Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  Because Tiferet is the place where all the high, light energies from the top of the Tree and all the rich dark energies from the lower portion of the Tree meet, it is the most human place on the Tree. It is the sefirah that affords us the opportunity of our full humanity. What has to die is ego, because finally our success as human beings depends on it.

  I referred earlier to the principle that the soul and the ego are consummate adversaries. The ego has specific needs and desires which can rule our lives entirely. It’s very demanding, it’s very persuasive, and it’s very loud! The ego makes a lot of noise! But for us to achieve our highest good, it’s absolutely necessary to allow the ego to die. When the aggressive father, champion athlete, and successful businessman can put aside the ego expectations he had on the day he passed out cigars, he can experience the joys of parenting a frail, sensitive son, a shy daughter with a physical deformity, or a mentally retarded child. The fulfillment of nurturing with love, free from ego gratification, is greater than any triumph the ego can provide. The bright sun of Tiferet radiates its light and warmth upon us when ego is eclipsed by soul.

  We are not our bodies, and we are not our personalities. What we are—the golden, flowing river of the Three of Wands—goes through many incarnations. So it’s appropriate that in the place of the sacrificial god, the ego be allowed to die.

  Of course, that’s just what Christ did. Jesus was not able simply to look down from heaven and figuratively pat people on the head, saying, “There, there, it’s going to be all right.” He had to get down into it. He had to be literally willing to make the sacrifice; that was what made the Resurrection possible. The ego consciousness has to die. The body has to die. The personality has to die. If Tiferet is the place of death and resurrection, then it makes a lot of sense that true victory in life depends upon sacrificing the control of ego and opening to inspiration and faith.

  Other meanings of the Six of Wands are darker. One of the first things we notice once we are focused on ego is the disgruntled faces of the hero’s retinue. Are they resentful that he gets to ride while they must walk? The Six of Wands can represent someone who has succeeded at the expense of his subordinates. We all know of executives who pass on creative challenges, difficult problems, and arduous assignments to their staff. They give them the praise of lip service but do not acknowledge their efforts to management, instead taking all credit for themselves.

  Most interesting in our exploration of the Six of Wands is the peculiar way the blanket covers the white horse. Would you put a blanket on a horse covering his legs so that he trips? Covering his tail (if you get my meaning)? While this way of draping a horse was common ceremonial practice during the Middle Ages, we are clearly not witnessing the pageantry of a joust in this card. Some other explanation is required. Further, even in medieval times a horse would not have been covered in such voluminous folds in which it could easily become entangled. What is this image is telling us?

  We asked of the Nine of Cups, “What’s behind that long blue tablecloth?” Now perhaps we want to ask the same question about the green horse blanket. What is under that blanket? It looks as if something is being hidden. From a slightly different perspective, it looks almost as if that white horse head might be part of a costume. There might be a couple of people crouching under the green blanket. Perhaps it isn’t a real horse at all.

  Rabbi Levi Meyer has interpreted the story of Jacob and his wives in a fascinating way that is relevant to our current discussion. Jacob, you will remember, served Laban seven years in order to marry his younger daughter, Rachel, who was “beautiful and well favored” (Genesis 29:17). But Laban tricked Jacob, providing Leah, his older daughter, as the veiled bride and requiring that Jacob work seven more years for Rachel, his promised wife. What has this to do with the Six of Wands? The name Laban means “white.” The message is the same. Beware of anyone who rides a white horse. Suspect those who present themselves as “pure.” There is certain to be something hidden. Do not trust those who appear to be without blemish; there will always be more to them than meets the eye.

  The most important question then is, “If the victory we are looking at is victory on the earth plane, what has been the cost?” Have we risen on the backs and shoulders and heads of the very people to whom we owe the most? Is that why these people look so angry? Tiferet, associated with the heart and heart chakra, is the place of our deepest compassion. If to achieve success, the rider has had to hide his real motives and sweep his treatment of others under the horse blanket, his victory is Pyrrhic, for it has been at the cost of his own soul.

