Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  The path that leads out fortunately also leads in. The Ace gives us the gift of knowing that we can venture forth and then retreat to a place of safety and comfort. We can move out with courage and confidence knowing that we have a place to which we can return.

  Rounded archways are mystical. Many of us, I think, have had the experience of passing through an arch and feeling that we have entered a different level of consciousness. It’s one of the reasons that Romanesque cathedrals have always been more spiritually moving to some of us than Gothic ones whose arches are vaulted. On Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles as you drive north to Malibu, you come through a dark tunnel and suddenly find you are out in the light, seeing the shining waters of the Pacific Ocean. At the right time of day, the light on the water is blinding. It is as if you have transcended to another level of being. What is suggested in the Ace is that when we move out of our garden of familiarity and habit, we move to a place of higher understanding.

  Two of Pentacles

  When we look at the Two, which is Chochma, the supernal father, and the right temple, we are reminded that Pentacles have to do with the earth. The farther down the Tree we move, the closer to earth Pentacles come, the more comfortable the energies seem to be. (When we look at the Suit of Wands we will find the reverse. Wands, being airy and refined in their nature, grow increasingly troubled as we move down toward the earth.) But up here, in the supernal triangle, the top three vessels of the Tree of Life, we see that the Two of Pentacles is an uneasy figure. If we recall that the number-two sefirah is the place of relatedness, this becomes even clearer. In a relationship, what is harder to balance than material resources? What causes more difficulties than the sharing of funds, financial responsibilities, physical space, and privacy issues? The divorce of two lovely people who can no longer live together may be perfectly amicable until it comes to the division of the property. The boundlessness of Keter has given way to the zodiac, the infinite is now the finite number twelve. Allocation of resources is suddenly necessary.

  What are we to make of this Two of Pentacles? What we see in the image is a somewhat foolish-looking young man with an absurd hat. He is out of balance; he is trying to juggle and not doing a very good job of it. Maybe he’s trying to figure out how to pay Peter without borrowing from Paul. There is a turbulent sea behind him. The ship looks as if it might capsize. And he is dancing as fast as he can just trying to keep it together.

  Obviously this is not a place any of us would choose to be. It’s the card of ambivalence, of disorganization, of not having things in balance. The image suggests not knowing which foot our weight is on. Do we want to stay in or get out of this job, situation, relationship? Interestingly, the pentacles are held loosely within what looks like a figure eight of green yarn. What this is, in disguise, is a figure called the Holy Lemniscate, the infinity symbol that appears, among other places, above the head of the Magician, the powerful number-one card of the Major Arcana. In that card, the Holy Lemniscate appears firm and taut. What it represents is the eternal balance of opposites and the creative energy that moves back and forth between dark and light, male and female, positive and negative, odd and even, Eastern and Western. It’s a dynamic, challenging force that invites creative approaches to the resolution of opposites. By its shape, it represents an energy that never dissipates but which cycles back and forth forever.

  So why is the Holy Lemniscate we see in the Two of Pentacles so slack and useless? Because the figure is interfering with it! The message is “Get your hands out of the way! Let the universe work!” Part of the meaning of this card is, “Have a little more faith in the universe. You do not have to do it all. You are not personally responsible for the law of gravity. Things will fall where they’re supposed to fall without your help.”

  This can be a card of confused sexual identity or of bisexuality, if the person is uneasy with being bisexual. The card can represent any kind of confusion and the acute discomfort ambivalence brings.

  The Two of Pentacles is the first of what I will call the separation cards. Unlike the figures in most of the Minor Arcana, the figure in the Two is not pictured in the landscape, but on a stage before it. He has literally separated himself from the action. Although it might seem necessary that the card be drawn this way since no one can stand juggling in a raging sea, we will see many other images in the Tarot involving the critical meeting place of water and land that reflect integration and union rather than clear-cut demarcation. Further, the platform on which the figure is standing is not drawn to suggest a boardwalk, much less a beach. It is clearly the artist’s intention to show an abstracted stage, so we must ask why. What is she conveying here?

  It seems to me that the separation represented in the Two of Pentacles is more than just physical. It is not that the figure merely happens to be set apart from the sea. The isolation feels existential, a deep truth about the very existence of the juggler. Sensing the danger of the rolling waves (being overwhelmed by debt, unable to solve the problems of some imbalance of his life) he does not ask the relevant questions: “Why is this happening? How am I responsible?” and “What am I to learn from this?” His response is consistently inappropriate. First, he separates his being from the perceived danger and his feelings about that danger. Second, his mitts are in the midst of the Holy Lemniscate: he exacerbates his difficulties, perseverating in obsessive, nonproductive behavior. He can juggle them from left to right; he can juggle them from right to left. There they still are—two, but only two, pentacles. Could this be why he is wearing a dunce cap?

  Interestingly, an important principle of the Tarot in general comes across in the Two of Pentacles. From a Jungian view, each of us has everything pictured in the entire Tarot deck within us. In addition, every card represents polarized extremes. This is why it is very difficult to say that a card is a good card or a bad card. Each card, properly understood, is both.

