Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  This was never born, nor does It die. It is not that not having been It again comes into being. This is unborn, eternal, changeless, ever-Itself. It is not killed when the body is killed.

  He that knows This to be indestructible, changeless, without birth, and immutable, how is he, O son of Prithâ, to slay or cause another to slay?4

  In both the Hindu tradition and the Zen tradition in Japan, this was the philosophy of the warrior’s path. Only once you have purified your mind with this understanding are you fit to enter battle. And as you can guess, the misappropriation of the warrior’s path has been used to justify a lot of bloodshed by every religion. Remember, the image on the card is of a medieval knight—a warrior for Christ. Many such knights were Crusaders, which means some of my Jewish ancestors likely died at their hands.

  Just because the historical reality of knighthood isn’t very pretty doesn’t mean the ideal of knighthood is any less spiritual. The ideal knight was a protector of the poor and weak. He was a protector of the faith by embodying its values. For when one is attuned to the Flow of Chesed within, it naturally flows out in ways that lead one to help everyone. When Chesed is experienced within, by turning inward and using your powers of the discriminating mind (as represented by the suit of Swords and the world of Yetzirah) to face your fears of the universal Flow, you can start this journey of forty-nine days with a sense of Loving-kindness for oneself and for all beings. This is one lesson of the Four of Swords.

  As we move to Chesed in Assiyah, we come to the Four of Pentacles. On this first day of the count, remember that we are symbolically on the first day of freedom from Egypt. In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim, which means “a narrow place”—the place where we feel constricted. And in the Four of Pentacles, Chesed in Assiyah, that freedom is frozen. The Flow has been stopped up. The way in which the person in the card is holding the Pentacles—one covering the crown, one in front of the heart, and with two other disks held down solidly underfoot—suggests a quality of defensiveness to this expression of Chesed. This is the shadow side of this Sephira. When confronted with a threat or a shock, there are four responses that are possible: fight, flight, freeze, or faint. Here, when faced with the shock of the new—in this case, freedom—the man (or woman) in this card has frozen. It’s as though the person in the card doesn’t trust this new freedom, doesn’t trust himself to go with the Flow. In twelve-step language, while the man in the card has made the decision to take the path to freedom, he is “whiteknuckling it”; that is, holding on so hard because opening up to the Flow may feel dangerous.

  Because one of the qualities of Chesed is “Boundary-lessness,” we can see the person in the Four of Pentacles as desperately trying to keep things under control. A lack of boundaries is threatening for someone who has been violated or is in recovery from addiction. The slavery in Egypt led to a mind-set of subservience—a kind of addiction. Any addict will tell you, whether it’s alcohol or gambling, opioids or sex, addiction is like being enslaved to a substance or behavior that also soothes. For many of the enslaved ancient Israelites, it was terrifying to leave Egypt. Even though they were slaves, they had homes, beds, food, and family. It was all they knew. One of the warnings of the Four of Pentacles is to beware of being enslaved by the seeming comfort of the material world.

  The man in the Four of Pentacles has the freedom that material wealth can bring but is terrified due to some trauma, and he holds on as though still in need. He doesn’t trust the Flow, so he is also enslaved by the fear of losing the material comfort he has, so much so that he can’t let go and enjoy what he has. For him, Mitzrayim, the narrow place, his spiritual Egypt, feels comforting and secure in the face of such terrifying freedom.

  This card gives us an example of someone who is enslaved to the world of Assiyah, who sees only the material and misses the spiritual. The figure grasps a Pentacle without an awareness of the star in the center of it—the Divine that is at the root of all material existence. Rather than participate in the Flow and contribute to it with Generosity and kindness or altruism, the man in this card appears stingy and miserly. The Pentacles in this card block the man’s head, so that new ideas or thinking can’t get in. They block his heart, so he won’t be emotionally vulnerable. And with his feet on two of these disks, they block him from moving: he has become a physical prisoner, blind to the Divine at the center of each Pentacle and unaware of the freedom he holds in his hands.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 1

  1. (Wands) How open are you to receive Love? What side of your tent is closed? Where are you reflexively unwelcoming to others? Why?

