Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  Additionally, Jewish people get married under a canopy like this, which is called a chupa. It’s nice to see how a marriage can easily be conceived of as a harvest. We don’t marry easily. It takes a lot of hard work before we reach the altar. We have to work on the relationship and we have to work on ourselves. We learn to believe in our own intuition as well as in the other person. Before the harvest of the wedding, there is a lot of sowing, cultivating, nurturing, and pruning of the relationship. The Four of Wands is a fitting symbol of a wedding and a useful perspective on marriage.

  Now I do want to say a word or two about marriage. When we talk about marriage, the most important thing is not the governmental writ saying that a relationship is legal. It’s not the marriage license that makes it a harvest. It is the bonding. And this bonding, obviously, can take place on any level between any two people. Marriage is an interesting metaphor. A friend of mine had had a troubled relationship with her mother, who died while the young woman was pregnant and before they had a chance to resolve their conflicts. To my friend, this was the final insult. “You’ve never given me what I need, and now, when I really need you, you die!” (We often feel anger at being abandoned when people die, but most of us can’t admit it, because it’s not rational, let alone nice.) Not wanting to have or wear anything of her mother’s, she gave an aunt all of her mother’s jewelry. After several years she asked her aunt if she would return one piece—the wedding ring. She was ready to forgive and accept her mother. Shakespeare writes, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” What my friend did in wearing her mother’s wedding ring was marry her mother in the very real sense of bonding with her. The fact that they were the same sex didn’t matter, the fact that they were mother and daughter didn’t matter, and the division between life and death didn’t matter. It was a true marriage. It was the bridge that crossed the divide between the kingdom of life and the kingdom of life everlasting.

  The two figures at the center of the Four of Wands are clearly androgynous. They are intentionally drawn to make their gender ambiguous and have been perceived as two women, a man and a woman, and two men. They are rejoicing, gifts from their harvest held overhead, and racing out from the small gathering—to do what? To become a cornucopia, bring their riches out into the world. We are reminded of the difference between the Yetzer Ha-tov (impulse toward good) and the Yetzer Ha-rah (evil impulse). God creates us as beings whose essence is to receive but not to retain. In the Four of Pentacles we saw an image of the Yetzer Ha-rah, receiving the bounty of Chesed and hoarding it. Here we see an image of the Yetzer Ha-tov, of people who have received the harvest and now want to share their wealth. It is obvious from comparing these pictures wherein our happiness lies.

  It is important to recognize that the only thing we can properly do with Wand energy is bring it out into the world. When we are inspired, when we receive light, we are meant to impart it, express it, make it of use to others. When we look at some of the other cards, we’ll see the trouble that results when we hold back Wand energy.

  Before leaving the Four of Wands, there is a final detail to which we may profitably direct our attention—a small bridge in the background that some readers, I hope, will recognize. We saw it first in the Five of Cups, but at that point the figure wasn’t even aware of it, being overcome with the heartache of loss. The presence of the same little bridge in the Four of Wands promises that it is possible, if we go through our pain, to come to a place of harvest, bonding, and celebration.

  Five of Wands

  Here we are, back in Gevurah. Everybody’s stomach falls an inch, in anxious anticipation. We know by now that, from our usual perspective of ego consciousness, nothing “good” is going to come to us in Gevurah. The fives are always difficult. The fifth sefirah is the place of judgment, the place of severity. As the central sefirah, it is called “severity” and is the most dread-full, awe-full place on the Pillar of Severity. So we know that we are going to experience the dark side of life. What we need always to do in Gevurah is remember that what is a problem on the ego level is exactly what the soul has been craving: the kind of challenge that enables us to grow and change, the kind of confrontation in which we have an opportunity to stretch and transcend. It is the purpose of our being incarnate on this earth.

  Once again we have an image of strife. This time, it’s conflict, pure and simple. We see five figures armed with heavy rods of wood, apparently doing battle with one another. To begin with the literal, if this card shows up, look around at your life and see if there is someone who is trying to hit you “upside the head”! (But ask whether there’s someone you’re trying to knock around, too!) Certainly this is a situation that we experience in families all the time, a perfect picture of sibling rivalry. It’s also something we experience very often in the workplace, in personal relationships, and sadly, in society in general.

  The image of the Five of Wands reminds us of humankind’s natural tendency toward dissent and divisiveness. We perceive differences as threatening and use them as an excuse for disdain, antagonism, and even hatred and violence. This is obvious in any large city where racial and ethnic diversity is pronounced and makes targeting of an “enemy” easy. It may even seem inevitable that people of such different cultures as Chasidic Jews and African-Americans should clash when living in the same section of Brooklyn. Yet the actual source of the conflict is not the degree of difference between the cultures but our bent to perceive and maximize differences.

