11. Justice
i. The Nutshell
Upright
Justice is the part of you that faces the truth. It connects your actions to their results and keeps you responsible. This card requests all is fair and indicates when imbalance is being rectified. Your choices reflect your intentions and the consequences are the result of actions. Justice is about clear understanding and bravery, creating balance and making choices. This is a sword, not a seesaw, and the scales are diagnostic. Justice shows up when you’re ready to examine where you’ve been complicit in your own imbalances and where integrity asks for an update. It's time to be honest.
Keywords: Cause and effect, truth, fairness, accountability, alignment, clarity.
Translation: Do what you know is right.
Reversed
When Justice unmistakably shifts, it’s a sign that what you put in doesn’t match what you get out. This card is precision applied to inertia and it’s asking you where you’re rationalising what you already know doesn’t sit well. Maybe you’re over-apologising for someone else’s fallout but either way, something’s off, and it starts with what you’ve been overlooking. Libra reversed may look like it’s overthinking but it’s not confused by anything. The scales tip because something is unexamined, and the longer recalibration is avoided, the louder the imbalance gets. Justice reversed taps you on the shoulder and wants you to own it, course-correct and move with intention because accountability is lighter than the heaviness you’re carrying.
Keywords: Misalignment, denial, avoidance, imbalance, distortion.
Translation: If the truth seems uncomfortable, it may indicate a lack of awareness.
ii. Illus-traits
A quick glance at Justice’s symbolic traits in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck - what's hidden in plain sight?
Sword Upright – Truth that cuts through ambiguity.
Scales Balanced – Equilibrium before decision. Judgement comes after weighing.
Square Crown – Rational rulership. Logic wears the crown.
Red Robe – Authority backed by conviction.
Pillars – A courtroom or a temple. Either way, this is sacred ground.
iii. Influences
Planetary:
Whilst Justice is ruled by Venus, it’s not the champagne-and-roses version. This is Venus in the courtroom and it’s not singing a sonnet. Here, Venus is about values, principles, and the real-world implications of your preferences. It governs what you’re drawn to and what you uphold. Venus filters decisions through a value system; one that you’re responsible for defining and defending. Saturn quietly reminds us that freedom needs boundaries and that structure is essential. Check whether your choices reflect what you claim to care about.
Natal House(s):
Justice aligns with the Seventh House, the domain of committed relationships, contracts, and mirrored reflection. This is where projection ends and responsibility begins. The First House contrasts with the rest of the chart, prompting you to question if what you see around you reflects something unrecognised within yourself. These houses deal in reciprocity and self-perception, i.e. how you negotiate your wants with others’ realities, and what gets revealed in the act of relating. Justice wants to know what and who are being honest.
Astrological Sign(s):
Libra rules Justice, bringing balance, equilibrium, evaluation, and the capacity to choose with care. Justice asks if you understand your principles and if you stick to them. Aries drives action, clear communication, and honest expression; connecting the self with others, and balancing reactions and responses.
Numerologically:
Justice is Eleven in many decks, and Eight in earlier ones, but both numbers influences are visible. Eleven brings insight that cuts through the noise. It’s the double One: focused, sharp and unwilling to blur the edges just to keep the peace. It encourages you to act with belief and integrity. Eight grounds that vision into form because it rules balance, strength, karma, and the energetic consequences of every choice made. It’s not interested in appearances because it goes after results. They create an agreement: match your actions or be ready to change them.
In numerology, when you arrive at Master Numbers linked here as 11, 22, or 33, keep them as they are as these hold a distinct frequency. While their root numbers of 2, 4, and 6 still carry important foundational energy to explore, your primary focus needs to be on the vibration of the Master Number itself. For example, if a calculation totals 22, like the year 1975, recognise it as a Master Number rather than reducing it to 4. The Master Number 33 normally presents in an entire birth date, for example 1+3+05+1+9+6+8=33.
The Master Number Eleven
As stated, Eleven is the first of the Master Numbers and often considered the most spiritually intense because it’s the root. Numerology is made up of layers of insight and if eleven appears anywhere in your life, it’s well worth doing the research as it’s not to be dismissed lightly. I’m a Master Number 11 in it’s entirety with an additional Master Number 22 year, and I can tell you, it’s a path by itself. Eleven is here to awaken and teaches illumination through contrast: light through shadow, and insight through discomfort. It wants truth with a capital T, clarity beyond logic, and an alignment that can’t be faked. If you do try to fake it, you will suffer. So if it’s chasing you around on clocks, sit up. Its life lessons centre on developing and trusting yourself whilst walking through doubt, and using intuition methodically and consistently. It’s not a trick and it will whoop your ass if you try and use it for trickery.
