Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  Day 45: Tiferet of Malchut in B’riah

  The Six and Ten of Cups

  _________within_________

  We have discussed the Six of Cups as possibly showing the betrayal of Trust that leads to a child’s loss of innocence. And most often, the locus of that betrayal is the place we see in the Ten of Cups, the family. In Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child, she makes the point that children who are more intelligent and more emotionally sensitive than other children often are hypersensitive to their parents’ hopes and expectations for them, so much so that they will lose their connection to themselves, ignoring and locking away their own feelings as they try to fulfill these parental expectations. Often parents of gifted children, in their desire to give their children opportunities they did not have (and they wanted for themselves), push their children into paths that are more a reflection of the parents’ needs than the child’s needs. And the children, who want to make the parents happy, ignore their own happiness.

  This doesn’t make the parents bad: they may well be loving parents who are simply blind to their children’s inner life. But as the children grow and eventually must deal with the self they locked away, they may discover feelings of anger at the parents because of this.

  As we become Sovereign adults, learning to see our parents as human beings who meant well but sometimes failed us means learning to have Compassion for them and for ourselves. We may still feel the effects of childhood wounding that makes Trusting those who love us hard sometimes. This is when it’s important to open our Hearts to this wounded child within and to open to the Source of all Blessings so that we may allow ourselves to be loved without being afraid or retraumatized. Feeling Grounded in our Sovereignty and feeling connected to the protection of the Shekinah can help us find our way to the Truth of the loving family we see in the Ten of Cups.

  Day 45: Tiferet of Malchut in Yetzirah

  The Six and Ten of Swords

  _________within_________

  Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came forth out of Egypt.

  DEUTERONOMY 25:17

  It’s our last journey in the precariously Balanced boat in the Six of Swords. The open Heart of the boatman enables her to hold a space of peaceful Presence for his passengers. (There I go, switching genders again.) He holds an awareness of the darkness in the Ten of Swords that they are leaving behind. He and the passengers in the boat can see the far shore, just as Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land at the end of the wanderings of the people.

  As we give up old habits and free ourselves of addictions, there is a period of mourning, and that grief can be for the loss of everything, from the relationships and opportunities lost to addiction to grief over saying goodbye to the addiction itself. The important thing is to stay on top of the grief: it can feel as overwhelming as an ocean, and I hope that your work over the last weeks has helped you ride the waves in a boat that is Balanced by insight and Compassion for yourself and others along with an awareness that you are held always by the Divine Presence.

  It’s often true that a habit, a defense, or an addiction began as a strategy to cope with or numb oneself from grief or other difficult emotions. And that as we free ourselves from these old defenses, the grief we tried to avoid can come roaring back—along with a host of other feelings that were being tamped down.

  The Ten of Swords tells us that the struggle for freedom is never easy. The Six of Swords teaches us that to stay Balanced we must remember. Even as we journey to the far side and freedom, there are swords in the boat to remind us of what we’re escaping. And when we reach the far side, we must still remember because there’s always a section of the mind that’s ready to convince us that the old way wasn’t so bad and that it’s okay to slip back into old behavior for just a bit. The yetzer hara is always ready to help us forget the bad and see the bad old days with a rosy glow.

  The Torah instructs us to “remember Amalek” even as it also gives us the contradictory instructions to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”4 The Amalekites were a tribe that attacked the former Hebrew slaves as they made their way through the wilderness, who “struck down all the stragglers in [their] rear when [they] were faint and weary.”5 And our yetzer hara, like Amalek, attacks us just as we begin to feel free but are still weak in our determination.

  To blot out the memory of Amalek in this situation means we must root out the inclination to fall back as best we can. At the same time, we must not forget, or indeed we will fall back. For only by being aware of our capacity to fall into the traps of the past can we make certain that we stay free of them. Thus, through Compassion for ourselves and for others as we move ahead, we rediscover the Divine gift of our Nobility. By acting with Compassion for others who suffer with defenses or addiction, we help them rediscover their Nobility.

  Day 45: Tiferet of Malchut in Assiyah

  The Six and Ten of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  We’re in the week of Malchut, the world we live in, the world of action, and we’re in the suit of Pentacles, the material world. On the day of Tiferet of Malchut in Assiyah, we are presented with the opportunity to bring the Heart of our spiritual practice into the world by taking action. With this Sephirotic pairing in Assiyah, we recognize that we are partners of the Divine by working to bring Harmony to a world out of Balance. And that’s just what we see illustrated in the Six of Pentacles.

  We’ve looked at the Balance scales held by the standing man in this card before, and many interpret its appearance as showing how he Balances and judges how much to give to each of the people before him. Let’s consider it a little differently today. Perhaps he carries this Balance so he can remind himself to keep his own Balance. When one acts from the open Heart of Tiferet, it can be easy to lose oneself in the suffering of others.

  By keeping his Balance, he maintains his own Sovereignty. By not rushing in to “save” someone else, he respects that person’s Sovereignty. Because he acts from a place of Balanced Compassion, he can see the Tree sparkling in the air in the Ten of Pentacles. He participates in the flow of material blessings in a way that recognizes the Nobility of the people he gives to, as well as his own.

