ here was to encourage the people involved to be more in line with what my client wanted them to be like. The tone of the conversation also carried with it the idea that a more accurate way to describe the telling of truth being addressed is ‘brutal honesty.’ My experience of this kind of honesty is that when leveled against those around us it is usually very damaging. The banner of brutal honesty functions to give permission for al kinds of criticism, which usually are untempered by compassion. I know when people start to lay all my faults out in front of me it is rare that I take up that challenge with grace. Instead I, like most people, either withdraw or react in kind.

Criticisms leveled at others under the guise of honesty speak to the Saturnian side of the Justice card. Saturn governs that side of Justice that is can be too cold, calculating or driven by the rules. It is not a question of whether these attempts at honesty are true or not that determines their success it’s the motivation. When we speak without kindness and compassion we can rest assured that it is not the other persons best interests we have in mind but our own.

The second desire of my client was to feel more connected with those around them. The hoped for impact of speaking the truth was not generally to push everyone away, though it might accomplish just that. It was to make people be more able to fulfill the need of my client. It was a call for Love and connection with others. In fact you might say that this person was reaching out looking for others to see their Truth and to interact with them around what was truest and most core to them.

Here we have the other side of the Justice card playing out – the side governed by Venus. We all crave love and connection with others. Being seen by others is often both a desire and a fear. We want to be appreciated yet we fear rejection.

In the Justice card we have two polarities playing out against each other creating the balance. Grab your Justice card and meditate on the fine point of balance found in this card. Keep in mind that if someone tells us only things to make us feel good we know on some level that it is not true and if someone only blasts us with the Truth we won’t stay around too long.

I thought that Truth and Honesty would be a great subject for my first series of posts on my blog. It is not my intention that this blog become a space to flog merchandise, yet I found myself so inspired by this subject I have also created a powdered incense blend to go with it. This incense is a blend of star anise, lavender and storax. It is a great blend for self-reflection and to aid in speaking your truth into the world.

I have always liked the word Truth. You know with a big old capital T at the front of it. In many ways my path can be summed up as a search for Truth. Not just transitory truths but eternal ones. I have found Truths about myself, my role on earth, about others and about the nature of the universe. These Truths are often more feelings and experiences than they are concrete things I could put into words.

In order to find Truth I think we have to be honest – mostly with ourselves but also with others. Now as you likely know I make my living by telling others the Truth that I see in the cards. What I am talking about here is not about the places in our lives where we might be called on professionally to speak the Truth. I am looking at the much hazier world of daily interpersonal interactions and in the shadowy corners of our own minds and hearts.

Truth in the Tarot comes up in many places. There is the stark Truth of the Justice card, the Truth of Self-Knowledge in the Magician, the Seeking of Truth in the Hermit, and the destructive Truth of the lightning strike in the Tower.

True to self
The Magician is said to have the ability to manifest what he intends by virtue of his self-knowledge. It is by understanding who he is, that he has power in the world. The Truth in the Magician is an inward not an outward one. The Magician uses truth and illusion to accomplish his ends yet never loses his authenticity in the trade.

It is a human condition to seek to be seen by others in a good light. For many people though having their truth be seen is a whole other question. I am often asked if I have people I can’t read and the answer is that some people are harder than others. Generally speaking the people who are hard to read want to be hard to read either due to fear of what might be seen in them or their futures. Face it we all have secrets that we would rather not have brought to the forefront or worse still shown to the world. I think that if all of the niceties and masks in the world were dropped at once chaos would ensue. The lesson in the Magician here is to not fool ourselves while playing slight of hand with the world.

It is fascinating to me to think that the Magician does not care if he is seen correctly but instead that he manifests what he needs. This may seem like dishonesty at first glance but the Magician is not a liar. The challenge for the Magician is that he ends up believing his own hype and loses his connection to his own Truth.

One of the problems that the Magician cannot solve on his own is the danger of losing himself in the material world. In fact the answer to this loss of inner connection can’t be easily found in the world at all. To correct this problem the Magician must withdraw and seek the light or Truth within himself or more to the point become the Hermit for a period of time. This is the defense against the shadows and vagarities of the world of human interaction. Meditate, pray; turn your sight inwards to find your own touchstone of truth.

Pull the Magician and the Hermit from your deck and sit with them asking gently to find your truth as you gaze on them.