Libra Season, Justice, and the Six of Pentacles
- Meredyth
- Oct 3
- 7 min read
Transcending Transactional Fairness
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin
On September 22nd, we bid farewell to summer and welcomed fall, entering the sign of Libra.
In astrology, Libra is represented by the scales of Justice, and in tarot, by the Major Arcana card Justice.
While there are no good cards or bad cards, every reader is bound to have cards they feel especially close to and others with less kinship.
I’ll be honest, Justice is my least favorite card.
Not The Tower, not The Devil, not the Three of Swords — Justice.
Why? Because I want to tell myself and my clients that when this card arrives, justice will be served!
I wish I could say that wrongs will be righted, inequalities addressed, and righteousness upheld.
But Justice doesn’t promise that.
Justice isn’t about fairness.
Justice is about truth.
The truth is that inequality, racism, and war are real. Love, joy, and peace are also real. But when we see brutality, it doesn’t feel balanced. Fairness is not the hallmark of our lived experiences.
The scales of Justice aren’t there to guarantee fairness or equality; they represent perception and integrity.
The ability to face reality as it is, rather than how we wish it were, is the real wisdom of Libra season.
To help explore Justice in practice, I’m also calling upon the Six of Pentacles today.
Together, these cards can hold us in times of uncertainty and direct our actions towards integrity.
Libra Season and Justice: Scales of Perception
In the SRW, Justice is depicted as a solemn figure seated between two stone pillars, echoing the High Priestess and the Hierophant.
The curtain that hangs between the pillars isn’t very well hung. Like in the Wizard of Oz, if we were to pull back that curtain, we would see that our conceptions of fairness are fallible and not always trustworthy.
In their left hand rests the scales, perfectly balanced, representing perception and the weighing of beliefs.
The sword in their right hand is vertical. Like the Ace of Swords, the tip of the sword seeks the truth, while the double edges of the sword discern good from bad, right from wrong.
This image of a vertical sword echoes the nature of our minds.
Our egos are the double edges, parsing the world into this and that, good and bad, fair and unjust.
Simultaneously, our highest selves are capable of distinguishing truth and reason, independent of preference.
When we bring the airy clarity of Libra into our lives, we’re not parsing right from wrong, but instead challenging our perceptions so that we may glimpse the truth.
The Six of Pentacles: Beliefs, Not Coins
The extent to which the Pentacles have been reduced to concern money is astonishing, and it’s wrong
The Pentacles represent our earth element. That means our bodies and our beliefs.
Money is included in that because money is a belief. When we reduce the Pentacles to be about money alone, we really miss the point in using these cards as a spiritual practice!
Enter the Six of Pentacles.
In the SRW we see a wealthy figure distributing coins to beggars.
Traditionally, this card has been explored through the narrow lens of charity or financial generosity, but to see only this material aspect is to miss the soul of this card:
The Six of Pentacles embodies the truth that giving and receiving are one.
The Trap of Transactional Beliefs
Ideally, when we work with the Six of Pentacles, the scales are balanced and all parties are made richer by the exchange.
In practice, when this card shows up, it’s usually alerting us that we are trapped in a belief that love, money, and fairness are transactional systems.
Most of us think we can only accept what we can reciprocate. The ego says, If I receive, I owe.
We see ourselves as the beggars. We don’t recognise the merchant as the Divine.
The scales of our ego are busy tallying debt, weighing worthiness, deciding if it’s “fair” to receive.
Inevitably, this leads us to a feeling of unworthiness. We may try and stay grateful. We might say ‘things could be worse’ and ‘don’t ask for too much’.
We attempt to formulate a mental equation that will never be balanced — because love is our birthright.
The miracle of love is never transactional.
Divine love cannot be depleted. Receiving from Divine does not carry an IOU.
Similarly, there are times when we see ourselves as the merchant. We have more to give than another party can receive.
