Today is two days of the Omer. Gevurah of Chesed in Atzilut: The Five and Four of Wands
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If you’re reading my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light, you’ll know that each Sephira has a constellation of meanings that can be applied to these permutations. So that you could see Gevurah of Chesed in lots of ways. This year, I’m going to consider the Discipline that Gevurah brings to the Love that is Chesed. If you’re working this path, you could make other choices. When you look at the key words I provide in the book, the card images can suggest some of choices that are meaningful for you.
For years I’ve struggled with Gevurah, because I’ve struggled with discipline. I often felt that discipline was something imposed from outside, and it felt controlling. Certainly, my experiences as a child in proto-military organizations like the Scouts made me very skittish of authority demanding submission to their definition of discipline. This combination makes clear though that there is a discipline that is within love.
It took me years to learn about inner discipline. When I first started meditating, I experienced just how out of control my mind was. Not unlike the people in the 5 of wands, where every one of them is trying to take control of the group and only succeeding in creating chaos, as I meditated, every second some new thought, desire, emotion, story sought to divert my attention. I couldn’t keep my mind on a meditation object for even a few seconds. And you can’t get angry with yourself when this happens—after all, meditation is an act of self-care, self-love.
Metaphorically speaking, we are only one day out of Mitzrayim—the narrow place of enslavement consciousness. And all these distracting thoughts are my inner Israelites, complaining and wanting to slip back into old habit patters. I also have an inner Moses though who can calm things down.
This 49-day spiritual practice is a discipline. And even on the second day it’s easy to forget, put off, let it go and decide to watch TV, eat some ice cream—even do the dishes, anything to avoid facing one’s inner turmoil.
There’s another discipline we’re facing right now. That of physical distancing, wearing masks and gloves to protect ourselves—and to protect others. I’ll bet you’ve never washed your hands so much in your life. Staying inside and apart from friends and family. And it’s hard not to chafe at this discipline. But this discipline is an expression of love. For yourself. For those you care about. And in fact, our society.
Speaking of washing hands, I have another self-care discipline I have struggled with all my life. As a 5-year-old child, for some reason, my parents did not make sure that I brushed my teeth. So I could go for days without brushing them. There was an older woman who sat on the corner in a folding chair in the neighborhood. She used to give out candy to the kids on the street. I always got some. But one day she asked me, “Are you a good boy? Do you brush your teeth?” Well, I wanted the candy so I lied and said I did. And she said, “No you don’t, so no candy for you.” I wondered how she knew.
When I went home, I smiled in the mirror and my teeth were rather disgustingly crusty. (You’re saying Eeewww right now and I don’t blame you.) So I brushed them. But the truth is, because I didn’t learn the self-care of oral hygiene as a child, I struggled to brush my teeth in the morning and before bed for many years. It took a lot of inner work to get past this. And one thing I’ve learned is that whenever I am off center internally, one clue that I’m off center is that I forget to brush my teeth. I go into irresponsible auto-pilot. This bad habit, while a problem in itself, is also a symptom when something else is going on that I need to look at. You probably don’t have this oral care issue. But you may have some other bad habit that takes over when you’re off center. And one of the things to consider on this day is how to bring the discipline in love to this habit.
I also want to look at another side of Gevurah: Structure. You can see in the Five of Wands an image of the lack of structure. And right now, the routine of our daily lives has lost its structure. Those of us who have lost our jobs have no structure for our days. Those of us who are parents have children who have lost the structure of school, and that creates all kinds of issues. One of the questions I’m asking myself this year is now that I am home every day, how can I bring structure into my daily life that is an expression of self-care?
This discipline is in fact just such a structure. And I am grateful that my synagogue has morning services, at least two study sessions and a community check in every day so that I know if it’s 11am, it’s time for me to log on to participate in class on Hasidic masters. If it’s 6:30 I have a cantillation class. What are you doing to create loving structure in your life right now?