Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  In the Seven of Cups, then, is the suggestion of fear and of unrealistic hopes. It is a card of expecting something that is totally beyond the realm of reality. The good and bad news is that whatever we anticipate is coming from within; it’s not a reflection of anything in the world external to our psyches. Suppose the Seven of Cups turns up when you are trying to envision your first day of work on a new job. Any number of fantasies can go through your head! “Gee, maybe this will be the career move for me. After six months, there’ll be promotions and raises, and by the end of my life I’ll be president of the company in the big corner office with windows on both sides.” Or else, “Maybe nobody will like me, and I won’t have anybody to eat lunch with. Maybe I’ll be fired within a week, or maybe they’ll cut my pay.” All of these hopes and fears, the Seven of Cups tells us, are our own projections and imaginings. If you are awaiting the results of your medical exam, and you just know the lab tests are going to come up positive, hope for the Seven of Cups. It tells you that what is masquerading as intuition is only fear. On the other hand, if you meet the man of your dreams at a party some Friday night and just know that he is the man who will marry you and father your five unconceived children, temper your expectations if the Seven of Cups presents itself.

  A positive aspect of this card deals with creativity. Novelist Vladimir Nabokov has said that the first fiction writer was the boy who cried wolf—the one who had the imagination to cry, “Wolf! Wolf!” when there was no wolf. This is the card of creative imagination.

  Finally, some see the figure of the Seven of Cups as a magician conjuring the vision before him. If this is so, his strained demeanor suggests that he is a novice. Yet until we can conceive what it is we wish to create, until we can envision what we mean to manifest, we have little hope of realizing it. The victory of Netzach resides in our successful reification of our fantasies. What we see more powerfully represented, however, is the danger of being out of balance, even if it is on the right pillar of the Tree, the Pillar of Mercy. Netzach and Cups both carry our emotions. We have the suit of feeling in the sefirah of feeling, and that’s simply too much unchecked feeling. When we look at the Eight of Cups (which combines the feelings of Cups with the mental energy of Hod) or the Seven of Swords (which places the mental suit in Netzach, the vessel of passion), we can see the benefits of balancing thought and emotion.

  Eight of Cups

  The Eight is associated with Hod, the sefirah of reasoning and intellect. It shows a figure walking away from eight cups that are stacked nicely, but in a formation that suggests lack of completion. He’s walking alone, but with determination, courage, and great energy, as suggested by the red of his cape and boots. He is walking to a place of higher ground, to a dark mountain at the edge of indeterminate waters. He walks by night in the light of the moon, which is shown in two phases. Or perhaps it is day, and the darkness is due to a solar eclipse. Is it a partial eclipse, or will the moon completely obliterate the sun as his journey progresses?

  The first question we must ask about the figure in the Eight of Cups is, “Why has he turned his back on eight cups? Why is he walking away from so much?” The most persuasive positive answer is that he is the consummate idealist, someone who will not compromise his ideals. He is not willing to settle for what most of us would see as plenty, and he has the energy and intent to climb higher. On the other hand, there is an equally persuasive answer that reflects the negative charge of the Eight of Cups, and that is that the figure is the consummate perfectionist. As the cups are stacked, there’s a gap in the middle. The pattern is not perfect. “Not perfect? Not good enough! I’m out of here. I’m leaving, and I’ll keep going until I see something perfect.” Herein lies the flaw of the Eight of Cups, because there is no perfection in this world. If you’re going to leave your job because the water in the cooler isn’t cold enough, or if you’re going to leave a relationship because you don’t think your lover is tidy enough, you may keep walking away from good things all of your life.

  There is a place for perfectionism in our lives. If in our efforts we strive for that standard, knowing it is not attainable, we may achieve a quality beyond what we would otherwise manifest. The problem with perfectionism is in viewing it as a realizable or even necessary goal and applying it in the wrong areas of our lives. Nothing, for example, needs to be perfectly clean, and no one can expect be perfectly happy, or kind, or serene.

