“Just Desserts” vs “Justice Served” — The Two Faces of Justice
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Whenever the Justice card appears in a client’s reading, I usually talk about “receiving one’s just desserts” according to the propriety of one’s actions. I like to tell them that “the trick is to be found worthy and not wanting when the verdict is handed down.” But there is another, potentially more sinister, side to the picture: “serving (i.e. meting out) justice” to other people involved in the matter depending on how their actions have affected us (whether or not it’s a veiled “dish served cold,” it still sounds like revenge to me).
I think it’s fair to say that nobody has a problem being on the giving or receiving end of well-deserved approbation, but most of us are squeamish about dealing with an equally-justified comeuppance, even if it’s “nothing personal” and not an act of vengeance. For her part, Justice has no ax to grind; she weighs the merits and demerits and performs her duty efficiently and inexorably. If we must be punished, we can only hope to get the flat of her blade (i.e. a “spanking”) and not the edge or “pointy end;” but if it’s aimed at our enemies she can strike indiscriminately for all we care (just as long as she doesn’t expect us to do the hacking for her!)
Querents often ask “Is this a good card?” The only feasible answer is “Not particularly, but it’s a necessary one,” no matter whether we are poised to enjoy victory or suffer defeat in our endeavors. The reader’s challenge is to bring its lofty archetypal abstractions down to the routine, day-to-day level since not everyone is involved in the legal proceedings (divorce, lawsuit, criminal judgment, etc) that are the earmark of its official capacity. In more ordinary matters, it suggests the “social contract” (a decidedly Libran — or more precisely Saturn-in-Libra — convention) that most law-abiding people honor, and being left alone is what what we hope to receive from Justice if we comply, or at least to have it on our side in any dispute even if we are the transgressor. Rather than thinking of Justice as “blind,” we might well find that she sees all too clearly for our liking.
If we are personally dishing out justice, it is hoped that we can do so with gravity and not glee (which we would have to hide behind our hand). I have no desire to be a vigilante, but it is undeniable that I’m not going to be the victim of anyone else’s abuse, so I will give as good as I get and hopefully I will have the opportunity to apply the scales of Justice before I resort to the sword. But there is no joy in being a “hangin’ judge” if at the same time the hangman is after your own scalp. I’ll leave that dilemma to the philosophers, who trade in paradoxes, and to the religious aspirants, who are conversant with such vulnerability (and I daresay embrace it in pursuit of their “just desserts”).
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on April 20, 2024.
