Today is twelve days, which are one week and five days of the Omer. Hod of Gevurah: The Eight and Five of Wands.

Surrender in Discipline.

The Eight and Five of Wands make an interesting pair. The Five of Wands is one of the most crowded cards in the deck, with five people contending with each other. And the Eight of Wands is one of the few cards with no people in it at all.

In the Five of Wands, the Gevurah card, we see a group of people who all want their own way. Sometimes I see this card as a projected image of my own mind—filled with contradictory impulses all wanting to take control of my next action at any given moment. Anyone who has watched their mind in meditation will recognize this dynamic. But there’s another dynamic in meditation as well—because underneath these arguing impulses is a greater silence.

When you fight with the mind to try to train it, you only multiply and give strength to these impulses. When you surrender control and only observe, in time—sometimes quickly, sometimes after long practice—these impulses give way, these conflicting thoughts quiet down. And you experience a one-pointed concentration.

The Eight of Wands, the card that corresponds to Hod, which includes Surrender in its constellation of meanings, shows this one-pointed concentration.

When you first sit down to meditate this very action kicks up all the protests of the characters you see in the Five of Wands. But as you merely watch without engaging, the energy that was going into inner conflict now unites—just as you see the eight staves all headed in the same direction in the other card.

This 49-day ritual is another discipline. And it will kick up all kinds of inner stuff that your mind will use to distract you or get you to stop examining your mind and its reactions. All of a sudden, despite the fact that you may be home all day in COVID isolation, you’ll hear yourself saying “I’m just too busy to count the Omer today.” That’s just a thought though. It’s not reality. Let go of the thoughts and surrender to this practice. Watch what happens within. Because Hod is also about Humility and Surrendering the Ego, don’t identify with any of the thoughts. Just let them come and go like clouds across the expanse of the clear mind.

Another note with regard to Humility on this day, since Gevurah is also Judgment. I’m a judgmental kind of guy. And part of what I have to look at on this day is how I can bring an attitude of humility to my judging mind, so that I am not seeing myself as better than someone else. Like “oh, look at me, I’m a great meditator!” Hah.

Of course, some days are easier and some days are harder. Easy or hard though is a judgment. And that’s also something to let go of in this week of Gevurah and Judgment.

How is your surrender to this discipline going?

Today is eight days of the Omer, which are one week and one day of the Omer. Chesed of Gevurah: The Four and Five of Wands.

We have come to the week of Gevurah, and boy do I know it. Gevurah has lots of shadings to its constellation of meanings. It’s the place on the tree that splits off to the Sitra Achra, or as Obi Wan Kenobi might say, the Dark Side. It’s the Sephira of Strictness and Severity, Harshness, Constriction, Might and the letter of the Law. Oh, and then there’s the other name of Gevurah—Pachad, which means Fear. And then there’s also Din, which means Judgement. Sounds rough, huh?

Well I start with the things I don’t like because I’ve always had my issues with Gevurah. It took me a long time to understand the positive side of this energy—and those positives include Restraint, Structure, Strength, Boundaries, Courage, Organization, Justice and Discernment.

Then there are some qualities that can go either way depending on the situation and how you take it: Discipline, Limitation, Power and Control.

And then there is one quality that transcends it all: Awe.

So right now, with social distancing in place and having maintained this for the last 41 days, I’m feeling severely constricted. The boundaries I’m living within feel very harsh to me today. Nevertheless, I am keeping the discipline. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not reacting in ways that aren’t particularly healthy.

Good that we start the week with Chesed of Gevurah, because this energy needs to be balanced by the love and mercy of Chesed. We can think of Gevurah as holding back the overwhelming blast of love that is Chesed as a necessary check. And this is true in the other direction—Chesed is a necessary check on the unmitigated severity of Gevurah.

Last week we saw this very same combination of cards on the second day. On the eighth day however, these cards are in reverse order, and that makes all the difference. It’s a subtle difference in the shadings of energy, but it’s an important distinction—and that ability to be discerning in this way is in fact one of the good qualities of Gevurah.

Today is about the love that underlies the structure of our lives. The love that powers our strength and our ability to set good boundaries, and to take control with courage out of a sense of service.

In my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation, I used the example of the humble traffic light to show how as a society we set limits and create laws in the service of love—of protecting everyone.

When I look at the Four and Five of Wands, I see the open space of Love that Chesed provides as being the motivating energy for Gevurah. So that the figure on the left hand side in the image in the Five of Wands, the man who seems to be holding his staff out as a way of getting the attention of all the others is the one who is trying to bring loving structure to a situation of disorganization. Indeed, the Five of Wands is a card that shows one of the negative expressions of Gevurah in the lack of structure. But because today is Chesed of Gevurah we can see the figure holding out his staff as acting out of Chesed.

