This month's full moon altar honours the Greek-Roman Goddess of Earthly Justice. The Greeks drew a distinction between Themis, Goddess of Divine Justice dispensed by the gods, and her daughter Dike (rhymes with Nike), Goddess of Earthly Justice dispensed by humans. The Emperor Augustus later introduced into the Roman pantheon Dike's equivalent named Justitia. This ancient goddess remains a common symbol in our modern Western society, although these days her name has been secularized to Lady Justice.
On an altar cloth of written legislation, Lady Justice stands between two green candles. A judge's gavel, the symbol of judicial authority, rests nearby.
Lady Justice represents the rule of law and the pursuit of fairness in disputes between parties, no matter who they are in a society. Her ideal is that justice must be equally available to the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, without bias or favour. She wears a blindfold to symbolize that equality. Her scales of balance are raised higher than her sword, symbolizing that disputes are to be settled peacefully by rule of law, not by physical force or violence. Sometimes her double-edged sword is said to symbolize that there are always "two sides to every dispute" or that justice "cuts both ways," again expressing the concept of fairness.
The green candles symbolize the "living tree doctrine" of constitutional law. This holds that a country's Constitution is not static, unchanging, stuck in the past as of the date it was created, but is instead a dynamic and evolving document capable of adapting to changing social and human realities. Therefore, the Constitution should be interpreted broadly and progressively, allowing for its meaning to evolve over time to meet the needs of society and its people.
Lady Justice is being sorely tested these days in the United States. When procedural fairness and the rule of law are not respected by a government, the rich, or the powerful, it is always for the purpose of advancing authoritarianism and tyranny.
[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, 2025; memes courtesy of the internet]