  The farther we are from people, the more homogeneous they appear. In America, we talk about “the Arab states,” “Great Britain,” or even “Germany.” When we think in terms of the sweeping differences between, say, Native Americans and Caucasians, we wonder what problems could occur in these seemingly monolithic societies. Yet conflicts among Arab states contribute heavily to the crises in the Middle East; the English are derisive of the Welsh, and the Bavarians are happy to distinguish themselves from the Prussians—and vice versa! No more serious conflict exists than that between Northern Ireland and Ireland itself, but even in England, the “rugged” men of Yorkshire despise the soft-living gentlefolk who live in London. And in Holland, that forward-looking bastion of tolerance, the people of Amsterdam make fun of those “Hague people”! At worst, the single figure with the vertical wand is besieged by the other four figures, and we see persecution of the minority, whether it be a group or an individual.

  Of course the Five of Wands has positive meanings. There are those who see this card, not as combative or competitive, but as cooperative. More than one person has perceived it as figures involved in an Amish barn raising. (My perception of their faces makes it hard for me to interpret the card that way.) Alternately, not all competition is destructive. If we look at the card carefully, we see that the figures are not swinging their rods at one another. They are not trying to hurt each other.

  If we begin with the assumption that there is a card for it, what would the card be for the NBA, say, if not the Five of Wands? We do see combatants dressed similarly, their tunics differing only in color. And all the figures seem to be youths of roughly the same age. Are they competitors in uniform like the men in their multicolored tank-tops and shorts, lined up for the Olympic 440?

  The Five of Wands can represent any spirit of competition that results in progress and improvement, whether in sports, science, technology, or industry. If General Motors’ motivation is to outsell Ford, we all wind up with better cars. Further, anyone who believes that researchers work back-breaking hours in labs with no thought of the Nobel Prize, a contract with a pharmaceutical company, or being the first to solve a problem has had no firsthand experience with scientists.

  If the Five of Wands means conflict, but not of a mortal nature, we should be puzzled. How does this card warrant the number five with its associations of karmic rectitude? How does the fiery, bloody planet Mars work through this image? How does Gevurah, the great limiter, find expression here? To find the answer, as always we
must look within. In so doing we come to some of the most challenging, important, difficult concepts of the entire Suit of Wands.

  First, regarding our prejudices and hatreds, we need to recognize and own what within ourselves we project onto another individual or group against whom we wage battle. If I am in conflict with someone who I feel is lazy and irresponsible, to what degree do I wish I had the courage to express that ease-loving, carefree part of myself? If the object of my hatred is cunning, manipulative, successful, and rich, am I jealous of that capacity to milk and control life? What part of me would like to be the show-off in red silk, dancing in the center of the floor? What part of me would like to take any car I covet, even if it means stealing, and lose myself in the high of cocaine, able to shrug off the consequences?

  Second, as Wands represents libido, the Five can suggest sexual conflict. It could mean guilt at expressing sexuality, difficulty in accepting the feelings themselves, or confusion about sexual identity. The most obvious of the concerns can revolve around being gay or straight, but there are subtler confusions. If I am taller than my boyfriend, like to help him work on his car, and can take him in an arm wrestle, does that make me less of a woman? If I tint my hair, like to wear purple, and prefer symphony to soccer, does that make me less of a man? If I am mesmerized by the grace of a woman in my sorority, does that mean that I want to make love to her and am too repressed to know it?

  Finally, because Wands represents intuition, the Five of Wands depicts chaos of the intuitive function. This is a most painful condition, but one in which we all find ourselves, sooner or later.

  For example, I’m in a work situation. My boss, the person to whom I report, says to me, “You’re not doing it, Isabel. You’re just not doing it. You’re going through the motions, you’re doing an adequate job, you’re producing, but that’s not why I hired you. There’s no energy in your work, there’s no excitement, there’s no creativity. I expect more of you. I need more from you. I need you to get really involved in this project.” And my reaction is, “I’m out of here! I don’t need this pressure in my life. This woman wants more from me than she has any right to expect. I’m not here to make her look good, I’m just here to do my job. She’s already admitted I’m doing it well. So what does she want from me? I have other interests, you know. She doesn’t own my life!” Is that the voice of my intuition? Is that the Elohim, the God within, the God that has filtered all the way down through the Tree of Life from the place of the One? Or am I really saying, “Listen, I’ve reached this stage of my life without committing myself to anything, and I’m certainly not going to start now!” Which is the truth?

  Suppose someone says to me, “Let’s get together over the weekend.” I say, “Great!” Monday night he doesn’t call me. Tuesday night he doesn’t call me. Wednesday night I’m starting to get ticked off. He doesn’t call me. By Thursday night when I don’t hear from him, I’m fuming! Friday at four o’clock, he calls and says, “So what time do you want me to pick you up?” I think to myself, “Excuse me! Was I supposed to keep my whole weekend open, waiting to find out when you, Your Majesty, were going to find time for me? Am I supposed to be at your beck and call?” I reply, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve made plans for this evening and the rest of the weekend. I’m not going to be available. We’ll have to plan something more definite in the future.”

  Now if I do that, am I saying, “I’m here too!” Is my intuition saying to me, “You don’t have to be treated that way! You don’t have to be pushed around. You don’t have to be a pawn to somebody else’s whim. Stand up for yourself!” Is my true intuition telling me, “Take charge of your life, woman!” Or is it that I like to be in total control in all my relationships? Is it that I have to be the one who says when and how things work? “I expect to know on Monday when you’re picking me up on Friday!” Am I really saying, “I’m a control junkie. I have avoided being flexible all of my life, and I’m certainly not going to start trusting the moment now! We’ll do it my way or not at all!”

