Keywords for the World may include 'lightness' and 'knowledge'. Lightness because both pictorially and metaphorically, this card symbolizes transcendence. There’s a sense of completion. Of letting something go and moving on up (to the deluxe apartment in the skyyy...)
This is similar to the lightness we witness in the Fool, the first card in tarot. The Fool is blissfully oblivious to worldly baggage. They're innocent and pure, not bogged down by the complexities of human life.
One key difference between The Fool – the first card of the Majors – and the World – the last card of the Majors – is knowledge.
To use a very crude analogy, it’s the difference between a bird and a plane.
Both fly, but the bird has no idea how. To them, flying is instinctive, natural, normal. But the plane is the end result of lots of experiments, a lot of which were failures. For the plane to fly, it requires a conscious application of hard work and effort.
This is how we embody the archetype of the World. It’s not enough to just have learnt along the way. You must integrate and apply those lessons to propel yourself forward into a new chapter.
Working with the World card is an invitation to learn new lessons, broaden your perspective, and shake up what you already know. And then you do it all again.
It’s a revolving door that you walk through over and over, each time with a little bit more knowledge under your belt and a little less baggage attached to you. You’re lighter, yes, but you’re also wiser.
Knowledge is not meant to be hoarded. It’s not meant to live in the mind. Knowledge must be absorbed into the soul, where it's transformed into what we call wisdom. Wisdom breathes life back into our tired bones, breaks our shackles, introduces ease where before we might only have had tightness. Without this, our knowledge cannot liberate us. It's like sitting on a pile of money with nowhere to buy food – wealthy in name, but poor in reality.
And on the other side, lightness is not meant to be mistaken for lack of responsibility, like Peter Pan and his flying friends. Instead, when wielded skillfully, it unburdens us, opens us up, prepares us to receive blessings for both ourselves and those around us.
The two must exist together in order for us to flow through our soul’s evolution.