Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  A different kind of Endurance I learned in Japan was what they call ganbare spirit, a never-give-up attitude (the surrender notwithstanding), a call to Endure and overcome. It’s a recognition that sometimes you must fight for what you believe. This is not passive Endurance; it’s a highly energetic Drive to succeed. And that’s another side of the Endurance of Netzach.

  Of course, as with all the Sephirot, there are shadow sides to Netzach, from stubbornness and pigheadedness on one side to passivity and submissiveness on the other. And on the stubbornness side, we can look once again to Japan and soldiers like Hiroo Onoda, who hid in the jungles of the Philippines until 1974 because he refused to believe Japan had surrendered.

  But when the energy of Netzach is balanced and healthy, it gives you the inner Drive to express your individuality as you face the headwinds of conformity. It gives you the strength to Endure in difficult situations. And it supplies the Determination to carry on—an especially important trait when taking on a discipline. Like this one.

  Day 22: Chesed of Netzach

  Love Endures All Things

  Today is the twenty-second day of the Omer, which is three weeks and one day of the Omer.

  Okay, I have to admit it, saying Chesed of Netzach out loud can sound like you’ve sneezed. It’s the opening day of the week of Netzach, the qualities of which include Endurance, Victory, inner Strength, and Ambition. And today is the day that such energy is mediated by Chesed, or Loving-kindness.

  Simply put, Love Endures. And so I turn to a source on the subject that most Jews aren’t likely to quote, Saul of Tarsus.

  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face-to-face. Now I know only in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.2

  Directly under Chesed on the Tree of Life, Netzach shares its outgoing nature. So while Netzach has Drive and Ambition, today the motivating force of it all is Love. And really, every day this is true, because as Saul/Paul knew, Love abides.

  On this, the first day of the week of Netzach, you can feel good knowing that despite all obstacles, nevertheless you’ve Persisted in this discipline of Counting the Omer as an expression of self-care and self-Love.

  Day 22: Chesed of Netzach in Atzilut

  The Four and Seven of Wands

  _________within_________

  Imagine for a moment you are the man in the Seven of Wands. He stands alone before a group of attackers, his staff angled so that it can block the blow of any of the six staves arrayed against him. He’s not holding the staff as a weapon of aggression so much as a statement of defense. If you were in his position, what would you be defending?

  The Four of Wands may be his answer; consider the image of the chuppah-like structure as Abraham’s tent, open on all four sides, as expressing the values and relationships worth defending and fighting for. You can only have such a structure in a place where safety and security are guaranteed. This is underlined by the fact that the action is taking place outside the walls of a town. City walls are not common in the twenty-first century, but there was a time when cities were surrounded by walls to protect the residents from attacks. Even New York City had a wall; in the seventeenth century, the Dutch colonists built a wall at the north end of what was then New Amsterdam to protect themselves from the native population. That strip of land has been known for centuries now as Wall Street. But the people in the Four of Wands feel safe enough to celebrate outside city walls. Everything about the image suggests openness and Love, abundance, connection, and celebration. Look at the figures in the lower left-hand corner of the card. It’s not entirely clear what they are doing, but I imagine them to be holding hands in a line and dancing. If this is the home of the man in the Seven of Wands, his motivation to stand his ground is to defend this society’s Love and openness. Because as we all know, a society’s freedom is not guaranteed. And sometimes we are called on to stand up and fight for what we Love.

  For me, that’s what my activism in the LGBTQ movement is about—not merely standing up for Love, but at the beginning, fighting for our very right to Love. Ultimately, the slogan for marriage equality became “Love wins.” And because today is Chesed of Netzach, in this imagined story of the man in the Seven of Wands, I believe that Love Endures and is Victorious.

  Day 22: Chesed of Netzach in B’riah

  The Four and Seven of Cups

  _________within_________

  This is the week of Netzach—Endurance as well as Victory. And today, as Chesed of Netzach, we experience Love in Victory, the “boundary-less” Love in Endurance. Certainly, nothing Endures without Love. Endurance requires Love to go on. And Victory without Love is empty; it is being right at any price.

  When we experience Chesed in Netzach, we have the Love that allows us to Endure the disappointments in our life, in our work, in the causes we work for. But what happens when we’re wounded by Love in one way or another?

  In the Four of Cups, the figure seated at the base of the tree seems to be ignoring the new Love that is being offered. Perhaps he has had other experiences (the three other cups) that have left him feeling defensive in some way; hence, his arms crossed over his heart. He may be projecting a host of fantasies and fears onto this cup, such as the figure in the Seven of Cups is doing. That figure’s past experience is coloring what is before him, so he can’t see clearly what it is. Under these conditions, not only will Love not Endure, it may never even take root. He could be projecting his fear that what’s being offered will hurt him (the snake in the cup). Or possibly projecting positive qualities that aren’t really there (the figure that’s hidden under a shawl).

