Tarot and the Tree of Life

by Isabel Radow Kliegman

  King of Pentacles

  Of the four kings, there are two who just love being king, and there are two who would prefer to be somewhere else. The King of Pentacles is one who obviously loves it. He is the king of the material world. He has wealth, power, prestige, fame; he is surrounded by luxury. What a great place to be king! In the King of Pentacles alone, of all the Tarot kings, the trappings of kingship are spelled out: the castle, the land, the protective wall. As the Pentacle King, he is sensual, earthy, and solid. His throne bears the bull heads of Taurus—he is at home on this earth. His throne is in a garden, and his robe and his garden seem to be one. In the same way that the Queen of Cups’ gown merges with the waters at her feet, the King of Pentacles’ robe blends gracefully into his vineyard. (Those who don’t like the King of Pentacles say, “He is so mired down in his throne, he couldn’t get out of it with a getting-out-of-your-throne machine.”) We are reminded of the ancient notion of the king and his land being one. Shakespeare refers to the King of Denmark as “Denmark.” When the land sickens it is only the sacrifice of the king that can restore it. When the king is tainted, the land is subject to famine and plague—an idea we can trace back to Oedipus, at least. With flowers adorning his crown, the King of Pentacles is clearly a man who loves nature and is at one with it.

  Let us look at the way the King holds his pentacle. He doesn’t worship it, offer it, or reflect on it. His hand simply rests on it. He takes it for granted. It is his. Abundance is his birthright. Why wouldn’t it be there? He’s easy with wealth. (Can you remember the only other figure in the suit whose hand rests on a pentacle in just that way?)

  The King of Pentacles is not afraid of his royal responsibilities. He welcomes them. They go with the territory. His body language conveys how comfortable he is on his throne. He has claimed the success he set out to achieve.

  Finally, the King of Pentacles has a kindly demeanor. The expression on his face is pleasant. His eyes are lowered; he’s not challenging or confrontational. He’s relaxed, benevolent, and at home in the world. Yet in keeping with his practical nature, he wears the armor of the warrior. If challenged, he is willing and able to defend his kingdom.

  However, like every card in the Tarot, the King of Pentacles has negative aspects. He can be too earthbound, immersed in the material to the exclusion of other considerations. His enjoyment of the world can pull him off balance—he can be a gourmand (as opposed to a gourmet). He can be a libertine, excess driving him past sensuality to womanizing. He can be lascivious. He is capable of grossness, especially if the card is reversed. Yet at his best he has the power, the common sense, and the easygoing disposition to rule the kingdom well and to take action that is practical in the olam of action.

  King of Cups

  The King of Cups is a very different kind of king. He sits on a stone throne that floats on a raging sea. The waters roll and roil; two boats in the background look as if they’re about to capsize, and a fish leaps out of the water. He seems unaware of the cup he holds, and the expression on his face seems to say, “Who, me?” This is a card of tremendous emotional intensity that is not being consciously processed.

  Yet although he is in denial, his body language gives him away. Look at his feet. He looks as if he’d like to make a break for it if the slightest opportunity presents itself! He is not at all happy on his throne. Why? Because he is the king of feeling. He is the king of emotion. A king must shoulder his duty to all of his subjects in his entire kingdom, and emotions can conflict with responsibility.

  The King of Cups does not want for keen emotion. He is someone who has cut himself off from these feelings. Why? Because he doesn’t believe that he can operate effectively and do what is expected of him if he allows himself to experience his feelings fully. Of course he’d like to get away from such pressures and worries. He doesn’t want the heavy responsibilities of kingship that weigh him down. He wants to be a knight again. He’d like to return to a stage of development where he’s free to follow his heart and set out on his own personal quest. He has astutely been described as “the king who would be man.”

