Tarot and the Gates of Light

by Mark Horn

  Even as we came together to support each other, along with many others in Lou’s large group of friends, we also fractured as a community, each disappearing into our separate traumas. Danyal was so overwhelmed that he had no strength to help Alex. While he had a core community that was there for him, there were friends who could not remain present for Danyal in his trauma and mourning, so they drifted away over the dark months that followed.

  As I write this, it was six years ago. In the crisis, in the moment, we were all fully Present for each other. Over time, each of us has retreated into our private anguish, unable to bear the Intimacy of each other’s suffering. After the tragedy of the Ten of Swords, each of us found ourselves figuratively and literally in anguish and alone as in the Nine of Swords. I know that Lou lived his life without regrets, but if there had been one, it would have been that he didn’t get to say goodbye. The crowds outside his hospital room and at his memorial were a testament to the fact that he was fully Present for all his relationships; he never left anything that would get in the way of Intimacy unsaid.

  Ultimately, we are all alone when we die. I am writing these words on Yom Kippur, a day of repentance that has been called the dress rehearsal for our death. It is one day before the first anniversary of my father’s death, and two days before my sixty-sixth birthday. And as these cards tell us, there’s no escaping questions of mortality.

  We prepare for Yom Kippur by asking the forgiveness of other people for any of the ways we have wronged them because you can’t ask for forgiveness from God without seeking it from other people first. The Ten and Nine of Swords, like Yom Kippur, stand as a warning: death can come at any time, and to be prepared, we must be fully Present in all our relationships, so there is no need for forgiveness or regrets when it does come. And when we are faced with traumatic loss, we must be patient and gentle with ourselves and with each other as we struggle with our various ways, skillful and otherwise, of dealing with the pain.

  Day 42: Malchut of Yesod in Assiyah

  The Ten and Nine of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  In these two cards, we find ourselves in the enclosed garden and in the agora—the public space often used for a market or assembly in times past. Private and public. We could even consider the woman in both cards to be the same woman, public and private. We can say that the Nine of Pentacles shows she has an appreciation for the finer things in life, which is a nice way of saying that she has expensive taste.

  The Ten of Pentacles, though, with its diagram of the Tree of Life hanging unseen in the air by the people in the card, suggests that the Relationships in the card are unconsciously tinged by a concern with the material. And together the pair suggests that the spending habits of the woman in the Nine of Pentacles may in fact be beyond her means, that she has an unconscious relationship with money that isn’t entirely Grounded. In her garden, she is alone. In the agora, she isn’t connected to the child at her side as she smiles at the man guarding the gate, who does not seem to be returning her gaze. Perhaps she uses her material wealth to create a sanctuary for Divine Connection that she can’t maintain when she leaves the garden, so that her principal Relationship is to the material world and not to other people.

  There are few things more Intimate than our relationship to money and how we talk about it in Relationship and how we use or share it in Relationship. One of the taboo questions in our society is asking how much another person earns. And as I’ve noted in earlier pairings, a couple that has a large difference in their earnings can find this throws their relationship off balance.

  Some people hide their wealth because they find it gets in the way of meeting possible partners, only to find that when they reveal their wealth, it opens up other issues. Some people use their money to attract others and then feel used. There’s no question that money is a turnon for many people. Consider the scene in the film The Wolf of Wall Street, where the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie have sex on top of a pile of money, literally bringing the material and the physical together.

  Together, the Ten and Nine of Pentacles ask us to closely examine our relationship with money, how we use it, and how it affects all our other Relationships, public and private. This pair challenges us to look at the ways we use money as a defense against Intimacy. And to consider the Relationship between our spirituality and our materiality.

  Questions for reflection and contemplation: Day 42

  1. (Wands) What is your experience of the geography cure? What defenses have you been carrying that have become a burden in your life and that you are now ready to put down? How will you do so?

  2. (Cups) Who are the people in your minyan? Consider bringing everyone together to acknowledge this Relationship and consider how important they have been on your journey.

  3. (Swords) If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what have you left unsaid that you need to say to people you are closest with? Whom do you need to forgive? Whom do you need to ask for forgiveness? Who has been Present for you in crisis? Whom have you been Present for? Whom have you failed in crisis? Who has failed you? What can you do to make amends where appropriate?

  4. (Pentacles) In what ways has your Relationship to money affected your Intimate Relationships? In what ways to do you use money as a defense against Intimacy? What do you spend money on that you wouldn’t want to tell other people about?

  WEEK 7

  Malchut

  We shall not cease from exploration

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

  T. S. ELIOT, “LITTLE GIDDING,” FOUR QUARTETS

  WE HAVE COME TO THE FINAL WEEK. And all of the card pairings in the next seven days are combinations that you have seen before, just in a different order, and that makes all the difference. Because this time, we are examining each of the Sephirot in Malchut, the world we live in. And while we have worked with all of these cards before, having done all this work, in this, the final week, we will end where we have started and see the world with new eyes, with new clarity. Because we will see the world we live in from a place of Sovereignty—with a certainty that this is where we belong and with an openness to all its wonders, all the miracles that daily attend us.

