Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  With this in mind, one way to consider this pair for today is as another warning to stay Focused and aware because our neuroses and addictions, even those that appeared tamed long ago, can come roaring back to life when conditions are right. The lesson here is to know your triggers so that you’re ready to meet these submerged urges consciously, with a discriminating intelligence that sees through them and a compassion that recognizes their root. When you’re able to do that, no matter how many times these zombie defenses arise, you will be able to Endure their attacks so that you remain Grounded in Nobility.

  A last note. A traditional tarot reading of this pair can suggest someone making off with an inheritance. Back in the late eighties, my late friend Lou and his partner, Danyal, hosted a will-writing party for many of their gay male friends. It was the height of the HIV crisis, and we’d seen many gay men die with no will and their estranged families swoop in to take possession of whatever they could while the deceased’s partner had no legal rights. So Lou and Danyal called in a bunch of lawyer friends, and we all worked through our estates and our instructions. No one likes to write a will.

  No one likes to write a living will or a medical proxy. Who wants to face the reality of their own death? Having been through these experiences, I want to suggest that if you’re old enough to read this book, you’re old enough to definitely have a will and instructions for a living will. Think about your legacy—what you want to leave loved ones. But more than that, I would like to introduce you to the Jewish custom of writing a zava’ah, an ethical will.

  Inspired by the Biblical examples of both Jacob and Moses sharing teachings and blessings before they died, Jews have been writing ethical wills for centuries. This document is a true gift to one’s spiritual heirs, giving them your words of love and wisdom and rooting them in a tradition going back generations. Today this custom has spread beyond Judaism. And it’s not only a gift to your spiritual heirs; writing such a document is a kind of meditation on your death and what you hope to leave behind in people’s memories, so it is also a gift to give yourself.

  Day 46: Netzach of Malchut in Assiyah

  The Seven and Ten of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

  The earth, and every common sight,

  To me did seem

  Apparelled in celestial light,

  The glory and the freshness of a dream.

  It is not now as it hath been of yore; —

  Turn wheresoe’er I may,

  By night or day.

  The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

  WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, “ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD”

  Along with William Blake, the poets of the romantic era saw the Divine in nature and, indeed, in “every common sight.” But they also lived at the dawning of the Industrial Revolution. Many of them felt that their ability to see the “celestial light” would not Endure: it was as though the new plagues of air and water pollution from the factories were further obscuring the veiled Divine nature of reality.

  Indeed, there has always been a prejudice that the best place to be able to see through the veil of Nature to the Divine Presence is in natural settings, as opposed to cities. And that’s what we see in today’s pairing of the Seven and Ten of Pentacles. There’s a split between those who can see the Divine within and those who can’t, and it’s the difference between someone who lives and works with Nature and people who are in a town.

  But the truth is, the Divine Presence, the Shekinah, is always present and visible for those with practiced and open eyes. And in the Seven of Pentacles, we have a reflection of your Persistent work on this path over the last forty-six days. I hope, as for the man tilling the soil in this image, that your work is bearing fruit and that you feel lighter and freer than you did seven weeks ago. But there is still some work to do in this Endurance race to the fiftieth day. Perhaps you have been rewarded for your hard work by seeing more of the “celestial light” of the Divine Kingdom that is implicate within all reality, whether in natural settings or in the center of a city. And since this is a day of Netzach, keep it up!

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 46

  1. (Wands) When have you been called on to demonstrate Netzach within Malchut in your relationships? In what ways did it test you?

  2. (Cups) When you set a big goal for yourself, what practices or disciplines do you use to make sure you Persevere in reaching that goal? What have been your experiences doing this—when you succeeded and when you failed?

  3. (Swords) What are the triggers for your zombie defenses? When you find yourself triggered, what do you do to Persevere in your course and not get overwhelmed? Begin the process of writing an ethical will today if you don’t have one. And if you don’t have a legal will, start the process of making one today.

  4. (Pentacles) Practice seeing the “celestial light” in every activity and encounter you have today. At the end of the day, journal about your experience.

  Day 47: Hod of Malchut

  Balancing the Openness of Humility with Sovereignty

  Today is the forty-seventh day of the Omer, which is six weeks and five days of the Omer.

  In the week of Malchut, after the work of the previous weeks, there is a settling into the Sovereignty of the Self that is neither a withdrawal from the world and relationship nor a sense of superiority for having done the work.

  This is the exquisite balance of independent Authority without ego. This is Sovereignty without will but resting within Divine Will. On this day of Hod in Malchut, there is Appreciation and Gratitude for everyone who has helped you along the way, including the Divine, which called you to this path. It’s a day to recognize and give thanks for this practice, knowing what the gift of this discipline has given in the last forty-six days.

