Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  Last, we can see this as the situation of the gifted artist whose creativity is being held back in some way so that it becomes a burden. I have an artist friend who had been hospitalized for his alcoholism a few times. At first, I thought he drank because he believed it opened him to his creativity. But one day as I sat by his bedside in the hospital, he explained to me that he drank because it closed down the channel. He was overwhelmed by his creative urges, by the multiplicity of Inspirations that came to him every day. He couldn’t hold the energy, so to disperse it or numb himself to it, he drank. So while it’s true that many people may have a drink or two to let down their inhibitions, my friend was drinking heavily to do the exact opposite. Feeling oppressed by creativity is tragic to me, but I know that creative people are often the most sensitive people on the planet and that the level of stimuli we face in today’s world can certainly be overwhelming. My artist friend eventually moved from the city to a small island, where he lives in a rural setting better suited to his nature and where he isn’t over-stimulated so that he finally lives a more balanced life.

  Day 35: Malchut of Hod in B’riah

  The Ten and Eight of Cups

  _________within_________

  Malchut is the Sephira of the Shekinah, the Indwelling Presence the Divine, or the Divine Feminine. While Keter, the Sephira at the top of the Tree of Life, is all about transcendence, Malchut and the Shekinah are all about Immanence—the recognition that the Divine is present throughout all Creation—and about allowing oneself to be held by, and Grounded in, this Divine Presence. Malchut of Hod points us in the direction of feeling Gratitude for the Indwelling Presence within the Splendor of Creation.

  I usually see the Ten of Cups as a beautiful card, with the happy family aware of the Divine blessings that surround and suffuse them. The human relationships are loving, and the family members’ relationships to the world around them are healthy because they’re all based in this awareness.

  This awareness also lives in the figure in the Eight of Cups, who is turning away from her past success in the world to seek something deeper. Sometimes one doesn’t need to turn away from the world because of course the Shekinah isn’t separate from the world. But there are definitely times when the clamor of the world and its pleasures can overwhelm the ability to sense the Divine within. And that’s when it’s time to turn away to seek reconnection within.

  It’s as though the person in the Eight of Cups is trying to get back to the innocence we see in the Ten of Cups. Note that the eight cups in the image create a kind of a fence, a boundary between the viewer and the figure who is turned away. The cups have a feeling of heaviness, a solidity that contrasts with the lightness of the rainbow cups in the other card. What’s that about?

  I collect typewriters. I have more than a dozen (not as many as Tom Hanks, of course, but then I don’t have his money or the space for more; I don’t even have the space for all the typewriters I do own). There are a couple of Corona 3 models from about 1915. An Oliver from about 1910. A Remington “Noiseless” from about 1938. A Franklin 7 from 1897. A Hammond from about 1915. And a couple of Olivetti Lettera 22 models from the sixties. Talk about heaviness and solidity. When I bought my first antique typewriter, I didn’t think I was going to start a collection. As a writer and as someone who grew up with old Underwood cathedral typewriters as a child, the Olivetti (held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art for its modernist aesthetic) when I was a teen, and the IBM Selectric at my first job, these old machines were the tools of my craft. I love the smell of the ink and machine oil that wafts from the type bed. But collecting became a mania. I lost sight of the love for what the objects represent and lusted after the objects themselves. This dynamic isn’t unfamiliar to me, since I’d already been through this before when I first started collecting Japanese pottery.

  This is the story I project onto the Eight of Cups: perhaps the man in the Eight of Cups is turning away from something that was once a source of connection to the Divine but that has become a barrier in some way. (And yes, I switched genders, but how do you know the gender of the figure in this card? It’s one of the many cards where the gender is ambiguous, making it easy to project yourself, whatever gender you identify with, into the card.) So he walks away, seeking to find the original relationship he had with the world—one of Humility that allowed space for the Majesty of the world to reveal itself. We can see this relationship in the Ten of Cups. Perhaps once he has renewed that inner connection, he can return to these eight cups in a new way.

  While my example was in relationship to objects, one can also start to take other people for granted. When you no longer respond to others with the Humility that opens space for them to grow and change in relationship, you are treating them like objects, and you’ve moved from an I-Thou to an I-It relationship.

  This pairing speaks to the essence of the prayer sung at the end of the Torah service, when the scroll is returned to the ark. When I sing these words, my heart both aches and overflows with love. The prayer in English, with words taken from the Book of Proverbs and the Book of Lamentations, is:

  It is a tree of life for those who grasp it,

  And all who uphold it are blessed.

  Its ways are pleasantness and all its paths are peace.

  Help us turn to You, and we shall return.

  Renew our lives as in days of old.*37

  This is a renewal that reopens our hearts with Humility so that our eyes can see the Splendor and Glory that surround us.

  Day 35: Malchut of Hod in Yetzirah

  The Ten and Eight of Swords

  _________within_________

  The Shekinah is not all sweetness and light. She is also the defender of the People Israel, and as such she has been described as having spears and meteors for hair.29 And in the Ten of Swords, we see her in her most terrifying aspect.