This is an example of the corrective and guiding nature of Gevurah as spoken of in Psalm 23. In fact, today, this verse feels like the mantra I need today:

גַם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת לֹא-אִירָא רָע כִּי-אַתָּה עִמָדִי, שִׁבְטְךָ וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ הֵמָה יְנַחֲמֻנִי

“Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

Seeing the man on the left in the Five of Wands I know I must call on my inner Moses to rally all my complaining inner Israelites, straining against the discipline of the journey. Indeed, metaphorically speaking, we’re on the trek through the desert. Imagine that long line of ancient Israelites—men, women, children, and the “mixed multitude” of people who went with them. Plus, animals, tents, and belongings. Without the discipline of Gevurah holding everyone together, people would have wandered off in all directions.  

I need to remember this, because today I am experiencing the structuring quality of Gevurah as stricture.

One question I have to look at today is how I can reconnect with the love that is the principle that give order, the benevolence that underlies the boundaries I must observe. Certainly, this practice is one way to reconnect and heal my relationship to Gevurah in my life.

And I will look for specific disciplines I can add to my day as an expression of self-love, love for others and for the Divine—disciplines I know that I will chafe at sometimes, but that I can remember the underlying motivation for.

What are your questions for today?

Today is seven days, which are one week of the Omer. Malchut of Chesed: the Ten and Four of Wands.

We have completed one week—six more to go. Are you feeling like you took on too much? You may be feeling unsure after 7 days whether you can last for the next 42—that this practice is weighing you down.

The images in the 10 and 4 of Wands can be considered in several ways.

This combination can be about taking on Responsibility (one of the characteristics of Malchut) in the service of Love. The question is, have I taken on too much Responsibility? As a single man living alone this is not an issue for me during the pandemic. I say this despite the fact that I am working a 9-5 job (that I am profoundly grateful for in this difficult time), that I’m working this path and writing daily, I’m taking classes and attending services via Zoom, and volunteering to call elderly people who live alone and are feeling more disconnected in this time of physical distancing. This means I am very busy—but I am not feeling overwhelmed or burdened by my responsibilities. I am sometimes overwhelmed by all the precautions I have to take—just doing laundry in my building’s basement was exhausting.

However, feeling overwhelmed by responsibility may be an issue for you if you’ve got a job you’re doing from home and have children at home. And I have also noted when the 10 of Wands shows up in a reading for someone in a helping profession—the medical profession, clergy, social workers—this can be a card that suggests someone who is taking too much responsibility and may be approaching burnout.

This combination can also suggest that one has so many creative projects that rather than experiencing them as joyful self-expression, they have become a burden.

In either case, this can lead to feelings of resentment or guilt at not being able to handle all these responsibilities/ideas.

That’s the time to stop and remember all these things we take on are in the service of love. To consider what it might be possible to put down. And to remember, that just as in the 10 of Wands, where the man’s destination is visible in the distance, this situation is not permanent. While we may not see the end yet, we know it will come.

Questions I find myself considering for today include: Do I experience love as a burden? Do I take on more than I can handle? Have I complained about the blessings in my life as a way of downplaying my good fortune when I speak to someone else out guilt?

What questions come up for you?

Today is six days of the Omer: Yesod of Chesed. The Nine and Four of Wands.

Traditionally, this is the day we observe the passage of the Israelites through the sea. You know the scene—you’ve seen Charlton Heston standing on the rock holding his staff out over the water as Pharaoh’s army of charioteers hurtles towards the former slaves. Of course, midrash tells the story a little differently:

Nachshon ben Aminadav, the brother-in-law of Aaron, didn’t wait for the sea to split. As all the Israelites hesitated, afraid to step forward Nachshon raced to the water and walked in. And kept walking until the water was about to reach his nose. And that’s when, following Moses command, the sea split.

It takes bravery to step forward and to make the way when it appears there is no way.

The situation of the Israelites at the sea is reflected in the image of the Nine of Wands. There is a man who appears to have been wounded, standing and holding his staff defensively as he stands behind a fence of staves. Except you’ll notice that there is a wider space between two of the staves that he could step through to the other side.

What is he defending himself against? That’s a question each of us has to turn on ourselves: what am I defending myself against? What makes this so poignant an image is that there is nothing on the other side of that fence that is in any way threatening. Perhaps the head wound the man has sustained has affected his judgment so that he sees threats where there may be none—but because he has been wounded in the past, he doesn’t trust enough to walk through the opening in the fence.