  Let’s talk about this principle in relation to the Two of Pentacles. How can ambivalence possibly be positive? Ever? The answer is that sometimes the best thing we can do is stay confused and stay off balance. Because this condition is so uncomfortable, we often move out of that state just to be out of it. We’ll make any decision at all, just to avoid being with our ambivalence, just to be free from the discomfort. That’s always a mistake, even if the decision happens to be a good one.

  When we’re in a place that is ambivalent and uncomfortable, we are in a place of enormous growth potential. Inertia is the enemy of growth. Comfort, uninterrupted, is the enemy of growth. If we are not thrown a little off balance from time to time, what is going to move us to the next level of understanding? What is going to motivate us? When we are uneasy, if we can stay with it long enough to hear the sound of our own higher self—higher consciousness, soul, spirit, divine energy, whatever we want to call it—then and only then growth can occur.

  There are people, for example, and we’ve all known some, who move from one relationship to the next. Sometimes they don’t even move out of one relationship until they have another one in place. They find it too painful to close the door at night and hear no sounds except their own and to know that they are truly alone. Some people find that experience so frightening that instead of staying with it and exploring why being alone is so threatening, they move immediately to a more comfortable place. Nothing is learned, nothing is gained, nothing has changed, which is why second and third marriages often last less and less long. It’s not unusual for a first marriage to last ten years, a second four years, and a third six months. But when we are willing to stay uncomfortable, off balance, not in control of the situation, we can learn something about ourselves and not continue replicating our mistakes. This growth can fairly be called wisdom, which is what Chochma means. On the earth plane, which Pentacles represent, our wisdom often comes to us at the price of our ease.

  Three of Pentacles

  We move to the Three of Pentacles and to Binah, the supernal mother. The Three of Pentacles, like all th
rees, is very magical: the union of opposites to bring forth something new. We have male and we have female, and when we bring them together, we bring forth a child. That child is half its father, half its mother, and at the same time uniquely and distinctly itself. This is magical, mysterious, beyond explanation. So the Three always represents that which comes forth from the dynamic interchange of opposites that is more than either of the two by itself. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It represents a step forward in growth: the synthesis in the Hegelian formula of thesis and antithesis coming together to form a synthesis (which is also a new thesis). Further, we shall find that the threes of the Minor Arcana always represent the fulfillment of the suit.

  What we have in the Three of Pentacles is a wonderful image of being of service in the world. Kahlil Gibran tells us that work is love made visible. In the Three of Pentacles, we have someone who is working in the world—a sculptor, an artist. As he is working in a cathedral, the spiritual symbolism is explicit. Furthermore, he is standing on a bench that literally elevates work, raising it to a higher level. The artisan is not alone. The remaining two figures are representatives of the clergy and the court. Clearly, the orientations and values of the three must be different and perhaps at odds. The interest of the artist is purely aesthetic and of the priest, religious—is the work in keeping with church doctrine? The perspective of the court may be the aggrandizement of the monarch—will this cathedral be the finest in all the land? Or perhaps the concern is “How much is this going to cost the king?” (We must say it. He may be holding the blueprint or plan, but the guy is clearly a clown.) We have then a great challenge depicted in this card. For the first time in the Minor Arcana, there is the suggestion of community—relatedness, contact, communication. People are getting together and consulting as to the best way to do something that will be of benefit to all. It is, however, a situation fraught with great danger. If accommodation cannot be reached among the three, the great work goes undone. What is needed for the cathedral to be completed is the willingness of each to restrict the exercise of personal will and to discipline the ego for the sake of the greater good. Binah, we are reminded, is associated with Saturn, the planet of restriction and discipline. (As Binah refers to the left temple, it meets Chochma, the right temple, at the place of the third eye in the chakra system. A useful, if challenging, meditation would be to bring the images of the Two and Three of Pentacles together and release into what is revealed at this energy center.)

  We find as well in the Three of Pentacles a specific symbol of the union of opposites. The three pentacles themselves form an upward-pointing triangle representing the “element” of fire, spirit, that which moves up and strives to attain higher planes of being. That is male energy. Below it we find a downward-pointing triangle suggesting water, that goes not higher, but deeper, deeper, deeper, to the deepest of mysteries, deepest of feelings, the depths of the unconscious. That is female energy. If we slide them to a point of overlap, we discover the Seal of Solomon, the Star of David—the incredible symbol of uniting polar opposites. Miraculously, the water does not put out the fire; the fire does not boil out the water. Instead, we have something new and therefore a symbol of totality, union, and oneness.

  As always, the most profound meaning of the card relates to our internal growth. From a Jungian perspective, the three figures represent different facets of ourselves. Each of us has within a creative being, and each of us also has a part of ourselves concerned with protecting our spirituality and a part that is practical and worldly. As we seek our true work in the world, how are we to juggle, coordinate, resolve these three sides of ourselves? If I paint, can it be the pure vision of my fancy? Suppose what is expressed is dark, bizarre, or violent? Can the part of me that wants to serve God accept such work? And will it bring me fame and prestige? Will it sell well enough to pay the bills?

