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The World

MAJOR ARCANA · XXI

The World is card XXI, the last card of the major arcana. Inside a great wreath, a figure wrapped in a cloth dances with a wand in each hand. An angel, an eagle, a lion and a bull fill the four corners. Upright, it stands for completion, achievement and harmony; reversed, for something unfinished, one step short.

Name and number

Upright meaning

Keywords: completion, achievement, harmony, a full circle, the wide world

The journey the Fool began at 0 comes full circle and is complete here. The World is the card that ends the story of the major arcana.

Upright, the World stands for long work bearing fruit and a chapter coming to a close: reaching a goal, graduating, finishing a project. A fulfilled sense of harmony, with everything in its place. Like the figure dancing in the wreath, completion is not a standstill but a joyful movement. It can also stand for ties with other countries and the wider world. And then a new journey begins again from the next 0.

Reversed meaning

Keywords: unfinished, one step short, something missing, no closure

Reversed, the World is read as a circle not yet closed.

Almost complete, but unable to take the last step. Done, yet something still feels missing. Going round and round the same place without drawing a line under it. It is read as a time not to rush completion, but to finish what remains, one thing at a time.

What the picture shows

• The wreath (a laurel wreath): a sign of victory and completion. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck it is tied at top and bottom with ribbons in the shape of the infinity sign.
• The dancing figure: dancing lightly with a wand in each hand. Where the Magician held one wand, here there are two.
• The crossed legs: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck one leg is bent, like the Hanged Man's.
• The angel, eagle, lion and bull in the corners: the four living creatures of the Bible, as on the Wheel of Fortune. They are the emblems of the four Evangelists and are also linked with the four fixed signs of astrology. They show that the four elements of the world are all present.

History

In the fifteenth-century Italian Visconti–Sforza deck, the World showed two small children (putti) holding up a globe with a castle and a town on it: a picture of the earthly world itself. On other early Italian cards, a king or a goddess stands on the globe.

The pattern of today's World card took shape in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tarot of Marseille: inside an oval wreath stands a figure wrapped in a cloth, holding a wand in one hand, with an angel, an eagle, a lion and a bull in the four corners. The composition closely resembles the medieval image of "Christ in Majesty," surrounded by the four living creatures.

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck took this over, giving the figure two wands and tying the wreath with ribbons. Placed last among the major arcana, the card came to be read as the completion of the journey that begins with the Fool.

Correspondences

Previous and next cards

• Previous: 20 Judgement
• Back to the start: 0 The Fool
• The major arcana

Lucky colors for The World