Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  Meeting at the throat chakra, the right shoulder of Chesed, and the left of Gevurah invite us to vocalize our experience of the Four and Five of Swords. The former perhaps is a mantra; the latter an anguished sob or a gurgle of satisfaction.

  Six of Swords

  We move to Tiferet, the number-six sefirah on the Tree, the place of woundedness and sacrifice. Here we see another very difficult card, the Six of Swords. We see a ferryman poling a punt across a river. Besides the ferryman, the boat carries two hunched figures. Six swords pierce its prow. What we see is the making of a sad journey, a difficult passage under difficult circumstances.

  The ferryman is usually seen as male. Most people see the hunched, hooded figure as a woman, but there are those (usually men) who see it as a man. Many people don’t even notice the little child, almost as if the child is an appendage of the adult. They are making a serious passage of the kind that all of us have to make from time to time.

  This is one of the more richly ambiguous cards in the deck. What is the relationship among these people, and what is their relation to the journey? Perhaps the important question is, “Which of these three figures am I?” The hunched, hooded figure is looking down and seems deeply depressed. But the surefooted ferryman straddling the thwarts of his boat is looking up, focused on the opposite shore. This is not an endless journey out on the boundless sea; it is finite, the end is in sight, and the tree-studded shore promises pleasant relief when the passage is completed.

  As I have come to see it, this is a card of going through life with a handicap and getting on with it as best we can. The sorrow is that of making our crossing in this world with a disadvantage. Now the handicap can be one of two distinctly different sorts: ones to which we need adapt, and ones of which we should rid ourselves as soon as possible. If this card represents someone who is the subject of physical abuse by a spouse or a lover, and the situation is ongoing and has been passively accepted, that’s too bad. If we are codependent with someone who is abusing drugs or alcohol, and we just find a way to live with it, again, too bad.

  On the other hand, if we are living with a handicap for which there is no cure, then the Six of Swords becomes a card of bravery and endurance. I did a reading for a very beautiful young woman, well dressed—dressed for success, as it were—and one of the questions she asked me was whether she was ever going to regain the sight in her right eye. She said, “It was my own fault. I was using a screwdriver improperly and it slipped and blinded me.” She took the responsibility for what had happened to her. Further, she didn’t say, “And therefore I now have no choice but to get into bed for the rest of my life. I can’t see.” She just treated the handicap as an inconvenience and got on with her life.

  We all have handicaps. Some of them are physical, but some of the most damaging handicaps are mental, spiritual, or emotional. When we look at Ray Charles, Stephen Hawking, Toulouse-Lautrec, Stevie Wonder, we know they’re a whole lot less handicapped than people who can’t feel, can’t love, can’t relate, can’t create, can’t involve themselves in the world. The Six of Swords teaches us how to treat our limitations.

  The Six of Swords can refer to a life circumstance as well as a personal handicap. Sometimes we stay in a bad situation until it becomes a chronic ache, rather than a sharp pain, because we’re pressured not to make changes. “There’s never been divorce in our family! When you marry, you marry for life. Don’t you know anything about loyalty? What do you mean you’re not happy?! You stand by your man! You stay with your woman! We’re a respectable family! We’re part of a community! All you think about is yourself!” There can be a lot of leverage applied to keep us in jobs, even careers, where our lives are severely depressed by the problems we encounter daily. “Everyone in our family has been a doctor! What do you mean you want to be a musician? You’ll be a doctor like your father and your grandfather and great-grandfather. We’re a proud line of physicians.” If we acquiesce to that and become what other people want us to be, our lives can feel like a weighted-down journey with no end in sight.

  What does the card mean when it’s upside down? Well, that depends. Perhaps you have been dealing with a handicap that you are now ready to release. “You know, friend, you’ve blackened my eye for the last time. I’m out of here! After twenty years of having my jaw cracked and my ribs broken, I’m through.” When we turn the card over, the swords fall out of the boat and the water rushes in, the boat seems to sink, and everything goes into a tailspin of confusion. It takes a lot of courage even to get out of a bad situation. It involves a frightening transition. But in that context, the reversal of the card is positive. It means, “I am no longer willing to submit to mere survival. I’m out of it!”

  On the other hand, this card showed up in a reading for a young man who reminded me of Lord Byron. He was perhaps the handsomest man I have ever seen; his face was exquisitely beautiful. He was tall, slender, very bright and articulate, with a terrific sense of humor. He had had polio as a child, and his right arm was withered. His entire life was on hold because of that arm. He was depressed, possibly suicidal. He did not think of himself as someone who was disadvantaged, someone who was somewhat incapacitated, rather inconvenienced. He thought that he was a shriveled right arm. The Six of Swords reversed can represent not dealing with a handicap.

  Again, although I have great appreciation for the twelve-step programs, and I know that Alanon and Coda are of enormous value to many people, these, like any other program or belief system, can be misused. Often when this card comes up reversed, it represents a middle-aged person who hasn’t yet stopped whimpering and whining about some aspect of childhood. We have all had handicapping situations. We all need to address them. We all need to work through them. But we are not to use them as excuses to be less than we can be.