  The hardest work is behind us. The seventh week is a kind of Sabbath. A time to look back on the last six weeks, on what we have learned and how we have changed. It is a week of integrating all the Sephirotic energies, seeing how they are reflections of the immanence of the Divine, in our final preparation before the fiftieth day, when we open our heart, our mind, and our entire sensorium to an experience of the transcendence of the Divine in our lives and in the world.

  Expressing Sovereignty isn’t lording things over others; it’s rather the opposite. It’s a taking of Responsibility for ourselves, our actions, and our feelings, not as blame but as a celebration. Because when you take full Responsibility for yourself, you can give others full Responsibility for themselves. It means stepping out of the roles of victim, rescuer, or persecutor and stepping up to accept our mission of partnership with the Divine to do our unique part in the work of healing the world with a sense of joy. It means acting from a place of Self-Possessed Dignity whatever the world places before us, receiving it all with the knowledge that the whole world (including ourselves) is filled with the Divine Presence.

  Day 43: Chesed of Malchut

  Directing the Flow with Nobility

  Today is the forty-third day of the Omer, which is six weeks and one day of the Omer.

  What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

  “WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW,” MUSIC BY BURT BACHARACH, LYRICS BY HAL DAVID

  Malchut is the Sephira we think we know the best, because it’s the world we live in. But because we see it every day, it’s easy to lose sight of the miracle of Divine Flow that fills the world with Love and light at every moment. One of the faces of Malchut is t
he Shekinah, the feminine Presence of the Divine, and in our prayers, we ask the Shekinah to shelter us in Her wings, surrounding us with her peace.

  Malchut receives all the energies from the higher Sephirot, so it is often compared to the moon, which has no light of its own but only reflects the light of the sun. Despite having no light of its own, Malchut represents wholeness because all the other energies merge and are expressed in the world of Malchut. And first among them is Chesed, because, as the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song tells us, the world really needs it. As we are both recipients of Divine Chesed and partners in Creation with the Divine, it’s up to us to keep the Flow going.

  In the week of Malchut, the week of our inner Nobility, and on this day of Chesed, we look at how we express Love and kindness out of our most authentic selves in all the facets of our lives—with our beloved, with our families, friends, colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, strangers, rivals, enemies . . . everyone. The work of the forty-third day is not unlike the Buddhist metta meditation of Loving-kindness, as discussed way back on Day 6.

  Today we experience as much Love as we can take and share as much Love as we can give, from the depth of who we are.

  Day 43: Chesed of Malchut in Atzilut

  The Four and Ten of Wands

  _________within_________

  The man in the Ten of Wands has taken on a burden that weighs him down. The staves he has gathered block his view, so he cannot see what is ahead of him. But he isn’t even trying to look ahead, since his head is bowed. He sees ahead with an inner view that is motivating him ever forward: he is motivated by Love. So that while it may seem as though he is oppressed (and this is often a reading of the Ten of Wands in divination), he is in fact filled with a Nobility that gives him the strength to bear this burden.

  Imagine the man in the Ten of Wands as Moses, climbing down Mount Sinai with the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. He is motivated by his Love of the people and his Love of God. And he expects to be greeted by a celebration not unlike what we see in the Four of Wands, since the giving of the Torah at Sinai is the marriage of the people to God, with the Torah as the wedding contract.

  Yet when Moses arrived with the tablets of the Law, the people were indeed celebrating, but they weren’t celebrating what he expected. I remember the first time I came home from a Vipassana retreat; my boyfriend and my roommate were eagerly awaiting my return to hear all about it. I was eager to see them and to share my experience with them. Not only had I experienced profound realizations, I’d also spent a week in the fresh air of the Japanese countryside where at night the silence was total and the sky was filled with stars because there were not even lights from nearby villages. During the day, since most of the retreat was silent, there was also little in the way of aural distraction. I’d eaten only vegetarian fare, so my body was letting go of toxins.

  Coming down from this “mountain” setting was a shock. When I opened the door to my apartment, I was overcome by the stench of tobacco. My roommate smoked. And my boyfriend, like many Japanese, smoked like a chimney, even though he was a health professional. I wasn’t Moses coming down from the mountain to find the people had betrayed their promise. But I felt the enormity of the distance between the top of the mountain I’d been to in my meditation and life on the ground at home.

  The challenge of this day, and of all the days ahead, is to live with the consciousness of the encounter on the mountaintop, to live the changes our work has made in our character with radiance, accepting and directing the Love and Flow we receive, right here in the world of Malchut, the world of our imperfection as it is.

  The Four of Wands reminds us that this is the challenge of relationship—to live with all the Love and radical amazement one feels under the chuppah, even as we face the daily Responsibilities of being in relationship.