  Seven of Wands

  Now we move to Netzach, “victory,” the sefirah charged with Venusian passion, and we see the Seven of Wands, a card of high energy. Here is a lone figure who stands on a little hill holding a wand with which he seems to be warding off six approaching wands. He has elevated himself to a position that he is not about to let anyone take from him. He is prepared to fight to maintain what is rightfully his. The small mound, on close examination, looks like an entire landscape. When we stand up for ourselves, especially in matters of principle, we feel as if we are Colossus, astride hill and dale.

  This is clearly a combative card. Often it represents lawsuits. Furthermore, the figure is clearly outnumbered and in a position of defense. A woman I read for some years ago comes to mind. She had a small cosmetics company and had come up with a product she felt had marketing potential beyond her means. She submitted it to a large, internationally successful cosmetic manufacturer, where it was allegedly rejected. Shortly thereafter the product was manufactured by this firm without any compensation to her. She took the company to court with her one lawyer to confront their six—or more likely six teams of lawyers. The only question then was who could afford to sustain the legal battle longer, who had more money. The world being what it is, she lost her case—but she was willing to fight for her rights, unwilling to concede what she had achieved without doing battle.

  I’m very fond of the Seven of Wands. This is the confrontational, powerful animus figure. Sometimes I get lucky, and there’s someone who will fight for me out there in the cold, hard world. More usually, it’s something within me that protects my poor little anima! None of us can make it without a certain degree of feistiness or we become victims, collaborating with those who would take advantage of us.

  This is the figure who says, “You can’t push me around just because I’m _______!” Fill in the blank: small, uneducated, weak, old, female, whatever. “I will not relinquish what I have rightfully earned, what I am entitled to.”

  This is an especially important card for an artist. Innovations in art are never received with any great enthusiasm, because they’re new. They’re not what people are used to, not what people expect. I like to think about Hieronymus Bosch, an artist of the fifteenth century. While everybody else was painting beautiful, sweet pictures of the Madonna and Child, Bosch was depicting absolutely hideous, grotesque monsters and demons. Such dark images are, of course, part of everybody’s psyche. It wasn’t until four hundred years later that the German expressionists addressed this as a legitimate area for artistic expression. So you can imagine how delighted everyone was at the sight of a bizarre creature defecating coins, when everyone around Bosch was painting halos. Yet Bosch is now recognized as one of the great geniuses of the art world. Outnumbered does not necessarily mean wrong.

  Arguably, the most interesting aspect of the Seven of Wands is that the figure wears one boot and one shoe. Why? I wondered about this for years until the meaning came through. This is the card that says, “I have the right to my eccentricities as long as they don’t hurt anybody.” As Alan Watts puts it so eloquently: “Everyone is entitled to his own weird.” If I’m doing something that strikes you as very peculiar—back off. Back way the hell off. It’s not your business, and I have a big stick here to encourage you not to mind it.

  It’s terribly sad to see how much needless suffering there is in life when people don
’t have the courage to stand up for their right to be exactly as they are. The paradigmatic example of this is the cross-dresser, a man who not only loves but feels compelled to wear women’s clothing. Sometimes there is a further compulsion, or at least desire to go out into the streets so attired. Now whom does that hurt? It’s simply an idiosyncrasy. And yet instead of taking an assertive “Back off!” position, most of these poor souls who aren’t hurting anybody are overwhelmed with shame, self-loathing, and guilt. For what?! For nothing.

  So this is the card that urges you to have the courage not only of your convictions but of your “abnormalities.” “You know, this is what I do. I sleep until three in the afternoon. That’s what I do. And then I get up and I write music until five in the morning. That’s my schedule. I have breakfast at about five in the afternoon; I eat lunch at midnight. That’s me. Any problem with that? Back off! You don’t like it? Back way off! Just back way the hell off.”

