The World

Major Arcana XXI, The World shows a dancing figure within a great laurel wreath, holding two wands, surrounded by the four kerubic creatures of Ezekiel's vision — lion, eagle, bull, and angel. Waite's Pictorial Key identifies this as the final trump, the completion of the Fool's journey, the state of cosmic consciousness in which all dualities are reconciled and the dancer moves freely at the center of creation. The wreath is both crown and zero, the end that is also the beginning. In the Marseille tradition the figure is clearly female; in Waite-Smith the androgyny is deliberate, signifying the union of all polarities. This is the Major Arcana's telos: wholeness achieved, the Great Work accomplished.