  This way of being has some obvious negatives. The primary one in our society usually affects men: they can’t put the scepter down when they get home. Even in their most intimate relationships they are afraid to feel their emotions for fear of losing control. I once knew an extraordinarily successful man. He was a lawyer who had offices in three cities and about a hundred lawyers working for him. When I remarked that he was not very expressive, he said, “I negotiate billion dollar deals. I can’t afford to get myself into an emotional state on Saturday and hope that I’m out of it by Monday morning so I can think clearly. I need to have control over my feelings all the time.” The negative of the King of Cups is allowing the fear of drowning in a sea of feelings to block any feeling at all.

  The positive of the King of Cups is the capacity to control emotions and put them on the back burner when necessary. When I gave my first lecture nobody knew me, and additionally there was some kind of scheduling confusion. I had a full day’s material prepared, and nine people showed up. My heart sank like a stone. I felt stupid standing at a lectern in a huge room, lecturing to nine people! That was when I had to tap into my King of Cups, because it wasn’t the fault of those nine people that nobody else was there. They were entitled to the best presentation I could make. I had to cut off my personal feelings of disappointment and embarrassment and just get on with it. Similarly, if I needed brain surgery, I would choose a brain surgeon who, although he may just have fought with his wife over breakfast, was not crying onto his rubber gloves.

  The King of Cups turned up in a reading for a young woman in a way that revealed another of his faces, and a strong one. Her father, from the time of her earliest memories, had been in and out of hospitals for treatment of schizophrenia. She had known his behavior was erratic and strange from the time she was four, but no explanation was ever offered by her mother for his absences or his sometimes frightening reactions to situations. The little girl assumed responsibility for her father’s treatment of her and for his obvious affliction. She felt it was her fault, and hers to “fix.” Needless to say, she was unable to help him, and not surprisingly, her relationship with him became an unconscious prototype for her relationships with men in general. As a result, she was always involved with and sometimes surrounded by men who were mentally ill. She interpreted the card in her spread as keeping her head and remaining stable while surrounded by madness.

  The King of Cups is also one hell of a poker player.

  Each of us must cultivate a King of Cups mentality some of the time. If we are parents, there are things our children have the right to expect from us no matter how we’re feeling. Even when we fail in patience, understanding, and kindness, we must provide protection and basic care, no matter what happened at work, with our spouse, or at the dentist’s office. At times, if we are to survive, we must think clearly and act decisively no matter how distressed or depressed we are. It is because the King of Cups is ultimately willing to sacrifice his feelings and dreams for the general good that he is a fit ruler to take action in the kingdom of the temporal world.

  King of Swords

  If I love the King of Swords, it’s because I tend to be consistent. The King of Swords sits, like his Queen, with his head more or less above the clouds. He too holds his sword upright, but although we see it in its entirety, it is slightly tilted. There are two birds in the sky, the butterflies of transformation that adorn his throne are joined by an angel, and a winged angel’s head decorates his crown.

  The King of Swords is the only king who looks directly out at us, confronting us. Looking us right in the eye, he challenges us with the question, “Is your life a life of truth? Does your life express the truth of your being?”

  Why is his sword tipped? It is because he, after all, is the king. The queen can afford herself the luxury of insisting on pristine truth, inflexibly adhering to that single, simple standard. The
king, responsible for ruling wisely, has to be practical. He has to consider what is pragmatic as well as what is just. Perhaps he has evolved beyond the rigid application of law to a justice tempered by compassion. The appearance in this card of angels, winged human beings, suggests that the King’s humanity has elevated him to celestial realms. In passing judgment he may say, “What you did is wrong,” but where the Queen would end there, the King will go on to say, “However, there were extenuating circumstances.” He puts a little body English into his adjudications. “While it is never right to steal, your family was desperate. It is not the same crime as stealing out of greed for wealth.” Similarly, there are now two birds in the sky: the bird of justice flies in the company of the bird of expedience. The King of Swords rules Assiyah, the realm of action. In Malchut, the material world, his decisions will have real consequences for the subjects of his kingdom.