  Suppose I develop a relationship with a man, but after seven months I’m just not getting what I want from it. A little voice inside my head says “Get out now! There’s the door; run, do not walk. Leave. This is never going to work.” Is that the voice of my true intuition? Or is it that old tape that says, “Sweetheart! Darling! If it’s not perfect, it’s not good enough for my Isabel! Why should you have to work at anything?”

  How do we raise our children? What are reasonable expectations? When my daughter was eight or nine, friends of hers who were frequent dinner guests and often spent the night with us would repeatedly telephone and ask for her without so much as acknowledging me. “Hello, Andrea,” I would say. “I recognized your voice! How are you? How is school?” I would call my daughter to the phone, wondering what sort of parents would bring up a child without any notion of good manners…until I heard my daughter call to speak to Andrea. Is it reasonable to expect a child to behave politely when it is out of vogue among her peer group? If so, does failure of courtesy warrant disapproval? Punishment? When are we overreacting? One voice in my head told me that she had pressures and stresses that were best honored by allowing her the space of self-discovery. Another voice insisted that my responsibility as a parent included requiring behavior that would ultimately serve her well, whether she liked it or not, and that leniency in order to avoid unpleasantness was abnegation of that responsibility. Which was true? (Would that this were my greatest dilemma in child rearing!)

  As if our problems aren’t bad enough, we have the added distress of not knowing whether we are lying to ourselves, and the brighter and more reflective we are, the greater the confusions. I had a friend, a very brilliant woman, who taught psychology. She was involved for a long time with a guy who I think most people would agree treated her like dirt. He never took her anywhere, but on a Thursday night at eleven o’clock, he’d call up and say, “I feel like coming over, OK?” That didn’t seem much like a relationship to me. He never introduced her to his friends, and he never wanted to do anything with her, except come over at eleven o’clock at night for a few hours. And she, a brilliant Ph.D., would say, “This poor suffering soul is so closed off, he’s incapable of trusting, of loving. If I’m not available to him, his life will be totally isolated. So of course I tell him he can come.” What?

  We’re all capable of self-deception. In the Five of Wands place, we don’t know when we’re deceiving ourselves and when we’re not. We don’t know whether the voice we’re hearing is the voice of true intuition or the voice of what a client of mine, a lawyer, calls “the jury.” Everybody has a voice, everybody has a say in what decision she should make. Maybe you have seen a program on TV called “To Tell the Truth.” Someone is described by occupation, and each of three people try, by answering questions, to persuade a panel of judges that they are really that person—really the lion tamer. The punch line is “Will the real lion tamer please stand up?” The Five of Wands can convey the torment of wanting to be guided by our true intuition but hearing only the clatter inside our heads so that we don’t know what to do. When we see this card we wish we could ask, “Will the voice of my real intuition please stand up?” It is a card difficult enough to appear in Gevurah.

  What we need to remember always is that the Tree of Life is a perfectly balanced and symmetrical figure. If, when we look at the sefirot on the Pillar of Severity, we think we would be better off without them, we have to think again. If we found a way to eliminate this left-hand pillar, the Tree would lose its balance. It would fall over. It would no longer be the Tree of Life.

  The Four of Wands is associated with the right shoulder of Chesed; the Five of Wands with the left shoulder of Gevurah. These meet as always at the throat chakra. It strikes me that the vocalization appropriate to the former would be song; to the latter, introspective argument guided by intuition.

  Six of Wands

  We move from the hell of not knowing whether we’re crazy or clear to Tiferet, t
he place of the heart, the place of the sacrificed god, of Christ consciousness, of the Messiah, the Bodhisattva, the wounded healer.

  Here we have the most complex image of the entire Suit of Wands. What we see is a figure riding a white horse, crowned with a victory wreath. There is another wreath on the wand he carries, and he is accompanied by various followers on foot. The Six of Wands is generally perceived as a victorious return from some battle, venture, or undertaking. In fact, the card is called “victory.” There’s even something about it that feels triumphant. When the card turns up, the most immediate and often most accurate meaning is that the querent will succeed at whatever he is setting out to accomplish.

  However, never happy to leave well enough alone, let us look at the Six of Wands a little more closely. We must now recognize that one of these wreaths, the one mounted on the wand, looks like a funeral wreath. So a deeper interpretation of the card is that sometimes triumph depends on a kind of death; that sometimes for us to succeed, we have to allow a part of ourselves to die. What has to die? That depends on who we are. Maybe it’s our pride. Maybe it’s our insecurity. Maybe it’s our compulsiveness. Maybe it’s our stubbornness. Maybe it’s our doubt. Sometimes it’s an entire belief system. It can be a way of approaching people—shyness, cockiness, bossiness, an unwillingness to express our feelings, passive-aggression, active-aggression, whatever. This card informs us that to succeed as human beings, something within us has to die.