The World

You have arrived. The journey is complete, the lesson learned, the cycle closed. But every ending births a new beginning—what comes next?

Standard: Having it all. Knowing and loving yourself as completely as possible. Seeing the interconnection of all things and people. Enhancing your perspective. Living life to its fullest. Understanding the meaning of life.

Reversed: Allowing greed and envy to prevent you from enjoying what you do possess. Failing to see the larger design in ordinary events. Believing that everything that exists can be touched, counted, or measured. Failing to see the divine reflected in those around you.

Keywords

Wholeness Integration Totality Completeness Fullness

Questions to Ask

For me, what would having it all mean?
How aware am I of my own connectedness to the world around me?
What keeps me from having it all right now, today?

A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot

The World, the Universe, or Time. The four living creatures of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel's vision, attributed to the evangelists in Christian symbolism, are grouped about an elliptic garland, as if it were a chain of flowers intended to symbolize all sensible things; within this garland there is the figure of a woman, whom the wind has girt about the loins with a light scarf, and this is all her vesture. She is in the act of dancing, and has a wand in either hand. It is eloquent as an image of the swirl of the sensitive life, of joy attained in the body, of the soul's intoxication in the earthly paradise, but still guarded by the Divine Watchers, as if by the powers and the graces of the Holy Name, Tetragammaton, JVHV— those four ineffable letters which are sometimes attributed to the mystical beasts. Eliphas Levi calls the garland a crown, and reports that the figure represents Truth. Dr. Papus connects it with the Absolute and the realization of the Great Work; for yet others it is a symbol of humanity and the eternal reward of a life that has been spent well. It should be noted that in the four quarters of the garland there are four flowers distinctively marked. According to P. Christian, the garland should be formed of roses, and this is the kind of chain which Eliphas Levi says is less easily broken than a chain of iron. Perhaps by antithesis, but for the same reason, the iron crown of Peter may he more lightly on the heads of sovereign pontiffs than the crown of gold on kings.