  The King of Swords is the second king to sit comfortably on his throne. His realm is that of intellect and will. By intellect and will he has achieved his position, and by intellect and will he reigns. He is brilliant and clear thinking. This is often the card of successful professional men—successful because they are kings and professional because of the mental energy carried by Swords. Of course, as is true of the Queen of Swords, there can be cruelty, particularly when the card is reversed. The sword then leans, not in the direction of compassion, but in the direction of severity. In reversal, the King of Swords can actually be abusive, but generally he is strong, fair, and wise, an admirable ruler for the universe in which action requires sound and merciful judgment.

  King of Wands

  Although the King of Wands is my least-favorite court card, he is a card I have come to appreciate through the work I have done with him. The King of Wands sits in the left corner of his card, trying to inch his way out of the scene. If he could get off the card entirely, he clearly would. His face is turned away, not so much avoiding our gaze as ignoring us. He’s simply not particularly interested in us. He holds his wand erect, and on his cape and throne are images of the salamander, a symbol we have seen throughout the court cards in the Suit of Wands.

  In all of the other court cards of the suit, the salamander is seen in an arched position, but on the King’s throne we find the salamander swallowing its own tail. This symbol, like the serpent swallowing its tail, represents cosmic energy that cycles forever, feeding back on itself and never dissipating. Herein lies my problem with the King of Wands. If his energy is constantly cycling back into himself, what are we getting? This is an awful parent to have, a cold, unavailable father, an unfeeling mother, someone who is emotionally unattainable. There is no inviting lap to climb into here.

  This is the kind of man you want to shake by the shoulders, screaming, “Look at me! Talk to me! What are you feeling?” Unlike the King of Cups, the King of Wands’ answer is “Not much.” Neither the King of Cups nor the King of Wands expresses much feeling, but as we have seen, the King of Cups’ feelings are strong. In fact his emotions are so intense that he is afraid to experience them. The King of Wands, on the other hand, is just a cold fish—highly intuitive but emotionally deficient.

  It’s fascinating. When we meet people who are highly evolved spiritually, we tend to think that they’ve gone beyond the merely personal. Most often that turns out not to be the case. The most honest spiritual leaders will be the first to advise us not to assume that their metaphysical facility or mystical adeptness means they are on a different plane from the rest of us. All too often the self-appointed guru is attempting to bypass the rigors of interpersonal challenge by vaulting over them to a “higher plane.” Neither fullness nor balance are achieved this way. The flames on the crown of the King of Wands suggest his attraction to higher realms, but this is a cop-out for his indifference to other people.

  The King of Wands, then, does not have much to offer in a relationship. He’s elusive, and although he’s magical, creative, and even psychic, he’s closed off within himself. As the King of Wands, he is the most intuitive card in the deck, since both kings and Wands carry the function of intuition. But although his intuition is extraordinarily sharp, it is completely disengaged from feeling. As Wands symbolize sexuality, the King is clearly potent, but not passionate, a skilled but cold-hearted, unmoved lover. He could learn much from the Knight of Pentacles, if he cared to.

  One strength of the King of Wands is that he makes a wonderful psychotherapist. What is a weakness in his personal dealings is an asset in his professional ones. He’s got a great nose. He’ll know exactly when you’re lying, even when you don’t, and with his intuition, he’ll be able to lead you to your own truth. Yet because he is unemotional, he can’t be seduced into countertransference.

  In the psychoanalytic process in particular, clients must get involved in transference, a process by which the troubled emotions they harbor toward another person—a father, a mother, a lover—are displaced and projected onto the therapist. The problem with countertransference is that if a therapist hooks into the client’s rage, guilt, sexuality, and so forth, and transfers feelings back onto the client, the process becomes hopelessly confused. The King of Wands does not become involved with his clients. He is totally independent emotionally, and since his own process cycles back onto itself, it does not contaminate his client.

  In more esoteric terms, the King of Wands is the magician, his wand reaching for cosmic power but grounded on the earth. He is the self-absorbed artist—Monet, van Gogh, Dylan Thomas—whose inspired creative process is his life and whose treatment of others is of little interest to him. He is the charismatic seer who can arouse and lead the many, but like Gandhi, fares less well with his own wife.

