by Mark Horn
Perhaps the victory of the Six of Wands is having an open Heart with the ability to feel all these complexities without being overwhelmed or unbalanced. (It takes Balance to ride a horse!) Having an open Heart of Tiferet includes both clarity of purpose and Compassion for all. I can’t even pretend to be close to attaining this Balance, but it’s important to keep working to reach this goal.
Day 3: Tiferet of Chesed in B’riah
The Six and Four of Cups
_________within_________
In the world of B’riah, we see the Four of Cups paired with the Six of Cups. The Six of Cups is often read as nostalgia, but I see it as the memory of innocence lost, because in the Six of Cups we see a child being given a gift from someone older. An older child? The author Isabel Radow Kliegman suggests the possibility that the figure on the left is an adult leaving the situation and the child unguarded—and that this can refer to sexual abuse of a child.6 But children are betrayed in so many ways. We all lose our innocence. Can we have the open Heart of a child even after the pain of betrayal, after the loss of innocence and loss of safety in the world? Can we live in the world with the Heart of a child and the wisdom of an adult?
This interpretation made me consider my own life experience. When I was a young child, I ate everything that was put in front of me and loved to try new foods. Then suddenly, around the time I was five years old, like the figure in the Four of Cups, who seems to be refusing what’s offered, I began refusing to eat anything new. In fact, I started to refuse many foods that I had loved. Previously, if you had asked me about this time in my life, I would have looked back on my childhood through a golden haze of nostalgia. It was only as an adult, and after I’d been in therapy, that I understood my refusal to eat as a response to an experience of abuse that I had repressed and that left me feeling unprotected and unnourished by the adults in my life. So I acted out this feeling with food.
On this day, some questions to consider are: What painful emotions must we feel to restore the Flow and move on? Can we open our own wounded child’s Heart and comfort it with the loving Chesed and secure Gevurah of the adult that we now are? And after our childhood wounding, as adults are we able to let down our guard to accept or give Love Generously?
Day 3: Tiferet of Chesed in Yetzirah
The Six and Four of Swords
_________within_________
Here we see the relationship of the knight starting his inward journey in the Four of Swords and the people in the Six of Swords on an outward journey across the water. Once again, a six card is showing us a Balancing act—this time in a boat. The water is not choppy, but it’s a small craft, and without the right balance it could tip over. The boatman stands at the rear, and his passengers sit in the middle. This means the swords that are standing upright in the front could well be balancing the boat. But it’s an odd image, since of course if a sword were piercing the bottom of a boat, it would be sinking.
A popular interpretation of this card is as a passage away from difficulty. But with the swords in the boat, it feels to me like a visual expression of the idea that you can’t run away from your problems. Considered with the meditating knight on an inner journey, it feels to me that this pairing is about coming to a place of emotional pain and slowly, carefully, making one’s way across and through. To use a phrase from the twelve-step world, “The only way out is through.”
The passengers seem depressed, sad, in mourning. And indeed, when going into the open Heart, one will experience pain and sadness. But there is another side, another shore. And because you’re taking the swords with you, well, there may be a new life awaiting you, but to live that life fully, you need clear-minded access to the pain in order to feel Compassion and empathy for others. So the pain comes with you, and the pairing of these cards promises that with careful awareness and Balance, being open to this pain won’t sink you.
Day 3: Tiferet of Chesed in Assiyah
The Six and Four of Pentacles
_________within_________
In the world of Assiyah, the world of action and materiality, we look at the relationship of the Six and Four of Pentacles. Moving from the four, where the Flow of Chesed is stuck, to the six, we seem now to have struck a Balance. In fact, an old-fashioned Balance scale is pictured on the card. Yet the arrangement of Pentacles on the card itself is out of Balance. We see a man, possibly a merchant or banker, giving coins to a person in the position of a supplicant. Giving appropriate charity is certainly a Balanced expression of Chesed and Gevurah in the world of Assiyah. However, something is out of Balance in this image. It feels as though the way charity is being given is being used as a way to feel separate and superior. So one question to ask of ourselves in Tiferet of Chesed is, How does our giving of charity or lending a hand to another serve as a defense, and what is it a defense against?
Many of us may not feel so far from the supplicants in the card. One catastrophic illness, a job loss, or a death in the family, and we might find ourselves homeless or without resources to help ourselves recover. Is this fear real? Do we give with stinginess because we’re afraid we will run out of resources ourselves? Or is it that we’re afraid of opening up to the pain and vulnerability of being in this position?
Tiferet is the place of the open Heart, and the best way to examine your Heart is when faced with other people and their suffering directly. The ability to be with that suffering, to try to help without being either overwhelmed or shutting down is the task of the day. This means being able to face one’s own suffering as well.
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 3
1. (Wands) Consider your capacity for empathy. Can you recall any times when, knowing how empathetic you were in a situation, you found yourself feeling superior?
2. (Cups) What painful emotions must you feel to restore the Flow and move on? How can you open your wounded child’s Heart and comfort it with the loving Chesed and secure Gevurah of the adult that you now are? While holding your childhood wounds with Chesed and protecting them with Gevurah, examine where in your life you might be able to let down your guard a little more to accept or give Love Generously.
