by Mark Horn
Oddly enough, the gospel song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” seems to have been based on an earlier song called “Keep Your Hands on the Plow,” which is a direct reference to this Bible verse. And in the Seven of Pentacles, it suggests that if your faith is Enduring and your commitment is strong, you will see the fruits of your labor.
That leaves us with the Seven of Swords and someone who doesn’t have the power of endurance; rather, this is someone with poor impulse control. I had a friend who, for some reason, when faced with certain temptations, just could not control himself. If he had an impulse to do something, he did it without thinking through the consequences. And there are consequences. I don’t often mention this detail on the card, but you may notice in the lower left, just below the tips of the swords, there is a group of people, one carrying a lance, who have noticed the man sneaking off. Perhaps they are part of this encampment and, having seen what’s happening, they’re on their way to right the situation. Which does not bode well for this trickster.
I know that whenever I make a strong Commitment to anything, there’s an undermining energy within me that seeks to undo my efforts. In the twelve-step world, I’ve often heard it said that while you’re working the steps in a meeting, your addiction is outside doing push-ups. It’s important to always bring to awareness the unconscious countercommitments and impulses that can undercut your efforts at Perseverance.
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 25
1. (Wands) What is your capacity for Enduring the criticism or opposition of others; are you able to consistently have faith in and stand up for yourself, or does doubt creep in and sap your ability to Persevere? What is your experience with this?
2. (Cups) How much have you been willing to Endure and how hard have you Persevered in your life to make your dreams become a reality?
3. (Swords) When you make a Commitment, are you awake to any inner voices seeking to undercut your goals? How persistent have they been throughout your life? What do you do to make sure you “stay the course”?
4. (Pentacles) How do you stay Focused on the task at hand and the goal ahead? What do you do if you get lost because you are looking back on past failures? How does your experience with this change depend on the kind of goal you’re working toward? When your Persistence bears fruit, are you able to take satisfaction in your work, or do you feel stuck in some way?
Day 26: Hod of Netzach
The Victory That Comes from Surrender
Today is the twenty-sixth day of the Omer, which is three weeks and five days of the Omer.
In the twelve-step world, “white-knuckling” is holding on tight to sobriety with a kind of nervous willpower and fear of slipping. As a strategy, it might work at first, but it wears away at the soul rather than strengthens it in the ability to Persevere in sobriety. It is antithetical to the positive kind of Endurance found in Netzach.
The spiritual genius of the twelve steps is the recognition that to Endure in sobriety, to be the Victor over one’s addiction, first one must Surrender to it. That doesn’t mean you let your addiction take over. It means you know that all your efforts on your own to beat this addiction have failed. This is the first step: admitting your own willpower is not enough. And the next Surrender is of your own will to a Higher Will. This is the essence of the second step, that people working the steps: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”6
The quality of Hod, which includes Surrender and Humility, is what enables one to Endure and ultimately Triumph in situations where we have little or no power. This means accepting reality as it is. After all, in an argument with the Universe, there is no question who is going to lose.
I know from my own experience that by humbly accepting the truth of my powerlessness, the willpower I was holding on to tightly could relax into a Will greater than my own. It’s a process of aligning one’s spirit to the Will of one’s Higher Power, to use the phrasing that sidesteps the God issue in the twelve-step world. And when you can really do that, the experience of Surrender in Victory becomes an experience you’ll always be grateful for. I know I am.
Day 26: Hod of Netzach in Atzilut
The Eight and Seven of Wands
_________within_________
The man who is steadfastly standing his ground in the Seven of Wands is about to get some serious assistance. The cavalry is coming in the Eight of Wands, but it’s not the kind of support that comes riding in on a horse or with any people. That’s because the man in the Seven of Wands has just discovered a new source of inner strength that takes his Endurance to the next level.
This inner strength appears because the man in the Seven of Wands, even though he is standing up to defend himself, is free of ego. And when his ego gets out of the way, he reaches into a deeper well of Endurance that is a direct channel to the Divine. His Humility is what gives him greater strength. From a spiritual standpoint, this is something many people understand, but in the practical world, sometimes it doesn’t seem so clear. So let’s look at this in the realm of the personal.
I don’t know how you’d feel if you were the man in the Seven of Wands, but with six people taking arms against me, I’d take it very personally. Now we’re in the suit of Wands and the world of Atzilut, so while we can consider this as a physical attack on a person, we can also interpret this as an attack on a person’s ideas and ideals. And who isn’t personally attached to their ideas? I know that when one of my ideas is disparaged, I have a habit of taking it personally. But there is great freedom when you can put your ego aside. It’s kind of a psycho-spiritual jujitsu that doesn’t let your opponent land a blow and then turns all that energy against your opponent.
I know that when I don’t take things personally, I’m not busy reliving past hurts or thinking about the personalities of the people I’m in opposition to. And by not concentrating on a bruised ego or on the personal issues being projected onto me by others, I free up a great deal of energy to concentrate on what really needs to be defended.
