The World

Symbols

• The Laurel WreathAn oval of green — at once a protective boundary and the outline of a cosmic egg.+

  The wreath is woven of living leaves: it withers, yet re-sprouts — "completion" here is not a seal, but a closed shape that can still keep growing.

• The Two Red RibbonsA red ribbon knots the wreath at top and bottom — the two ends of the infinity sign, keeping "completion" inside "continuing."+

  Each red ribbon is knotted in a figure-eight — the 'sign of life' Waite places above the Magician's head, which Smith draws again over the woman in Strength. Here it is no halo but a knot holding the wreath closed.

• The DancerA woman in Waite's words, though later esoteric readers see in her both woman and man — this dance is not performed for anyone; it is the moment when all things echo each other.+

  Waite reads the card as 'the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God', the soul's state 'reflected from the self-knowing spirit' — words he also uses at the Sun. Two cards on, the rider has become a dancer.

• The Two WandsTwo identical wands, each pointed at both ends — "as above, so below" carried whole in either hand, not split between them.+

  Waite gives the figure simply 'a wand in either hand'. The Fool carries a single wand and the Magician raises one; the Majors close here with two: the only Major where wands come as a pair.

• The Crossed LegsThe pose rhymes with the Hanged Man — the same suspension, now turned into the balance of a turn.+

  Waite calls this design unchanged from the conventional card, 'and indeed unchangeable'; by his own account the crossed leg is inherited, not invented. The standing foot rests on nothing: the wreath hangs in open sky.

• The Four BeastsLion, bull, eagle, human — the four fixed signs, the four Evangelists; four stable pillars holding up the dance at center.+

  The four beasts are still; the dancer moves — wholeness is not everything moving at once, but a center in motion upheld by a stable periphery.

• The Violet ScarfThe one strip of cover — wholeness is not total nakedness; something is always kept for what cannot be seen.+

  The Star, the Sun and Judgement all show figures with nothing on. At the close of the sequence the dancer alone keeps a cloth — Waite's 'light scarf', violet in Smith's drawing, wound about the body.

Story

Everything is arranged around a centre. The card is a frame within a frame: the outer edge holds the four creatures in its corners, each looking out from a cloud, and inside them a tall green oval hangs in blue sky with nothing beneath it. The eye goes straight to the middle and stays there. Only the figure inside moves, caught mid-turn, while everything around it keeps still and keeps its place. Nothing leads into the frame or out of it, and the dance has only sky for a stage.

Correspondences

Shadow

Related Cards

The Fool

Wheel of Fortune

The Hanged Man

Combinations with this card