3. (Swords) Remember a painful experience in your life that you feel helps keep you in touch with your Compassion. What do you do to connect with that pain without feeling overwhelmed? Think of people who have hurt you in some way and consider the pain that made them act out in this way. See if you can feel Compassion for them without losing your boundary of protection.
4. (Pentacles) Think about a time when you gave charity to someone directly—and if so, what feelings did it bring up? Do you have any beliefs about money and Flow that approach magical thinking?
Day 4: Netzach of Chesed
Defending Yourself without Falling Prey to Your Defenses
Today is the fourth day of the Omer.
As we descend the Tree, Netzach is the first of the more physical Sephirot. While it is most often known as Victory, one of its more important characteristics is that of Endurance. Love is a feeling, but the ability for that Love to Endure requires both mental and physical stamina.
We’re still only in the first week. It’s just the fourth day of the count. Yet my own experience is that the fourth day is a test of Endurance: Can I really keep doing this? Can my Love Endure the challenges I face day after day?
Day 4: Netzach of Chesed in Atzilut
The Seven and Four of Wands
_________within_________
One meaning of the Seven of Wands is defending what you believe in, and that includes standing up for yourself and any of the ways you don’t conform to society’s expectations of who you should be. Paired with the Four of Wands, which can be seen as the openness of Abraham’s tent, the energy of these Sephirot moves forward with the willingness to defend what needs defending (without being defensive about it). I see this Sephirotic pairing as the energy of openness, self-love, and compassion for others, joined to the courageous Endurance to fully express who you are in
the world, knowing that there will always be some who will attack you for it. Netzach of Chesed gives you the ability to be ready to withstand such an attack without shutting down or losing your ability to Love (which includes compassion for the attacker). As a gay man who seeks to live from the place of an open heart and, of course, as an out gay man who thus must on a regular basis declare or announce his identity, this is a day in the count that has great meaning for me.
It’s interesting to note the natural movement between opening and closing that happens between Chesed and Netzach in the suit of Wands on this the fourth day of the Omer. Remember that a flower opens and closes naturally every day. It opens to take in the energy of the sun and then closes to conserve energy and use it to grow from within in the dark (as do we all). So what does all of this have to do with today’s Sephirotic energies? It’s a day to examine whether you’re feeling open or closed. Do you notice times and places during this day where you feel yourself open to deeper places or where your defenses kick up so you start to close down? This is a good day to pay attention to this movement and inquire into it.
This pairing suggests that storms and attacks from the world outside are inevitable and warns that while it’s important to be ready for them, an attitude of defensiveness will undermine one’s Chesed. As a queer JuBu (Jewish Buddhist), I try to remain conscious of the attitude of defensiveness I can sometimes carry. Sometimes I expect to be attacked by communities of faith for my expression of Love for another man. And there are times I expect to be attacked in queer communities for identifying with a faith community or for expressing Love for the Divine and the world. Can I hold on to the dynamic tension of both without feeling tense? Am I able to see the chip that’s sometimes on my shoulder or the wound I carry and not react in blind anger or pain? Am I able to learn how to live with an open heart and still know how to stand my ground and keep good boundaries? These are some of the questions I consider on this day. How does this pairing speak to you?
Day 4: Netzach of Chesed in B’riah
The Seven and Four of Cups
_________within_________
In the pairing of the Four and Seven of Cups, it’s almost as if we’re seeing the fourth cup being offered in the Chesed card from the point of view of the figure in the Seven of Cups, so that he’s not seeing just one cup in the air, but seven. Here the distraction we see in the Four of Cups is multiplied. This is a warning. On the first day of counting, you could imagine a better future at the end of the count. But while imagination is a good incentive to help you get started, imagination in meditation (that isn’t a guided visualization) isn’t a good thing. It’s a distraction, and the deeper you go, the more powerful the distractions will become—and the more of them will appear.
This is where the energy of Netzach, Endurance, is essential. To endure in this practice, you must be focused on exactly where you are right now and the next step you are taking to move forward, without getting caught up in distractions and fantasies.
Day 4: Netzach of Chesed in Yetzirah
The Seven and Four of Swords
_________within_________
In this pair, we find that while the knight is on his watch, on the meditation retreat that is the Night Vigil, someone is making off with the goods in the Seven of Swords. Once, when I was on a Buddhist meditation retreat in Yangon, the teacher asked me, “Who are your enemies?” This was a simple question, which, if I’d been more awake, I would have answered immediately. But I was so drowsy from the heat (and from my inner defenses kicking up to keep me from being awake) that I couldn’t answer. The classic answer in Buddhist meditation is that drowsiness, anger, desire, aversion, and ignorance are your enemies. So let’s consider for a moment that, like me on that retreat in Yangon, the knight is not really awake. He has fallen asleep on the job because he is lost in a fantasy meditation that all is Chesed and there’s nothing to worry about. It’s the mushy-minded thinking you’ll sometimes encounter in people who define themselves as “spiritual.”
