Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  3. (Swords) What is the color of the wind? When you can do nothing, what can you do?

  4. (Pentacles) Find something in your home that is handmade and that you don’t look at or think about very often. Sit with it for up to thirty minutes, if you can. Listen to it with your heart and wait to see if the light within it reveals itself to you. Regardless of what you experience, when you are done, say a prayer of Gratitude for the person who made the object and a prayer of Gratitude to the Divine for bringing this object into your life.

  Day 34: Yesod of Hod

  The Connection of I-Thou Begins in Humility

  Today is the thirty-fourth day of the Omer, which is four weeks and six days of the Omer.

  Martin Buber, whose study of Hasidism is the source of many of the Hasidic stories we know today, is best known for his book I and Thou, which examines the nature of Relationships between individuals and between an individual and the Divine. He contrasts the I-Thou Relationship with the I-It Relationship, which unfortunately is the basis of many Relationships. What’s interesting, though, is that Relationships between people can move back and forth between I-Thou and I-It.

  In an I-Thou Relationship, one person is fully open and present to the full humanity of the other person. This means that the active listening I wrote about in yesterday’s section is fully focused on the other person with empathy and respect. And because this presence is based in Humility, it means that as practitioners, we are vulnerable. It means we are in a judgment-free zone with no preconceptions that distort the fullness of the other person. This urge to Connect in Humility invites the other person in, holds a place where that person can feel seen and safe to be completely who they are.

  The very phrase “I-It” tells you that the Relationship with the other lacks respect. It does not see the other as fully human. At its worst, in this dynamic, the other person becomes an object to be used. But most of the time, it’s less that we see the other as an object and more that we’re protecting our vulnerabilities or judging the other in some way in which we are not fully present: we are holding something of ourselves back, which defeats authentic Relationship. This is at the root of our modern alienation, not only from each other but also from our selves. Strangely enough, trying to establish an I-Thou Relationship is destined to fail because the very process of trying objectifies the goal and the other person. Thus, the I-Thou Relationship is a Connection that arises in Humility.

  For Buber, the Divine is the Eternal Thou because we can’t bring any preconceptions or preconditions to the Relationship. We can only be present and open, and perhaps God will reveal God’s Self. And this was Buber’s observation of the story of the Hebrew slaves’ redemption from Egypt and their experience at Sinai. Their new freedom and the witnessing of the miracle at the Sea of Reeds enabled them to be fully open and present, without any expectation (because expectations attempt to limit the Relationship partner, thus creating an I-It moment). So the entire people experienced an I-Thou moment at the foot of the mountain.27

  As you know by now, I don’t believe this is something that happened. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it’s true. The Connection at Sinai is a template for what we must do to experience the I-Thou Relationship with the Divine in community. And Buber believes that by studying the Torah, the prophets, and the rabbinic teachings, we can similarly open ourselves, preparing the ground for such an I-Thou encounter.

  I hope that as you read the holy texts from all traditions that are discussed in this book and as you do the work, you prepare the ground for your own I-Thou encounter with the Divine, and the Divine in all other people.

  Day 34: Yesod of Hod in Atzilut

  The Nine and Eight of Wands

  _________within_________

  The emotional wound symbolized by the bandaged head of the man in the Nine of Wands, along with the stockade of staves, tells us that while he has the urge to Connect, he is defensive and wary. This distorts his Humility so that it can be expressed—or experienced by others—as timidity.

  The nature of this wounding and defensiveness is such that someone experiencing this dynamic can only bring negative preconceptions to any new encounter, which makes an I-Thou Relationship almost impossible.

  But there is an opening in the stockade of staves in the Nine of Wands, and all you need is a moment of opening along with true Humility for an I-Thou moment to arise. And the Eight of Wands suggests that despite the wounding, healthy Humility is still possible.

  The warning here, though, is that someone who exhibits true Humility can be perceived by others as weak, and for the bullies in the world, this is an invitation to take advantage of someone. Sometimes this Humility actually activates the bully complex in another person. This is not to blame the Humble person at all; it’s an awareness that sometimes the behavior of a bully in fact arises out of the bully’s fear of their own inner sense of powerlessness, a neurotic recapitulation of victimization in the past. Thus, it’s very possible that the Humility on display in this pair might very well have led to the wounding we see in the Nine of Wands, though once again, this is not to place any blame on the person who is wounded.

  Day 34: Yesod of Hod in B’riah

  The Nine and Eight of Cups

  _________within_________

  In the Nine of Cups, the I-It dynamic is fully on display with the man who appears to be hosting guests, but whose motivation seems to be to create an image of himself as successful. We’ve previously considered the cups in this card as representing emotional conquests, trophies if you will, so that each cup is really the objectification of a relationship.

  The tension in this pairing with the Eight of Cups is that it seems that for all intents and purposes, we have someone who is at some level dissatisfied with a way of being and wants to leave it behind. However, the “geography cure” doesn’t work; you can’t run away from yourself. And if it really is an inner quest we’re seeing in the Eight of Cups, as opposed to walking away from it all to go somewhere else, well, at the start of any spiritual quest, the old habits and ways of relating to others have not changed yet. There is just the desire and the will to change.