  An interpretation I particularly like, which never would have occurred to anyone with my temperament, is knowing when we’ve had enough of something. “I’m leaving, not because it’s not wonderful, but because I’ve done that. I’ve had that experience. And now it’s time to move on.” The relationship, job, or career has come to an end, and it’s time to let it go. “I love this house. I’ve been here for twenty years. I raised my children here. Now they are all gone, and I’ve got five bedrooms, and I’m living here alone. I’ll always be glad to have lived here, but it’s time to sell and find a small apartment in a building with an elevator!”

  Another interpretation suggests that the figure pictured is simply continuing his process of cup gathering to complete the set. Where do we suppose the first eight come from, and how did they get there? Still another casts the figure as searching for the Holy Grail—the true passion of his life, perhaps. The first eight turned out to be only ordinary cups; he is not giving up the search, however, certain that the next cup will be the long-sought object of his desires. A third view is that the “missing cup” lies hidden in the cape of the retreating figure.

  Predictably, the interpretation of the Eight of Cups that seems to me to be the most profound is the one that goes within. What do we have when we move feelings into conscious mind, Cups into Hod? Introspection, reflection, an effort to understand our own emotions. The dark mountain is the unconscious, what Jung calls the shadow. We make the journey to this place by the dim, half-light of the moon. And we make it alone. We can’t take our closest friend; we can’t take a spouse, a parent, child, or sibling. We can’t even take our therapist! When we enter our own mystery, we return to the experience that is preverbal, the quality of which cannot be captured in the loosely woven net of language and therefore cannot be shared. Whether we make the journey through dream work, meditation, active imagination, or ritual, we must go alone when we enter into our own darkness. And the darkness always brings us to a higher place of self.

  Whether we go by pale lunar light (as in lunacy) or in the darkness of eclipse, the clear light of day gives way to the eerie light of the moon, which invites the projections of our own unconscious. The mountain, representing our higher self, is in darkness. We cannot go high without going deep. We cannot skip the painful stages of confronting our own shadow and use the “spiritual” to mask work left undone, truths left masked. As the mountain reveals, the elevation and the darkness are inextricably bound. Mercury, the messenger god and the planet associated with Hod, suggests here the communication between thought (Hod) and feeling (Cups), between conscious intent and unconscious mystery. And Hod, which means “glory” or “splendor,” is at its most glorious when properly infused with feeling.

  The top of the right and left hips, associated with Netzach and Hod, meet in the solar plexus. This gut-level reality in the chakra system is reflected in both the danger of projection seen in the Seven of Cups and the descent into our own mystery, reflected in the Eight.

  Nine of Cups

  The Nine of Cups is another card in which there is more than meets the eye. We see a figure sitting with his feet planted far apart, cross-armed, in front of a tall table with nine full cups stacked behind him. He’s wearing a red hat with a red plume and red socks. What a guy! He’s got it all! Why shouldn’t he be smug and complacent? This is the card of getting into bed with a spoon and the whole carton of ice cream, taking the phone off the hook, turning on your favorite meaningless television rerun, and refusing to be disturbed. It’s the card that says, “You know, I’ve been striving and grappling and
groping and growing all month. Time for a break.”

  The Nine of Cups reminds us to enjoy the good things in life. It’s dog heaven. It’s recognizing our animal nature: “I just want a hot bath. I don’t want to communicate, I don’t want to study, and I don’t want to learn anything even if I don’t have to study to learn it. I just want to kick back.” This card is an admission of part of who we are. We need, every once in a while, simply to have a good time. Sometimes we just want to be by ourselves and sometimes, downright selfish.

  Another possibility is that the Nine of Cups is a kind of magician. The suggestion is that the table is so high because it is an altar, and the figure’s pride is the result of his having successfully conjured the cups upon it.

