Julian of Norwich, Fear, and Tarot
Hi friends,
I hope you’re all staying safe! My little family and I are managing okay here in NYC, continuing to shelter-in-place per government orders and drag ourselves through the last of the school year. (Four more weeks, then no more home learning, at least for a bit, thank God.) We’ve been getting out to Central Park in the early morning for fresh air and scooter rides, and have made plans to spend some time outside the city, in a big house with a big yard, for awhile later in the summer.
I spent a good chunk of this spring rereading Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love. I also spent a good amount of time this spring meditating on the Hermit (IX in the major arcana) and the difficult Nines of the minor arcana during this Hermit-like and often difficult time.
In Relations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich writes about the four kinds of fear, which, in my mind, correspond easily to the four Nines of the minor arcana. Julian writes about fear in a way that is deeper and more nuanced than I often see today. Maybe it’s just that fear carried different meanings then. It’s something I was particularly struck by during this particular reread of her text, and it’s been helpful for me to untangle her different notions of fear. I wanted to use this month’s email to lay it all out briefly for you, mostly because I find it so interesting. I don’t like these emails to be too long so I’ll try to keep it brief. (Though gosh, I really hope I can write a whole dang book about this.)
The first fear Julian writes about is the fear of attack. We see this in the Nine of Wands. This man looks caged, wary and weary. To me, this is a man who’s been fighting for a long time and has created for himself a sort of permanent defensiveness. This is what fear of attack looks like to me. This is a good fear, though! It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not bad. If it is patiently accepted, this fear can bring us closer to God inasmuch as it brings us closer to trusting God. Julian writes that our soul stands in God in sure strength, but that’s a notion that takes time to learn and internalize.
The second fear is the fear of punishment. This is a waking-up kind of fear, and I think it corresponds well with the Nine of Swords. That middle-of-the-night anxiety that stirs us. It’s the act of waking up from the sleep of sin and seeking the mercy of God. Julian writes that we can’t experience the comfort of the Holy Spirit until we wake up. This is another uncomfortable fear, because this kind of waking up is always uncomfortable. But it can crack us open, inviting us to seek the mercy of God.
The third fear is doubting fear. I see this in the way I view the Nine of Cups. For me, this is not a wish-fulfillment archetype. It’s about complacency, and about storing up treasures on earth rather than in heaven. Every time I pull this card I think about the line from The Cloud of Unknowing: “For I would rather be nowhere physically, wrestling with this obscure nothing, than be a powerful, rich lord, able to go wherever I want, whenever I want, always amusing myself with every ‘something’ that I own.” The Nine of Cups is about the bitterness of doubt, the mistrusting of God’s love. A fear that God won’t show up and that we need to fend for ourselves. God never wants us to doubt His goodness, though. God wants to have doubting fear turned into love through the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. The bitterness of doubt turned into the kindness of love.
The fourth fear is reverent fear. This corresponds to the Nine of Pentacles, and this is where it gets complicated, because this fear, to me, feels less like fear and more like reverence. I see this reverence in the Nine of Pentacles, though. This is a woman who has uncomplicated her life to focus on what really matters. There is a peace and simplicity in this image that I come back to again and again. This is the fear that fully pleases God, a soul rooted in endless devotional love. The more we have it, the less we feel it, because of love.
For me, all of this ties into the Hermit. All of these fears, all of these stages of seeking mercy, all of this push-and-pull with God’s love. For a long time I thought of the Hermit as a peaceful card, but it’s not really peaceful at all. The Hermit seeks God, and encountering the unconditional love of God is scary. The Hermit is less like peaceful meditation and more like Jacob wrestling with the angel. And we can see all the attendant fears in all the minor arcana cards that match him.