by Mark Horn
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 38
1. (Wands) What are the kinds of inequality you have experienced in your Relationships? How have you dealt with them? What were the conversations about them like? What does it mean to tell the Truth about your feelings without blaming someone for them? How can you listen to your partner talk about feelings without your feeling blamed? How have your roles shifted over the course of your Relationship?
2. (Cups) What is your experience of spiritual companionship in study? Consider reading a sacred text with someone you respect but don’t necessarily agree with about some things, then analyze the text together, including what it means to each of you personally.
3. (Swords) What is your experience in Relationships in which there has been withholding? What happened when what was withheld was revealed? Do you believe there are things that can’t be shared in an Intimate relationship? If you feel this way, what is it that can’t be shared and why?
4. (Pentacles) What is your experience with tit-for-tat accounting in reciprocal Relationships? What does too much love—either giving or getting—mean to you? What does it feel like? What is your relationship with desire? Think of someone or something you desire, and try to feel underneath the desire to the yearning within it. What does it feel like? What does it tell you?
Day 39: Netzach of Yesod
The Ongoing Commitment to Intimacy
Today is the thirty-ninth day of the Omer, which is five weeks and four days of the Omer.
There are two ways for a relationship to Endure over time. One requires the partners to remain unconscious, colluding with each other to avoid anything that would upset the stasis or challenge them to change or grow. The other requires making a renewed and daily conscious Commitment to remain grounded in integrity, radically honest, and fearlessly Intimate. It means staying open and vulnerable. This isn’t an easy path. And it’s not something that is “once and done.” It is action that is taken over and over again over time. It is, in fact, a spiritual practice.
Making a daily Commitment to Intimacy will bring up your shadow Commitments. The voices in your head that tell you why what you’re doing is wrong. The physical sensations in your body that feel uncomfortable so that you get scared that what you’re doing is dangerous. You can try this yourself. This is the way to work with affirmations because an affirmation is not a mantra you repeat in the hopes that by repeating something over and over again it will become true. When you speak an affirmation aloud, the first step is to listen for your inner voice telling you why what you said can’t happen. The next step is to scan through your body to see where you’re holding tension in response to what you said and then explore what’s hidden in that tension. I’ve done just this kind of work, using relationship Commitments and affirmations developed by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks in a two-year training. It put me face-to-face with the fears and unconscious defenses holding me back from a successful Intimate Relationship.
We can see one of the greatest examples of how a shadow Commitment can sabotage a relationship right in the story of the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, the story that is at the culmination of Counting the Omer and that stands as a forewarning about your inner Israelites on the fiftieth day. The people had promised to remain faithful to YHVH, but while Moses was on the mountain receiving the tablets of the law, the people returned to idolatry and created a golden calf to worship. Even though they made the Commitment that “everything that YHVH has spoken, we will do and obey,”10 the people’s unconscious Commitment to remaining enslaved asserted itself.
May we all wake from the trance and renew our conscious Commitment to a faithful and enduring Intimacy, directly with the Divine and with the Divine as expressed in another person. Keyn yehi ratzon.
Day 39: Netzach of Yesod in Atzilut
The Seven and Nine of Wands
_________within_________
Here’s an unfortunate but familiar Relationship dynamic. Two sensitive people: one always quick to feel attacked and ready to defend himself, the other wounded and withdrawn. One wants Connection but sees it as confrontational and isn’t afraid to be confrontational himself. The other is wary of Connection and mistrustful of both his own desire for Connection and of others who approach him. Somehow, people like this manage to find each other and get entangled in a Relationship that doesn’t truly satisfy either, but neither believes anything else is possible.
The Tenacity of the man in the Seven of Wands is not seen as a positive trait by the man in the Nine of Wands. He experiences it as arrogant, controlling, and Dominating. Perhaps underneath this aggressive stance is an experience of being hurt in the past that the man in the Nine of Wands doesn’t see or understand. Meanwhile, the man in the Seven of Wands sees the other as inflexible, dug in to a position, and unwilling to engage—as hiding out. He does not understand that this behavior is the result of past trauma. Neither of them is ready to cooperate, listen, and really hear the other, so that no matter how much the man in the Seven of Wands Persists in trying to reach the other, Intimacy remains out of reach.
It’s easy to see that the man in the Nine of Wands is behind a barrier. But if you consider the possibility that the staves arrayed against the man in the Seven of Wands are only memories of the past, he is also behind a barrier of perceived persecution. People in this Relationship dynamic have provided retirement savings for many psychologists.
We can also view the Relationship between these two figures as one that is challenged by outside stressors. Minority groups face negative projections, stereotypes, and prejudices that are often introjected; for gay men this is the dynamic of internalized homophobia, and this mental health challenge creates many psychological obstacles for couples in Relationship. These are obstacles I’m familiar with from my own experience. But any kind of couple that faces outside stressors, from economic disadvantages and insecurity to racial or religious discrimination, brings that stress into the Relationship, with the possible results including divorce, abandonment, or domestic abuse.