  2. (Cups) In what ways do you distract yourself from the Flow of blessings? How do you shut down when you feel overwhelmed by Love, and how can you open yourself to feel safe enough to receive more? Are you pulling inward or feeling defensive in some way?

  3. (Swords) How can you show compassion for yourself when you need to withdraw or look within? What beliefs do you hold that prevent you from fully experiencing the Flow of Divine Love?

  4. (Pentacles) In what ways are you Generous or stingy with your love?

  Day 2: Gevurah of Chesed

  Structure and Struggle Held in Loving-kindness

  Today is the second day of the Omer.

  Gevurah gets a bad rap. Structure. Discipline. Law. Severity. Awe. If you’re a child of the sixties like me, you may bristle at these words. But love requires Discipline, Structure, Boundaries. I can’t tell you how many New Age meetings I’ve had to sit through where no one paid attention to time Boundaries. That’s Chesed with no Structure or Discipline (or negative Hod, as we’ll see later). Balanced Loving-kindness is expressed with Discipline, regularly and appropriately.

  It’s like going to the gym and working out. Going to the gym is an act of love for oneself, taking care of one’s body and health. But you gotta have a regimen, a Structure. Like the thousands who join a gym on New Year’s Day and stop after a couple of workouts (I’m talking to myself here!), we need to realize that the process of Counting the Omer is a Discipline, and already on day two, one can hear the small voice of resistance inside. Discipline is working through that resistance. Structure provides the Organizing principle of Counting the Omer; it is a container of safety that enables each of us to experience the transformation from spiritual slavery to spiritual maturity through love.

  Day 2: Gevurah of Chesed in Atzilut

  The Five and Four of Wands

  _________within_________

  So we’re two days into the journey out of Egypt, and in the Five of Wands it looks as though the Israelites are already fighting among themselves—complaining, competing, kvetching. Discipline has yet to take hold. Discipline and Structure are precisely what’s missing in the Five of Wands, and here is an example of a card that shows the negative or shadow side of the Sephira. Everyone has a wand, everyone wants to be the leader, so everyone is at cross-purposes, rebelling against the Discipline needed to reach the (metaphorical) Promised Land. When everyone wants to establish his own Structure, when everyone wants to lead, the result is chaos. Focus on the man on the left: he is not holding that wand in a gesture of attack. He looks as though he’s trying to get the attention of all the other people: he is standing in a position of leadership, yet those around him are too busy arguing among themselves to really see him or follow his direction. The image of this man reminds me of so many paintings and filmic images of Moses standing at the edge of the sea, raising his rod to part the waters. And what was happening just before he parted those waters? The Hebrews were arguing and complaining and were not happy about his leadership.

  And they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us here to die in the wilderness? Why did you bring us out of Egypt anyway?

  Didn’t we tell you to leave us alone? Didn’t we tell you we’d rather serve the Egyptians than die in the wilderness?”5

  They’re barely out of Egypt, and the people have already f
orgotten the pain of their slavery. They’re fearful of the way forward. How are we any different when we make a vow to change? I can’t go a few minutes after making a decision without hearing the voices of my inner “stiff-necked” Israelites complaining and trying to change my direction.

  Perhaps you know these voices. That’s when to focus on the energy of Chesed as expressed through the Structure of Gevurah. This is the example of the Loving leadership of your inner Moses. He is ready to help guide you through the wilderness over the next forty-eight days to a new freedom. Of course, you’ll have your inner Israelites too, complaining and looking to backslide almost every step of the way. This pairing is a warning not to let them distract you. Hold them with the Love of Chesed and keep them in line with the Discipline of Gevurah.