  We have said that each card of the Tarot carries both a light and a dark possibility, a positive and a negative charge. (As Rachel Pollack says, the good cards are the ones that tell the truth.) The negative of the Three of Pentacles is the suggestion of interference. In that case, the demands of church and state prevent the artist’s full expression—indicating not cooperation, but compromise. We all remember that a camel is a horse put together by a committee.

  Finally, however, the Three of Pentacles is an inspiring card, a true three in fulfillment of the suit, and a card of genuine service in the world.

  Four of Pentacles

  Now we move to Chesed, loving-kindness, which is the fourth sefirah and the central vessel on the right-hand pillar. It is the place where we give and receive. This is another troubled energy in the Suit of Pentacles. Here we see a figure, once again isolated, clinging to a pentacle. He has two others trapped under his feet and a fourth balanced on his head. This is the guy with the brand new Jaguar. He can’t drive it anywhere because someone might run into him on the freeway. He can’t park it anywhere because someone might rip it off. He can’t even take it to the supermarket because a careless person throwing open their door might scratch the new paint job. So he’s got this new car, and what he can do with it is wax it every weekend. Wash it and wax it and polish it. So does he have it, or does it have him?

  Not to be sexist, the Four of Pentacles is equally the woman who has the large diamond solitaire. She wouldn’t dream of wearing it to work. That would risk arousing the envy of her coworkers, who have nothing so grand, and alienating her from the group. She certainly isn’t going to wear it when she goes out in the evening to the theater; there could be someone in any public place whose purpose in being there is to scout for such treasure! (Then they follow you home, knock you over the head, and rip you off—unless of course you’re on the subway or a bus, which saves them the time and trouble of following you home.) She can, to be sure, keep it in her night-table drawer, wear it at home, or simply look at it. After all, she didn’t buy it to show off; she just loves looking at it for herself. But then she has to clean her own house—can’t have a cleaning person poking around while you’re at work, not with a two-karat diamond in the house. Unless you hide it. But you have to hide it really well. And remember where you hid it. (I have a cousin who hid a rope of pearls with an opal catch so well that she couldn’t find it for three years!) Because you can’t write it down—someone could find the paper. Finally, what she can do is wear it locally when she has dinner at the homes of wealthy friends. She just has to leave work early enough to get to the bank forty-five minutes before it closes so she can get to her safe-deposit box. Sometimes that’s stressful—her boss calls an unexpected late meeting and traffic is heavy. Talk about having fun! Does she have it, this brilliant square-cut diamond, or does it have her?

  The figure in the Four of Pentacles should listen more carefully to Gershwin’s Porgy: “Got no car, I got no house, I got no misery!…The folks with plenty o’ plenty” (as opposed to “plenty o’ nothin’”), he sings, “got a lock on their door. ’Fraid somebody’s a-goin’ to rob them while they’re out a-makin’ more. What for?” The problem with the material world is that when we forget the star that is within the coin and we start clasping the material object for itself, it starts to own us. We know so many people, all of us, who are house poor. What’s that all about? “I have this wonderful house. I love my home. Of course I can’t afford to go anywhere or do anything because I couldn’t make my house payments if I did. I haven’t traveled or gone to the theater or bought any books or records in five years, but I did buy a new couch. I dust the piano three times a week.” So do I have a wonderful home, or does this wonderful home have me?

  The Four of Pentacles figure cannot move, cannot even move his head without losing what he has accumulated. What he has gotten for himself has cost him his expression, his freedom, his growth.

  Let us remember the words God said to Moses before the burning bush: “Take off your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is holy.” This is being said to each of us all the time. It is the
same message: “Be aware of the star in the coin.” Be aware of the holiness in the earth on which you stand. We are always in the presence of the burning bush, in the presence of God. Yet here we see a figure who has separated his feet from the holy ground with things. He has let the accumulation of material things come between him and his divine relationship with the creation. His crown chakra is covered; he’s got a pentacle blocking it; nothing can come through. His heart chakra is covered; nothing can touch his heart, and he can express no feeling. In locking out the energy flow between chakras and the universe, he has isolated himself with the things he has garnered.

  This separation is represented as well in the background of the Four of Pentacles. It is in fact the second of the separation cards. The immobilized figure, of service to no one, sits far from the city and therefore from potential danger. He has not retreated to the country, however, and the healing powers of nature. He has retreated from life.

  The Four of Pentacles, then, is a card of rigidity, a card of overwhelming need for stability and security. Of course the approach of hanging on doesn’t work. The crown and heart may be covered but the back remains exposed and vulnerable. You can make sure you have enough, in material terms, and you can guard your security in any way you like, but there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that you won’t be struck by lightning, or that a phone call won’t come at four in the morning, or that you won’t be hit by a car while crossing the street. If our primary concern in life is retaining gifts, maintaining the status quo, we are out of harmony with the flow of the universe. Gifts are meant to be used, shared, imparted (the Yetzer Ha-tov, or impulse toward good). When we hold back what we have received for ourselves alone (Yetzer Ha-rah, evil impulse), we sacrifice ourselves to a goal that is both unworthy and unrealizable.