  The river in the Six of Swords might be the River Styx, which in Greek mythology separates the land of the living from the land of the dead. The ferryman would then be Charon and the passengers the dead. In the absence of other cards that would support such an interpretation, however, this is generally not a card of death.

  The river might also be the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. If so, the journey can take us to a place of release from past torment.

  We might also think of these three figures as three aspects of one person. If you have a parent who has Alzheimer’s disease, you may see the hooded figure as the parent whom you are ferrying over the river of forgetfulness to a place where they can remember nothing. As the child of a dementia victim you may wonder whether the shrouded figure represents you as well. You may also feel yourself to be the small child who still needs that parent, as well as the adult who is now responsible for the parent’s safe journey.

  The Six of Swords is a sad, difficult, and complicated card, but it is an energy that allows for a lot of growth. The card belongs to Tiferet in that it calls upon us, as sacrificed gods, to evolve past the ego place of self-pity to a loftier perspective. It’s certainly a card that goes right to the heart, whether we are born into this life with a major handicap or are heir to one with which we need to live. If we can overcome the wounds of our lives and move forward, despite our handicaps, the sacrifice of ego is in the service of our divinity. The sun of Tiferet shines fully on such a life, the sun of enlightenment and joy.

  Seven of Swords

  Now we come to the Seven of Swords, the second-nastiest card of the deck! We are dealing with an extremely unpleasant energy here: the sneaky Seven. Oooh! Here is a figure with a rather enigmatic, purposefully ambiguous facial expression. He is prancing off gleefully with swords that quite clearly do not belong to him. In the background, the tents and the flags suggest an encampment; the swords are the swords of his enemies. This is a card of deceit, betrayal, and treachery. Someone is getting away with something that is not rightfully theirs. Who has this deceitful energy, this capacity to be so dishonest? Every one of you reading this book—as does its author and everyone else. No good pointing to the hat as
proof that the figure is a foreigner. We would all like to project this unattractive characteristic onto someone else, but Kabbalah and Tarot have taught us better. What any of us has within, each of us has within. We are cut from the same cloth.

  It is interesting to recognize the contexts in which this energy can emerge. I did a reading for a woman for whom this card showed up in the immediate future. We couldn’t figure out what it could represent. She called me the next morning to say, “Last night my car was broken into, and my radio was ripped off!” When this card shows up, don’t be above examining the safety of your physical environment. Be aware of where you park your car, whether your door is locked, and who is in a position to hurt you.

  There is dishonesty out in the world. That’s all there is to it. There are people who will mislead you, disadvantage you. If you have confided in a friend, you have empowered that friend, and it is important to be very sure the friend is trustworthy. Will she steal your man? Will he go after your woman? Will a confidence be broken, a trust betrayed? We must ask those questions. It’s important to look around at the people with whom you work. Is there someone who reports to you who has their eye on your job? I had a snake in my nest at one point. When I was the western advertising manager of Omni magazine, I was forced to hire a salesperson because she was a personal friend of the publisher. She was constantly bypassing me and my boss (the national advertising director) and calling the publisher directly at her home, trying to turn every situation to her advantage. So if this card comes up, look at your workplace, your home and ask, “Is there anybody there who can do me harm? Is there somebody who wants my apartment, who’s going to call the police complaining that my dogs are barking, even though I don’t have any dogs? Who is out there trying to get something away from me that is mine?”

  Of course, the other perspective of the card requires asking, “Am I being completely straight, or am I taking advantage of someone? Let me do a little soul searching.” Years ago I did a three-card reading at a psychic fair for a woman who was involved with a new man. The third card was the Seven of Swords. I said, “Be careful; this may be somebody who simply wants to use you in some way. Don’t be too quick to trust him because he may not have your best interests at heart.” Then I added, “But you know, it is also important to recognize that it may be you who has the impulse to take advantage of him. Are you being fair?” At this point she burst out laughing and said, “That’s exactly what it is! I don’t really like him that much, but he’s paying my bills and putting me through school.” So yes, we all have the capacity to exploit others. Having the capacity does not mean that we act on it, but we have to be aware of our temptations.

  Suppose for a moment that you have just found a wallet in the street. You open it up and there are a thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills in the wallet. If there is an identification card of any kind, I assume that you will return it. If there isn’t an identification card, I assume you will keep the money. Now, are you hoping that there is or is not an identification card in the wallet?

  We would all like a little something for nothing; that’s just human nature. We like freebies. “A two-for-one sale. Oh, great! Can’t pass that up!” There’s nothing wrong with the impulse, but we have to be careful not to use it improperly.

  There are, naturally, positive meanings to the Seven of Swords. It can be understood as a card of disarming our enemies. The figure, after all, is not turning the swords against his adversaries; he’s just prancing off with them. A kind of playful, dancing, mischievous energy colors this card, reminding us of why it is in Netzach, the place of high energy flow. Imagine being in the presence of someone who’s really angry with you. With a little charm, with a little humor, you may be able to disarm them. To take the swords away is to take the charge out of the situation. We can defuse anger by making people laugh.

