Donnaleigh: What’s the Difference Between Judgement and Understanding?
Today I asked tarot a question that gave me a surprising answer. I asked, “What’s the difference between “judging” and “understanding?”
For this reading, I used Kat Black’s Golden Tarot, and the cards randomly received were:
Judging = Queen of Cups reversed, Magician reversed
Understanding = 7 of Swords, Wheel of Fortune reversed
WOW.
While the cards for “judging” did not surprise me at all, the cards for “understanding” certainly did throw me for a loop and make me think.
JUDGING:
The Queen of Cups reversed alludes to removal of love and replacement of something other than love. When we judge, it is a descension, a pulling away from feeling nurturing and allows us to feel separate and other-than. It breaks a bond, and causes us to see things from a place other than love. We’re being seduced now to something melodramatic and unfeeling and it can become even delusional. It also gives us freedom to express unsavory moods that may not necessarily be related to what reality holds.
The Magician reversed speaks of losing our magic, or causing someone to lose their potential. By judging, are we losing our own potential, or are we causing the person who is being judged to lose theirs? Or are both losing what could have been? The Magician is a Major Arcana card, showing that this impact can be life-shifting. Being reversed it begs us to ask whether this shift is perhaps not a positive shift. This card reversed also speaks about illusions and tricks, tricksters, and darkness. We’re now taking what was real and making it to what we want it to be, to become an illusion we create, where we shape-shift a situation to match an agenda our show may contain.
UNDERSTANDING:
The 7 of Swords is my card of betrayal, of even cheating. Of something being taken away from something else. But this card is of swords and therefore thoughts and ideas we hold, so this can be about gathering information, researching, and doing things with great stealth. What are we taking away from a situation? Seven is a mystical number, a spiritual focus, and I hear the words “coming out of the closet” when I see this card at this moment. Where something comes out into the light that was hidden.
There is something sneaky about his card, though, so I got a peculiar feeling, originally having expected that “understanding” would mean a truth, where “judgment” was a subjective perception.
Not in tarot’s eyes.
The Wheel reversed is an interesting card to have landed here. Wheels continue to turn, so what is at the top eventually ends up at the bottom, and then it rotates back to the top again. Where we are is not where we stay, there is perpetual cycling and moving. This card suggests that the wheel never stops, and being reversed, that we are never really fully “on top.” There may be moments when we as humans think we understand, but truly, it is always an incomplete picture and it is truly subjective rather than truth. Our own inner truths are judgments, but this card asks us, “can they ever really be true understandings as things really are?” While this card still benefits us in the reversed position, it remains unstable and continues to move. It needs to repeat … just when we think we’ve “got it,” the wheel turns and we realize there was a perspective that we never realized was available to us.
The Wheel card reminds me of the song by The Byrds which sang, “To every thing, turn … turn… turn…. There is a season…turn….turn…turn…
There is never a true, full understanding, only learning and growing and gathering through the cycles of our experiences. We can make judgments, but those don’t always put us in the best place. Unfoldment continues to happen, and as we gather knowledge and grow, we have more depth…but the amount of depth that is available is infinite. And we’ve only seen the first grain of sand on the beach.
So what does tarot think about judging versus understanding?
When we judge, there is a negative expression of limited, subjective beliefs and this results in a constriction of love. It takes away the potential or power of someone or something, which could be the person or thing we judge, as well as our own power, by believing we know a truth that isn’t. Or both.
When we “understand,” or think we know something fully, we are fooling ourselves into thinking we see a full picture, which is just a fragment of the reality of what is. Understanding is eons bigger than judging will ever consider becoming. Judging is finite, while understanding is limitless, constantly having the potential for growth and expansion. And tarot does recognize that humanity “thinks” it understands some things fully, but we are fooling ourselves, betraying a potential for more.
And this spread is evidence of this truth. Just when I thought I could assume what might be the answer to what the word “understanding” meant, I realized it was much bigger than anything I had ever achieved or could achieve. I had assumed full understanding was a potential we all had. However, I learned that all we can do is humbly realize that we will never know anything in full complete fullness, and recognize that there is always more than we can possibly ever hear, feel, see, touch, or know. What we see is just dust in a potential Universe.
Let the learning begin!
To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it’s not too late!
Here’s wishing you a tarot-filled week.
Donnaleigh
www.Donnaleigh.net
Hear my Tarot Podcast at www.TarotTribe.com
And join me every Friday on “Psychic Friends Live”