The strength of 11 lies in its visionary perception, extremely high sensitivity, and capacity to channel higher wisdom. Think psychics, healers, mentors, artists etc. Its weakness is overwhelm, emotional volatility, and a tendency to short-circuit under the pressure of its own potential. It’s a testing number because it demands spiritual maturity as loud as it demands learning from mistakes. If you keep making them, the lessons will get more severe. Check where you have Saturn in your chart as this points to an important life theme.
Time always feels like it’s running out with 11 energy, and like The High Priestess or Judgement, 11 always sees what others miss. You can often get metaphorically shot as the messenger and it can be a lonely path. Like Judgement, it calls you to rise from smallness, mediocrity, hesitation and avoidance of purpose. It‘s deeply old soul energy. The best thing you can do if you find 11 anywhere in your birth date, is take notice, study it, take it seriously, and align with it because I promise, you came here with a mission to accomplish, a message to impart, and it’s pulling you back to target with every misstep.
Master number 11 children often carry an intensity they don’t yet know how to manage; deeply empathetic, unusually intuitive, and frequently misunderstood, they’re sometimes labelled with everything except the truth: they need guidance to channel their gifts, not correction to dim them. Many of the people I work with are master numbers or are navigating pinnacle moments shaped by master number energy.
One final note before I write a book on this number, Elevens are divinely protected. Ever feel like a cat that ran out of its nine lives about twenty lives ago? That doesn’t mean you’re invincible, but you do have the universe on your side because it wants you to ultimately succeed at whatever your spiritual mission is. You may notice that if anyone tries to hurt or block you, they’ll be removed from your path so sudden endings are part of this energy. That’s why your tests are so loud; because your life has likely been tough and you need to grow from that fast in order to teach others what you’ve learned. You’re a role model and someone from up there is always holding your hand and passing you the mouth-guard from boxing ring corner before pushing you back out there.
Element: Air represents thought and breath, essential for the space between reaction and response. It clarifies confusion for objective thinking, contrasting perception with detachment. Justice assesses without assumption, embodying calmness, accuracy, and resilience against manipulation.
iv. A Day in the Life of Justice
Well That Escalated Quickly
You treat objectivity like a weapon and call it truth. You hand out judgements like party favours but duck accountability like it’s spam mail. You obsess over fairness, but only when you’re the one who’s been wronged. You’ve mental lists of who owes you what, but no column for your own impact. You say you're just being honest, but really you're outsourcing empathy to a rule book you wrote under emotional duress.
Adjusting the Knobs
You’re weighing both sides but getting stuck in analysis paralysis. Every decision turns into a courtroom drama in your head, and you're both the prosecutor and the accused. You want to do the right thing, but you keep rewriting what correct even means. You’re self-aware enough to know your bias, but not quite ready to adjust the lens. You're striving for balance but end up tiptoeing through every choice like it’s a minefield.
Unsubscribed from Self-Sabotage
You consider context as much as consequence. You listen closely and trust that fairness doesn’t require perfection. You take responsibility without theatrics, name your part in things, and let others do the same. You recognise that clarity isn’t squeaky clean, and that justice isn’t just about what’s right, but also about what’s real.
Writing the TED Talk
You hold truth like your North Node compass and honour accountability as an act of care. You call things what they are without losing compassion. You desire harmony and acknowledgment, and your choices show your strong integrity. You know that balance involves being both caring and strong.
v. Working with these Energies
Living Justice with Discernment and Integrity
Justice urges you to embrace truth and clarity, to align your thoughts and choices with their consequences, and avoid blame-shifting. When life feels unbalanced, identify the source with responsibility. Distinguish instinct from assumption and hold yourself to the same standards you expect from others. This card reflects the need for honesty and humility, and the strength to act in alignment even when you want to scream.
1. Spot your role in the outcome
– Are you facing the truth, or editing it for comfort?
– What parts of the story have you left out, and why?
– Are you choosing fairness, or favouring yourself?
