by Mark Horn
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 26
1. (Wands) What is your experience when you’re defending your ideas? Are you able to detach your ego? If so, have you ever felt greater strength result from your ability to let go? Conversely, have you ever felt stuck in such a situation, and if so, what is the connection between being stuck and holding on?
2. (Cups) How do you seek Divine guidance? If you use the cards to do this for yourself and others, how do you distinguish between your projections and the information you’re receiving? Look at the images in the cups in the Seven of Cups: what do the contents of each of the cups mean to you today? How would you have interpreted them differently in the past or for another person?
3. (Swords) While setting your ego aside can strengthen your Endurance, too much Humility can sap your ability to Persevere. What is your experience with this dynamic—either in your own life or as you have seen it play out with family or friends?
4. (Pentacles) When you work with others, what is your experience with the ability to share credit for success? Think about when you’ve worked on a long-term project: what was your relationship to the end of the project while you were in the middle of it, and how did thinking about the rewards of the ending distract you or help focus you?
Day 27: Yesod of Netzach
The Connection That Fuels Commitment
Today is the twenty-seventh day of the Omer, which is three weeks and six days of the Omer.
The Bonding in Endurance—sometimes one’s ability to Persevere is greater because of a Bond with another person. In the Day 19 section, I wrote about how I finally engaged my Drive in my career only when I found myself Connected in a family unit and wanting to help provide financial support. It was this Bond that fueled my Perseverance. I made a Commitment to my career because of my Connection in this relationship.
In a crisis, the Bond of love can set adrenaline on fire so that you’re able to do things you wouldn’t be able to do in everyday life. We’ve all heard stories about the mother who lifts a car off her child pinned under it. And I believe these stories because once something similar happened to me. When a boyfriend became violently ill, I carried him down three flights of stairs and into a cab and from there into the doctor’s office. I could never have done that had it not been for our Bond of love: I was able to access deep reserves of Netzach Drive energy through the power of Yesod.
I’ve also written about the dark side of Yesod, and that side can manifest in this pairing too. The Connecting energy of Yesod is indiscriminate: it will go in any direction if it isn’t being directed consciously. So Yesod can be the seat and seed of all addictions. And because like all the other Sephirot, Yesod is a Divine energy, its power, dark or light, is great. When Yesod is frustrated in the search for Connection, the result is a psychic energy that the Buddhists call a Hungry Ghost. Thus, the twenty-seventh day can be very unhealthy if you’re unconscious of this energy, because if shadow Yesod is fueling your Endurance, you can find yourself stubbornly Committed to actions that are not in your best interest.
Day 27: Yesod of Netzach in Atzilut
The Nine and Seven of Wands
_________within_________
Feeling defensive, are we?
Yesod can bring a Grounding energy to Netzach, and that grounding is through Relationship, Connection with others. Relationship can fuel the Drive and Determination of Netzach while keeping it Connected to human values. But when we look at the Seven and Nine of Wands, it’s clear that the man in the Nine of Wands has been wounded in Relationship and is wary of Connection. He has walled himself off defensively, though there is a gap in his defenses, perhaps showing that he still wants to Connect, even if he is suspicious.
The Seven of Wands also contains an image where a defensive stance is taken. Together, these images make me think about my own prickly defensiveness. Because I have my own Yesodic wounding, I am quick to take offense and ready to fight when I feel attacked. Like the man in the Nine of Wands, I can be suspicious of anyone approaching me; I want to trust, but my experiences have made me wary, and I have been known to project bad intentions onto those who hold no such feelings. This is one of my character defects, and it’s something I keep working on. In fact, looking at the man in the Seven of Wands, I recognize what my stance in the world must have looked like to others when I was in my twenties. I’m not as bad today, but it’s still an issue that calls for greater consciousness on my part.
Because Atzilut is the world of ideas, rather than look at how this has affected my heart relationships, I think about how this issue has affected my relationships in the world of business, where I work with others in ways that are both collaborative and competitive. In a creative department in the advertising world, the better your ideas, the more successful you are. Though often, as in the world of film and theater, while an idea might originate with one person, the process is ultimately highly collaborative. But I can be very defensive about my ideas in ways that have sabotaged the collaborative process, thus preventing these ideas from being realized and preventing me from being promoted. Add issues of prejudice into this situation, and it’s a recipe for career disaster.
When I began my career in advertising in the late seventies, it was a very WASPy industry. The shift to more diversity in the business has been chronicled in many memoirs by industry greats who often founded their own agencies because they couldn’t get hired by the old-line Madison Avenue shops. And one of my first agencies was just such a famous old-line shop. The creative director who hired me was Jewish. And after I was there for a few weeks, I noticed something odd. Everyone in his group was Jewish, and everyone else in the other creative groups and in the other departments throughout the agency was not. I even heard us referred to as “the Jewish group.” Management came to us when they wanted more “out-of-the-box” thinking. But we were in a kind of ghetto, and while there were people in the agency I became close with, I had a defensive chip on my shoulder since I could also sense the disdain for my group.