  Because we are in the world of the material, today is a day to look at our actions to restore Harmony and Balance economically and in other ways. Are you living beyond your means? Are you paying yourself first with savings? Is your relationship to food balanced: do you eat not only to enjoy but also for the nutrition and health of your body, or do you eat compulsively to avoid feelings? Do you give your body the rest it needs, or do you run on empty? These are the practical questions this pairing suggests in the world of Assiyah. And as we head toward the final day of the Counting, it’s a good time to consider what changes you have made over the last few weeks and what changes you still wish to make—and then get started.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 45

  1. (Wands) What is your experience of the loneliness of Leadership? What is your experience of the Heartache of Leadership? When you are in a position of Authority, how does it affect your ability to express Compassion?

  2. (Cups) What are the ways you felt betrayed by parents and adult Authority figures when you were a child? How have you healed from this? Have you been able to see them with Compassion and forgive them? How can you show Compassion for them without losing your connection to your self?

  3. (Swords) Which of your habits, defenses, or addictions is your Amalek—always ready to pounce on you when you’re feeling most vulnerable? What are your strategies for protecting yourself and staying free?

  4. (Pentacles) Examine where in the areas of money, food, bodily care, and sex you might be out of Balance. What steps can you take today to start restoring the Balance? Write an action plan and commit to it.

  Day 46: Netzach of Malchut

  The World in a Grain of Sand, Eternity in an Hour

  Today is the forty-sixt
h day of the Omer, which is six weeks and four days of the Omer.

  The great British poet William Blake opened his poem “The Auguries of Innocence” by writing:

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

  And Eternity in an hour.

  Blake captured the essence of the Victory in Divine Presence that is Netzach of Malchut. It takes Focus to be able to see through the world we live in into the Queendom of the Shekinah, with all its Nobility. In these last six weeks and several days, you have Persevered in doing the work to remove the dross that has covered up your ability to see your birthright as Royalty and your ability to see the world around you as the Manifestation of Divinity.

  You have faced adversity with Fortitude and the challenges of looking deeply into your unconscious habit patterns with Persistence. You have Endured the heartache and pain that comes with this work, and you have come through in Triumph.

  We are in the last four days of the Counting, and you have Mastered much. There is still work to do, though, so be Resolute and Determined not to waste a moment of the time that is left. As Rabbi Tarfon said, “The day is short, and the work is great; the laborers are sluggish, and the reward is much, and the Master of the house is urgent.”6

  Stay focused. Remain resolute. The Victory of Eternity awaits.

  Day 46: Netzach of Malchut in Atzilut

  The Seven and Ten of Wands

  _________within_________

  When we look at the Ten of Wands by itself, it’s the picture of oppression and hardship. It doesn’t appear that we’re looking at someone who is Sovereign in any way, but rather someone whose Dignity is not seen by others, or perhaps even himself. But when we consider the Netzach within this image of Malchut, we can imagine that the inner experience of this person trudging toward town and weighed down by his burden of staves is as a Master of Perseverance. Despite their burden, they demonstrate Fortitude and Endurance.

  This suggests that rather than being oppressed by an outside force, the figure in the Ten of Wands has taken on this burden willingly, as their Mission. He (she or they) knows it’s not an easy job, but understands it as a necessary job that someone has to step up and take Responsibility for. So the figure in the card has made that Commitment.

  We all face times when there is a job that falls to us that feels overwhelming and burdensome, but necessary. Calling on one’s inner Netzach is the right attitude.

  The last eighteen months of my mother’s life were a misery for her. Her third surgery for lung cancer was described by the doctor as a success, but the doctor also warned us that the recovery from this last operation would be more difficult and painful than the previous operations. That was an understatement. The nerves in my mother’s chest were damaged and traumatized so badly that she was in constant debilitating pain for the next year and a half. She went from being an older woman who still lived with vitality to a shell of herself. The painkillers they gave her were ineffective, so that they constantly upped the dose. If I had taken one dose of all the opioids she took, I’d have slipped into unconsciousness and probably died. They just made her groggy, but they did little for the pain.

  As her only relative in any proximity, and of course as her eldest son, it became my Responsibility to manage her care. I traveled to her home several times a week to measure out her meds in containers labeled with days and times, since her twenty-four-hour caregivers were not allowed to do that. I searched for pain specialists who might have some way to give her relief, but every treatment, from injections into the nerves to hypnosis, didn’t work. I took her to doctors’ appointments and emergency room visits when the pain was unendurable. She was readmitted to the hospital and to rehab six times in her last year and a half.

  In her last hospital stay, she contracted the MRSA bacterial infection in her bloodstream through a contaminated intravenous tube, and she spent the next three weeks basically in a coma. Every day I sat by her bedside and swabbed her mouth to keep her lips and tongue from drying out.