  However, as we look at the card a question eventually occurs to us. Why is that blue tablecloth so long? Many people naturally refer to it as a curtain and not a tablecloth at all! Is something hidden behind it?

  At this point we have to remember that the Nine of Cups falls in the sefirah of Yesod, associated with the Moon and the unconscious. Whatever is behind that blue tablecloth is unconscious, hidden from our awareness. The negative of the card, then, has to do with sweeping things under the rug, distracting ourselves with the pleasures of life, and involving ourselves, once again, in denial. Very often when this card turns up, especially if it turns up reversed, we’re dealing with addiction. I define addiction as whatever we do, not for its own sake, but for the sake of altering consciousness rather than dealing with it. If we take the position that there is a card for every experience, the Nine of Cups reversed represents using whatever is in the cups—whether it’s wine, cocaine, or food—as a distraction from whatever we don’t want to face, from whatever is behind the blue curtain to which we have our back. Years ago I did a short reading for a stranger at a psychic fair. When the Nine of Cups emerged upside down, I suggested she find a twelve-step program. She replied with amazement that she had just gone to her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

  We don’t necessarily distract ourselves with something ingestible. We can do it with the telephone, movies, house cleaning, intellectual pursuits, charity work, or professional advancement. The particular choice of distraction isn’t important; what is relevant is that we are using one thing to keep from experiencing something else. So when the card is upside down, it’s a kind of red flag, in my practice. What am I not facing that I need to be dealing with? What have I swept under the rug and from what am I distracting myself? Workaholics, as the coined word implies, have a lot in common with alcoholics.

  A related interpretation has to do with the fact that the figure in the Nine of Cups, while presenting himself as jaunty, is all alone. He has more than enough for many but no one with whom to share it. The crossed arms seem to say, “I don’t care,” but I for one don’t believe him; do you? We have explored the Four of Cups; we recognize the defensive closing off of the channel between the heart and the solar plexus. Perhaps as one friend suggested he is in need of bravado because with all he has—a table so crammed with cups there is room for no more—he’s turned his back on everything. If the Suit of Cups represents love, why is his back to it, leaving him, finally, a lonely figure? And why does he pretend to have all the cups when we know there is a tenth? For the answer to that, we would have to look under the blue cloth.

  Yesod is associated with the axis between the genitals and the base of the spine connecting our most primitive chakras, those of survival and procreation. It is called “foundation,” and like the unconscious, serves as the foundation of our lives. The unconscious, hidden behind the blue “curtain” in the Nine of Cups, will prove the truth of our lives, red cocked hat with matching socks notwithstanding!

  Ten of Cups

  Finally, we come to Malchut where we find the Ten of Cups, and a very joyful card it is. It is the card of a happy family. In the Ten of Pentacles we also saw a family, but the card seemed cluttered; the pentacles seemed to be interfering with interpersonal relationships. Here we see a happy family, people who are out in nature, in the open. It’s not just that they have a great deal, but that they are enjoying what they have. The couple direct their attention to a rainbow filled with cups above a pleasant landscape, through which a stream runs before a nice enough, big enough house. They appreciate all they have received.

  What is a rainbow? The rainbow first appears in the Bible after the flood. God creates a rainbow as a pledge to Noah that He will never again destroy the world. So the rainbow is the symbol of peace after the storm, of God’s covenant with us for perpetuity.

  The couple stand close together, the man’s arm around the woman’s waist. They are of equal height, suggesting a relationship of parity rather than domination. They are perhaps the couple we saw in the Two, now seasoned, their love matured. They no longer face each other, gazing drunkenly into one another’s eyes, but, arms extended to the world at large, share a vision. Looking in the same direction, they see the world in the same way. They have found joy on the earth plane of Malchut within the real confines of family life, not just in some imagined dream of bliss. The children are dancing unselfconsciously. They feel safe and loved and happy. The triumph of the Suit of Cups is the joy and the wonder of feeling in this world, in Malchut, the kingdom, the planet Earth. If a man’s home is his castle, the man pictured feels himself master of all he surveys—and so, clearly, does the woman. They are the sovereigns of their lives in the Kingdom of Malchut. Malchut is associated with the soles of the feet; skipping and playing is just the way feet should be used by children! And the mature couple seem to know that the ground on which they stand is holy.

