(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
What I See in the Card:
The World is a happy, triumphant card.
Typically, the card depicts a woman walking on water, framed within a wreath. She represents life and fertility, the goodness of the physical world. She’s usually naked, often scarved, and sometimes carrying wands.
There are critters in the frame of my card, outside the wreath. At the four corners are a bull, lion, eagle, and human — all powerful animals symbolic of victory and strength.
In the centre of The World is a naked white woman, symbolic of purity and truth. She walks on water, symbolizing divinity and the divine spark in all creation.
She holds red and blue wands, which suggest earth and water, light and dark, male and female, spirit and matter, etc., pretty much the world, and together they represent balance and unity, the wholeness and interconnected of everything on earth.
She is framed by an egg-shaped laurel-leaf wreath that represents triumph, success, and new life.
The card represents the perfection of the cosmos and the joy of our human-centred world. With its critters and circularity, the image is reminiscent of the Wheel of Fortune but with kinder, less scary beasts and with calm control. There is nothing to fear here. If change is coming, it’s not loss.
Perhaps if medieval folk had seen the awesome 20th century photo of the blue marble, they’d have used that in their World card. But there is still blueness and roundness in this much older image. There is a contained-ness, which suggests our modern conception of the world, too.
There’s something in the image on this card that suggests travel, motion, the launch of adventures. All the imagery is vibrant, colourful, rich. The World is a good place to be.
This card is about harmony, triumph, and success. It exudes joy. When you draw this card, it tells you that you are part of the larger world and your place in the world right now is a good one.
Read will take you to my notes on how to tell a fortune with the World — traditional interpretations; what the card might mean in different positions; keywords to help memorize meanings; and questions to ponder or ask the querent.
Write will take you to a few prompts for launching from the World into a story. A first line, a setting, and an image prompt — three possible ways to turn the World into fiction.
Tarot will take you to a central Tarot-Prompts page.
Go ahead, take on the world.
Images on this page are by the following artists:
Banner (and top box), left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti; Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington.
Mid-page boxes: Tarot Balbi; the Shadowscapes Tarot illustrated by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.
Catherine Austen 