Have you ever been in a relationship where you really wanted to help someone, and you knew if only they would take your advice, love, money, or help, that they would be better off, yet somehow it never seemed to improve their situation?
A tell-tale sign of this kind of thinking is when I hear my clients say, “If he really cared about me, then he would or wouldn’t do x.”
How could you know?
Just because you might never act a certain way towards someone you care about, doesn’t mean that is how others demonstrate care.
I’ll offer an example from my own life…
A girlfriend of mine had pushed the boundaries of my comfort levels to the point that I couldn’t continue the association.
I’ve been broken up with plenty of times by friends. I know how painful it can be. I wanted to give her the perfect break-up, the kind of friendship break-up I thought I had deserved in the past.
I told her directly that I couldn’t continue the association, but that I didn’t want her to feel ghosted. It wasn’t any one specific thing she’d done or a criticism of her character. I simply didn’t feel the friendship was growing, and I wished her well.
To me, that direct approach showed concern and care. But to Leena? She felt called out and attacked.
When she was uncomfortable in a situation, she would ghost. Telling her my full truth directly was her worst break-up scenario.
The Six of Pentacles understands that you should treat others the way that you would like to be treated — IF they like being treated the same way that you do!
You wouldn’t try to teach algebra to a room of third-graders. When Mary was pregnant with the Son of God, she didn’t announce it and throw a gender reveal party.
Not everyone deserves your whole truth, because not everyone is able to receive it!
Justice and the Six of Pentacles: Truth Beyond Fairness
The balance and equilibrium in the scales of Justice don’t come from the weight on either side; they come from the center.
The fulcrum that holds the scales steady is our fidelity to the principle that love is the ultimate truth.
Justice understands that the actions of the world are beyond our individual control. We cannot force fairness into existence. We must tolerate injustice and inequity — they are part of the human experience.
And still, we can retain our integrity.
Integrity means we refer to love, not so that we will be rewarded by circumstances, but because when we act in love, the action itself is rewarding.
Again, the scales of Justice aren’t there to guarantee fairness or equality; they represent perception and integrity.
They ask: Are my inner beliefs aligned with my outward actions?
Giving someone your version of a perfect break-up isn’t acting from love; it’s ego. Staying in a bad relationship isn’t loving either. It doesn’t reflect your integrity to your self-worth.
Allowing others to be who they are, staying out of judgment, and comporting yourself with love is not a one-situation-fits-all kind of counsel. It varies.
This is where the Six of Pentacles enters. If Justice holds the principle, the Six of Pentacles shows its practice.
In this earthly Minor Arcana card, the scales appear again, this time in the hands of a figure who distributes coins to others.
It’s not a scene of cosmic truth but of daily exchange — a reminder that balance is lived out in the small ways we give and receive.
What are the beliefs we are distributing? Are we attempting to give more than we have or more than someone is ready to receive?
Have we put a ceiling on what we think we can request from Divine, for fear of disappointment or debt?
What is the “currency” we bring into relationships, into community, into our own sense of worth?
Together, Justice and the Six of Pentacles show us that truth is not about enforcing fairness but about transcending it.
The miracle is that when we align our perception with love, balance emerges — not as symmetry, but as integrity.
And So?
In spending this time with Justice, I must admit that it is still my least favorite card!
I still wish I could report that fairness is guaranteed, that the scales will even out in ways that feel satisfying and just. But Justice never makes that promise.
I know that the truth at the center of Justice is love, and I still feel the weight of my perceptions of inequality and unfairness on either side.
Libra season asks us to live with ambiguity, to accept that truth can feel unfair, and to act with integrity even when outcomes fall short of our hopes.
The Six of Pentacles offers a gentler handhold here.
If Justice denies us the certainty of fairness, the Six reminds us that balance is still possible in the small exchanges of daily life.
We may not be able to weigh or balance the world’s inequities, but we can choose how we give, how we receive, and how we hold our beliefs about both.
That choice, made again and again, becomes its own kind of miracle.