  Almost all Love relationships start in projection—putting positive shadow qualities on the beloved. The work of relationship is owning those qualities and learning to Love the real person underneath one’s projections. That’s how true Love Endures. To do this, we must own the shadow we project, healing the inner split within an intimate relationship.

  For the Jungians, a classic example of this is a heterosexual man projecting his sensitivity onto a woman because unconsciously he views it as a negative quality for a man and positive for a woman. So regardless of whether the woman is sensitive or not (though as the psychotherapist Fritz Perls noted, we never project onto a blank screen), he probably will see this in her.

  Not an issue for gay men, right? Wrong. One of my partners pointed out to me that most of my previous boyfriends have been on the fey side; they exhibit feminine qualities that in our society are judged negatively in a man. In fact, this is even an issue in gay male society, where so many dating profiles include the misogynistic message: no femmes.

  Feminine gay men carry a projection of fear for these “straightacting” gay men—of being “obviously” gay and thus a target of straight society. It’s both internalized homophobia and misogyny at work. My history, though, is different. I seek out “feminine” men. I’m a gay man who generally “passes” as straight if I don’t announce myself. And like straight men seeking their shadow femininity in relationships with women, I do the same thing with the men I fall in love with, though I am conscious of the dynamic.

  One man I was with for ten years was someone who could be described as flaming—stereotypically effeminate and not quiet about it. Like the man in the Seven of Wands, he was unapologetic and stood up for who he was. And like the man in the Seven of Cups, I projected my inner feminine aspect onto him.

  Femininity is a quality I would be ashamed of if I expres
sed it myself, but it’s what I love in other men. Conversely, I find men who are stereotypically manly unattractive. For years after I became an adult, I never referred to my male friends as men; they were always “the boys.” Why? Because I identify “men” with insensitivity, casual cruelty, and aggressiveness. Of course, I know lots of straight men who are very sensitive and lots of gay men who are not. But I am not free of these stereotypes and projections. Owning these shadow projections, a negative expression of Chesed in Netzach, is part of the psycho-spiritual healing I work on. And for me, the pairing of the Four and Seven of Cups brings up this issue. What does it bring up for you?

  Day 22: Chesed of Netzach in Yetzirah

  The Four and Seven of Swords

  _________within_________

  I’m an introvert; I’m okay one-on-one, but large social gatherings leave me depleted energetically, so much so that I tend to leave parties early. At conferences, if I have a hotel room, I often take time away to spend by myself recharging. I consider this self-care, an expression of Chesed as self-Love, a way of opening to refill the stores of Chesed inside. And in today’s pairing of the Four and Seven of Swords, this is one way I see the four card.

  This can include meditation, which is one way I’ve interpreted this card before. But sometimes meditation can be used as a defense. The esoteric name for the Four of Swords is the Lord of Rest from Strife. In other words, a kind of retreat. This would seem at cross-purposes to the energy of the week, which is Victory. But taking the time for self-care is a strategic retreat, especially if you’ve been taught to focus on other people first, and this can definitely be a Victory.

  However, when we look at the Seven of Swords, it doesn’t look like a retreat is the right approach today. It can be a way to undermine whatever successes have been gained, since this card, as a shadow side of Netzach, can be read as self-sabotage.

  I know this dynamic: there have been occasions when I took time for myself that was less about recharging and more about running away from social interaction. Being in a group of people can activate all my old defenses and fears of rejection, and rather than facing these defenses and breaking through them, I can retreat to my comfort zone of solitude. However, this doesn’t serve my growth, and it cheats me from meeting people I would really like.

  One of the defenses that can be revealed through this pairing is the result of having one’s Love betrayed by another. This doesn’t have to be romantic Love, though it could certainly be that. But it could also be about the love for a sibling who you discover has been actively undermining your relationship with your parents or stealing directly from you. This kind of family wounding can result in deep defenses that play out as an attitude of mistrust that permeates all relationships: the other is guilty until proven innocent. The problem with this kind of basic mistrust is that one can never really feel secure: no one is ever really proven innocent. If this is a dynamic active in your life in any way, today is a day to examine its effects and consider how to free yourself from it.

  Another dynamic we can see in this pairing is the case of someone who, when facing a competitive situation, retreats from active confrontation to a more passive-aggressive undermining of the other for a sneaky, underhanded Victory. This can manifest as putting forth a caring, spiritual persona (the Four of Swords) while delivering a sneak attack (the Seven of Swords) through words that seem well-meaning but, in reality, are cutting. Do you know anyone who fits this description?

  Another dynamic we can see in these cards is that of someone who builds a persona of Loving spirituality while engaging in sexual profligacy. I’ve been guilty of both these dynamics in the past, and these are character defects I always need to be on guard against.