  In twelve-step programs, the fourth step requires taking a “fearless moral inventory.” One of the interesting things about this step is that instructions to do the inventory include considering one’s gifts, one’s talents, one’s good qualities, and one’s moral uprightness. Many of us, however, in false Humility (or perhaps more accurately, low self-esteem) would run to the other side, listing faults, defects, and moral failings only. The confessional aspect of this step is very important, and one has to look at the wreckage an addiction has wrought in one’s life and take Responsibility for it. But solely focusing on one’s failings ignores the true virtues one has to be Grateful for.

  This facet of the fourth step is about true Humility, accepting one’s good judgment and one’s Dignity with an awareness that these are some of the gifts one has received from the Divine and expressing Gratitude for these gifts. In many ways, this day, Hod of Malchut, captures this element of the step.

  Day 47: Hod of Malchut in Atzilut

  The Eight and Ten of Wands

  _________within_________

  Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous stumble.

  PSALMS 55:23

  More than one prophet of the Tanakh referred to the gift of prophecy as a burden. Jonah even tried to run from the command of YHVH that he prophesy their destruction to the people of Nineveh. And can you blame him? Nobody likes a killjoy. The messages of prophets such as Jonah, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah are not exactly the words people want to hear. And when people don’t like the message, history shows us that they don’t treat the messenger very well.

  I bring this up today with this pairing of the Eight and Ten of Wands because the Eight of Wands, corresponding to the Sephira of Hod, carries with it the meaning of the ability to prophesy. It suggests that one’s ego is healthy enough to get out of the way in order to receive the message YHVH is sending. And like a bolt from heaven, the eight staves hurtling toward the earth carry a prophetic message, and they’re clearly all headed in the same direction to reach one person in particular. If you’re someone who connects w
ith these Divine radio waves, you know that when a broadcast comes in, it can be a bit of a shock. If you do divination with tarot, you may have these bolts from heaven regularly. And you know that when you get certain kinds of information, unlike Jeremiah, who wasn’t afraid of causing a stir with his words, diplomacy and a sensitivity to the emotional state of one’s client is essential.

  This is one reason I prefer to use the cards for consultative counseling and my own inner work, rather than doing divinatory readings for people. My experience is that being open to receive information and then calibrating the best way to deliver that information can be exhausting. Like the figure in the Ten of Wands, you have to carry this message to people with an awareness that your information may not be welcome.

  One of the effects of doing this work of Counting the Omer, though, is an opening of these prophetic channels within. Doing a Sephirotic spring cleaning means you’re more open to messages from the Divine. After all, one goal of this work is to be able to receive your own personal revelation on the fiftieth day. Over these last seven weeks, we’ve been doing the work to strengthen your spiritual muscles. So that unlike the figure in the Ten of Wands, you’ll be strong enough to receive and carry your message. As you grow stronger in righteousness, you’ll be able to carry this burden without stumbling or falling: YHVH will sustain you.

  Day 47: Hod of Malchut in B’riah

  The Eight and Ten of Cups

  _________within_________

  In this pair of images, we can see one of the big differences between Judaism and Buddhism (as well as Christianity). They show the path of the monastic, who is often a celibate ascetic, as opposed to the path of the householder. I first encountered the word householder when I began studying and practicing Buddhist meditation. Because while the Buddha favored the monastic path, a path of leaving the world behind, he believed it was possible, if much more difficult, for a layperson who had family and business obligations to attain enlightenment. Because some traditional Christian paths are dualistic, some Christians believe we live in a fallen world that needs to be transcended, so that avoiding pleasures (and sometimes scourging the flesh) will save you.

  Judaism takes the opposite approach. Jews see the world as a blessing, a gift from the Divine, and believe that the commandments in the Torah teach us to sanctify the physical world. Sexual relations, properly sanctified, are joyous and not a reason to feel dirty or guilty. Taking pleasure in food, wine, natural beauty . . . these are all Divine gifts, and the Jewish response is to say a blessing before enjoying these gifts. We are encouraged by Wordsworth to see the “splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.” The Baal Shem Tov taught people to serve YHVH with joy.

  It may sound as if I have a preference here. I do not. I understand that there are many paths to enlightenment, though scourging and painful asceticism are not my paths. On Vipassana retreats, meditators live like monks, and I have found this helpful in quieting the mind to go deep within. In fact, it was on my first such retreat that I experienced the “splendor in the grass.” What I object to are paths that vilify the physical world of Malchut.

  Turn away from the world to explore the inner depths like the figure in the Eight of Cups. Or celebrate the world as the Divine Presence made manifest by participating in the life of a householder, as in the Ten of Cups. Choose your path. Or like so many today who have the opportunity to go on a retreat for ten days, a month, or more, then to return to daily life, explore both. Or stay in the world and practice the self-denial or abstention of the Lenten practice to explore your own willfulness and desire.*45 You’ll learn which path speaks more clearly to your soul. But no matter which path you take, the One that sustains all reality will be with you all along the way.