2. Be accountable
– What shifts when you own your impact?
– How do you repair?
– Where have you been waiting for justice from others while avoiding self-correction?
3. Use discernment as your compass
– What information are you overlooking because it doesn’t fit your narrative?
– When does silence promote peace, and when does it cause harm? What is your responsibility in each case?
– What is your interpretation of a boundary versus a barrier?
4. Balance clarity with compassion
– What does it look like to be both honest and kind?
– How can you stand firm without becoming rigid?
– Where do you need to let go of being right in order to do what’s right?
5. See fairness as an active practice
– Who are you when no one’s keeping score?
– How do you uphold truth when it costs you comfort?
– What’s the next step that reflects both self-respect and respect for the whole?
vi. Building Skills
Observing Thoughts: A Justice Practice
Justice asks you to see clearly without distortion, denial, or emotional override. It’s discernment at its finest. To weigh truth, you first have to know what’s actually on the scale both internally and externally.
Notice what’s moving through your mind; thoughts, memories, or feelings. Don’t chase or argue with them. Simply say, ‘I’m noticing a thought…’ and let it pass like evidence you’re reviewing, not reacting to. You are the teller in the story.
This is the inner discipline of Justice: holding awareness steady enough to act from values. Integrity is a choice, made clearer in stillness.
vii. Embodiment
Embodiment transforms Justice from concept to calibration. This archetype resides in the body as inner equilibrium; it’s the spine lengthening with truth and steady breath when not seeking approval. It’s the clear distinction of what you carry versus what you don’t.
Smell:
If Justice had a scent, what would it be? The old school classroom? Stationery? An official office?
Body:
Where do you feel the weight of discernment? Is your chest tight from holding too much responsibility, or your jaw locked from biting your tongue? What shifts when you stand with both feet evenly planted and let truth settle where it belongs?
Soundtrack:
What song sounds like clarity? A challenging chord progression? Rap?
Action:
What can you do today that reflects internal alignment? Say the thing that’s true, even if it’s awkward? Make a decision that closes the loop. Can you pick fairness instead of comfort and do it with dignity versus feeling like a victim?
Nature cue:
Step outside. What mirrors Justice’s precision? Sunlight and shadow symmetry? A perfectly balanced tree reflected in water?
Notice what steadies you:
Focus on your integrity that doesn't require others to notice.
viii. Your Impressions
Look at the Justice card in your own deck if possible. Take a moment to notice without overthinking.
Where does your attention land first - the scales, the sword, the figure’s expression, the symmetry, the starkness? Does it feel poised or immovable? Measured or unyielding? What draws your eye: the balance or the blade?
Now check your body. Do you feel centered? On edge? Called to attention? A quiet pull toward precision or a sense you’re about to be asked something you can’t answer with charm alone?
If this card could speak, it wouldn’t flatter or accuse, it would ask you what truth you’re ready to meet?
ix. Intuitive Meaning
Use this space to explore what Justice means to you as a lived experience. Let it reflect where you've stood up, spoken out, stayed silent for the wrong reasons, or finally stopped negotiating with what you knew was never fair in the first place:
Where are you choosing between what’s easy and what’s true?
Where are you trying to balance the scales by overcompensating?
What would it look like to honour your integrity without needing a verdict or validation?
Applied insight with a three-card reading using Justice as your anchor:
What truth have I been avoiding because it might change the terms of a relationship, reputation, commitment, or role?
Where do I need to take responsibility because I'm ready to stop waiting for others?
What decision or change would help me feel balanced inside, without needing others' approval?
Pull or shuffle-fling your cards and note your feelings. Take your time and let the answers unfold. Write three ‘you’ words that relate to your current experience:
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x. Closing Reflection: Track Your Evolving Lens
Your relationship with each card will grow over time because it’s meant to shaped by your life. Consider the prompts below to revisit and reflect.
What I thought this card meant when I first pulled it: —————————————————
A recent experience that changed how I see it: —————————————————
How I feel about it now, in my body or life: —————————————————
What surprised me as this card kept showing up: —————————————————
One way this card is living in my life right now: —————————————————
If this card visited me today as a guide, what would it want me to remember? —————————————————
Revisit these after a week, a moon phase, or a meaningful moment. Let the card evolve as you do.
If you feel a quiet sense of recognition, curiosity and want to explore it, browse the sessions page for what feels right.