by Sasha Graham
Body part: right arm
Five: Strength/Geburah (Tarot’s Fives)
Force must be applied in order for the material world to materialize. This effort and energy is found in the place of Geburah. Challenge is confronted. Unexpected outcomes complicate the matter. Stakes rise. Old patterns return to haunt. Wounds rip open and bleed. Past meets present as new formulations occur. True evolution requires moving past old boundaries. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us Geburah signifies “Judgment, Justice, Judicial Power, known also as Pachad, or Fear.”
Limits must be placed on expansion in order for enduring possibility to emerge. This is how the Emperor reacts to the Empress’s creativity. By imposing limits, boundaries, and parameters, her creativity is actualized. It becomes real. This is why material limitations exist inside the material world. Without these limitations, the earth itself cannot exist. Emperor-like limitations are like gravity keeping the world together. Without gravity we would detach from the earth. Once a habit is formed, it is simple to maintain because natural energy supports repetition. Bread must be kneaded, nails hammered, and bedtimes enforced. Repetition becomes easier after the original effort. Tarot is grounded in repetition, matching the cycles of the solar system and the known universe. Material expansion and limitations come through discipline and specific applied energy. This is why Geburah translates into “strength.” Five challenges everything.
Body part: left arm
Six: Beauty/Tiphareth (Tarot’s Sixes)
Six is the heart center. This is the place of love. It is the place of giving. It is heart consciousness and divine compassion. Vulnerability is developed here because it has experienced the pain of loss and separation in the previous numbers. Six is the divine space of meditation bringing us back to our essential self. It is the gap and silence allowing the individual to reach straight into the godhead. Sixes are the notes between the music. The subtext of a poem. The unspoken truth. The place of listening. It is learning from another person just by being in their presence. The harmony felt when attention is placed on beauty and love. By extension, the individual becomes beauty and love. Six is the place of deep humor because laughter is a spiritual opening. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “the sixth Sephira…summarizes the Divine goodness; it is the heart of the pillar of benignity.”
Structure and form make their way to the material world and a sense of aesthetic sensitivity is fostered. Appreciation for the complexity and variety of the world to come fills the soul. Evocative fall foliage stops you in your tracks during an October stroll. Time stops as you witness a searing orange sunset. Newborn babies swaddled in white cotton inspire a compassion and sensitivity you didn’t know you had. A stranger steps up out of the background to help you. Forgiveness is cultivated toward the one who wounded you. You discover compassion toward yourself in thoughts and actions. This compassion spreads to the world around you. Love is fully expressed. You become a healing force in the world. Kindness is given freely, with no reservations, no strings, and no expectations. This is why Tiphareth translates into the word “beauty.” Six is love.
Body part: heart
Seven: Victory/Netzach (Tarot’s Sevens)
Spiritual experience expands as the tree spirals downward like a DNA helix reaching toward earthly realms. Mystery and divinity take shape and merge as the material world. The world of form and shape is approached. Strangeness occurs as separation from the godhead elongates. Spiritual landscapes take form, each unique to the energy traversing it. The creative mind takes over out of sheer necessity. Solutions are arrived at. Creativity and spirituality intertwine at Netzach, mingling inside the same landscape. Knowledge occurs in progress of the work. Inside this knowledge dwells perseverance in adversity. Manifestation is neither easy nor comfortable in its nature. Boundaries are constantly pushed to gain ground. Growth requires expansion. In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us, “Divine goodness itself looks forth upon all creatures, and all the worlds are in fulness and completeness. This Sephira is also termed Eternity.”
Find comfort in the expansion to exercise freedom and growth without internal resistance. Embrace discomfort and do not be fooled by it. Make discomfort your friend and cohort. Do not run away from the fine edge, the creative edge, where you find yourself dangling over an ocean of possibility. Instead, move into it. You may feel discomfort in a creative project, moving deeper into a pose in yoga class, or inside the fear of a new life situation. Baby steps; a little at a time. If you push too hard, damage may ensue. Take it easy, yet take it steady. If you do, you will push personal barriers and break new ground every day of your life. Discomfort and strangeness, once embraced, become the mystery taking shape. They create new possibility and unimagined outcomes. This is why Netzach translates into the word “victory.” Seven is the uncanny.
Body part: right leg
Eight: Splendor/Hod (Tarot’s Eights)
Eight is flow. The lemniscate. It is the place where all things add up. The energetic duality of two operates at a full-throttle flow. Work is completed, yet more is to come. Eight is the place of beauty, of refinement, of shining examples. Here is the window glancing down upon the material world. The molecular world is glimpsed in kaleidoscopic splendor. Work happens quickly; it is gaining speed. This is where ideas fly at the creators who will make them a reality. Ideas, stories, inventions, and possibilities come to the world from every direction. They are begging to be turned into reality. What is tugging at your heartstrings? What do you feel compelled to make and create in your life?
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us, “It is the place of praise, the place of wars and victories, and of the treasury of benefits.” This is pure, perfect archetype about to be made real in the material world. The cookies are about to come from the oven. The baby’s head is crowning. The artist sees the painting take shape before her. A poem advances toward the poet. Lyrics take aim at the songwriter. The equation and solution enter the mathematician’s mind. This is the place where shining invisible things with a consciousness of their own are about to be made manifest in the world of form and shape. This is why Hod translates into the world “splendor.” Eight is arrival.