  Day 47: Hod of Malchut in Yetzirah

  The Eight and Ten of Swords

  _________within_________

  How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, And a princess among the provinces, How is she become a slave!

  LAMENTATIONS 1:1

  The book of Lamentations is read in synagogues in its entirety once a year, on the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the army of Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BCE. It is a harrowing account of more than the destruction of the central place of worship for the Jewish people; the city of Jerusalem also had been under siege and was destroyed. The writer of Lamentations pulls no punches in describing the violence visited on the people. He (or she, we don’t really know, though Jeremiah gets the credit) describes people starving and dying in the streets, women and children cut down by enemy soldiers, and people taken away in slavery. What was once a Sovereign nation became a vassal state. The “she” in the quote above refers to the city of Jerusalem. And looking at the Eight and Ten of Swords, you can easily see why Lamentations came to mind.

  In the ancient world, when a nation was conquered, its religion usually disappeared as the victors enforced the worship of their own gods (and often kings) on the vanquished people. The Jews were (and are) a stubborn people; rather than accept foreign gods as stronger than YHVH, they reinterpreted their defeat as the result of their failing to live up to the contract they’d made with the Divine by straying from the commandments. As you probably realize, I don’t believe in a deity with a personality who intervenes in human history and uses one people to punish another. But I understand the need for such a belief: it gives meaning to suffering, and it provides a reason for the unreasonable and serves to keep the belief in that god strong and those people together.

  What does this mean for us today in the light of this card pairing? The qualities of Hod of Malchut can be read as Humility in Sovereignty, and in the suit of Swords, I see this as a warning about the shadow side of this pair on several levels. On the macroscale, I interpret this as showing us the result of tribalism and religious triumphalism, which are filled with pride and a sense of superiority over others. Religious triumphalism is often exemplified by people who believe that “God is on our side” in a conflict (or not on our side, as above), though which god obviously changes, depending on whether we’re talking about the Islamic conquests across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe in the seventh century; European colonialism across the globe; or the Jewish concept of being the “chosen people.”

  In When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs by Charles Kimball, two of the warning signs speak to the image of the Eight of Swords: blindness to other groups’ strengths and people’s inability to see the morality of their own group’s actions.7 Today, from Islamic fundamentalists to Christian dominionists, Hindu nationalists, and contemporary Jewish zealots, we are surrounded by people who believe that because they have “God on their side” they can do no wrong and that others can do no right. There are even Buddhist monks in places such as Myanmar busy inciting anti-Islamic violence!

  On the personal level, I can say that I grew up believing that Jews are smarter than other people. Mind you, I had lots of Christian friends who were much smarter than I was and lots of Jewish friends who certainly weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. But it was part of the atmosphere I grew up with. And it was a semiconscious prejudice I had to recognize and root out as an adult.

  Then there’s my experience in the grab-bag world of the New Age. I’ve noticed in myself, and in others, a sense of superiority, as though because we are aware of other levels of reality and go deeper than the literal meaning of sacred writings, we’re better than those poor benighted souls who follow an exoteric path. And this is true in many esoteric circles.

  This creates separation rather than connection. It’s the violence of pride that denies the full humanity of others. And I have often been guilty of it. But when you know what happens when this is taken to extremes, you have to check yourself.

  Day 47: Hod of Malchut in Assiyah

  The Eight and Ten of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  An excellent thing is the study of the Torah combined with some worldly occupation, for
the labor demanded by them both makes sin to be forgotten. All study of the Torah without work must in the end be futile and become the cause of sin.

  PIRKEI AVOT 2:2, THE STANDARD PRAYER BOOK

  Buddhist monks are, well, monks; they don’t have jobs. Catholic priests have a vocation; they’re priests full-time for the most part. Rabbis, well, many of the sages of the Talmud had occupations. Because Judaism sees the world as an aspect of the Divine, work can be holy. And as the quote from Rabban Gamliel above suggests, the sages believed that devoting oneself full time to Torah study was to remove oneself from the world, which would not help heal the world in Tikkun Olam.

  In the United States, when people first meet each other, one of the first questions they ask is what the other’s occupation is. It’s one way we judge people, since jobs carry social status or stigma, depending on what the job is. In Europe they think this custom is both rude and shallow. And based on Americans’ judgments of certain jobs, the sages of the Talmud would be seen to have very low status jobs indeed.

  Hillel chopped wood. Abba Shaul was a gravedigger. Rabbi Yochanan Hasandlar was a shoemaker. Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta was a tanner, which, oddly enough, was the occupation of my great grandfather Wilhelm Horn, even though he was also the head of the local yeshiva. In fact, the Talmud says that being a tanner is one of the occupations the world can’t do without, though it is also considered an unfortunate job to have because of the noxious chemicals and odors associated with the work.

  It was important to the rabbis that one’s work was not something that resulted in a haughty kind of pride. One can take pride in a job well done, but becoming arrogant because one is good at a job was considered sinful.