The World represents completeness, wholeness, reaching a point where you have achieved all that you desired, reaching the pinnacle of success.  It represents completeness, wholeness, and having fully integrated all aspects of your personality and life.

Dancing dolphins adorn the Animal Lords World card accompanied by a crab, a beetle, a butterfly and a salamander.  The dance on the top of the world and a glowing moon is visible in the distance.  They seem joyful and happy - a male and female, partners in the dance of life.

On the Olympus card we see Uranus holding the world in his lap.  Uranus is the father of the most famous of the Greek gods:  the Olympians - Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter and Hestia.  Uranus felt threatened by his children and ate each one upon his or her birth.  His wife, Rhea, tired of this and when Zeus was born she hid him away and served Uranus a stone instead.  Zeus eventually matured and slew his father, freeing his siblings.  It certainly suggests the potential of The World - it contains all of life's possibilities and all of its energy within itself.  And eventually it spills forth and creates magical, wonderful things. 

This card made me thing about all the potential and possibilities in the world; in our world.  Everything that can and will be already exists and all we need to do is allow it to flower.  The World is also a reminder that we are all part of the same web of life.  We are all interconnected and intertwined.  Whether we like it or not, what happens to one part of the world effects another.  If the "civilized" countries use a disproportionate share of Earth's resources then other parts of the world are shorted.  But that is a practical and realistic view of the world.

In terms of potential and the spiritual aspects of The World, there is always enough to go around.  If I have a creative spark that allows me to dance and sing with joy and happiness, that does not mean someone else cannot do so as well.  In fact I think one of the strongest aspects of The World card is the reminder that when we all play together (the dolphins, crabs, beetles, butterflies and salamanders) our energy blends together to create a magnificent whole.

It reminds me of the movie Star Trek IV - when the alien life returned seeking a message.  But the voice it needed to hear had been extinguished.  They communication was for hump back whales who had been rendered extinct by then.  What is missing from the world when all do not have an equal and fair chance of singing their own song and dancing to the rhythms of life.  The do not have to be the same - how boring that would be.  They just need to be a genuine and joyful expression of who we are.  Maybe like the Whos in Horton's world, if we each add our song and our dance; our joy and our hopes to the song then we can make ourselves heard and change things.