  Day 43: Chesed of Malchut in B’riah

  The Four and Ten of Cups

  _________within_________

  Malchut receives, and Chesed gives. The young man in the Four of Cups sits in meditation and the Flow, well, Flows. He doesn’t cling to it. He doesn’t push it away. He observes with equanimity and accepts, knowing that like the rainbow in the Ten of Cups, emotions are evanescent, coming and going like the weather. And there is Nobility in this acceptance.

  Like the Buddha, he sits in meditation, watching the Flow of emotions, the Flow of time, and the everchanging nature of reality in Malchut. In fourth-century India, some nine hundred years after the Buddha lived, there was a collection of stories called the Panchatantra that supposedly was composed or collected to teach three young princes the virtues necessary to be a good king. It was not a mystical treatise; it focused entirely on ethics. But even the Buddha taught that the foundation for reaching the heights in meditation was having a strong base of sila, ethics and moral conduct.

  Malchut is often translated as Kingship (and today Queenship), Nobility, Royalty, and, the idea I like best, Sovereignty. Each of us is a Sovereign, and in our examination of our virtues, ethical behavior, and moral conduct over the last weeks, we have learned how best to channel the Flow of Love that the Divine continuously sends our way, and channeling that Flow does not mean just letting the cups line up on the ground in front of us as they come, as in the Four of Cups. It is our job to participate in the Flow by Generously sharing our gifts. And in sharing we also step into a Leadership role that demonstrates to others the path of Generosity.

  The family in the Ten of Cups is grateful and takes joy in the blessings they have Received, even though those blessings appear modest. The parents know that blessings do not end with them and that they are a part of the Flow of generations; their children play before them, secure in the knowledge that they are Loved. Just as a Sovereign understands that their Responsibility is not only to today but also to generations to come.

  This may be the greatest gift, contributing to the Flow of Love across the generations. While I am not a biological parent, I know that I have made just such a contribution. And I write this book in the hopes that it too will contribute to the ability of readers for generations to come to Receive Love and participate in the Flow.

  Day 43: Chesed of Malchut in Yetzirah

  The Four and Ten of Swords

  _________within_________

  We first saw this pair on the seventh day, but in the opposite order. For me this reordered combination is about seeing our demons and defenses in meditation and recognizing them without reacting so that we chip away at their power. I noted that like Rasputin, these defenses are hard to kill, if indeed they ever die. But by observing without reaction and from a place of Love and Kindness, we become a Sovereign over them.

  We’ve learned from trying to crack the shell of these klipot, these negative thought patterns and defenses, though, that within them, at the root, is a spark of the Divine that has been severed from its origin. We can think of our neurotic adaptations as klipot—shells that we created to help us cope when we were less able to face the reality of Malchut. This coping mechanism was a kind of retreat of the Self, which was protected by the neurotic habits, defenses, and beliefs we took on until they hardened and hid the Self from us and others.

  When we see ourselves with the clarity of Yetzirah and the Loving-kindness of Chesed, we can see through the defenses of the Ten of Swords to the place where the Self has retreated in the Four of Swords. And that place is unsullied, just as the soul we have been given is always pure. This is one of the secrets of Chesed that is within Malchut—a secret hinted at in the stained-glass window of the chapel pictured in the Four of Swords, where the word pax, Latin for “peace,” appears.

  Perhaps in your work over these weeks you have had opportunity to see through your defenses to this place of peace. Perhaps you have learned that when faced with a defense, you’re actually seeing a part of yourself that has broken off from wholeness and that by seeing its origin with joy and Love, you help heal your brokenness.

  In doing this work, you may have alread
y started to experience this kind of healing. You may feel a sense of freedom from these old patterns. And because you are operating from a place of Love, there is no regret or desire to shut the door on the past because you know that having been in that place you can empathize with and be of benefit to others. This empathy confers on you a kind of Nobility.

  Do not despair if you sometimes still feel under the power of these klipot. You have the tools to work with them. The double-bladed sword of insight and Love will ultimately set you free. The tyranny of unconscious neuroses is dead: long live the Sovereign.

  Day 43: Chesed of Malchut in Assiyah

  The Four and Ten of Pentacles

  _________within_________

  So here in the week of Sovereignty, I want to note again the crown on top of the head of the man in the Four of Pentacles. And point out that while we can see the entire Tree of Life in the Ten of Pentacles, in the Four of Pentacles, we are in fact seeing a piece of the Tree in the four Pentacles held by the seated man, which represent four Sephirot. This image shows us one Sephira that we have not talked about at all in the Counting of the Omer, since it’s not one of the lower seven. Keter, the uppermost Sephira, means “crown,” and mapped on the human body, it is placed exactly where we see it in the Four of Pentacles, on top of the seated man’s head—revealing his Sovereignty. So rather than go with the interpretation of the card that speaks to miserliness, I want to look at it in this pairing as the King (which in Jewish folklore always refers to God) in the Four of Pentacles giving us a sign—holding up the Sephirot for us to see and reach for. It’s a message saying that the material world is not disconnected from the spiritual world, that in fact the blessings of material reality in Malchut all Flow from the Divine Source.