  The action the Wand King seems to want to take in the olam of Assiyah is to get himself out of it! He is the second of the kings who is not happy on his throne, although he recognizes and claims his sovereignty, as the lion, king of beasts, on his throne makes clear. Perhaps he is needed in the kingdom of Malchut to remind us of other planes of being. By his example rather than his assistance, he empowers us to strive for their achievement. Certainly his grounded wand keeps him in touch with Malchut. He is thus a fit ruler in Assiyah, where action must be taken.

  These are the court cards. Look them over. About which ones do you agree with me? About which do you think I’m wrong? Why does the Queen of Wands sport no salamanders? Where are the pyramids of the King of Wands? Choose your own best friend, your own favorite father, your own preferred mother, and so forth. Time with these sixteen individuals will yield unforeseeable rewards.

  AFTERWORD

  Grasping the Baton

  THIS BOOK has been devoted to the Minor Arcana—the “small secrets” of the Tarot—that comprise fifty-six of the seventy-eight cards in the deck. Mastery of these cards yields two gifts: first, an approach to the Tarot as a whole that will be useful in examining the more complex imagery of the “great secrets” of the Major Arcana; and second, a working grasp of roughly three quarters of the deck!

  In exploring the relationships between the Tarot and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, we discover parallels that make remembering the cards, as well as understanding them, simple. A major deterrent to many otherwise enthusiastic students of Tarot is the seemingly endless and unrelated images of seventy-eight cards, each of whose meaning must be memorized by rote. The division of the Minor Arcana into four suits doesn’t seem to ameliorate the confusion much, and it tempts the persistent to rely on handbooks (whose value is questionable at best) for much too long. Some make notations on the cards themselves to avoid the embarrassment of having to consult a book while reading for a client. Awkwardness apart, there are serious flaws to this approach. First, it encourages interpretations that are brief and simple enough for automatic recall. Second, it totally negates the perceptual, intuitive, mental, and emotive responses of the reader.

  In examining the Tree of Life and understanding the characteristics of the sefirot (or vessels) of which it is composed, we have a
beginning point for understanding the ten pip (or numbered) cards that relate to them. Knowing that Keter is the place of entry for divine force and is related to the entire cosmos and the crown chakra invites us to look at the aces of each suit within that context. Again, few of us who have experienced the quality of energy carried by Gevurah will have trouble remembering what the Five of Pentacles or Five of Cups means.

  Further, the four Court Cards, as we have seen, correspond to the four olams (or worlds) of the Tree of Life. What has been clear is that the correspondence is more than simply numerical. If we remember that Kabbalah means “receiving,” we need only look at the Page of Pentacles to see the image of a gift appreciatively received. The pages are as appropriate to the olam of Atzilut, the realm of emanation, as the aces are to the sefirah of Keter, the hand of God in every suit offering the gift to be received.

  In working with the Minor Arcana in terms of the Kabbalistic Tree, memory and understanding are inextricably linked. Most significantly, the underlying philosophies of both systems are harmonious: the necessity of balance is suggested in the Tree of Life by a system of three pillars. In the Minor Arcana of the Tarot, the message of balance is conveyed by four suits—each of which carries a function of consciousness and medieval “element”—that depend on all the others for their own best expression. Throughout our study, we have seen the ways in which Tarot images graphically convey the underpinnings of Kabbalistic thought.

  What next? How does the novice—or the experienced reader who is approaching the cards in a new way—proceed from here?

  My suggestion, as I have indicated throughout the book, is to spend time with the cards in a conscious, interactive way. If you are familiar with the Major Arcana and read the Tarot, you can certainly continue your practice with whatever spreads you favor, but with a somewhat altered perspective. If you are not conversant with the Major Arcana, and therefore laying out spreads is not yet practical, there are still many ways to relate to the cards you do know.