Today is our first day in the week of Tiferet, the Sephira that balances the energies of Chesed and Gevurah. As a student of literature, I have always loved that two of the names for Tiferet are Beauty and Truth. John Keats would approve. But this year it occurred to me when I was looking at this pair of cards, the Four and Six of Wands, there is another Keatsian concept that feels particularly appropriate for this day—the idea of negative capability.

If you’ve never heard of negative capability before, Keats coined the phrase to describe Shakespeare’s ability to live in uncertainty without grasping after answers so that he was able to be open to all experience and identify with everyone and everything. Today I think we call this “living in the question,” and reflects the work of British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion who characterized negative capability as the ability to tolerate the pain and confusion of not knowing, rather than imposing ready-made or omnipotent certainties upon an ambiguous situation or emotional challenge.

The thing is, most people are terrified of uncertainty. That’s why political leaders who offer simple bumper-sticker solutions to complex problems continue to be elected. And this leads me back to today’s two card pair.

In the Four of Wands we have that open space in mind and heart that can observe the Flow of reality without trying to rush in and fix anything. It is, to steal a phrase from Byron Katie, Loving What Is. This open space in mind and heart can be reached through many different meditation techniques. And today, this openness in the Four of Wands is what enables the man in the Six of Wands to stay balanced on the horse. And why he has been recognized and raised to a position of leadership.

This is a leader for whom listening is more important than speaking. A leader who can hold and balance the pain and joy of the people he leads. (Balance is another characteristic of Tiferet, since it balances the expanding and contracting energies of Chesed and Gevurah.

This balance of expanding and contracting brings us to another quality of Tiferet—it corresponds in the body to the heart. And because the man on the horse can tolerate his own pain as he is with the pain of others, Tiferet is also the Sephira of Compassion.

Someone who lives from the place of Chesed in Tiferet is a compassionate and empathetic person—and in the best of circumstances this is recognized with a position of leadership.

At the moment however we seem to be living in a time with a leader who embodies all the negative characteristics of these Sephirot. The Flow of Love is stopped up, and there is no openness to others, no ability to tolerate any uncertainty so that this leadership grasps for authoritarian solutions to problems that defy the simplicity of authoritarian thinking. The catchphrase for such a person might be: Don’t confuse me with reality, the facts are what I say they are.

Of course, such a person wants things to be static. And Tiferet is all about Dynamic Tension, and with Chesed in Tiferet we have a constantly shifting Flow — and this is the reality of all creation at every moment. We have no choice but to go with this flow—and the ability to do this aligns us with the will of the Divine.

However, this critique of the Con Artist in Chief is pointing fingers outside, and the Omer practice asks us to turn that finger around and look within to see how these defects live within us.

What was going on in my life when I’ve shut down to the flow, when I have closed my heart to the complexity of life in search of a simple answer? What were the results of my actions at that time? When have I been open to the flow and able to tolerate and even celebrate the complexity and uncertainty? What led to that opening and what was the result of my actions at that time? How can I live in Harmony (another name for Tiferet) with what is—and still be committed to build a better world?

What does today’s combination bring up for you?