When there were internal agency competitions to win business, I was always hyperdefensive of my work because I believed that it wasn’t my work that was being judged, but my heritage. Sometimes it was true, and sometimes it wasn’t. But my defenses had been activated, and that made it impossible for me to see clearly what was really going on. And of course, my quickness to defend my work was interpreted by those people who were prejudiced as just another example of a “pushy Jew.” My defenses played into the stereotype.
The thing is, though, I know if I had felt less defensive, had I been more open, I would have seen more openings available to me. And I would have trusted them more.
These defenses run deep in me. Even though I’ve done a lot of work to make them conscious in order to weaken them, I can often be caught off guard by my guardedness. This isn’t made any easier when there are politicians today who use anti-Semitic dog whistles to speak to their supporters. But living on guard like this holds people at arm’s distance. And that’s not how I want to live my life.
There’s one more way I want to look at this pair. As a gay man, I have often read the Nine of Wands as a card of a queer person who is in the closet, someone who comes from a family or cultural situation where they have grown up knowing who they are but had to hide it and hide the wounding of their identity. For me, this has fueled my activism, so that this pairing speaks to me in a particular way. But for those who remain closeted or whose wounds run deep so that their desire for Connection is frustrated by fear, the result can be a Netzach that is wounded (and wounding) as well. Consider the gay man who uses a cutting wit to hold other people at a distance.
Day 27: Yesod of Netzach in B’riah
The Nine and Seven of Cups
_________within_________
In the introduction for today, I noted that Yesod helps us stay Connected to human Relationships as we pursue our goals. These Relationships can even be the fuel for our Determination. But when Yesod is wounded o
r defensive, this fuel is depleted or it directs our Perseverance in unhealthy ways. This is clear in the pairing of the images of the Nine and Seven of Cups.
In the Nine of Cups, the body language of the man seated on the bench makes it clear that the Connection on offer is shallow. The man leaves no room on the bench for anyone else—he’s manspreading—even though the bench is wide enough for another to join him. He may be the master of a banquet, but he doesn’t look very welcoming with his arms crossed in front of his heart. Because his legs are spread apart, the path to his genitals, however, is open, so that even though this is the suit of Cups, the Connection offered here isn’t emotional. You can think of him as a wealthy man who knows his money can buy him physical Connection and that’s enough for him. And the cups behind him can very well be trophies of past conquests.
We can see how this expression of Yesodic energy affects Netzach in the Seven of Cups: the man can’t focus on any one Relationship, and he sees them all as possible trophies to add to his collection.
I’ve been on both sides of this equation at times. I can think of times when I was single and looking to meet a partner. Sometimes I’d be speaking with someone in a social setting, and while the person seemed to be interested, I could also see his eyes wandering the room to check out the other possibilities. He wasn’t focused on me but was only looking for another conquest. And I’ve been just as guilty of this kind of behavior.
I’ve also been at family affairs where I have felt this dynamic in action. Have you ever been to a celebration of some kind hosted by family members whose only goal in inviting others was to show off how successful they are? They’re not really inviting you to celebrate and share in their simcha*27; it’s not about Connecting in celebration but about lording things over you.
In this kind of negative expression of Yesod of Netzach, a person sees others only as potential opportunities to increase their success in some way. People under the sway of this dynamic choose their Relationships on this basis. Here Yesod is not about Connecting deeply to others; it only sees them as either obstacles or support to be used in the pursuit of one person’s goals.
This is perverting emotional Connection in the service of material success. If you know someone like this, you’ve probably felt used by that person at times. You may have done something like this yourself. I don’t like to admit it, but I have. This pairing of cards shines a light on all those times, forcing me to consider where I might still be doing this in any of my relationships today.
One other way to consider this pairing is through the lens of addiction. The man in the Nine of Cups can be a high-functioning alcoholic; he looks successful to the world, and he presents himself as such, but he uses alcohol (or some other substance) as a substitute for or a defense against Connection. As a result, he can’t see any of his relationships clearly; they are all seen through the haze of his addiction in the Seven of Cups. If this was a problem in your past, today is a day to consider the ways in which this issue still affects you and your Relationships.
Day 27: Yesod of Netzach in Yetzirah
The Nine and Seven of Swords
_________within_________
We have come to the moment of the crisis in faith—when our wounded self-esteem undermines the feeling of worthiness and agency and when we have lost our belief that we are always in Relationship with the Divine Presence.
There are two stories in the Torah that come to mind when I see the Nine and Seven of Swords. First is the story of Jacob in Genesis, chapter 28, when he had run away from home and the anger of his brother Esau, whose blessing he had stolen. While sleeping in the wilderness with his head on a rock for a pillow, he had a vision of a ladder reaching up from where he slept into the heavens, with angels going up and down. When he awoke, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”11 He named the placed Beth El, the House of God (seemingly unaware that the Divine is accessible in any place at any time).
