The World Tarot Card Meaning

The World is the tarot’s final card and therefore its potent symbol of completion, achievement, fulfilment and attainment. You’ve done it, scaled the mountain, reached the peak, and are sitting pretty, surveying your achievement.

Acknowledge the end goal, pause to celebrate and rejoice in what you’ve completed and experience that wholeness. If you don’t, then what was the point? And, when you celebrate success, you’re tacitly signalling to the Universe that you’d like more of the same, please!

Savour the feeling and also analyse the story. Look at the highs and lows of this course. Extract life lessons and wisdoms. Re-assess your values and priorities now that you have completed this journey. What has changed? How have you changed? Reflect, learn, process, and conclude. Make sure you’re closing down this whole story with a satisfying and informed ending.

Maybe you feel you are not exactly ~there~ yet, and if so then this card is a nudge to take that pause now and think through the journey. Reflect and meditate on what final steps might be required to bring about completion.

It’s also a nudge to release, let go, and let things go full circle or come to a natural conclusion. Everything in life dies. Everything ends. Nothing lasts forever. Be mentally and emotionally ready to release your quest once it is over.

And then it’s time to set out on the mission. It will soon be time to figure out what that is all about and what you’re aiming for. Start ruminating and imagining a new vision of success. You have come so far but there are still roads untravelled and ambitions unfulfilled… it’s time to choose a new quest and prepare to embark upon it. It’s time to prepare to meet The Fool once more.

Reversed meaning: The World’s shadow side is focused on a lack of completion. Whether external setbacks, delays and problems have arisen and scuppered your progress, or you yourself have been the master of your downfall. You may feel there is unfinished business to take care of that is preventing you from making a new commitment or setting a challenging goal, you’re being dragged back mentally to an old case.

Astrological significance: The World is linked to Saturn, the taskmaster planet, which also associates it with Capricorn. This sign is resolutely set upon achievement, progress, and fulfilling goals. Capricorn is always doggedly climbing, maybe not the fastest or most talented, but always the most determined and therefore likely to succeed.

The Saturn Return, as an astrological event, is also relevant. We all experience this event when Saturn returns to the place it was in our birth chart when we were born, which (as a slow outer planet) takes 29.5 years. And then it takes a couple of years to experience the Saturn Return, which is a time to grow up, face responsibility, create robust and meaningful ambitions. Basically, to become a full adult.

Capricorn is a cardinal sign which means it is at the start of season and embeds the sign, and this card, with initiating energy. As one thing comes to fruition, another thing has to emerge to take its place. Rebirth, regeneration, ebb and flow, life cycle.

The World is linked to tough, disciplined, ambitious Saturn which is an outer planet, meaning it is a long way from Earth and therefore its orbits and transits are slow, taking years vs months or weeks. Saturn is linked to Capricorn, whose season starts at the end of December and lasts until the end of January, which may be when this card’s influence unfolds.

Numerological significance: The number 3 represents creativity, communication, positive energy and problem solving inventiveness. The World is a very creative card as you’re taking what you’ve learned and achieved so far and applying it to your next goal or ambition. You are living and learning, literally.

Key actions:

• Consider your location in this life. Does it serve you? Are you at home, surrounded by what you need, in the thick of things that matter to you, and poised to take on opportunity?
• Start the process of moving home or location if that has been on your mind.
• Resolve to see and experience more of the world. Book a trip, vacation, sabbatical, or ignite a series of travel adventures.
• Read about different countries, cultures, religions, peoples. Expand your knowledge of the people and life on this planet. Broaden your mental horizons.
• Celebrate and acknowledge your own successes, and those of others around you. Become a beacon and amplifier of success and achievement. Sound the bells and share the accolades. Attract more success by being so vocal about it.
• Release and consciously end projects, tasks, relationships, or situations that have run their course and reached a natural conclusion. Be free of old stuff.
• Think about to yourself in a few year’s time. What would you love to say you have learnt, seen, done, achieved, or overcome by then? Use this insight to plan for and prepare for your next mission.
• Seek closure. If you have unfinished business someplace (that bothers you) then seek to bring the matter to fruition one way or another.
• Reflect, ruminate and meditate on your progress, journey, trajectory, and accomplishments. Extract wisdom and life lessons. Use them in the future.
• Write your life story or start a journal. Consciously track and record your story.

Yes / no meaning: ‘YES’ as long as you are saying yes to a NEW course of action, a fresh start, a different pathway, a brand new mission. The World is not about staying put or carrying on, it’s a strong signal that something has run its course and you’re preparing to put something fresh in its place and head off on a new quest.