  While the suit of Swords is the world of the intellect, Malchut is the physical world, where death is a reality. So here we have followed blind intellect, or wrong thinking, to its inevitable end. This is hitting bottom for the addict. And if one doesn’t do t’shuvah and turn like the figure in the Eight of Cups, the result is not going to be happy.

  Paired with the Eight of Swords, where we are blinded by thinking that limits us, this illustration of the negative energy of these Sephirot stands as a warning to those who would persist in their delusions despite all evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, when I see this pairing, I feel like I’m looking at those who deny the reality of climate change in the world and who are taking us all down this road to the destruction of the ecosystem that supports life on the planet. This blindness to the Splendor of the Creation that we are not separate from calls forth the Kali-like aspect of the Shekinah, which could destroy humankind and our world.

  There is no stronger warning that while the Divine urge to know Itself is irrepressible and Creation is ongoing, the Divine will do what is necessary to maintain the balance of Creation. And those who destroy that balance will be destroyed in return. Then Creation will go on happily without us. Or with a new, hopefully improved version.

  On the more personal level, this is a warning that whatever an individual does that takes that person down a path of blindness and the illusion of separateness, whether it’s an addiction to a substance or an addiction to power or money, the ultimate result is death. Oh, it might not be a physical death immediately. But I am sure you’ve seen people who are dead behind their eyes. These are the true zombies, and when you encounter one, run. Oh, and please don’t vote for one.

  Day 35: Malchut of Hod in Assiyah

  The Ten and Eight of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  Remember that within each Sephira is a whole Tree of Life, extending fractally into infinity, reflecting the nature of the Infinite One. So that here, in Malchut of Hod in Assiyah, we come to the completion of a whole Tree of Life within Hod, where all of the Sephirotic energies are balanced through Humility. We are but two w
eeks away from the revelation of Sinai, and the Devotion we see at work in the Eight of Pentacles should at this point be activated in our lives so that we are now seeing glimpses of the Shekinah, of the Splendor in the material world, everywhere in our daily lives, as evidenced by the full Tree of Life visible in the Ten of Pentacles.

  Seeing the Ten of Pentacles from within Humility, we can focus on how the people in the image are connected rather than disconnected. Our Humility allows us to see the fullness of these people. How the woman with a garland of flowers is smiling at the man with a spear. How the child holds on to her while reaching out, unafraid to pet the dog. And how the elderly man seated at the gate is also reaching out to a dog, completing a circuit of connection between them all, inside and outside the gate.

  The whole Tree of Life sparkles in the air before us, in front of the gate, giving us the message that the entire world, everywhere at every moment, provides a gateway for us to reach out and touch the Divine.

  In the last hours of the Yom Kippur service, the liturgy tells us the gates are closing. The metaphor of this day as the one Day of Atonement gives those last hours an urgency for those of us who live the metaphor.*38 It helps us further break open our hearts to seek our “at-one-ment” with the Divine. But for all the reality of our feelings of urgency, we know it’s a metaphor, so that even as the shofar is sounded at the last moment of the service to signal the closing of the gate, we say that the gates don’t finally close for another twelve days, at the last day of the Sukkot holiday, Shemini Atzeret. But as the Ten of Pentacles shows us, as long as we’re alive, the gates are always open.

  344 Week 5: Hod

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 35

  1. (Wands) If you have a position of Leadership or Responsibility in a spiritual community, what do you do to take care of yourself? How do you hold that Responsibility so that your Humility remains healthy and open to others without violating your Sovereignty? If you are a creative person, how do you hold your creative Inspiration without discharging it fruitlessly or acting out in some way?

  2. (Cups) Are there objects in your home that have given you a joy that has now receded because you see these objects every day? What can you do to revive that earlier feeling? Or is it time to let these objects go to someone else who will Appreciate them the way you once did? Is there a relationship in your life that once felt more alive? What can you do to renew your Appreciation of that relationship?

  3. (Swords) Do something to honor the planet today. Examine the way you live to see what you can do in your daily life to lessen any stresses on the ecosystem. And do something to support an environmental organization. Ask someone you know intimately and trust to be gentle to tell you about your blind spots, and when you receive this information, take it in with Gratitude and without excuses. This is an exercise in listening and in learning information that might very well save your life. Pray for Divine assistance in getting past these blind spots.

  4. (Pentacles) How does your Humility help you open your eyes to the gates of the Divine that surround you at your place of work? At home? On the street? These gates are everywhere. (Hint: your Humility is one of them.) Spend the day attuning yourself to their presence. Say an inner prayer of Gratitude each time you catch a glimpse of one of these gates.

  WEEK 6

  Yesod

  ALL THE ENERGIES OF THE SEPHIROT come together and are held by Yesod before they all gush forth into Malchut. Much as Gevurah regulated and directed the energy of Chesed so that it would not overwhelm, so Yesod has the same function for balancing not only Netzach and Hod but also all of the upper Sephirot. This is the reason it is called Foundation. And because it brings together all the energies from above and weaves them together, it is also Bonding: it Bonds all the energies of the Sephirot, and it Bonds individuals to the Divine and to each other.