I know I didn’t feel this way when I was a child. You probably heard the same saying from your parents: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me. I didn’t believe it when I was a kid: names did hurt me. But that’s because I cared about what other people thought about me. When you surrender to the realization that you can never control what other people think of you, you’re free to take all the energy you were expending on trying to control this experience and turn it to more productive and satisfying things.
Day 26: Hod of Netzach in B’riah
The Eight and Seven of Cups
_________within_________
“If there be a prophet among you, I, YHVH will reveal myself to him in a vision, and will speak with him in a dream. ”7
Because Netzach and Hod are associated with prophecy and because the suit of Cups can be related to connecting with your own and the collective unconscious, let’s look at the Seven and Eight of Cups in relation to visions and prophecy. If you’re someone who feels a connection to a source of information that feels like it’s coming from outside yourself, or even if you’re someone who never feels any such connection, this pairing can have important information for you.
Think of the man in the Seven of Cups as someone who often receives such information through visions. Maimonides looked at the text quoted above and made the distinction between the information received in visions and in dreams. In fact, Judaism makes distinctions between twelve levels of prophecy. And for Maimonides, visions were not always clear; they were allegories, and as such were subject to interpretation. Just because you have a vision doesn’t mean you’re going to get the meaning of it right. Even those who had dreams, which according to the text is one example of where you can hear the voice of the Divine, don’t always understand what’s being said to them. But we have a long lineage within the Jewish tradition of dream interpretation, starting with Joseph, who interpreted the dreams of other prisoners when
he was held captive, eventually leading to his being brought before Pharaoh to interpret his dreams.
And what did Pharaoh see in his dreams? In the first, it was seven fat cows eaten by seven gaunt cows. Then seven full stalks of grain devoured by seven scorched stalks of grain. And how many cups are in the Netzach card? Seven!
The problem, though, is that when you have a vision and your Netzach is out of balance, you’re not going to be able to understand the vision clearly. Your own ego can’t get out of the way, so that while there might be some understanding, it will not be free from projection. For that matter, one might have a problem discerning which vision is truly from the Divine and which vision is entirely projection.
But when Netzach is balanced with Hod, when the ego can step aside, the ability to interpret these visions increases. In the Eight of Cups, we see a figure walking away from an arrangement of cups. The esoteric name of the card in the Golden Dawn tradition is the Lord of Abandoned Success. And because I often think about these images with biblical stories in mind, I see this as an image of Moses leaving Egypt after he has killed the Egyptian slave overseer. He has turned away from the wealth and comfort of his position as a prince in the court of Pharaoh and is headed to the wilderness and the mountain, where he will encounter the burning bush.
Moses is the one prophet in the Jewish tradition who spoke with YHVH “mouth to mouth.”8 And why is this? In the same chapter of Numbers, it explains that “the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, above all the men that were on the face of the earth.”9
Certainly, it takes a certain kind of Determination, a Netzach quality of putting oneself forward, to share one’s vision of the Divine. And as many prophets have learned, by stepping forward, they’ve had to Endure criticism and disparagement from others. But when that is balanced by Humility in Hod, the Glory and Splendor of this vision is not only made clearer, but other people also are more likely to hear its meaning.
When writing about this using the examples of Joseph and Moses, it all seems out of the realm of our daily lived experience. But I can think of times in my own life where this Netzach/Hod dynamic has affected my ability to share my experience of the Divine. I remember the first time I came back from a Vipassana retreat, and I was so filled with the joy of the experience, I felt I had to share it with everyone. This is a human trait I’ve noticed not only in myself but also in many other people; you have a spiritual experience and the impulse is to share it with as many other people as possible. However, I found that what brought people to ask me about that experience was not my announcing it to everyone but instead how they saw a change in the way I lived my life. Humbly living the experience and the ways that it changed me led people to want to learn more about it. But trying to tell them as though I had come down from the mountain with the tablets turned people off.
One message of the Seven of Cups can be that you’re getting a message and that the best way to more clearly understand that message is to get your ego out of the way. A “Cups” experience of Divine connection is a feeling connection. This is described in Hebrew as the Ruach HaKodesh, when one is overcome by a feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is the meaning in English of Ruach HaKodesh. Christian Pentecostalists place a great emphasis on this experience, and they see evidence of connection to the Holy Spirit in the speaking of tongues. In the Christian Bible’s story of Pentecost, when the apostles spoke in tongues, it meant that they were able to go out into the streets and preach the gospel to others whose language they previously could not speak. Today, when one is overcome with the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t mean that suddenly you can speak French, Indonesian, Hebrew, or any other known language. Which is why I remain wary of anyone who claims to interpret what information is being communicated in this experience. So many preachers seem to be filled with ego that their ability to clearly understand any messages they may receive feels extremely compromised to me.