  “Yeah, I spend all of my money on tropical fish, and I eat peanut-butter sandwiches. You think that’s stupid? Who asked you? You think that’s a pretty strange way to live? Keep your opinion to yourself! Go to a restaurant and eat a steak. I’m going to sit here and watch my fish.”

  “I happen to wear one boot and one shoe. I also like ketchup on my tuna-and-banana sandwich. That’s the way I do it. Next you’ll be telling me my socks should match. Why? Just back off! That’s the way I am. I don’t hurt anybody—but you could be an exception to that rule if you don’t get out of my face.”

  There is a benign interpretation to the Seven of Wands. The same blessed soul who perceives the Five of Wands as a barn raising, a cooperative effort, sees the figure in this card as planting the wands in the ground. Few of us have seen planting proceed in this fashion, but it’s conceivable that six of the wands have already been shoved into the ground and that with the seventh, the farmer’s work will be complete. Others see the figure as unnecessarily defensive: they maintain that the six approaching wands may present no threat, may simply be “visiting.” But I see the Seven of Wands as the wonderful card of standing up for ourselves or for the eccentricities of those whom we love. I see the passionate, Venusian energy of Netzach.

  Eight of Wands

  Returning to Hod, we arrive at the place of intellect, mercurial quickness, “splendor,” and “glory.” Here we encounter the Eight of Wands, a strange-looking card, the second of only two Minor Arcana in which there are no human figures. The card simply shows eight wands shooting through the air. So what we have here is a virtual explosion of vital energy.

  As I mentioned in relation to the Ace of Wands, this is the X-rated chapter of our study, so I will forge ahead boldly and remind the reader that, as wands carry libidinous energy, they can be specifically sexual in their symbolism. Combining this with my conviction that for every life experience there is a card, if there is a card for sexual climax, it would have to be the Eight of Wands. The phallic nature of the card encourages this interpretation. At the opposite end of the same spectrum of libidinous energy is the intuitive counterpart to orgasm, which is Epiphany—the sudden realization of Jesus’ hosts, at the supper at Emmaus, that they were in the presence of God, the resurrected Christ, never before seen by ordinary mortals. So the Eight of Wands can also be a climax of intuitive energy, an explosive “Eureka!” experience.

  The Eight of Wands is clearly a very positive card. New information rushes to us as a gift, without our having to learn it. When the card is rightside up, the wands promise to become grounded, thereby avoiding the major pitfall of Wands. This is because the sheer exuberance of Wands is balanced, given form, by the mental influence of Mercury; Hod allows for planning. A river runs through the pleasant landscape toward which the wands fly. As the river in Tarot is always the river of life, we are assured that our very lives will be altered by the wands’ arrival.

  When the card is upside down, there is a danger that, of all these eight wonderful inspirations, intuitions, ideas that have come bursting into consciousness, none of them will find expression. They are all going to float up into the air and dissipate. Better to choose one of them and bring it to completion, we are warned.

  There is, however, a positive interpretation of the card reversed: that the sky’s no limit for this person’s creativity and intuition.

  There is also a negative to having the card upright. Depending on where you’re standing, if you get hit by eight wands flying through the air, it can be very painful. We all know that an explosion of intuition can hurt. If I have been lying to myself all my life, for example, about my relationship with my kid sister, a sudden realization of the truth will not be pleasant. I tell the world, and I say to myself, “My sister and I are so close. We have an incredible relationship. I call her every day. She and her family come for dinner twice a week, and I always send her home with leftovers so she won’t have to cook. Whenever she’s sick, I move in to take care of her, and I usually baby-sit for her on Saturday night. Last week she was having friends for dinner, so I bought her a new outfit. I cooked the main course and made the dessert and helped her clean the house—she was so nervous! I told her to just leave the dishes, that I’d be back to do them in the morning. My kid sister is my best friend!” One day my sister refuses to pick me up, the one time my car breaks down on the highway. When it occurs to me in a sudden awareness that my sister is a taker who never extends herself for me, I’m going to be emotionally black and blue. Sometimes an intuitive explosion delivers a lamentable truth.

