Ten of Cups
Like so few in the deck, here is a card unambiguously positive: a family reveling in the bounty of their life, the parents joyous, the children dancing in delight. It is a promise, this card—conditional as it is—that a life of radiance and abundance of the spirit does exist out there, if only in potential. The ten of cups and its rainbow in the sky.
The Bible says that man became degenerate, incestuous and loathsome and thieving, bloodthirsty. Worse: he laughed about his sin. So, the lord God flooded the world so deep that no amount of flailing would save you. When the waters finally receded, when there was earth once again to be walked upon by the few survivors, a rainbow arced across the sky—a symbol of God’s promise that he would never again wipe away his creation. It does not, so much, matter if this is true. Get on its level a moment. Look it in the eye.
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The tenth enumerated jewel in the Tree of Life is Malkuth, per the Kabbalah. And the first is Kether. Kether is in Malkuth, and Malkuth is in Kether. The kingdom—the earth on which we walk, and the bodies in which we live—comes from the crown—the Divine Will itself. The Will suffuses the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is inherent to the Will—the inevitable earthen crystal of its emanations. As above, so below.
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The arcanum to be studied here can be seen even better in the manner of a child. Do you know how to be what is called “good” with a child that is not your own? Not infants, that is a whole other art and it is by your aura or your vibrations or your smell that they decide what they think of you. But a child who ambulates and talks a little, their friendship has requirements simple as this: you must get on their level—literal and figurative. Squat down and look them in the eye if just for a moment, think in their terms. And then you must pay attention to them—perhaps the oldest of magic tricks. You observe and proffer questions and present small stimuli.
The friendship you can form in this way is of infinite, unselfish value, and one facet of that precious stone is this: through them you can glimpse the workings of Kether like a rippling flag shows you the wind. Let them explain some part of their world to you either in words or in their stumbling play. Watch them watch. Listen to their sentences. See if their squeals and tears and laughs and confusion are not the whole story of humanity distilled.
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One can become distrustful of happiness. It strikes us in some sense as facile and evaporative. When someone says they simply want you to be happy, they, in part, say this word because it breathes on the embers instead of merely sheltering it from the wind. They could say: “I hope you are not chewed up and spat out by this life” and that would be a moment of blocking the rain.
I spent years straight “unhappy.” Angry, half-drunk half the time and far deeper often. Manic sometimes and misunderstood by myself let alone anyone else. Do not, under any circumstances, feel bad for me. My cups now, for now, nearly brim with light. I don’t think happy is quite the word.
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There has been no easy card in this project, but the Ten of Cups has been the most difficult so far. It’s hard to write about the wholly positive without some sense of betrayal against an ethic and aesthetic I’ve cultivated over years. And so the cowardly route is to find some ink-black and greasy vein in this card, no matter how small. Happiness being fleeting, say, being no true bulwark against doom. Thousands of words tapped out about this card, trying to make bold-faced familial happiness as interesting as Hieronymus Bosch. Struggling. Setting it aside, going about my daily rounds, trying to come back. Finding other projects to focus on. The metaphors are too easy.
Last night, I was in my lair flipping cards for an anonymous friend—not Tomberg but the same Kether in a different corner of Malkuth—and the family hollered for me to come quick. My wife for whom we are each other’s trophy and dancing partner always. For whom I am learning to cook and handyman and pay attention. And my daughter for whom I am trying to be thoughtful and wise. And the two of them together for whom I am trying to grow into my best self in order to deserve their company.
Come quick, they said, to the balcony. You have got to see this. And I stepped out with them to see a rainbow in triplicate. The central arc as bright as any I had ever seen. As we had ever seen. And she showed me, my daughter, how to set aside every moment up ‘til now and forego all those to come. Just this moment, for a moment.