  I hated the doctors for botching her surgery. I hated the hospital for giving her MRSA. I hated her for getting old. I hated myself for not being able to save her. I wanted to run away. I wanted to skip going some days, and some days I did. The wife of a rabbi who was dying in the next room told me that I was doing a mitzvah. All I could do was cry and rage. But I kept showing up. When she finally regained consciousness, she could barely speak and had become a ghost of herself. Mercifully, she did not live long after that. I had organized my life around her care, and I thought it a mercy for her and a relief for me when she finally died. And while I was sometimes overwhelmed with the burden of her care, it was an honor to be able to try to give back something of the care she had given to me as a child.

  My parents were divorced, though they were still close. As I was caring for my mother, my father, also elderly, lived in Florida with his partner and was beginning his descent into the night of Alzheimer’s disease. His girlfriend (an odd word for a woman who is ten years my senior) was not obligated to care for him, since they were not married, though they had been living together for ten years. But over the next two years, she stepped up, even as I began to search for a care facility for him because it was too much for her to deal with. Nevertheless, she insisted that he stay at home with her because he’d suffer so much in such a place that he wouldn’t live long. It was very hard for her. And a time came when I had to insist she bring in caregivers for support—as much for her relief as for him. I visited as often as I could. It was very hard for her, but she took this on to the end out of her love for him.

  All of us are tested by Responsibilities we didn’t ask for. We are called to be present as the Divine Presence that lives within all of us withdraws from the bodies of those we love at their death. Making the Commitment to be there for others and following through with Determination and Fortitude while respecting their Dignity is what reveals our inner Nobility.

  May we all meet this test with Netzach in Malchut.

  Day 46: Netzach of Malchut in B’riah

  The Seven and Ten of Cups

  _________within_________

  With the Seven and Ten of Cups, we’re in the world of “pie in the sky,” even if those pies are actually cups. This unfocused kind of Netzach leads to an ungrounded experience of Malchut. It’s the planning of someone whose retirement plan is a lottery ticket. Not that I don’t succumb to buying lottery tickets and fantasizing about winning. I’m even part of a group of colleagues who worked together twenty years ago—none of us work together at the same company today—but who still buy lottery tickets as a group every week.

  In fact, a friend of mine once visited me and saw a pile of my lottery tickets in a bowl. Months of lottery tickets I’d never checked. He berated me for not checking and proceeded to go through them all. Not expecting to win, I let them pile up and only check when I’m getting close to the expiration date for the prizes.

  Of course, we can look at the unfocused energy of the Seven of Cups as the distractions of our modern age, with people looking at screens on devices and jumping from one site to another searching for some unknown satisfaction, like Tantalus reaching for fruit that always receded to exceed his grasp. This is another negative side of Netzach, which includes the inability to make a Commitment—or even a choice. Today’s dating apps have encouraged this consumerist thinking for finding relationships, as the lonely keep swiping left in their endless search for the perfect profile.

  So what happens when this negative Netzach is expressed in the world of Malchut? I think about Jeannette Walls’s memoir, The Glass Castle, in which she tells the story of growing up in a dysfunctional family with a father who always spoke of big plans that were mostly fantasies, as Jeannette and her three siblings end up resorting to dumpster diving for food. When they were small children, she didn’t recognize the level of poverty they were living in or the fact that her parents were
not very connected to reality. It was only as she grew that she experienced the disconnect between her father’s grandiose plans and the situation they’d been living in for years. While they eventually did have a house to live in, there was no indoor plumbing, and her father, continuing to spin fantasies of a grand house, let this minimum of shelter go to complete ruin.

  I can see Walls’s family in this combination of the Seven and Ten of Cups. You may not have had such an extreme experience as this in your life, but perhaps you know someone whose grandiose plans are based in fantasies, who takes no Responsibility, and who ends up leaving ruin and devastation—both material and emotional—in their wake.

  One thing about this path of Counting the Omer: it is Grounded in reality, and this last week is Focused on the world we live in. We are encouraged to see the Divine shining through it, but we are also expected to do our part as partners in completing and healing Creation. There’s no room for fantasy here.

  Day 46: Netzach of Malchut in Yetzirah

  The Seven and Ten of Swords

  _________within_________

  There’s a scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a man wheels a cart of corpses through a plague-ridden town, calling out, “Bring out your dead!” And someone shows up carrying what looks like a corpse to load on the cart. Except the person being carried insists, “I’m not dead!”

  When I see this pairing of cards and the trickster energy illustrated in the Seven of Swords, I think about this scene: we may think the figure in the Ten of Swords is dead, and he may look dead, but at the most inopportune moment, he’ll sit up and insist, “I’m not dead!”

  If you’ve ever had chicken pox as a child, you may encounter this viral trickster energy later in life, because while the immune system eventually does shut down this infection, the virus just hides in the body and can reappear, usually when you’ve reached an age when your immune system isn’t as powerful as it once was. But this time, the virus manifests itself as shingles, a very painful disease indeed, which can leave lasting nerve damage and possibly even lead to blindness.