  You can see this tension between the desire to change and the bondage to old ways of acting in the way some people Relate to (and project issues on) spiritual teachers—not as other human beings but as tools to reach a goal, even if it’s defined as a “spiritual” goal. Or it could point to the desire to be seen as spiritual by others in the furtherance of building one’s ego. This is one of the dangers of spiritual materialism as described by the Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

  I know I’ve used spiritual teachers in just this way. And I could even make the argument that I could use the writing of this book as a kind of trophy and as a way of staying separate from others even as I disclose my vulnerabilities. This is one of the traps of doing this work, and I hope my awareness of it keeps me from falling into this trap—or at least helps me see when I’ve fallen and gives me the Grace to admit it, pick myself up, and do my best to Connect authentically and with Humility.

  Day 34: Yesod of Hod in Yetzirah

  The Nine and Eight of Swords

  _________within_________

  Imagine for a moment that the two figures we see in the Nine and Eight of Swords are in a Relationship. Obviously, it’s not a very happy Relationship, but it’s a dynamic I am familiar with. In this reading of the Eight of Swords, we have someone who is a prisoner of their preconceptions and judgments—and this not only makes that person blind to the fullness of other people but also blind to one’s own prejudices. So even in a Relationship, there is always something of that person held back, unspoken. You can’t fully show who you are because you can’t fully see who you are. Someone in a Relationship with a person like this is likely to feel like the figure in the Nine of Swords—unseen, alienated, lonely, and full of grief. I’ve seen marriages where the man is in some way emotionally blocked and unable or unwilling to see this, held prisoner by punis
hing introjected societal restrictions on expressing himself, and where the woman ends up feeling isolated in the Relationship that should offer her the deepest and most Intimate Connection. Of course, this is a stereotypical view of the psychological divide between the genders, and this dynamic can go the other way entirely. Either way, though, this is a heartbreaking pairing, and one I am sadly familiar with from my own decidedly nonheterosexual experience.

  As gay men go, I generally pass as straight, and unless I tell someone, other people assume I express the “default” heterosexual norm.*36 Most of the men I am attracted to, however, don’t pass; they are often perceived as feminine in expression. I find this attractive. And some of the reasons for this include that my own masculinity is a shadow trait that I don’t like, so I don’t find traditionally masculine men attractive. Interestingly enough, my own femininity is also a shadow trait, so I seek it out in others rather than own it and integrate and express it myself. This has manifested in some of my relationships with other men, with me playing the role of the figure in the Eight of Swords and my partners dealing with the grief and isolation on view in the Nine of Swords. However, one old partner of mine had a different Nine of Swords experience. When I told him I thought our Relationship wasn’t working and was beyond repair, he burst into tears. I thought he was crying because he was hurt and didn’t want to break up. But he quickly disabused me of that idea. He explained that he was crying for me! He felt that I was so cut off from myself and so judgmental that I would end up alone. His words haunted me because while our Relationship truly was beyond repair, he was not wrong about my own issues and how they kept me isolated.

  Over the years, I’ve worked very hard to remove the emotional blindfold and straitjacket that have kept me a prisoner. It’s an ongoing process, and I’m a very different person now than I was those many years ago. But this is still a dynamic I deal with internally, and I can be a tough nut to crack sometimes.

  Day 34: Yesod of Hod in Assiyah

  The Nine and Eight of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  This pairing suggests that working with Humility (in the Eight of Pentacles) is preparing the garden within for Relationship. It’s almost as if the craftsman in that card is open to his inner Divine Feminine, which has arisen for him in the Nine of Pentacles.

  Indeed, true Humility creates a space, a garden like the one in the Nine of Pentacles, which is a place of Foundation, a place of security where the Splendor hidden within Hod can express itself and where the Splendor can be Appreciated in the world of nature and in the fullness of another person.

  By doing this work, by Connecting with the Divine Feminine through Humility, the workman in the Eight of Pentacles is not only whole within himself, he also can be fully present and whole before another person in Relationship and fully present in all the things he does. He sees the beauty and fullness in the work he creates, so that anyone who is similarly sensitive will see the garden within his work as well.

  I believe this is why we respond on a both a visceral and a spiritual level (as though the viscera and spirit were separate) to certain handmade objects. When I lived in Japan, I began to collect traditional pottery. I was drawn to the spirit of the potter that I felt in the fired and glazed clay form. Because while I like having a lot of teapots, what drew me to the form was the “star” that I saw in the “pentacle.” I sought out the potters whose work moved me most deeply, and I became friends with many of them because they saw that I saw that I could see them in their work. And not surprisingly, these were Humble men and women—true masters of their craft, yet without pretense or arrogance.

  One of the marks of Humility in the arts is what the poet John Keats called negative capability—the ability of artists to tolerate pain, confusion, and intellectual uncertainty, enabling them to go beyond preconceptions to create something that captures an essential aliveness in their work. This is what I saw in the work of these potters. And Humility is essential to hold the tension of negative capability.

