The concept of Judgement has a fairly negative or frightening ring to most ears. We anticipate being scrutinized and summed up by a court system or a vengeful god or a mean girl of any gender, but Tarot philosophy offers us a much more liberating possibility.
While the other angels attend to individual persons and other kinds of animals, the archangels work as a kind of middle management.
The word archangel is a combination of the Greek word arche meaning beginning and angel meaning messengers. According to certain Judean-Christian myths, the archangels are seven in number and are entrusted to carry God’s larger commands and will throughout the human world and beyond. While the other angels attend to individual persons and other kinds of animals, the archangels work as a kind of middle management.
Gabriel is the herald of visions and when we put all of this together we might look upon Pamela Colman Smith’s depiction of Judgement in her Tarot deck as Gabriel delivering a vision of life to humanity. A vision replete with hope and one that offers us a way to release the burdens of guilt and shame.
Of course, we do not want the town thief in our house, but we need not concern ourselves with blaming his victims for being too trustworthy.
Gabriel, in the Judgement card, is calling us up from our metaphorical graves. He offers us an opportunity to accept the larger cosmological narrative as one that we can not grasp with our mortal minds but one which frees us from the need to burden our own existence with the judgement we are too quick to hold against ourselves and our fellows. We need not conflate discernment with judgment. Of course, we do not want the town thief in our house, but we need not concern ourselves with blaming his victims for being too trustworthy. By doing so we condemn the trust within our own hearts and consign ourselves constant punishment when we let our guard down in order to trust another if we even can do so. Judgement day is every day and in it, we may choose to be free of that which disallows our best from being known.
May we accept Gabriel’s call and allow ourselves to know and to show our most profoundly human sides.
By Michelle Embree
Author of Daydream Tarot: A Basic Guide For Visionaries
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