  There is of course a positive way to look at how Chesed of Netzach is expressed in this pairing of cards. Both Chesed and Netzach share the quality of outward movement; neither of them has any respect for boundaries. And while this is mostly a negative trait, in the world of Yetzirah, though, this can lead to innovative ideas. Creativity is rarely the invention of something totally new. Most often it is a combination of existing ideas that have never been put together before. Chesed of Netzach is the opposite of rigid thinking; it can be a free-roaming mind, unafraid to break down categorical thinking to open new vistas of possibility. This can call for trickster mind; the trickster is a boundary crosser. The figure in the Seven of Swords can certainly be a trickster who is defanged of any real malevolence by the mediation of Chesed. (I can even see him as Bugs Bunny, sneaking out of a garden with a bunch of carrots.) This is the role of the sacred trickster in the myths of many societies where they understand the paradox that while boundaries need to be respected, a dynamic society also needs to have its boundaries tested and disturbed regularly.3

  Of course, that doesn’t mean other people like having the boundaries of their thinking disturbed. In 1883, at a dinner in honor of the graduates of Hebrew Union College, nonkosher food, such as shellfish, was served. This was crossing a boundary even in the Reform Judaism of the nineteenth century, so that more traditional Jews were scandalized. This event led to the founding of the more traditional Conservative movement in American Judaism.

  When Picasso unveiled his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, it was considered scandalous, even by his closest associates and friends. Its emphasis of geometric shapes instead of presenting natural human figures was one of the opening shots in the cubist revolution in art. Its appropriation of African masks broke the boundaries between European art and so-called primitive African art. And it influenced artistic expression throughout the world.

  Some of the most successful innovations in religion, art, law, commerce, and science are the result of crossing boundaries between disciplines. These examples of breaking boundaries are rooted in Love—the desire to create something new and better to share with the world. And at its best, this is what today’s energy of Chesed of Netzach celebrates.

  Day 22: Chesed of Netzach in Assiyah

  The Four and Seven of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  We’ve seen this pairing before, though with the cards in opposite positions, on Day 4. On that day, I considered the pairing relative to external conditions—working for a boss or a company that doesn’t value its people. With the positions reversed, though, I am moved to consider the inner motivations we bring to work.

  Back in the eighties, there was a book titled Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow. It seemed as if everyone I knew was reading it; the book became a best seller, and it certainly changed people’s lives. I read it too, because at the time I had no love for the kind of work I was doing. By many people’s judgment, I was successful, and I was making good money. But it felt hollow to me. At the time, I was writing TV commercials for video cameras, and while I didn’t feel that the work I was doing was bad for society, I also didn’t feel fulfilled by it. (The role of advertising in the decline of our political culture is another thing entirely.) I was grateful I wasn’t working on a factory assembly line—having seen what they were like when I visited manufacturing clients—but there was a disconnect between my passions and my livelihood.

  There’s a reason that book was a best seller. I would guess that the vast majority of working people in the world aren’t working at a job they Love. The way I’ve dealt with this in my life has been to take side jobs that allow me to express my passions. I’ve worked as a teacher of traditional storytelling in a religious school. I’ve also worked as a teacher of creative writing. And over time, I’ve learned how to bring my Love of humanity to work—building relationships with coworkers that enable all of us to better share our gifts. These are some of the ways I’ve worked to deal with this issue in my life. All this is prologue to one of the issues presented in the pairing of today’s cards.

  In the Seven of Pentacles, we see a farmer whose tilling of the soil has yielded a fine crop. But he seems downcast. It’s a good image for anyone who feels unfulfilled upon the successful c
ompletion of a project in which they have no emotional investment. It’s just a job to be Endured. And we know there is no emotional investment in this work because of what we see in the Four of Pentacles.

  The cards that correspond to Chesed can be about an outpouring of Love into the world. But in the suit of Pentacles, the card shows a shadow meaning of Chesed. The flow is stopped up. It seems the man in this card is more interested in money. So that one motivation for the figure in the Seven of Pentacles could be simply economic; he’s doing this work only for the money. Lots of us have to do this. But it’s work we must Endure, and there is little to no Love or satisfaction in it.

  Another way to look at this pairing is putting the energy of Netzach into a kind of Driven workaholism as a defense. In the Four of Pentacles, money and possessions are being used as an emotional shield, just as the pentacle is held in front of the man’s heart. So that despite the success that comes in the Seven of Pentacles, it’s a hollow Victory because there is no Love fueling it. Nevertheless, this is someone who Persists in working this way. Like one of the Hungry Ghosts from one of the Buddhist hells, no success will ever be enough because the rewards are being used to fill emotional or spiritual needs that can’t be satisfied.

  In the first example, we have someone who is unfulfilled but understands the root cause and seeks to address it by finding a way to express Love in Endurance. In the second, we have someone who is unfulfilled and unconscious; he does not even realize his dissatisfaction because it’s channeled back into the Drive for more.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 22

  1. (Wands) What causes have you Committed to working for, no matter what? When you are defending yourself or others, how do you stay connected to Love? If you find yourself more Driven by anger, what can you do to reconnect to Love?