  Yet there is further development possible and ultimately necessary, for we find ourselves once again looking at a separation card. The family unit takes love beyond the romantic, broadens its circle, but still those loved are separated from the rest. It is tempting, natural, even good that we protect, love, and sequester those closest to us. For love to be complete, however, it must be inclusive. We are all one: connected or not by blood, we are connected by soul. Later in our study we will discover a card that suggests, as Arthur Miller says, that they “are all our sons.” (Feel free to search the cards and find it for yourself! Peeking ahead is not only allowed, it is encouraged!)

  CHAPTER 5

  Swords: The Edge of Truth

  AS I SUGGESTED in the chapter on Pentacles, we each have certain Tarot suits with which we are particularly attuned. Anyone who denies that this is the case is not being honest. If we were all in such perfect balance that we related equally well to every suit and every card in the deck, we would have no reason to be on Earth. We are here because we have work to do, and the work, as suggested both by Kabbalah and Tarot, is to get ourselves into balance. Of the suits to which I am particularly attuned, the Suit of Swords comes second, which may seem downright perverse. The Swords are very difficult cards. This is not a suit where people have a good time. However, we learn some of our most valuable lessons through our pain; comfort carries a tendency toward inertia. Most of us committed to personal growth are in sympathy with this suit even if we don’t like it very much.

  The Suit of Swords, which deals with intellect and determination, is the suit of the truth seeker. It is the suit of awareness and understanding. T. S. Eliot writes, “We had the experience, but we missed the meaning.” Here in the Suit of Swords, we are going, by gum or by golly, to get the meaning.

  The Suit of Swords represents the willingness to experience whatever it is we need to experience to get to the truth. And the truth, rumor has it, can hurt. The truth will set you free, but as Werner Erhardt adds, “First it will piss you off.” Some of us will pursue the truth irrespective of pain, regardless of cost, submitting to confusion and despair, on only a promise of clearer understanding. Conversely, if we are drowning in pain and are thrown a rope, we will not catch hold of it if we know the rope to be a lie.

  Because the truth can hurt, in the Suit of Swords we are also dealing with courage. It tak
es enormous valor to go through the pain that is depicted in these images. As each suit has its way to spirit, the way of Swords is not only the way of intellect, the search for objective truth and clarity. It is also the way of courage.

  The Suit of Swords is additionally important for people who are interested in Tarot, because no matter how bright we are, no matter how intuitive we are, how perceptive and deeply feeling, if we haven’t got the commitment to look at our own life intrepidly, we will never learn anything from the cards. It’s amazing to me how many people come for a consultation after driving long distances just to find me. They put in a lot of energy and happily pay my fee, but really don’t want to know. They think they want to know, but they really don’t. What they truly want is to be supported in a belief system that is not serving them well.

  When people literally don’t want to see what is “in the cards” and are not ready to take an honest look at themselves, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do. A cardinal example was a self-proclaimed enlightened being. He was working with a yoga master, meditating and doing yoga seven hours a day. He said to me, “You know, I’ve been divorced three times. Every one of my wives has been a monster. Every one of my wives has mistreated me. In fact, everybody mistreats me. I’m just too good a person, too nice a guy. My own children have chosen to live with their stepmother rather than with me, their own biological father. Not since Job.…” When I looked at his cards I was not stunned to find that this was an inaccurate assessment of his situation. The Two of Swords and the Eight of Swords—the only two cards in the Tarot whose figures are blindfolded—were both in prominent positions, while the immature Page of Swords was the card he chose to represent himself.