Because we’re in the world of Atzilut with the suit of Wands, we can surmise that the wounding this man has suffered is spiritual. Perhaps he was rejected by the tradition of his birth, so that he doesn’t trust organized religion or even his own spiritual experience.

The Sephira of Yesod is all about Connection—an Intimate connection that is both spiritual and physical. Yesod is called Foundation because it’s the place on the Tree of Life where all the higher energies come together—it must have a strong Foundation to hold all these energies and direct them to Malchut below. And while I noted the we can see the wounding and the connection as spiritual, we can also consider this as a wounding in relationship. And, because Yesod maps on the body to the generative organs, the wounding could also be sexual.

Yesod maps to both the phallus and the birth canal. Interestingly enough, the passage through the sea by the Israelites has been described as the people passing through a birth canal to be born as a nation on the other side. Passing through the sea was a transformative experience that took faith and courage.

It also echoes the phrase “the only way out is through.”

This is also true for the man in the Nine of Wands. He could free himself simply by stepping through the fence and be born anew.

As a queer man, I have often looked at this card as a visual metaphor for life in the closet. And in fact, once when I was doing a reading for a young man, when this card appeared in the spread in combination with some other cards, I had to ask him the personal question of whether he was in the closet. At which point he broke out into tears and talked about the pain of hiding who he was.

I don’t mean to suggest there is no danger in coming out—or in other situations where we may feel defended after wounding of some sort. But I do want to consider how this wounding holds us back in places that might not be necessary.

I know that when I was young and newly out of the closet, I felt like the man in the Nine of Wands—I expected to be attacked for being who I was wherever I went. So that I often had a chip on my shoulder. But it’s not like coming out isn’t dangerous for many people around the world. There is indeed danger. But…

This is Yesod of Chesed. The Desire to Connect in Love. Yesod of Chesed is a doubly urgent feeling. Chesed already wants to flow out and over everyone and everything with love. And Yesod has an urgent need to connect anywhere it can.

The goal of healing these Sephirotic energies is so that we don’t direct them, to use a phrase the Buddhist are fond of, unskillfully.

If our Yesod isn’t connected to Tiferet above, it’s easy for this energy to flow into actions meant to fill the void, the empty feeling because our true spiritual connection is broken. For many people, this spiritual wounding is the source of many addictions, so it should be no surprise that the negative expression of Yesod is related to addiction—whether sexual, substance or even shopping. Whatever we do to fill the hole in our hearts is an unskillful use of the energy of Yesod.

Yesod wants to connect, and Chesed is powerful enough to be open to connection without fear.

Of course, today, simply going out on the street, going to a market, can inspire fear. Like the man in the Nine of Wands, I am wary of stepping out of my apartment. There is no danger that I can see, because you can’t see a virus. And in this world of social distancing, the thought of physical connection seems like a cruel joke. But this is going to be our reality for many months to come if the experts are correct. So once again, the only way out is through—I do have to go out to shop every couple of weeks. I do have to take my dog out for a walk 3x a day. But my connections with friends and family must be by voice and image. And because I am a single man, sexual connection in this new reality is out of the question. Here is where my Chesed must direct my Yesod, so that my values, my love for myself and others — and our safety — must be at the center of every connection.

So the questions I ask myself today include: In what ways am I afraid of Intimate Connection on both a spiritual and physical level? How have I misused the energy of Yesod’s urge to connect? What intimacy wounds need to heal—and how can I step into the role of healer to open myself to the Love that is Chesed? In what ways am I afraid of Intimacy with the Divine—what would I be afraid to say in prayer? What sea do I have to walk into with courage and faith that the waters will part? Can I create intimate connection in digital space?

What questions arise for you today? Your life experience may well lead you to a different reading of these energies and your own questions that need answering. This is the beauty of the Omer practice. And if you are interested in learning more about the Kabbalistic ritual of Counting the Omer with tarot, consider getting my book, Tarot and the Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Guide to Liberation.

Today is two days of the Omer. Gevurah of Chesed in Atzilut: The Five and Four of Wands

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?

Today is one day of the Omer: Chesed within Chesed — the Four of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.