Body part: left leg
Nine: Foundation/Yesod (Tarot’s Nines)
Nine is the filter. Like a coffee grinder or a kitchen sieve, this is the space where everything is ground down and processed through the tree and into the material world. Nine is like a funnel. Matter becomes real, moving from the unseen through the veil into the seen world. Character and personality take shape in this space. Awareness of all possibility takes hold. Understanding is flush, ripe and running through the human body. The individual fills their skin. Blood pumps, features are defined, breath is exchanged. Hidden aspirations become crystal clear and apparent. Desire rushes to the surface. Heady moments of anticipation.
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “it is the storehouse of all forces, the seat of life and vitality, and the nourishment of all the worlds.” The baby’s body moves through the mother’s birth canal. The writer flurries words. Snowflakes shower across fields. Wind gathers its speed across the mountain peaks. Lovers recognize one another. Feelings are put into words. Words translate into actions. Action causes a physical result. Results change reality. There is no going back. Something is about to exist. This is why Yesod translates into “foundation.” Nine is threshold.
Body parts: genitals and anus
Ten: Kingdom/Malkuth (Tarot’s Tens)
The ten is the complete manifestation in the material world. Completion. Success. Finality. Existence is real. It is done. It cannot be undone. This is the place of assumed possession. Objects and people can be seen, felt, and touched. This is the place where we spy what we want. Blueprints take shape. Results emerge. The individ
ual stands in flesh and bone. Every form of perception is seen by its respective viewer. Colors dance, light reflects, waters lap. Green leaves shutter with cool breezes, volcanoes spew molten lava, roses bloom. Life, as we understand it, begins.
In The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah, Waite tells us that “it is the final manifestation, emanation, or development of the Divine Nature taking place in the Divine World.” The earth and physical reality exists in Malkuth, or Kingdom. This is the place where you can find everything in the world. This world is a reflection and manifestation of the Divinity above who casts infinite realities through infinite trees. An individual never knows what they might uncover once they begin to experiment with the metaphysics of the material world because each of us is built with different sensitivities. Kingdom is the party we all attend and the dance floor we all slink across. It is the home we inhabit. It is what we see, feel, touch, taste, and integrate. Ten is the material world.
Body parts: feet
Tree of Life Secret and
Kundalini Connection
Arthur Waite’s work with the Tree of Life did not stop once the tree manifested results in the material world. Once the tree is understood, one discovers the nature of the self in relation to the universe around them. These new eyes discover mystery at every turn. The mysterious is imbued in everything surrounding it. Every part, parcel, and piece of life is alive with energy, consciousness, and divinity. This mystery is examined and ultimately it leads us back up the tree, path by path, Sephira after Sephira, into infinite metaphysical journeys. The occultist travels the Tree on their own. They move through each Sephira until they rise to the highest point on the tree, the crown. Here they gaze directly into the eyes of the Divine.
Symbolically, this aligns with the Kundalini yogi who encourages life-force energy to rise from the root chakra to the crown chakra. It is the same process explored via two distinctly different cultural systems. Each achieves the same result: enlightenment and shifting perceptions of the universe and one’s place inside it. Christianity places the snake or serpent as a symbol of temptation, while yogis use the snake as a symbol of coiled energy at the base of the spine. This energy travels upward and enlightens the yogi as it activates every part of the body in a form of energetic resurrection.
Pillars
Can you make out three vertical pillars on the Tree of Life? The left Sephiroth line up to form the tree’s left pillar. The left side is masculine. The right three Sephiroth line up to make the right pillar. The right side is feminine. The center pillar is gender fluid, infused with both masculine and feminine qualities. It is an integrative center force. The middle pillar leads directly from divine awareness in the Crown to manifestation in the number in Kingdom. The RWS deck makes extensive use of the three pillars of the tree as a spiritual reminder. The High Priestess, the Hierophant, and Justice embody a physical center between two pillars. Their bodies become the center pillar sitting between two pillars, male and female. Pamela fills the deck and finds graphic balance for many of her cards using the three pillars. Pamela places many tarot characters between two mountains, trees, or towers, and in doing so she makes additional veiled references to the tree’s pillars.
The outer pillars reflect extremities, and the middle pillar fuses the energy. This is where an individual finds balance inside inner duality. It is the occult objective of integration of all energies inside the body. It is the alchemist’s Great Work. It is also why some people consider the World card to be a metaphorical hermaphrodite. The World card reflects an individual who is the master of balancing and integrating all the essences of who they are. The World dancer represses nothing. She moves and expresses herself just as she is. Because nothing is repressed, everything the individual does corresponds with their true intrinsic nature. Wicked magic ensues. Possibilities unfold. This is why the World card is the highest card of the deck.