  Day 2: Gevurah of Chesed in B’riah

  The Five and Four of Cups

  _________within_________

  The protagonist in the Four of Cups is the recipient of the Divine Flow. As he sits there, it keeps coming to him, and he doesn’t yet have the spiritual strength or Discipline to hold it all.

  So in the Five of Cups, three of the cups have been overturned and their contents lost, much in the way the first Sephirot shattered. Some describe the protagonist in this card as someone in mourning because the person is wearing a black robe. However, a black robe is also the uniform of the judge, and Judgment is one of the names or qualities of Gevurah. Gevurah as Structure or Discipline directs the energy of Chesed positively. But when the Structure isn’t strong enough to hold that energy, or if the Structure is too rigid, the energy breaks the container.

  In the Five of Cups, I see a judge who has been too rigid and who suffers the unfortunate results of that rigidity. This could be a warning against the negative face of Gevurah: self-Judgment and criticism. It’s a warning not only against the inner critic but also against the inner pessimist who says, “Oh, I’ll never be able to do this; I missed a day, did it wrong, and now all is lost.” Remember, not everything is lost since we see the remaining two cups in the card are still standing. Yes, we live in a broken world, and there is loss that must be mourned. But the brokenness is holy. The loss is holy. The mourning is holy. Sacred.

  All is not lost. You just pick yourself up and, in the words of my meditation teacher, the late S. N. Goenka, “start again.”

  Day 2: Gevurah of Chesed in Yetzirah

  The Five and Four of Swords

  _________within_________

  When we first looked at the Four of Swords, I referred to the Night Vigil—the test of a man about to be knighted, who must stand watch through the night in a church. He is meditating. In the image in the Waite-Smith Tarot, and bringing some of our contemporary experience of meditation to the card, we can think of him of as lying in the yoga pose of savasana, the corpse pose. Of course, if you’ve ever done savasana, you know the danger the pose, uh, poses. You’re supposed to remain alert, and one of the first things to happen to many people who get into this position is that they fall asleep. The Discipline of meditation is to be watchful. It’s not enough to say you’re going to watch: you’ve got to stay awake and focused; otherwise the mind drifts. You can see the result of this lack of Discipline in the Five of Swords. We’ve let our guard down, and our unhealthy mental habit patterns are ever watchful for that opportunity. They pick up our dropped sword of Discriminating intelligence, and we get lost in a fantasy; our unconscious habits take over . . . or worse, our addictions.

  It’s the nature of our mind to drop its attention and lose focus when meditating. And one unhealthy mental habit pattern that stands ready to attack us when this happens is self-criticism designed to undermine (one of the meanings of the Five of Swords when applied to one’s inner landscape, and one of the negative faces of Gevurah).

  This pairing on day two is a reminder to pay attention. Don’t get lost in the clouds. Divine Love is serious business that requires Discipline to be balanced, and you can’t hold and direct that Love if you can’t hold your attention.

  Day 2: Gevurah of Chesed in Assiyah

  The Five and Four of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  In the last pairing of the day, we see the result of Severity, another reading of Gevurah. In the Four of Pentacles, we have a man who cannot let go, who is restricting the Flow of Chesed. And in the Five of Pentacles, the poor and the sick are outside in the snow. Some interpret this card metaphorically; these people could enter the church at any time and what keeps them outside is their own spiritual poverty. But in this pairing, I see the result of any institution or any organized religion whose role in the world is to manifest Chesed, Mercy, but has forgotten this role and turned its back on the poor and sick. They are unwelcome in the church. The light shines out of the stained-glass window, but there is no door leading inside. This is Severity at work in Gevurah that is out of balance.

  Of course, it’s easy to point a critical finger at organized religion. So the question to ask of ourselves on our inner journey is, Where are we punishing ourselves, being too Severe and restrictive in ways that hold us back from our birthright of Love? Most importantly, what parts of ourselves do we see as unacceptable to the Compassionate One?