So often a couple that comes together to find sanctuary from the world then brings the problems of the world into their Relationship. A conscious Commitment to confronting this dynamic can save the Relationship and make it not only a sanctuary but also a new Garden of Eden.
Day 39: Netzach of Yesod in B’riah
The Seven and Nine of Cups
_________within_________
The longest and most successful Intimate Relationship I’ve had with another man was with my therapist: I saw him individually for more than twenty years. Talk about an Enduring Relationship. And after I finished working with him individually, I continued in a group with him for several more years until my work schedule made continuing impossible. When I looked at these two cards together, one of the many things I saw in the pairing was the Relationship between client and therapist. I could have written “one of the many things I projected onto this pairing . . .” Because that’s some of what these two cards reveal about Relationship: how we project onto others and what the results of projection can be.
A good therapist knows how to recognize and hold a client’s projections, eventually enabling the client to see that they have been unconsciously attributing (both positive and negative) thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that they can’t accept as their own onto others. This projection occurs in both the therapeutic relationship and with other people in the client’s life. So in the Seven of Cups, I see a client arriving with a whole slew of projections that keeps him or her from seeing others clearly and Relating to them with authenticity. And in the Nine of Cups, I see a therapist who is Committed to holding the client’s projections without becoming entangled in them. Not a very traditional interpretation of these cards, I know. But in the context of Commitment in Intimacy, it is certainly one way to look at the cards.
A less positive way to see this pairing, and one that can be observed any day, is in the dynamic of romantic illusion. Shakespeare said it best: “Love
looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”11 Long before Freud or Jung, the phenomenon of projection was understood. That’s not to say romantic projection can’t be positive. Most romantic Relationships begin with mutual positive projection. The work begins when the reality of who the other person really is starts to peek through the projection.
Someone who is unable to deal with the reality of the other when the shine of projection wears off will go off in search of another screen to project onto. Such a person is a serial romantic, and no one can live up to the fantasy, so that person is never able to make an Enduring Commitment. Or that person will make a Commitment based on the fantasy, and when reality bursts the bubble, such an individual sees no problem breaking agreements because the object of the fantasy isn’t agreeing to live the fantasy.
There is yet a darker version of this dynamic. Think of the person in the Seven of Cups as a student—perhaps a college or graduate student. And the person in the Nine of Cups as a professor. How many students see their teachers with stars in their eyes and develop a crush on them? How many teachers take advantage of this situation and sleep with their students? Of course, this power dynamic plays out in lots of places besides universities. Look at these two cards, and you can see a young person filled with romantic fantasies and someone with more power enjoying the trophies of so many Relationships.
We could also see the figures in both cards as the same person—someone who has projected fantasies onto many others, someone who has been in and left many relationships and is now alone and filled with self-justification, because after all, when you’re busy projecting, it’s always the other person’s fault.
Now, I don’t want to be a total Negative Nathan here. There are projections that also offer the possibility of positive transformation. The faults we most complain about in others, particularly our partners, often are issues that lie within ourselves. That’s what Jesus was talking about when he said, “How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?”12 And when you find yourself noticing the same speck in lots of other people, it’s a clue there’s a log in your eye.
When you make the Commitment to see and own your projections, they begin to lose power over you. But the mind is tricky, and it’s not easy to do. It takes Determination and Perseverance, along with courage. But the result is greater Intimacy with yourself and others.
Without romantic projection, many couples would not have gotten together. But when the romantic projection wears off and the negative projections start to assert themselves, this is when the work of the Relationship really begins. Those relationships that experience Endurance in Intimacy are those where the couple has worked through these projections with fearless honesty, so that their Relationship is more alive every day. And they grow as individuals and in Relationship. Pretty good, right? Are you in?
Day 39: Netzach of Yesod in Yetzirah
The Seven and Nine of Swords
_________within_________
Once, when these two cards came up together in a reading I was doing for a woman I knew, she immediately exclaimed, “I knew it, he’s cheating on me!” You don’t have a to be a tarot reader well versed in the many meanings of the cards to see that as a possible interpretation of this pair. And here, in the week of Yesod and Intimacy, infidelity, deceit, and betrayal are all issues we have to look at. Nothing poisons Intimacy like deceit. Nothing is more destructive to the Endurance of a Relationship than betrayal—sexual or otherwise.
So what do we do when we’re working with these two cards on this day? Just like every other day, we search within. I have been in Relationships that were monogamous and Relationships that were open. Oddly enough, some of these monogamous Relationships were filled with cheating, while the supposedly open Relationships never involved anyone on the outside. But when this Sephirotic pairing comes up every year and I face this pair of cards, I have to look at any desires to cheat on my partner and what those desires are really about. Just like projection, putting my sexual Drive elsewhere is really about letting off steam about something I don’t want to look at or talk about honestly. And when that pent-up Drive finds an unskillful means of expression, it endangers Intimacy.
