20. Judgment

Your wake-up call

Upright

Renewal, changes, awakening, literal judgments.

Reversed

Inability to recognize change or heed the call, bad judgments.

Element: Fire or Water

Judgment shows an angel with a trumpet, waking several people out of their coffins while floating on a flooded plain. The Judgment pictured here is judgment in the biblical sense: assessment, combined with a joyful awakening.

Judgment can mean literal judgments, especially ones that lead to epiphanies or change. But it also means the angel on the card, calling for changes or renewal. Perhaps you need to change something in your life, or now is the time to take a step you’ve been putting off. Perhaps an epiphany is around the corner; note that this is the penultimate card in the Major Arcana. Correspondingly, judgment could be the penultimate moment of clarity and awakening before fulfillment.

When reversed, this card represents an inability to recognize change or heed to call. It may also be about bad judgments, or being overly judgmental of yourself and getting stuck because of it.

Liz Dean assigned this card to the element of fire, while Benebell Wen suggested it might be fire or water. Fire feels embodied in the sense of change and the fire of epiphany associated with this card, while water may be present in the sense of renewal and spiritual awakening.