Four Parts of Your Soul,
Four Suits of Tarot,
Four Kabbalistic Worlds
Let’s go back to the arcade and our pinball room for a moment. It will make this next part easier to understand. We walk away from our Tree of Life pinball machine and move over to the other side of the dark room. A glowing sign appears, blinking above your head. It says “Tetragrammaton (Name of God).” The sign is glaringly bright. You make out four pinball machines underneath it. Tetragrammaton is indeed the name of God or the Divine. Tetragrammaton is a Greek work meaning “consists of four.” The tetragrammaton is made up of four Hebrew letters.
Four pinball machines stand side by side and I plug each one in. They spring to life with bells and lights, ping, ping, ping. Each machine has a different Hebrew letter emblazoned across the top: Yod Heh Vau Heh. Under the glass each pinball machine has a tree and ten glowing Sephiroth, matching the original machine we looked at.
The Kabbalistic world is divided into four parts. The four parts align perfectly with the tarot’s four suits. The four Hebrew letters translate into Latin as YHVH. This is where the name Yahweh for God was derived. It is the Old Testament’s name for God. Make sense? These four worlds (or pinball machines) express the name of the divine creator. Let’s get back and examine what those letters actually mean. Remember when I told you that the Hebrew alphabet is infused with divinity? These four letters together express the Divine. They align to the four parts of the soul and the four suits of tarot. They make up the four parts of the Kabbalistic world.
Let’s take a close look at the first letter glowing on the first pinball machine. Yod vibrates in color across the top of the game. The board is filled with symbols of pentacles, as found in the RWS deck. Yod aligns with the suit of pentacles. Inside the game and beneath each Sephira, a tarot image has been placed. The Ace of Pentacles’ image is under the crown chakra. Divinity pours out of the crown as it also pours out of the ace of every suit. The aces, like Divinity, spill forth the entire suit. By the time we get to the tenth card, there are results seen in the material world. Everything following the ace is part of the ace. It is the same way you can trace your entire life, day by day, back to the day you were born. You are born with your entirety inside you.
Pentacle court cards decorate the four corners of the pinball machine, the King of Pentacles on the top left and Knight of Pentacles at the bottom left. Queen of Pentacles at the top right and Page of Pentacles at the bottom right. The kings and knights align with the masculine pillar, and the queen and page align with the feminine pillar. The pattern holds true for the following three worlds and tarot suits. These are the four Kabbalistic worlds, four parts of the soul, and how the tarot aligns with the tree.
Physical World: Pentacles/Yod
Yod is the material world and the world of pentacles. It coincides with Kingdom in the Tree of Life. Here is everything you can touch, taste, hear, and see. Everything connected to the world of pentacles connects to Yod. This includes books, chairs, food, people you love, your long, silky hair, and your beautiful, sweet, aloof cat. This is the material world of form and function.
All of the pentacles’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Yod, the material world.
Emotional World: Cups/Heh
Heh is the creative world and the world of cups. This is the place of dreams, blossoming thoughts, and emotions. It is from this lofty place that ideas pass through swords to gain a design and find ultimate substance in the material world. It is an imaginative landscape of fantasy with no boundaries, no laws, and no limitations. It is open and wild, rich and forthcoming.
All of the cups’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Heh, the creative world.
Thinking World: Swords/Vau
Vau is the formative world and the world of swords. This is the mental world of thoughts and ideas. It is the thought process for everything before it actually exists in the material world. It is articulation and calculation. It is the space of the mind. This is the narrative world of story. This is whe
re we formulate the stories we tell about ourselves and others. It is the space of “I think, therefore I am.” Observe your thoughts. Craft your narrative mindfully.
All of the swords’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Vau, the formative world.
Energetic World: Wands/Heh
Heh is the archetypal world and the world of wands. This is the place where archetypes are born. It is the top of the tower. It is energy, passion, and essence. Associating the top of this pillar with the suit of wands is a reminder that passion comes from a divine source and is the most powerful tool in life. It is the generating space of all life as we know it and carries the power to manifest dreams and nightmares into reality.
All of the wands’ minor arcana cards (ace–king) are found inside Heh, the archetypal world.
Final Thoughts
Now you’ve gained insight into the Tree of Life. The tree is but one of many spiritual systems explaining the nature of divinity. The tree and the tarot link perfectly to express the somewhat complex nature of the universe and the material/soul existence inside of it. One might say the Tree of Life is a mathematical, linear, masculine sense of understanding the universe. The same conclusions and experiences might be reached by a gardener who sees the unfolding nature of the universe in her neatly arranged flower and vegetable beds. The Buddhist monk high in the Himalayas may reach similar conclusions inside the context of his language and cultural conditioning.
Tarot is a portal allowing readers to look through the material world and gaze at the interior. They may examine the interior of personal landscape, the interior of others, or the interior nature of the world we all live in. Tarot gifts readers with the ability to look past form, structure, and language and gaze directly at what is. Once forms and archetypes are identified inside tarot, readers discover and recognize these forms everywhere they look. Readers discover the vast interconnectivity of all humanity and realize that spiritual systems in every culture—from Hindus to Muslims to Christians—ask the same questions in different languages and cultural contexts. The stories differ, but the desire is consistent. Why are we here? What is the point of life? Where are we going? What does it all mean? How can we become who we truly are?