  If you believe that the Divine doesn’t accept you in all your imperfections, you are closing the door on the poor woman and lame man within you. Not only does the Source of All Being Love you in all your imperfection, but it is also by loving your imperfections and offering them up to Ein Sof with consciousness that you heal yourself and make yourself whole. This is the inner work of Tikkun Olam and perhaps the most profound lesson of this day; remember, you were set free just yesterday on the second day of Passover. As you set out on this journey to revelation at Sinai, don’t leave any part of yourself behind.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 2

  1. (Wands) Do you lead with Love or do you Love to lead? What can you do to find a balance between them?

  2. (Cups) In what ways are you rigid in expressing or expecting to receive Love? What is your experience of Judging how much love your beloved can hold? In what ways are you afraid of your capacity to accept the Flow of Love; what are your thoughts when you Judge yourself or others when that acceptance reaches a Limit? How can you show Restraint and gauge the appropriate expression of Love?

  3. (Swords) How do you bring the Discipline of mindfulness to your Love? How can you bring an awareness to your Love so that it is supportive rather than undermining? What are the ways in which you rebel against Love?

  4. (Pentacles) What parts of yourself do you feel are unacceptable to the Source of All Compassion? What ways are you punishing yourself that hold you back from feeling your birthright of Love? What can you do to let go of this thinking? Consider your close relationships: where have you been so rigid that you’ve lost the heart of something?

  Day 3: Tiferet of Chesed

  Holding Hurt and Pain with Love and Compassion

  Today is the third day of the Omer.

  Beauty, Harmony, Truth, Balance. Tiferet is the place on the Tree that is connected to everything, like the Heart that it is. It holds the conflicting energies of Chesed and Gevurah in Dynamic Balance. This means that in order to feel the energy of Tiferet we must simultaneously be open to the Severity and Judgment that sometimes fuel our anger, as well as the Love that just wants to Flow out of us. We have to allow ourselves to feel deep into the Stricture of our pain and into the expansive nature of our Compassion.

  Tiferet of Chesed is about feeling all this Love and Stricture at the same time and going ahead to do the work that needs to be done. Sometimes that requires more of an expression of Chesed. Sometimes it requires more of the Severe expression of Gevurah. Commitment to change within ourselves, within our community, and in the wider world requires both Love and Discipline meeting in the Harmony of Tiferet.

  Day 3: Tiferet of Chesed in Atzilut

  The Six and Four of Wands

  _________within_________


  Tiferet is the Sephira of the open Heart, and this seems at odds with the image in the Six of Wands, an image of triumph, which usually means success in battle. While it is tempting to see the laurel wreath on the head of the rider as a celebration not only of peace but also of the arts, I focus on the two central staffs in the image, noting that they appear to be crossed just at the point where the rider is holding his staff. This makes the wreath on the staff the rider is carrying also a crown at the top of a cross! So hidden in the Six of Wands is the central Christian image referring to the Crucifixion. Tiferet, in Christian Cabala, is associated with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the sacrifice of the open Heart. So today is the day to do open-Heart surgery on ourselves, without fear of spilling some blood in the process. But whose blood? Ours? Those we see as enemies?

  A few years ago at a Passover Seder I attended, there was a discussion of the issues raised by the Rwandan government’s mandated forgiveness of participants in the genocide of 1994, as opposed to the process of forgiveness practiced in South Africa for their period of apartheid with their establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This was not an academic discussion, since one of the Seder guests was also a friend of the family of Captain Richard Phillips, who was then currently being held hostage by pirates off the Somali coast.

  Can we bear the pain the Phillips family felt in that situation? And are we Openhearted enough to feel the unconscious pain and anger at injustice felt by people who act it out in the world as pirates? Do we have enough Gevurah to respond with Discipline and measured strength used with Compassionate Chesed for all? Do we truly understand what sacrifices must be called for? Meditating on the Omer is not divorced from what is happening right here right now in the world and in our own lives. It is a practice and process of clarification and purification so that hopefully we can act consciously in the world and not act out our unconscious patterns.