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This column marks my twelfth for Meta Arts, and thus a complete year of readings and ideas and observations. I want to thank Rhonda Crowder and Robbie Goldstein for their amazing magazine, and especially the opportunity to explore Tarot together through these articles. Long live Meta Arts!
A READING FOR THE FOUR WORLDS
Recently I have been reading, thinking, and writing about Kabbalah, for my book The Kabbalah Tree (to be published this coming June). One of the more fascinating ideas we find in this two thousand year old tradition is the description of four worlds. In our normal lives we tend to believe that the Creator created this particular world that we see all around us, with its great variety and laws of nature. But did it really come into existence all at once, a finished product? Kabbalists, as well as many others, have sensed that varied stages intervene, to bridge the immeasurable gap between the pure energy of the divine and the world we know, with all its troubles, compromises, and confusion.
Again like others (such as a number of Central American cultures), Kabbalah describes four distinct worlds, with our own as the latest stage. But unlike some of those other concepts, the three previous worlds do not vanish, or fall apart, as a new one emerges, but in fact all exist at the same time. If we could expand our perceptions, see existence as it really is, then we would see all four worlds, with all their levels of reality.
The number four appears in many esoteric systems. To me, this is not coincidence, nor a mystical secret. The physical world and our bodies suggest this number to us. We have four limbs, and if we stand on our two feet and stretch out our two arms we create four directions, in front (what we see), behind (what is hidden), and right and left. The Earth too creates four distinct directions, out of the rotation on its axis-north and south are the poles, and east and west are the directions of the sun's path across the sky. And there are four special points in the sun's yearly journey, the solstices and the equinoxes.
Tarotists, and astrologers, know the number four best through the four "elements", Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. The ancient Greeks saw these elements as the fundamental parts of nature. Today, we look on each of the four as actually very complex, but their symbolic use remains for describing states of being. In the reading below I have linked each of the four Kabbalistic worlds to one of the elements, as a way to help people grasp their meanings. They do not always fit just right. For example, the first world, Atzilut, does not really belong to the physical at all. In Kabbalah, however (some versions, that is, for "Kabbalah" actually includes many teachings), the ancient element Fire brings us closest to the pure Spiritual state, and so can suggest Atzilut.
The four worlds are called Atzilut, or "Essence," Beriah, or "Creation," Yetsirah, or "Formation,", and Assiyah, or "Action."
Here now is the reading spread. There is no special pattern, but I tend to lay the cards vertically in twos, like a ladder, with the two cards for Atzilut on top, and those for Assiyah on the bottom, as if we could climb up the reading to the pure world of the Spirit Essence, the holy Fire of Atzilut.
In this reading we do not try to know the worlds themselves, but to know ourselves within those worlds. But remember the words of the Emerald Tablet, nearly two thousand years ago: "What is above is like that which is below, and what is below is like that which is above." Or, in the modern version (we like things short these days), "As above, so below." If we truly could know our nature in the four worlds then we would indeed know the worlds themselves. The spread gives the questions, followed by the characteristics of the worlds and their elements. These lists of qualities come partly from myself, and partly from two classes, one my monthly New York City class, Tarot Explorations, and the other my monthly class here in Rhinebeck, Tarot-On-The-Hudson (TOTH). In each class we discussed the worlds and elements, and then tried out the reading, with wonderful results.
For each world, ask
Who am I in this world?
What is my task in this world?
Atzilut - Essence - Fire
Highest ideals. The mystical world. Who we are meant be. The fire of our spirit. The way the divine touches us and we touch the divine. Interpret the cards here in their best sense, their highest energy.
Beriah - Creation - Water
Unconscious. The great soup out of which our conscious selves emerge. Dreams, intuition, myths, the ancestors. The great principles of our lives emerge here, the big ideas, and moral truths.
Yetsirah - Formation - Air
The conscious mind. Our thoughts, how we understand ourselves and our principles. Complexity. The ability to understand our past and plan for the future. See and understand our choices, how we have become who we are.
Assiyah - Action - Earth
The world around us, the world of our daily lives, and our actions. How our ideas and principles get tested. Physical needs, the body. The struggle of life, money, work. Both limitations and effectiveness. Growth.
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