It’s important to note that there are three levels of Intimacy this deceit threatens. Obviously, it threatens the Endurance of Relationship with a partner. But it also endangers my own inner Intimacy, because in order to act out in this way, I have to lie to myself. And this endangers my spiritual Intimacy as well. So I am both the man in the Seven of Swords, deceiving another and undermining myself, and I am the figure in the Nine of Swords, feeling all the pain of having betrayed another, my heart, and my values.
This doesn’t mean I don’t notice attractive people and that I deny I find them attractive. I just don’t dwell on it, and I don’t act on it. Sometimes, sitting on the couch, my partner and I will see someone on TV that we both find attractive—and we say so. It doesn’t make either of us jealous. It enlivens us and reminds us of our attraction to each other. But it’s not like this hasn’t been an issue in my life in the past. And I can’t be certain it won’t be an issue in my life again. It’s something I have to remain watchful for.
I’ve also been in Relationships where my partner has cheated on me, and I’ve felt like the figure in the Nine of Swords. One of the dangers of such a situation is the desire to get even and declare that all vows are null and void (not out loud, of course, but by returning the betrayal tit for tat).
I’m Focusing on sexual betrayal because sexual Intimacy is one of the facets of Yesod. But there are many ways to betray Intimacy. The important thing, though, on this day is to keep the Focus within. If you’ve been in a Relationship where someone has cheated on you, the goal today is not to get lost in blaming the other. I’m not saying give the cheater a pass. But it takes two to tango, so you have to explore how your own inner dynamic may have contributed to the situation. And looking back to the previous pair in the suit of Cups, you have to consider what role projection plays in this issue.
Day 39: Netzach of Yesod in Assiyah
The Seven and Nine of Pentacles
_________within_________
Night after night on my bed
I sought for the one beloved of my soul.
I sought, but I found him not.
I will rise up now and roam the city,
through the streets and the broad avenues,
I will seek the one my soul loves.
I sought, but I found him not.
SONG OF SONGS 3:1–2
The Yearning for love is Enduring; it Drives us even as we lie in bed at night to go out into the streets looking for love, and often in all the wrong places. The wisdom in the Song of Songs recognizes this Drive, and how, when it’s followed without spiritual awareness, it leaves us feeling the dissatisfaction we can see in the Seven of Pentacles. The man in the card is filled with Yearning, and though he is tending his vineyard, for some reason he does not seem to hear the call: “O you who linger in the garden / A lover is listening; Let me hear your voice.”13
The Song of Songs is attributed to King Solomon, or Shlomo in Hebrew. The woman in the poem is Shulamit, the feminine form of Shlomo. And both are related to the word shalom, or shlemut, which is often translated as “peace” but is perhaps more accurately translated as “wholeness.” And this is the clue that the poem is not simply a celebration of erotic love; it is also a celebration of the erotic path to Divine unification. It is an understanding that we can find healing and wholeness in Intimate Connection.
So while we may be looking for love in all the wrong places, it’s important to remind ourselves that what we really seek is wholeness. If you’re in a Relationship and you’re not tilling the garden together, that wholeness will elude you. And you may feel tempted to seek outside the relationship for it. But looking outside is walking away from Perseverance in Intimacy.
For a Relationship to Endure through all the seasons, you m
ust pay close attention to how it is growing because a relationship that isn’t growing, to take a phrase from Bob Dylan, is busy dying. And one can interpret the expression on the man’s face in the Seven of Pentacles as considering how best to help the vine thrive. Does it need pruning? In the first couple of years of a vine’s growth, it should not be allowed to produce fruit. It needs to strengthen its root system, its Foundation, before it can support the extra weight of fruit.
In other words, Intimate Relationships require the Perseverance of careful attention and hard work if they are to thrive and Endure. Then the rewards can be more than just physical, for in the physical, one may touch the Eternal for a moment.
Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 39
1. (Wands) How do outside stressors affect your close Relationships? Which of the two defenses shown in the cards feels familiar in your Relationship experience—on your side, as well as on your partner’s side. What can you do to break the pattern in a way that increases aliveness and Intimacy?
2. (Cups) In your close Relationships, whether with a partner, relative, or friend, what do you feel self-righteous about? What is a regular complaint that you gather evidence for? What do you Focus on that can’t be changed or is out of your control? Your answers can give you clues about what you might be projecting in these Relationships. Choose one or more, and explore in writing why you are telling yourself this story and what its origin is within you.
3. (Swords) In what ways have you betrayed (or are you now betraying) your closest Relationships? Even if these violations seem small, write them down. In what ways do you betray your own values? If you have been (or now feel) betrayed, in what ways have you participated in this betrayal, and what rewards do you get from this dynamic?
