The goddess Athene as the card of Justice.
Here in the card of Justice we meet Athene, goddess of Justice, whom we earlier encountered in the card of the Lovers. In myth, her father was Zeus, king of the gods, who had been warned by Uranus that if he had a child by his first wife, Metis, goddess of Wisdom it would be more powerful than he. To forestall this eventuality he swallowed Metis before she had given birth to the child she was carrying. Shortly afterward Zeus was tormented by an intolerable headache. To cure him, Hephaistos, the smith-god, split open his head with a bronze axe, and from the gaping wound sprang the fully armed Athene, shouting a triumphant cry of victory. At the sight, all the Immortals were struck with astonishment and filled with awe. The goddess became Zeus’ favorite child, and his preference for her was so marked that it aroused the jealousy of the other gods.
Athene’s warlike proclivities were immediately apparent from her birth, but she was different from Ares the war-god in many ways. The arts of war which Athene cultivated were not based on love of conflict and bloodshed. Rather, they sprang from high principles and the cool recognition of the necessity of battle to uphold and preserve the truth. She was a strategist rather than a brute fighter, and she balanced Ares’ physical aggression and force with logic, diplomacy and cleverness. She protected the brave and valorous, and became the guardian of many heroes. But the protection she offered to Perseus, Odysseus and other famous warriors always consisted of weapons which had to be used with intelligence, foresight and planning.
Athene was a striking exception to Olympian society because of her chastity. She also rendered valuable service of mankind. She taught the art of taming horses, and fostered skills and crafts such as weaving and embroidery. Her activities were concerned not only with useful work, but with artistic creation as well. Thus she was civilizing goddess, although a warriour when it became necessary to protect the peaceful civilization she nurtured.
The divine Emperor.
On a divinatory level, Zeus, the Emperor, augurs a confrontation with the issue of the father principle in both its positive and negative forms. We are challenged to make something manifest, to concertize a creative idea, to build something in the world, to found a business perhaps, or to establish the structure of a home and family. We are asked to take a standpoint, to become effective and powerful to formulate our ideas and ethics. We are also asked to consider where the creative young king has become the rigid, oppressive tyrant, and where our ideologies are interfering with life and growth. When the Fool meets the Emperor after his sojourn in the instinctual world, he learns to confront worldly life with his own resources, alone, according to ethics which he must certainty that he can be effective in life because there is something higher in which he believes, and whose authority he himself now embodies.
Meaning:
High honor, the achievements of ambition. It may show an individual man who’s help may be required. It is the card of bosses and people of authority. He represents a man in control of any given situation or problem. To a woman, he may represent her husband or father. The Emperor is a symbol for design and structure and the control and power connected to it. Success and stability help you make your mark on the world, when the Emperor appears, your plans and perseverance have been noticed and you are on the way up. The stern Emperor is a father-like figure, his authority and presence combined with wisdom. His constant need for control and an inability to express and confront emotions can lead to issues with personal relationships; the Emperor excels in the boardroom but hindered in the home.
Reversed Meaning:
When the Emperor is reversed, it may seem like nothing you do can affect change in your life. While this may be a time where authority figure feels particularly constraining, learning to work with rules and regulations now may be the key to future success. If you are used to having power, you may find that you are forced to work with others; your perspective could see this as a loss of authority. This could also be a time were you have to work through a relationship with a dominant partner or parent. Be wary of hiding your feelings behind your work – you will suffer for it in the long run.
The inner Emperor.
On an inner level, Zeus, the Emperor, is an image of the experience of fathering. It is the father who embodies our spiritual ideals, our ethical codes, the self-sufficiency with which we survive in the world, the authority and ambition which drive us to achieve, and the discipline and foresight necessary to accomplish our goals. This masculine principle within both men and women differs from the nurturing and unconditional love of the mother whom we met in the card of the Empress. here it is the spirit, not the body, which is accorded the highest value, and action, rather than intuitive flowing with nature, which is demanded of us.
The father within us also fosters self-respect, because it is this part of us which can take a standpoint from which to meet life’s challenges. Zeus could be compassionate, and championed the weak and the dispossessed. But he could also be angry and vindictive if his authority was challenged and his laws broken. Thus Zeus, the Emperor, has a darker face, which is expressed on an inner level as rigidity and implacable silf-righteousness. To be in relationship with the inner father means to possess a sense of one’s potency, one’s capacity to initiate ideas and concretize them in the world. To be dominated by the inner father means to be enslaved by a set of beliefs which crush all human feeling with their inflexibility and arrogance. Then, like Zeus himslef, we must overthrow the old rule and inaugurate a newer and more creative one, lest we become petty tyrants ouselves or fall under the spell of a tyrant in the world outside. Having discovered the rich and fecund world of the body’s needs and pleasures, the Fool must now find ethical principles by which to live; for without the Emperor, we are mere pawns in life, driven from within and without by blind instinct, blaming our problems and difficulties on other people and on society because we cannot find the inner experience of strength which the father embodies.
Gypsy Magic 