When we look at the Nine of Swords, the swords hanging in the dark are unseen by the person who is weeping. It might feel to the person in the card that the weight of Divine Judgment is above and against them, with the blades cutting them off from Divine Connection. But you can also see the blades as the rungs of Jacob’s ladder, with the positive interpretation that God is in this place and that while the person crying in bed may feel cut off from Divine Connection, that Connection is there to be had. Even when you feel lost in the wilderness like Jacob. Or like the Israelites in their wanderings.
When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, Moses sent twelve scouts ahead into the Promised Land to report back to the camp on what they saw. Two of the scouts, Joshua and Caleb, gave a good report of a land flowing with milk and honey. But the other ten saw something else entirely:
“And there we saw giants, the Nephilim, so that to ourselves we looked like grasshoppers in comparison, and that’s how they saw us too!” Hearing this all the people of Israel cried out in fear and wept all night long.12
The ten did not see with the eyes of faith the land the YHVH promised them. They still saw with the eyes of slaves, so that they saw themselves as grasshoppers. Even though these were people who had witnessed the Divine hold back the Sea of Reeds so they might escape Pharaoh’s army, their faith was not strong. Like the figure in the Nine of Swords, they did not feel the power of the Divine Presence with them. And as former slaves, their Netzach was weak, further undermining their faith. This affected the whole community, who let the fears of the ten scouts keep them up all night, crying in fear.
We humans seem to be wired to forget. At least I am. I have had moments when I have felt a strong Connection to the Source of All Life that has filled me with a deep inner peace. But a week later, something happens that disturbs my newfound equanimity, and my old fears return and blind me to the Divine channel that is always open.
This is an illusion, the self-deception that’s at work in the Seven of Swords. But I have fallen prey to believing it. And that makes it just as real as if it were true, because it has kept me from seeing the opportunity to connect that’s ever present. Today is a day to examine just what triggers this wavering of faith, what activates this self-deception. Because the more one falls into the trap, the longer the time spent wandering in the wilderness.
Day 27: Yesod of Netzach in Assiyah
The Nine and Seven of Pentacles
_________within_________
It’s time to get earthy:
“Where has your beloved gone,
you most beautiful of women?
Which way did your beloved turn,
so that we may seek him with you?”
“My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to pasture his flock in the gardens
and to gather lilies.”13
Let’s go down to the garden together. Because in the Nine and Seven of Pentacles, that’s exactly where we are. And with the two figures, male and female, the images it brings to mind are from the Song of Songs, the biblical celebration of sexual love that is unashamedly sensual and erotic.
We’re in the world of Assiyah, the world of the physical, and there’s nothing more physical than the earth itself and our bodies. And Judaism recognizes that the earth and earthly love are also spiritual. When the sages were deciding which books should be included in the canon of the Tanakh,*28 many were opposed to the inclusion of the Song of Songs for its highly sexual nature. But Rabbi Akiva†29 argued forcefully for its inclusion, interpreting it as an allegory for the Relationship between YHVH and Israel.
While earlier interpretations of these cards in other pairs sometimes have pointed to more negative expressions of their respective Sephirot, this pairing is nothing but joyful. It’s an opportunity to look at your Relationship with your body and your experiences loving other bodies (not divorced from their souls) as spiritual experiences. Remember the star in the pentacle? It’s singing to you in the words of Joni Mitchell’s
“Woodstock”: “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
Here in the Nine of Pentacles, we can see the woman in the card is deeply Connected to the earth and the garden. With her one hand resting on the ripe grapes and a hooded falcon resting on her other, she is connected to the earth and the sky. Sexuality is controlled and channeled, resulting in fecundity. She waits for her beloved in this lush garden.
In the Seven of Pentacles, we find her lover. He is her partner in planting and caring for the garden. As he works, he looks off longingly in the distance, imagining them spending time together in this bower. Her Yearning for Connection feeds his Perseverance, his Netzach, in working to create this garden.
Yesod, in the Nine of Pentacles, shows us the deep Yearning of the soul for Relationship. There is a paradox here, because the woman in this card seems self-sufficient, and to a degree this is true, because she knows, even as she Yearns for Connection with the Divine, that she is never separate from It. But the experience of seeing the Divine in another and having another recognize the Divine in you is a different Connection. This is the love that the great Sufi poet Rumi writes about. And this is why she waits in the garden for her beloved.
This pairing shows the ideal of what Relationship can be. It promises that if we channel our energies wisely, we can experience Divine love in human love and see it reflected in nature all around us. Today is a day to examine just how we channel those energies and a reminder to see the star in the pentacle. We are indeed stardust.
But we’re not just stardust. To quote another high priestess of pop, Olivia Newton-John, these cards tell us, “Let’s get physical!” Yes, we are moving toward the marriage on the fiftieth day, and it can sometimes be hard to remember that this process is a courtship of your inner male and inner female leading up to that marriage. What would manifesting this inner courtship physically look like?