There are people who use meditation as a defense against the world rather than a way to be fully in it. They close their eyes and (for example) repeat a mantra: all is love, all is love. They create a psychic vibrational wall in themselves that blinds them to real dangers from outside as well as the danger of their own trickster energy within that is sapping the strength of their insight. This is one warning of this pair: staying awake calls for the Endurance of discriminating intelligence.
Certainly, besides inner tricksters, there are con artists of all kinds in this world waiting for the moment you fall asleep. I’ve met any number of people who call themselves religious and/or who have a spiritual practice yet nevertheless are quite happy to steal something from you—whether it’s monetary or psychological resources.
As the Buddha said, “Arise! Pay attention!”
Day 4: Netzach of Chesed in Assiyah
The Seven and Four of Pentacles
_________within_________
In this pair, I see the relationship between an employer and employee. In the Four of Pentacles, we see a man who wears a crown, while the man in the Seven of Pentacles is clearly a worker: he has a spade or hoe in the ground that he is tilling (quite successfully).
For the man in the Seven of Pentacles, his Endurance in his work has led to the creation of abundance. But does he have his full share in it? Not if his boss is the man in the Four of Pentacles—a man who is stopping up the Flow of Chesed. But the true power of gold is in the Flow of energy and Love it represents.
Don’t sit on the gold you have inside you. This only stops up the Flow. And don’t use it in the service of someone or something that doesn’t understand that it’s essential to participate in the Flow; that denies its true value, which is beyond valuation. That is one message in this pairing. What other messages do you receive?
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 4
1. (Wands) In what ways does opening up to Love make you feel vulnerable to attack? Have you ever felt that you had to fight to win your Love? Were you able to Endure and be Victorious? How did that affect your Love?
2. (Cups) What are the temptations that distract you from your Love? How can you stay Focused in your Love? In what ways has Love clouded your judgment?
3. (Swords) What is the defense that has consistently undermined you in your relationships? How did it serve a positive purpose at one point? What can you do to weaken its hold on you now?
4. (Pentacles) How would you characterize your willingness to do the hard work it takes for a relationship to Endure?
Day 5: Hod of Chesed
Finding the Victory in Love by Surrendering the Ego
Today is the fifth day of the Omer.
You’ve got to win a little, lose a little,
Yes, and always have the blues a little.
That’s the story of, that’s the glory of love.
“THE GLORY OF LOVE,” LYRICS BY BILLY HILL
One of the characteristics of Hod is Glory. Another is Surrender. And this lovely old song recognizes the truth that you’ve got to lose to win. You’ve got to Surrender to let Love in. Surrender to one’s lover and to the Divine lover. “That’s the story of, that’s the glory of love.”
Five days into the count, and while I often continue to experience the resistance of the second day, the energy of Hod enables me to begin to Surrender more deeply to the process. Just as an addict Surrenders in a twelve-step program, admitting powerlessness, there is a moment when the ego Surrenders and the experience of the greater Glory and Splendor of creation is revealed for just a moment. The ego is a small cup, held with Love in a much greater cup.
Day 5: Hod of Chesed in Atzilut
The Eight and Four of Wands
_________within_________
In this pairing, we really have the Glory of Love. One of the visual references in the Four of Wands is the chuppah under which the Divine Marriage takes place on Shavuot. Some of the images that have been associated with t
he Eight of Wands are Cupid’s arrows and the explosive energy of the male orgasm! After all, not only are the wands phallic, but they are also budding with green shoots. Pairing this card with the Four of Wands in the context of the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, it’s almost as though we’re looking forward to the consummation of the Divine Marriage and the Surrender to revelation. But besides looking forward to the fiftieth day, we’re also looking at the energy of this, the fifth day of the count, in Atzilut. And the cards suggest that if you’re receptive to the energy of this day, if you Surrender to the process, you can receive a burst of joy and inspiration.
Another thing to point out about the Eight of Wands is that it’s one of only two cards in the Minor Arcana with no human being in the image. One reason might be the connection of Hod to the Surrender of the ego. Another might be because at the moment of orgasm, our ego, and the sense of separateness that comes with ego, often dissolves. There is only an outpouring of Love that is a momentary reflection of the eternal Divine outpouring. So while meditating today, if your ego can get out of the way, you just might experience a moment of the Divine outpouring that feels orgasmic.
Day 5: Hod of Chesed in B’riah
The Eight and Four of Cups
_________within_________
When these cards are paired, the figure in the Four of Cups seems more dissatisfied than distracted. By the time we get to the Eight of Cups, even though the Flow of Chesed has continued and the cups just keep stacking up, the figure has decided to turn his back on it all. This is a different kind of Surrender. This is renunciation and letting go of attachments.
While we’re in the suit of Cups and the world of B’riah, where emotions hold sway, Hod is the Sephira of the intellect, so this renunciation may come from a desire for greater balance. Indeed, this is a card that can be seen as the beginning of the inner journey, turning away from outward expression toward inner examination.
