The Artist's Concept
I chose Judgment because to me, it means rebirth, making ones' self anew, a concept that is very real in my life.
In a traditional sense, when one dies, they stand before god and are judged by him (in some religions anyway) and in that sense, after judgment, one is reborn into eternal life, or eternal damnation. So it follows the meaning I give it in that sense. Either way, it signifies a change in ones self, especially in the spiritual sense, if not physically. In my own case, it involves both.
In my version, a woman rises from the flames, as the phoenix rises from the ashes, born again into something greater. She is in the middle of her transformation, as her bits and pieces re-organize into a new person. An angel flies overhead, as ones spirit soars when one makes a change for the better, or one finds a new spiritual fulfillment.
The background is a cloudy gray, with a slight tinge of blue. Gray signifies balance - neither black nor white. And the blue signifies spirituality. It fades upward from gray to blue, as the spirit rises and changes.
Even the sun echoes this change, as he is red in the middle, signifying passion for life, and then to yellow on the outside, indicating the need to communicate this change to the outside world.
The inspiration for my version came from the Robin Wood Tarot design for the card.
Card Meaning
In "The Pictorial Key to the Tarot", by A. E. Waite, he writes of this card "Let this card continue to depict, for those who can see no further, the last judgment and the resurrection of the natural body; but let those who have inward eyes look and discover therewith." It is in this sense, with inward vision, that I see the meaning of this card. If I made a "nexy jo tarot deck", I'd rename the card Rebirth, instead of Judgment, as I think it's more descriptive of the meaning. I suppose some may interpret the card as judgment, perhaps in anticipation of a court hearing, or maybe just in a general sense as well. But for me, it's closer to rebirth.
Though I personally don't use reversals, I'd say that if I did, the card would show that something is standing in the way of the Querents path. They want to move forward in life, but the obstacles are too great to overcome, so they must refocus their efforts onto a different task, before they can continue on their original path.
Card Media
I created this card totally on a computer. The girl is from clip art. After importing her into my illustration program, I used a trace function, which turns the graphic from bitmapped to vector. At that point I turned her gray, and added yellow highlights. I also created the flames, two layers, one gradient and one solid red, in the same program, along with the sun. The angel is also clipart. The background was made in Adobe Photoshop v.5, and it's a cloud layer over a black to blue gradient. I assembled the card in Photoshop, each component on a different layer, so I could take advantage of varying transparencies. After I saved it as a tif, I added the name (misspelled I might add), with a drop shadow, and resized it.
Go back to the project index, read the traditional card meaning, or get a free automated reading.
|