  As the Foundation, the amount of energy it holds and directs is unfathomable. Yet we feel it, because it urges us to Connect, to Bond with the Divine and with other people. And this urge is, uh, urgent. It fills us with yearning. Thus, the energy of Yesod is often the most difficult to work with. In the previous weeks, it is almost as though we’ve been working out in a spiritual gym, making ourselves strong enough to hold all this energy and to face all the issues that the week of Yesod will bring up.

  The week of Yesod is where our deepest, most stubborn issues of dependency and abandonment will arise to challenge us. Where our weaknesses and strengths in regulating our sexual energy and our speech will show themselves. Our desire to put all this energy into some Connection, almost any Connection, is so strong that without having done the work of the previous weeks, Yesod could bring us to unhealthy Connections and into the darkness of addiction.

  One of the names for Yesod is El Chai, God of Life, and Yesod in many ways is the Life Force itself, looking for a place or a way to manifest. The shoot of a plant may look deceptively weak, but I’m sure you’ve seen shoots of grass that have cracked through the concrete of a sidewalk; there is immense power in this Life Force, and the previous weeks have been preparation for you to be able to direct this force with all the Love, Restraint, Truth, Balance, Endurance, and Humility you have. When you can bring all these qualities together in harmony, Yesod is the Foundation for spiritual Intimacy.

  Day 36: Chesed of Yesod

  The Secret Love Binding the World Together

  Today is the thirty-sixth day of the Omer, which is five weeks and one day of the Omer.

  On Day 18, I noted that Hebrew letters are also numbers and that the letters that denote the number 18 spell the word that means “life.” Well, today is eighteen times two—thirty-six—and in mystical Judaism, there is a tradition that there are thirty-six righteous people alive in every generation and that the very existence of the world depends on them. In Hebrew, they are called the Tzadikim Nistarim, the Hidden Saints, because tradition has it that no one knows who they are and that they themselves, because of their great humility, are unaware of their status.

  The letters that makes up the number 36 are lamed and vav. So these Hidden Saints are more popularly known as the Lamed-Vavniks, and there are many folktales about them. Of course, the story that a small number of righteous people can save the world can be found in the first book of the Torah, in Genesis, when Abraham bargains with God to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if there are ten good men there.

  I like to think about some of these folktales on the thirty-sixth day because they show how the Love that these people have for the Divine and Creation help sustain it, Binding all of us together in its web, even if we are unaware of it. It’s unlikely you’ll discover a Lamed-Vavnik in your travels today, but it’s a good day to see if you can feel the web of Love they weave that Binds us all together.

  Day 36: Chesed of Yesod in Atzilut

  The Four and Nine of Wands

  _________within_________

  Both Chesed and Yesod share their movement of outward Flow. But where in the Four of Wands, that Flow is consecrated under a chuppah, in the Nine of Wands, that Flow is being held back by a stockade.

  This Flow is a psychic/psychological energy, so that a physical stockade, such as the one in the Nine of Wands, isn’t going to be much help. Even if we decide that the staves standing upright in a line are psychological defenses, they hardly create an impermeable wall. The break in the wall is only just a little wider than the other spaces between the staves.

  The reason is simple: the wounded man in the Nine of Wands may be wary of Intimacy and Connection, but he wants them desperately. His yearning is fueled by the energy of Chesed in the Four of Wands and by the energy of Yesod in the Nine of Wands.

  Between the inner Yearning for Connection and the outer, almost gravitational pull of Love, the man can’t help but look over his shoulder past the line of staves. Is he looking because he expects attack or because he desires Connection? Yes. And yes. Unfortunately, if he finds Connection, he will be quick to take offense at slights
that are, uh, slight.

  This does not have to be a Connection to another person; remember, the Four of Wands is a card that looks forward to the Divine Marriage between the Deity and the People Israel.*39 So the bandage on the man’s head could suggest he has been wounded by his tradition. He would not be comfortable standing under a chuppah because he wouldn’t trust any spiritual authorities. So while he might have a great Yearning for the Divine, he also doesn’t trust its earthly, organizational manifestations. He might be invited to this wedding, but he doesn’t feel like a welcome guest or a willing groom.

  As a gay man, I relate to this figuratively and literally. For many years, I felt wounded by the spiritual tradition of my ancestors, so even as that tradition started to evolve into acceptance and I began to look for welcoming congregations, I was still wary and defended. And after years of going to weddings of heterosexual friends, I began to be resentful of ceremonies that I was excluded from enjoying myself.

  Someone who has escaped from a cult or any abusive spirituality group might very well suffer from a similar wounding, so that one could easily imagine such a person being suspicious of any organized religion or even a spontaneous spiritual experience. There are many other reasons one could feel excluded from one’s tradition or organized religion; the very fact that you’re reading this book means you may have traveled somewhat afar from the tradition of your birth, perhaps because you were wounded in your own explorations. Yet here you are, because just as flowers are heliotropic—they seek and turn toward the sun—so humans turn to God, seeking the Divine Light.