Chesed within Chesed: The Four of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles

לִמְנֹ֣ות יָ֭מֵינוּ כֵּ֣ן הֹודַ֑ע וְ֝נָבִ֗א לְבַ֣ב חָכְמָֽה׃

 “Teach us to count our days that that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
—Psalm 90:12

 Tonight I begin my annual Counting of the Omer, and the first time I’m counting online since the publication of Tarot and the Gates of Light. When I first started counting online using the tarot in 2006, there weren’t as many people following me on my blog, Another Queer Jewish Buddhist. So I have to admit, doing this on a public platform a little scary. This practice calls for rigorous self-examination—and I’m going to do some of that examination in public. But not all of it, since of course, some things are between me and the Divine.

This year, the pandemic gives a new kind of urgency to the count. Because we don’t know how long we have—after all, our days are numbered, whether we get COVID-19 or not—we have to learn to make every day count. And that’s part of the benefit of this practice. Of course, counting days is not new to anyone in a 12-step program, and as someone in recovery, I know that this practice has been an aid to my recovery.

The first card, on this the first day, is the Four of Wands, since it is a Chesed card, and today si Chesed of Chesed. The image looks forward to the final day on Pentecost, when mythically speaking, the Divine “marries” the people Israel, with the Torah as the wedding contract. The image on the card most resembles a chuppah, the wedding canopy for traditional Jewish marriage ceremonies. And it is also reminiscent of Abraham’s tent, which midrash tells us was open on all sides, the better to be able to greet guests. Abraham is the figure most associated with Chesed, which is love, flow, benevolence without limit.

At this time, when all of us are hunkered down at home, our doors closed to the outside world, one question I will reflect on is how has the pandemic affected my ability to stay open? Since this is the first day of freedom from Egypt, metaphorically speaking, in what ways am I still carrying my enslavement within?

I am aware when I am on the street of not feeling particularly open as I walk my dog, masked and gloved, and I’m passed by joggers huffing and puffing who aren’t wearing masks. My heart is certainly not open to them, and I find myself still enslaved to fear and anger. May I learn to respond with equanimity even as I keep my distance. I know I didn’t feel very open last week at a grocery store when other shoppers crowded close by. While it’s essential that I take care of myself, I have to remember that these other people are suffering through this as best they know how.

I mention in my book that the Four of Swords is a card of meditation, and just as the Four of Wands looks forward to the Divine marriage (of our inner Divine Feminine and Masculine) on Pentecost, the Four of Swords looks forward to the Night Vigil that takes place on the eve of Pentecost (known as Shavuot in the original Hebrew). The night before Pentecost, traditionally we stay away all night in study, just as the squire in the card image must remain awake all night in the chapel as part of his ritual initiation into knighthood.

At the start of this year when I gave myself my annual Tree of Life reading, the Four of Swords appeared in the Yesod position. Yesod is the Sephira of intimate connection and that includes sexual connection, among other things. The Four of Swords is a card of the spiritual retreat. I took this Sephirotic combination as a suggestion to pull back from searching for sexual connection on apps like Grindr as part of creating a deeper intimacy with myself and with the Divine. This decision may have saved my life, though there is no question that I long for touch, for the soul connection that can come with physical connection. I am sure many people who are single and living alone at this moment in history have similar longings.

However, staying inside during the pandemic is an opportunity to go inside, to search deep within to face my fears of loneliness and isolation.

Last I want to touch on the Four of Pentacles for a moment. Like all the cards, the image as a symbol can be read positively or negatively. So that one can see the man in the card as an expression of the flow of Chesed in the world, holding up the pentacles as a signal to others to stay connected to the Divine (his Crown at the Keter position—he is the only figure in the Minor Arcana that isn’t a court card to wear a crown) to stay connected to the heart (with a pentacle over the Tiferet position) and pentacles below his feet (connecting him to Netzach and Hot) so that he his spirituality will stay grounded in the world. But one can also see him as holding on to these objects tightly, as someone who is stopping the flow of Chesed because he is closed down. So some of the questions that come up for me this year are: Who do I look to for inspiration in Chesed? Who is an example of Nega-Chesed—someone who stops the flow for their own benefit, so they can hold on to the gold? And internally, how can I set a better example of Chesed for others? And where am I still holding on tightly, unable to let go into the flow of life, and of Chesed?

You may have notices I didn’t mention the suit of Cups. Well, I’m holding on a little tightly here! While each year is different and the content in my book is longer than what I am writing here, and goes deeper, I do hope to have an income from book sales. So I don’t want to “give it all away” even as Chesed is all about unconditional love. I do write about each of the Sephirot in great detail in the book so that you’ll be able to experience the full constellation of meanings suggested by each card. But here, while I am sharing this publicly, I am concentrating on the questions that come up for me personally this year.

So what are the questions that Chesed within Chesed bring up for you?