XXI The World

Today’s card draw from The Wild Unknown Tarot is the World.

I want to start off by providing an important notice, which will be included in all of this series. However, other things that will be included that you can skip to are:

• Card Description
• Considering the Card, where I look at how I would interpret certain imagery used
• Traditional Rider-Waite definition

I only include the latter as a comparison, to show how wandering down your own understanding of images and symbols can bring you to a similar meaning, though along a different path with different experiences. This is to help expand knowledge of the card.

I will not, however, be including the definitions from the guidebook, as that is not the point of this. Also, I don’t have rights to that material.

Important Note

I started this series because I had read that people struggled with the deck purely because the definitions in the Little White Book were very Rider-Waite-based, and that there wasn’t much wisdom regarding the animals and symbolism chosen.

This series is to help you to decipher the meanings yourselves. I am by no means saying what I have to say about the cards are correct for anyone outside myself. However, I am providing my daily journal entries regarding the deck to act as a guide so that you can begin your own journey.

When I started tarot, I had no idea what to write in my journal, and thus didn’t. Instead I obsessively read and re-read the Little White Book belonging to the Spiral Tarot (which is why today I can completely quote the book). I didn’t trust myself to know the cards, even when I could recite the definitions. I was afraid to put the book down.

To this fear of lack of knowledge, the creator of The Wild Unknown writes:

You do know enough. You’ve been a person on earth every day since you were born. You’ve experienced all the emotions and situations these cards depict. Quiet the naysayer…don’t let it prevent you from sitting down with a friend (or yourself) and using these cards to help talk about what’s going on in your life. It will be positive. It will be radical. You’ll find things start to reveal themselves through the cards that have been hidden away, covered with dust.

pp. 10-11, The Wild Unknown Guidebook

Description of the Card

The World shows a sphere in a dark sky surrounded by stars. The sphere has layers, with rainbow lines moving inward toward a scaled sphere with seven flowers blossoming from it. In the center of the circling flowers is a white ‘light’.

Traditional Card Meaning

Traditionally the World is a card of completion, of having gained a higher level. This is more than what is indicated by any of the 10’s in the Minor Arcana, because it is of the Major Arcana. This is a karmic lesson, one that brings you to a new level of understanding.

With any end, there is a beginning implied as well. No only does the World indicate an end, but the cyclical nature of the Universe tells us that there is a beginning on the horizon.

What I derive from the Card itself

The thing that comes to mind with this card is ‘cyclical.’ Everything is cyclical. The colors fade into another, and the snake that eats its tail. Flowers blossom from the snake as the leaves do from the Wands (also represented by the snake in this deck). In the center is a light, or at least, not dark.

Outside the circle is the night sky, or perhaps the Universe. The Orb could represent the Sun, or the sense of Self in Astrology. I am.

I am the world.

What does that mean though? I suppose that when the Fool completes his journey through the Major Arcana, a new sense of ‘I Am’ is added. There is more to him. He has added a whole piece to the whole puzzle. There is a new level of known wholeness.

People who are knowledgeable, and experienced are seen as ‘worldly.’ Perhaps this is the purpose of this Card. Worldliness. Adding to the ‘I Am.’

About the Deck

The Wild Unknown Tarot  is a 2016 Harper One publication, created by Kim Krans. The deck is widely available at most bookstores who carry Tarot cards, but also on Amazon. Kim Krans always wrote The Wild Unknown Guidebook.