Which brings me right back to the cards. All of them. Because I don’t only use tarot cards for reflection and contemplation. Like many people, I sometimes also use them for divination or prediction (divination, of course, meaning reading the Divine Will in cards or coffee grounds or what have you). And like many people, I have also gone to have my cards read by others who do divination. Some readers claim to be purely intuitive, and they use the cards as a prop for clients as they somehow connect to information. Others actively search the cards for meaning and interpret them, with or without intuitive flashes of insight: this is more my experience.
As a reader, I have to work to separate whatever projections I might bring to a reading with a client, because often that’s my own ego getting in the way. But it’s not always easy to determine what’s a projection and what’s an intuitive flash. What I do know is that if I feel any ego attachment to the interpretation, then indeed my ego is getting in the way of delivering clear information.
If, as a client, you have ever had an experience with a reader who takes the position that they have access to information that you need to protect yourself—for example, a reader who tells a client that they are suffering under a curse that only the reader can lift, for a substantial fee—you’re in the presence of a scam artist. And in most places, that reader is breaking the law.
However you choose to seek Divine guidance, the pairing of the Seven and Eight of Cups has information for you on how best to receive and share that information. And if you’re a tarot card reader, there is much you can learn about your inner dynamic when reading for other people by studying all the Netzach and Hod card pairings, the Cups in particular.
Day 26: Hod of Netzach in Yetzirah
The Eight and Seven of Swords
_________within_________
In the suit of Swords, we see the negative expression of Hod of Netzach, and with both out of balance, the possibilities for trouble are manifold. When in balance, Hod and Netzach are in a reciprocal relationship. Netzach is there to make sure that Hod’s Humility doesn’t turn you into a human doormat. Hod is there to make sure that Netzach’s Drive doesn’t run roughshod over everyone else.
When all is in balance, Hod’s Humility includes the recognition that anyone can transgress; thus, forgiveness is important. And Netzach’s Drive comes with the understanding that having transgressed, one needs to apply that Drive to making restitution and seeking forgiveness.
In Jewish law, when one transgresses against the Divine, one atones on Yom Kippur. But if you transgress against another person, Divine atonement is not forthcoming until you have asked forgiveness and made restitution to the person you wronged.
In the Seven and Eight of Swords, whether you look at this pair as illustrating an intrapsychic dynamic or a situation between two people, you can see that the cards’ corresponding Sephirotic relationship is not healthy. And if you recognize the images as representing issues in your own life, they also give clues on how to repair things.
In the Eight of Swords, we have someone who has taken the Humility of Hod to extremes, so that she’s allowed herself to be taken advantage of. So much so that it has restricted her ability to act in her own interest. And what’s more, she has closed her eyes to the situation; she may not want to admit that someone else has done this to her or that she has colluded in her own victimization. Meanwhile, the perpetrator, in the Seven of Swords, is making off with the goods.
This works intrapsychically when one’s Humility, one’s Hod, is so damaged that one is unable to recognize the Divine Splendor in all creation, which particularly makes someone unable to see that other people are also made in the image of the Divine, b’tzelem Elohim. When you don’t see others as expressions of the Divine made manifest, it’s easy to treat them without respect. And that’s a recipe for seeking your own Victory with no concern for the dignity or humanity of others.
When the Talmudic sage Rabbi Nechunya Ben HaKana was asked by his students to what virtues he ascribed his longevity, he answered that he never sought respect at the expense of another.10 His own
Humility was a check to balance against his Drive.
Day 26: Hod of Netzach in Assiyah
The Eight and Seven of Pentacles
_________within_________
In these two cards, we have images of people who are working, doing something practical, which is only appropriate given that we are in the world of Assiyah. But there is a subtle difference between them, and you can see it simply by following the gaze of the figure in each card.
The man in the Seven of Pentacles is staring off into the distance rather than looking at the fruit of his labor. What is he thinking about? Since this is the Netzach card, perhaps he is already looking ahead to the rewards of his hard work. Instead of seeing the Divine Splendor in the work of his hands and recognizing that his success is not his alone, he may be like the figure in the Seven of Cups, imagining all the things he can get when he sells the harvest. Of course, there is still much work to be done. Harvesting the fruit of the vine is not any easier than planting or caring for the crops over the course of the season.
The man in the Eight of Pentacles is focused solely on his work. While he has hung some of his work on a post as a display, there is no sense that he’s done this out of vanity. His Humility keeps his ego out of the way so that he can keep doing what needs to be done without getting lost in a fantasy of what he will do when his work is done. This means he is in the moment and more likely to do good work because of it.
Here in the world of work, Hod helps keep Netzach focused and grounded on the task at hand so that Netzach will eventually reach the goal of Mastery.
For a moment, let’s think about the Pentacles not as products but as people—as colleagues the figures in the card are working with. The man in the Seven of Pentacles isn’t thinking about them at all. He’s busy imagining his rewards, and there’s no indication he’s willing to share them. But the man in the Eight of Pentacles is happy to share the credit, showing the others off to their advantage even as he keeps working himself. As always in the Tree of Life, it’s in the balance between these two places where we find real satisfaction, where we are recognized for our achievements, and where we share the recognition and rewards with others.