  You could even say that negative capability is the ground of Relationship because it allows for the essential aliveness of the other to reveal itself, which is why I connect it to Humility.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 34

  1. (Wands) When has your Humility been perceived by others as weakness? Why do you think that happened? Have you ever mistaken Humility in another as weakness? When has the reverse ever been true: Have you ever been timid in a situation and been seen as being Humble? If so, for any of these situations, why do you think this was the case?

  2. (Cups) Think about a time when you wanted to make a change in your life, a time when you felt strongly that you needed to do something differently, but you still didn’t know what the next step would be and you still felt caught by older ways of thinking and acting. How did you deal with the tension? What did you do that enabled you to take the next step? What can you take away from this to use in your daily experience?

  3. (Swords) What is it that you see about yourself or your Relationship(s) that you pretend not to see? What blindfold are you wearing willingly? What blindfold have you been unconscious to but have had pointed out to you? How has it left you isolated or kept you from Connecting fully with another? It doesn’t matter if you feel this is truer about your partner or about another person you know. Look at yourself.

  4. (Pentacles) What can you do to prepare your inner garden? How can you nurture your Humility in ways that create a space for others and for Relationship to flourish?

  Day 35: Malchut of Hod

  When You’re Secure in Your Dignity, Humility Comes Naturally

  Today is the thirty-fifth day of the Omer, which is five weeks of the Omer.

  When you’re secure in who you are, you are comfortable with others and who they are. And you have the Humility to Appreciate not only your own Dignity but that of others as well. As an example, consider the heterosexual man who is so secure in his own sexuality that he is completely comfortable with queer men and isn’t in the least bit nervous about expressing his feelings for them. There is no sexual charge or tension within him in the presence of men who love men, so that there is psychic space for everyone to fully be who they are. I am lucky enough to have some heterosexual male friends with this kind of Grounding in security.

  Self-respect in Humility confers a Nobility of Presence that is immediately felt by others who meet someone who exemplifies these qualities. However, without Humility, self-respect can fall into a kind of pride that does not leave room for others.

  Malchut is the Sephira that has no quality of its own; it is the vessel that receives the energy of all the Sephirot above. Of course, the ability to receive is a quality, but that’s how Malchut has been described in the texts over the centuries. In combination with Hod, Malchut enables one to see and receive the true goodness in another—seeing their innate Majesty in a way that reveals the Nobility of both people.

  In a way, Malchut of Hod is the apotheosis of the practice of Humility. It’s almost like living with the consciousness of the healer in the Healing of Immanence—one of the first healings taught in Jason Shulman’s A Society of Souls. In this practice, the “healer” simply regards and receives the Divine that is always present within the client.28 I have found this deceptively simple healing practice to be profound because the practice heals the healer as well. And the results are, uh, simply Divine.

  Day 35: Malchut of Hod in Atzilut

  The Ten and Eight of Wands

  _________within_________

  The man in the Ten of Wands doesn’t look as if he’s feeling particularly Sovereign. He is weighed down by the bundle of staves, is bent over, and can hardly see what’s in front of him as he walks back to town. The world of Atzilut and the suit of Wands are the highest and the closest (there I go, being directional and hierarchical, so please remember this is a metaphor) to pure spirit. So we could see the man in the Ten of Wands as weighed down by spiritual gifts or by the spi
ritual Responsibilities he has taken on.

  The Eight of Wands often represents the gifts of the spirit, the gifts received by those whose Humility has created an inner space to receive them. So together I see these cards as the plight of Leadership in a spiritual community. These leaders are people of great spiritual gifts who have both the Sovereignty and Humility to lead a community, but who often end up overwhelmed and burned out by the Responsibilities and demands of the community.

  You don’t have to be a cleric to be in this position. Teachers, therapists, and leaders of many kinds are people who offer their gifts in service to a wider community, whether it’s a school, a congregation, a clinic, or even a business. If you are a practitioner of reading tarot for others as an offering of guidance, this includes you.

  One of the lessons of this pairing is to remember self-care. Share your gifts but remember to give them to yourself as well. Remember the instructions of the flight attendant: if the overhead oxygen bag drops, put it on yourself before putting it on the child next to you. You don’t want to black out because you’ve put someone else’s needs first. That doesn’t help either of you. You’re not being asked to sacrifice yourself, though there is an element of that in the image of the Ten of Wands. You can certainly see Christ carrying the cross in this card. But put the cross down: there aren’t any Romans scourging you along the Via Dolorosa. If you’ve taken on more Responsibility than you can healthily handle, say so. Ask for the help you so readily extend to others. Create your own place of retreat.

  Going from spirit to sex, one can also read this pairing as someone who has a great deal of sexual energy and is holding it back—possibly to channel it, to sublimate it in the kind of service I’ve been talking about in the paragraphs above. But it could also be that holding back this sexual energy feels oppressive. After all, in Judaism sexuality is a gift of the spirit to be shared. Rabbis are not celibate. But there are some traditions where sexuality is demonized. Yes, sexual expression needs boundaries and it needs to be channeled appropriately. True Sovereignty knows how to express this energy appropriately, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually.