Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  Society tells us in so many ways that speaking our truth—or speaking an inconvenient truth—isn’t welcome. One of my favorite plays is Henrik Johan Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. In it, the main character is a doctor who discovers that the mineral baths crucial to his town’s tourist income are contaminated. When he brings this information to the attention of the local newspaper, the editor thanks him and prints the story. But the mayor of the town (who is also the doctor’s brother) demands that he retract his findings because it would damage the town’s economy. In a town hall meeting, his findings are questioned and his expertise is dismissed. The newspaper withdraws its support. The people of the town turn against him. He loses his job, his family is attacked, and his home is vandalized. Written in 1882, this story could have been ripped from today’s headlines. When concerned citizens in Flint, Michigan, had their water tested by an environmental engineer from Virginia Tech, the engineer’s findings were disputed by the powers that be until this issue became a national scandal. Scientists who expose public health issues become pariahs and victims of internet trolls who threaten real-world attacks.

  In the world of Atzilut, Netzach of Gevurah enjoins us to stand up for our ideals in the face of the tyranny of the majority. It also stands as a warning against introjection, which can cause you to attack your best self and defeat it. This takes the Endurance of Discipline.

  Day 11: Netzach of Gevurah in B’riah

  The Seven and Five of Cups

  _________within_________

  Previously, in the suit of Wands, one of the things the cards suggested was introjection—psychically taking in the values or judgments of others. Here in the suit of Cups, we’re going in the other direction to projection.

  Yesterday, when we were looking at the Six of Cups, one of the blocks to experiencing the Real fully was a flight to nostalgia—a fantasy of the past. Here the Seven of Cups suggests another block—in this case, fantasies of the future. When the Israelites were on their way out of Egypt, making their way through the desert, there was all kinds of complaining. There was nostalgia for Egypt: slavery wasn’t so bad, was it? And there were negative fantasies of the future: we’re going to die here in the desert. Both of these types of fantasies take us away from the present moment, which is Eternity. And Eternity, interestingly enough, is another facet of Netzach. In the Five of Cups, the figure is not living in the present but is focused solely on what is lost. He can’t see the full cups remaining or the path ahead. In the Seven of Cups, the figure can’t see the present because he is completely caught up in so many possible fantasies of the future.

  This is the plight of anyone who takes up meditation: the mind doesn’t want to stay still and in the present moment. The job of the meditator is to simply bring the mind back to the present again and again with compassion. It takes a lot of training for the mind to finally quiet down; the practice of meditation is a Discipline that calls for Endurance. I know that when I first started meditating, my mind would avoid the present moment by rushing to stories of the past when I felt I was a victim of some kind of injustice so I could feel righteous anger (an addiction from which many of us suffer). Or I would veer away to fantasies of what would happen in some upcoming situation—how would I spend the money I’d win in the lottery, how I’d be recognized as such a great meditator that I’d be appointed as a teacher or some other such nonsense. All these distractions and temptations arise when we begin a Discipline—a spiritual practice. Endurance in this Discipline gives us the clarity gained from living in the moment to see through the fantasies of the past and future so that we can be fully present and know the next right action to take, free of projection.

  Day 11: Netzach of Gevurah in Yetzirah

  The Seven and Five of Swords

  _________within_________

  What an interesting pair we have here. In the Five of Swords, there’s the smirking victor, and in the Seven of Swords, we have the sneaking trickster. The first thing I noticed about this pairing of cards is that in the Five of Swords, the man in the foreground is holding three swords and seems ready to collect the remaining two on the ground. In the Seven of Swords, the man who is sneaking away has five swords in his hands. It’s almost as though this second figure is resetting the balance and returning the stolen swords to their rightful owners. One way of looking at this Sephirotic pairing of Netzach of Gevurah in Yetzirah is as the Endurance or Victory of Justice. There is a yin-yang quality of these two sneaky images together—a tit-for-tat way of settling things that keeps the situation in a kind of balanced dynamic of imbalance, with energy going back and forth but nothing really changing.

  What’s happening here is really the Endurance of injustice,*16 which is an unfortunate reality in our world. It calls for Perseverance on our part to work to establish Justice, even as we know it will never be perfect and it will not Endure forever. But because we know the principle of Justice innately, regardless of the fact that perfect Justice is unattainable, we are commanded to always seek it out.†17 In the world of Yetzirah, the intellectual understanding of Justice is pure. However, we don’t live in the realm of ideas.

  What happens when you think about the figures in these two cards as brothers? As if they were kids feuding over their toys or the last Hasmonean kings of ancient Judea, the brothers Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, whose feuding over the throne allowed the Romans to swoop in and take over the country. Each brother sought to undermine the other, so they missed the greater danger threatening both them and the kingdom. There was no respect for Boundaries and no trust. We can see this in both cards.

  Because the figures in both cards are violating Boundaries, we can turn the question to this practice and ourselves. How well are you Persevering in this Discipline of this practice? In what ways do you undermine yourself in this Discipline? Do you keep strong Boundaries around your practice in order to protect it from those who have no respect for spiritual pursuits or from those whose definition of spiritual pursuits doesn’t include your practice?

  Day 11: Netzach of Gevurah in Assiyah

  The Seven and Five of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  We’ve already considered the Five of Pentacles as suggesting a rigid religious institution that has forgotten its true purpose, one that exiles those whom we are commanded to open our doors and hearts to: the poor and broken in body and spirit. This is one of the shadow sides of Gevurah. But Netzach of Gevurah is about Victory and Perseverance of Discipline, and in the Seven of Pentacles, we see a man who, on his own, has Persevered in tending his garden and is about to reap the rewards.

  What kind of garden is this? Because we are in the world of Assiyah, we’re not speaking in metaphors—though the image suggests that money can grow on trees (or, in this case, a vine). In earlier versions of the tarot deck, this suit was known as Coins, and to this day people interpret this suit as related to money and wealth. But there is more going on in this suit as designed by Waite and Smith. Because there is a five-pointed star in the center of the disk, it signifies the spiritual energy that is within the material, and certainly the man with the hoe has put not only physical energy into the care of this garden but also spiritual Discipline.

  On a spiritual level, this pairing could suggest that if you are faced with a rigid institution that doesn’t accept your spirituality, it makes sense to tend your own garden and exercise spiritual self-care. Certainly, Counting the Omer is a traditional practice, but this way of practicing it is outside the walls of conventional religious institutions. Of course, if you’ve come this far, you already know that there are great rewards to Persevering on your own path. I don’t mean to suggest giving up on religious institutions. Consider the long, hard work of many people in the Conservative movement of Judaism whose patient struggle was rewarded when the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards ruled that it was not a violation of halakha to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis.*18 Similarly, Soulforce sponsored Equality Riders—young Christians who saw discriminati
on as injustice—to visit fundamentalist Christian colleges and open a dialogue in a Christian context.

  This kind of work takes Perseverance of Discipline; otherwise these sacred activists would have given up long ago. While there are rigid institutions that seek to exile some from their community, spiritual exile can only be self-imposed. In the meantime, it is important that we persevere in opening the doors and hearts of these institutions. Certainly, not all will change in my lifetime, but I recall the words of Rabbi Tarfon: “It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”6 And that calls for Netzach of Gevurah.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 11

  1. (Wands) Think of a time in your life when you were called to stand up for something you believed in: Were you able to stand your ground? If so, what gave you the strength? If not, how did you feel afterward?

  2. (Cups) What do you do to stay Focused on the now instead of a fantasy of future rewards? Do you have trouble staying Focused on a goal? What distracts you and why? Where in your life has your Discipline been weakest? Why?

  3. (Swords) What thoughts undermine your ability to do this work? Where do those thoughts come from?

  4. (Pentacles) What do you do to guard your spiritual practices? Do you keep a Boundary around them in time or space? Where in your life has your Discipline been strongest? Why?

  Day 12: Hod of Gevurah

  Getting Yourself Out of the Way of Your Self

  Today is the twelfth day of the Omer, which is one week and five days of the Omer.

  Sephirot are like kanji—those Chinese ideograms used not only by the Chinese but also the Japanese. In Japanese, kanji have a minimum of two pronunciations and can have at least two different meanings. Add to this that in Japanese there are a great number of homonyms—words that sound the same (and are written with different kanji) but that mean very different things. This is why haiku and really all Japanese poetry doesn’t translate well. A translation fixes the meaning to one thing, when in fact, as it is read and understood by the Japanese, the poem has multiple layers of meaning, each casting reflections on the other.

  Sephirot are like kanji in this way: no one word captures each Sephira’s characteristics. Thus, key words for Hod can include Surrender and Humility, to name a couple, just as Gevurah can be thought of as Discipline, Judgment, or Structure. In this way, the meditative quality suggested by the different combinations of today’s key words could include Surrender to Discipline (and I am not talking about bondage and domination here, though there is a spiritual quality to that practice as well) or it could be about Humility in Judgment. Which works better for you? Or is there a different combination of key words that resonates more for you?

  Yesterday, I wrote about the Soulforce Equality Riders. A few years ago, after they had visited a number of institutions on the East Coast, they arrived in New York City, so I had a chance to meet some of them. I felt that I was in the presence of both those interpretations of the energy of Hod of Gevurah. These young people had Surrendered themselves to the Discipline of nonviolent activism, Surrendered their egos, and faced down threats of violence as well as actual arrest. In this way, they were an inspiration. You could say that they also expressed Humility in Judgment because while they might have had a Judgment about Bob Jones University, they approached the school with Christian Humility (not sure how that’s different from any other religion’s Humility, but . . .). They were also the target of Judgment, and when that happens you learn to become careful of this energy yourself.

  Day 12: Hod of Gevurah in Atzilut

  The Eight and Five of Wands

  _________within_________

  The Eight of Wands is devoid of human presence, with all the wands pointed (and headed) in the same direction. In the Five of Wands, the wands themselves, as extensions of the “quarreling” people, are all pointed in different directions. The expression of Gevurah in the Five of Wands captures one of the shadow sides of the Sephira in that there seems to be no consensus on what the action should be; there are no rules, and everyone is trying to establish himself as the one to set the rules. There’s a lot of ego involved here. But Hod, the lens through which we experience Gevurah today, is about Humility and Surrender; ego is left at the door. One of the teachings when reflecting on this pairing is that when we let go of our ego in service of a greater purpose, our strength grows.

  Hod is one of the two Sephirot related to prophecy, and there is important information in this pairing in Wands for those who meditate. For help with this, let’s look at the experience of the prophet Elijah:

  Behold, YHVH was passing by—and a great and mighty wind tore the mountains and shattered the rocks before YHVH. But YHVH was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but YHVH was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but YHVH was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was a still small voice. As soon as Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle . . .7

  When we first sit down to meditate, there are often storms and all kinds of inner upheaval. This is Elijah’s experience: he is trying to hear the voice of the Divine, but he is overcome by a blast of wind, then an earthquake, and finally, fire. These are all metaphors for the mental distractions we face, the inner turmoil that makes it hard to connect with the Source. But once all this turmoil settles down, one is able to hear the “still, small voice.”

  In the Five of Wands, we are dealing with a mind full of undisciplined and often contradictory drives. You can almost hear the crack of the wands striking each other like thunder or the earth quaking. The ego is fighting with everything it has to keep the mind from settling down. But once it does and the mind is quiet and one-pointed, the ego steps out of the way so there is space for the Divine energy to provide an epiphany. That’s what we see in the Eight of Wands: hurtling down from the heavens all in one direction comes a great flash of insight. All the divided egoic energy of the Five of Wands that has worked to resist Surrender has dissipated, giving one the Humility to sit, receive, and channel the greater energy from above.

  Day 12: Hod of Gevurah in B’riah

  The Eight and Five of Cups

  _________within_________

  In the Five of Cups, we are confronted by an image of human suffering. The card shows someone focused on the lost cups rather than those remaining, someone who struggles with attachments to feelings, emotions, and Judgments. Then, in the Eight of Cups, we see someone who is not suffering from any obvious loss or material want. Nevertheless, the figure in the Eight of Cups has turned his back on those eight cups to go off in search of something. What does this figure seek? Because Hod is the Sephira of Humility and Surrender, there is a quality of asceticism to this image, and since this is the week of Gevurah, this could be a Surrender of attachment to one’s Judgments in search of equanimity. That’s one interpretation from my Buddhist side.

  Then of course there’s my Jewish side. I mentioned on Day 10 how the Five of Cups brings to mind the Shattering of the Vessels. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first time the Sephirot were emanated they were not in relationship, so that the power of the Divine light overpowered and broke these containers, and the shards were scattered throughout all Creation. The shattering occurred not merely because the Sephirot were not in relationship, but because the Structure (Gevurah) was arrayed in such a way that it was overly rigid (a shadow quality of Gevurah), leading to the splintering of the vessels and the light they contained. Rabbi Isaac Luria’s mythic story also happened to provide a theological reason for the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land. Since the sparks were scattered throughout the Earth, the Jews needed to disperse to find and raise these sparks in Tikkun.

  The figure in the Eight of Cups has restored what has been lost in the Five of Cups, but there are still shards of light to be found and returned to the Divine. He has Surrendered his ego to go off in service to the world. He recognizes he has a mission that calls for him to turn his back on what he has
achieved in life to go and seek out the sparks that are his destiny to find.

  The fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer, taught that a person is drawn by the Divine to places where the sparks that it is their Divine mission to raise up are to be found.8 Setting out on this mission of raising the sparks is taking on a Discipline that must be done with Humility. Every day of this count—and really, every day of our conscious lives—we are on this mission.

  From a twelve-step point of view, this work is the work of the eighth and ninth steps—listing all the relationships where one’s addiction has harmed them (becoming conscious of the broken shards in one’s life) and then making amends (doing the work of Tikkun). This not only repairs the outer relationship but heals the inner brokenness, a gathering up of the shards of our broken self so that we can hold the light of recovery.

  Day 12: Hod of Gevurah in Yetzirah

  The Eight and Five of Swords

  _________within_________

  This doesn’t look good, does it? In the Five of Swords, the Gevurah card, we see the breakdown of Discipline, Law, and Boundaries—the shadow side of Gevurah. The Eight of Swords seems to connect directly to the quality of Hod, which is Surrender, though it doesn’t look so positive either. We know how Surrendering the ego to a Discipline can be a positive experience of growth, but there are some situations where Surrender isn’t appropriate. When we’re facing a situation where the social Structure is breaking down and Boundaries aren’t being observed, Humility and Surrender are a trap. There is a way in which Humility in the face of the negative power of Gevurah is a willful blindness to danger—a false hope that things will turn out well. There is a trust in the power of the intellect: both the suit of Swords and the Sephira of Hod are connected with intellectual ability and discernment. However, a doubling of this power suggests a blindness to emotion and intuition.