  The Seven of Wands, at the top of the right hip associated with Netzach, joins the Eight of Wands, the top of the left hip associated with Hod, at the solar plexus. In the chakra system, this grounding place offers a stabilizing influence to the figure in the Seven, who is prone to fly off the handle or err on the side of touchiness. It brings the wands of the Eight to a solid resting place, a place of completion, or, if the card is reversed, supplies the firm springboard to launch them beyond the realm of dreams.

  Nine of Wands

  At Yesod, the foundation, we find the Nine of Wands, the second most complicated card of the suit. We see a figure standing guard over eight wands, holding the ninth, his body language suggesting great stress. His head is bandaged; he has not yet recovered from the last blow and is tensed for the next. He is a burly fellow, his brawn representing moral fortitude. The Nine of Wands is a great favorite of mine, for the same reason I am so fond of the Seven. In fact, the two make kind of a before-and-after pair. In the Nine we see someone who has the loyalty, strength of character, and the endurance to stand by what he believes in, to protect what he values.

  The negative of the card has to do with stubbornness. It may be that, if I’m getting beaten up all the time, it’s because I’m clinging out of habit or rigidity to things I should let go. The example that follows is—trust me—absolutely true: A woman I knew many years ago was returning from a drive one Sunday with her husband and two sons. They were listening to a classical music station, and Mrs. Always Right commented that she always enjoyed hearing Brahms’ First Symphony. Her husband said that he too enjoyed Brahms’ First, but that at the moment they were hearing Beethoven’s Eighth. Mrs. Always Right said she was certain it was Brahms’ First, and maintained her position in the face of both sons’ agreement with their father. Before the symphony or argument came to a close, the family arrived at home where they decided to settle the question in the simplest way. Mrs. Always Right slipped Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony from its record jacket and put it on the family stereo. To no one’s surprise but her own, she heard the music they had just been listening to in the car. Stiffening slightly, Mrs. Always Right announced, “This record has been mislabeled!” Sometimes our strength can be better spent challenging our own position than defending it.

  Another negative meaning carried by the Nine of Wands is remaining defensive when the need has passed. A tremendous amount of energy is being expended on protecting ourselves against the anticipated next blow. But what if we have
already experienced the last blow? What if no further blows will follow?

  This is a wonderful card for the general who is still fighting the last war. I had firsthand experience of this energy in an amusing way one evening some years ago. I am a person so rich in faults that inventing additional ones for me is unnecessary and extravagant. Paying even casual attention will reveal a wealth of real ones. On the evening in question, I was out to dinner with a man I’d known socially for eight or nine months. He had chosen a Spanish restaurant whose flamenco floor show was clearly at odds with the chosen route of the waiters. We enjoyed a sherry, watched the dancers, and grew increasingly famished. By 9:30, with no aroma of food promising relief, I was ravenous. It was then that I lost my head. I ordered a second sherry! My date was suddenly transformed into a captain of the Spanish Inquisition. Did I cook much with wine? Drink much at home? Alone? Although we had been out together dozens of times, and he had never seen me tiddly, much less drunk, he was unhinged by my ordering two drinks before dinner instead of one. Why? Because the reason he had divorced his wife was that she was an alcoholic. So he was tensed, just waiting for the next woman he liked to have a drinking problem.

  Another sorrowful meaning of the Nine of Wands has to do with its relating to sexual energy, as all Wands cards do. I have found in my practice that this card very often turns up for someone who has been sexually abused as a child. The figure can be seen as someone whose sexuality has been wounded. The complexity of this abuse is obviously exacerbated when it involves incest. The victim is then confronted with the dilemma of adjusting to the torment of abuse or acknowledging the abomination and its perpetrator for what they are. As any psychologist will tell us, the latter choice is never made. So dependent are we as children that any treatment by a parent is less terrifying than being orphaned.