Today is Five Days of the Omer. Hod of Chesed: The Eight and Four of Wands.

Netzach is the Sephira of establishing the ego. Hod is the Sephira of surrendering the ego—to use a phrase from the 12-step world: “let go and let G!d.” Because when the ego steps out of the way, you’ve got a clearer channel to listen for what Rav Kook calls “the voice of G!d in everything.”

That’s one of the reasons that the Eight of Wands is the only one of two cards in the Minor Arcana without a human being in it. And it’s why the wands are flying down from the heavens like so many arrows—this is revelation headed your way. It’s the promise of Pentecost, and you just might get a little taste of it today if your ego can step to the side for a minute to let you be the open space of the Four of Wands.

The Eight of Wands is also a metaphorical representation of the (male) orgasm, which dissolves the ego if only for a second. So this pairing also looks forward to the consummation of the Divine Marriage that takes place on Pentecost/Shavuot.

Hod is also known as Glory. And a reason for this is because when your ego can step out of the way, you’re also more open to seeing the Glory of all creation in everything.

Right now it’s very hard for my ego to get out of the way. My ego has been insistent all day long—well, that’s true every day really, except that right now, because the ego is not getting its way with all the things it wants, I find it very hard to see the Glory of creation everywhere. Especially when one of these creations is a spiky little virus that is wreaking havoc all over the world. Yet when I stop to consider the complexities of this virus, I marvel at the diversity of creation. And in fact, one of the ways we can see the Glory of creation is to appreciate the breadth of creation—from microscopic viruses to galaxies.

So today, even as I feel constricted in movement, boxed in my apartment and closed off from direct human contact, I can see the blossoms and new leaves on the trees. I can watch a BBC nature show—in fact that’s something I’m planning for today to keep me open to the glory of creation. What will you do today to stay open to that glory? What can you do to help quiet down the insistent voice of your ego to let the “still, small voice” of the Divine in?