  Even if the play is not entirely aboveboard, it may be relatively innocuous. The figure may represent somebody who says something slightly embarrassing to you in front of other people, but you all wind up having a good laugh. Or it can suggest somebody who is simply tactless, who makes a joke about your weight or complexion or debts or affections without understanding how much what they say can hurt.

  A profound meaning of the Seven of Swords was pointed out to me by a client who said, “You know, this represents the mindless attitude of people who don’t care about or see the big picture.” There are people who just have to have faster cars even if they do pollute the atmosphere. Their only concern is prestige. The same can be said about people who persist in using aerosol cans. They think that for their personal convenience it’s worth depleting the ozone layer. To avoid the bother of recycling glass, aluminum, and plastic, they just throw it away. But as the national parks newspapers ask, “When you throw something away, did you ever wonder where ‘away’ is?”

  I don’t much like to hike, but since everybody I know loves to hike, I sometimes take hikes. The allure is to find yourself in scenes of such extravagant beauty that your effort is rewarded, regardless of how hard it is to get there. And what do we find after laboriously attaining these gorgeous vistas? Trash! Soda cans, beer bottles, fast-food wrappers, junk-food containers, and cigarette boxes. Who are these people who love nature enough to hike into it but not enough to protect it? Who are these people who support the Sierra Club and praise Native American ways, but use Styrofoam, which has a half-life of a billion years or so? Do the oil companies consider the consequences of their lack of preparedness for emergency measures in case of a spill? Why is it that until a child gets hit at a dangerous intersection we can’t get a politician to put in a traffic light? Until a disease reaches epidemic proportions, we can’t get public health bureaucracies to supply inoculation against it?

  There is a mentality that cannot grasp the evil that can result from carelessness, from mindlessness, even when there is no wrongful intent. Yet when we are of this mind-set, we are not evil, malicious people. We’re just not clued in. We just aren’t paying attention. We think that what we do is harmless or fun, and we don’t realize that we carry dangerous weapons. But it’s interesting to note that in the Seven of Swords, the swords are being carried by the blades. There’s a good chance that the capering figure will slice himself to ribbons. Sooner or later our irresponsible actions catch up with us.

  When the Seven of Swords is upside down, it has a related but different meaning: participating in our own victimization. If rightside up means being taken advantage of, reversed may mean enabling someone to take advantage of you. There are people who are perpetual innocents, who seem to be congenitally unable to hold trust in abeyance until they get to know a person. They meet someone; they have a good feeling about them, trust them, and are taken advantage of over and over again.

  A good friend of mine is an angel who, I suspect, literally descended from heaven. And who was living with her? You’ll never guess. Her daughter’s ex-boyfriend. Her daughter wouldn’t talk to him anymore, so he moved in with his girlfriend’s mother. Excuse me? She allowed it! He didn’t pay any rent but did run up three-hundred-dollar phone bills calling Hawaii. He emptied the refrigerator, and when he got annoyed, he put his fist through the wall. She finally insisted that he leave. Good? Within twenty-four hours, in moved another “friend” who wasn’t paying any rent, who was carrying tuberculosis and refused to be tested for it, and who was infecting the neighborhood. Of course, she needed to be taken care of all the time because she was so sick! When my friend decided she didn’t want to put up with such treatment anymore, people stopped exploiting her. They no longer could. So if the Seven of Swords turns up for you reversed, ask yourself whether you are putting yourself in jeopardy. Whether it’s borrowing money or clothes and not returning them, crashing in your house for three months at a time without contributing toward rent or food, or smashing up your car and taking no responsibility, someone may be using you in ways that you allow or enable.

  There is another meaning of the Seven of Swords reversed
that must be addressed. Sometimes the card in this position can suggest someone who never trusts. Childhood abandonment or severe abuse can leave a person prone to permanent suspicion. Repeatedly broken promises and continual disappointments can engender a systemic wariness of life. I know a man who to this day never plans anything but operates purely spontaneously. When he was a five-year-old, his parents would manipulate him into doing chores, keeping quiet, and being “good” with promises of a trip to the circus on Saturday, the zoo on Sunday, a baseball game on the last day of kindergarten. The parents assumed he would forget by the weekend. Instead, he has remembered all his life that “you can’t trust anybody.”

  There is no such thing as establishing a track record for such people. Twenty years of loyal, honorable behavior in a relationship does not guarantee loyal, honorable behavior now. “People change,” they seem to say as they size you up. “Conditions change. I don’t know who you are today.” Some may even suspect years of sound behavior as a ruse, a way to trick them into letting their guard down. Some may believe that selfishness or deceit has simply remained undiscovered. There is no way to prove conclusively that you have never been, and never will be unfaithful, or that abandonment is not your mode of dealing with difficulty and stealing is not one of your vices. Some people, especially in certain macho street cultures, take pride in never trusting anyone. They believe it makes them savvy, tough, nobody’s fool.