I spent much of this morning revising the “Structure of the Deck” section of the Little White Book for the Eilat Tarot. I had the deep certainty that it may finally be complete.
There is still more work ahead. I’m waiting for Amashé to finish the graphic design work that will refine the cards and then I can submit them for professional printing, which will take about a month.
But I was tired of waiting. So I printed the current draft of the cards at home and trimmed them by hand.
They are a real deck now! After existing only in my imagination and on my computer screen for so long, it feels amazing to finally hold them in my hands.
I shuffled the deck and drew three cards using the Three Dimensions Spread from my LWB. It is a spread that draws one card from each arcana of the Eilat Tarot:
World Card - What deeper structure or force is shaping this situation?
Time Card - What is unfolding through time?
Soul Card - How am I being asked to meet this moment?
World Card:
Mem - The Hanged Man
Concealment
The Path Between Reverence and Persistence
Hidden depth. What obscures.
In the Sefer Yetzirah, the letter Mem is associated with water and concealment. As a World Card, it points toward hidden formation: immersion, gestation, inwardness, and what has not yet fully emerged into view.
The card suggests that something essential in this project still remains beneath the surface. The deck exists physically now, but its deeper meaning is still unfolding.
The path associated with Mem runs between Reverence (Hod) and Persistence (Netzaḥ). For a little over a year, I have persisted through an enormous creative labor. Yet this card suggests that persistence alone is not enough. The deck now asks for reverence: pause, contemplation, and the willingness to let the work deepen rather than forcing completion.
Some things ripen in concealment. Perhaps the Eilat Tarot is one of them.
Time Card:
Five of Cups - The Mourner’s Path
Restraint (Gevurah גְּבוּרָה)
Grief acknowledged. Mourning that must be lived through before hope can be seen.
This felt like a strangely vulnerable card to appear in the first reading with the deck.
It seems to acknowledge not only the labor behind the project, but also the losses behind it: aliyah struggles, the surgeries, disappointments, yeridah, loneliness, and spiritual searching.
The title The Mourner’s Path feels earned.
And yet this card is not despair. In the Eilat Tarot, the Five of Cups is associated with Gevurah: restraint, endurance, and the strength required to live honestly with grief without allowing it to become the whole story.
This card is also associated with the month of Ḥeshvan and with Yom HaAliyah. That pairing moved me unexpectedly. Crossings are never clean. Arrival always carries loss within it. And I suspect this deck could never have become real if I had not eventually returned to the United States.
Soul Card:
Mother of Cups - Keeper of the Veiled Cup
Formation (Yeẓirah יְצִירָה)
Sustaining compassion. Remaining present without excess.
(Water of Water - Neshamah, the soul of inward discernment)
This card answers the question of how I am being asked to meet this moment.
Gently. Inwardly. Without forcing revelation.
The Keeper of the Veiled Cup echoes Mem in striking ways: hidden waters, inward discernment, sacred concealment, and emotional depth held with care rather than exposed too quickly.
Because this particular Mother card corresponds to Neshamah, the soul of inward discernment, it feels less emotional than contemplative. It suggests quiet wisdom, compassionate restraint, and trust in what cannot yet fully be articulated.
This card seems to ask me to hold the project tenderly.
Conclusion:
Together, these three cards form a coherent reflection of this moment. All three are marked by hidden water, veiling, inwardness, grief honestly inhabited, and patient becoming.
This does not portray a triumphant ending. It seems more like the sacred pause after birth.
I now hold the Eilat Tarot in my hands. But whatever this deck is becoming is still unfolding quietly beneath the surface.
Over the last few days, I pulled cards to reflect the progression of this week. Their message now seems surprisingly literal.
I have been feeling physically unwell for some time: headaches, abdominal pain, intermittent fever, exhaustion, and a persistent sense that something is wrong. Last night I finally stopped trying to ignore it. Today I went to the doctor. Blood tests, a CT scan, and a gastroenterology appointment are now scheduled.
Seen in the context of a medical issue, the cards describe vulnerability, discernment, and movement toward care.
Ace of Pentacles - The Gift of Earthly Presence
Divine Will - כֶּתֶר
A gift of physical life. The seed of embodied blessing.
The sequence begins with embodiment itself. The body is not incidental to spiritual life. Physical existence itself has become the focus of my attention.
Nine of Swords - Night of the Mind
Connection - יְסוֹד
Rest denied from within. Troubling thoughts brought honestly to prayer.
This card reflects the fear that arrives before answers do. Fear of what the tests may reveal. Fear amplified by fatigue and uncertainty.
Son of Swords - Rider of the Clouds
Creation - בְּרִיאָה
Probing and questioning. Quick thought without full discernment.
This is the impulse to diagnose before diagnosis exists. Speculation. Interpretation. This is the impulse to diagnose before a diagnosis exists: speculation, interpretation, the mind rushing ahead of reality.
Six of Swords - The Quiet Crossing
Compassion - תִּפְאֶרֶת
Careful passage toward safety, even when the journey remains incomplete.
This card changes the emotional direction of the reading. It does not promise immediate resolution, but it does suggest movement toward care. Seeing a doctor. Beginning the crossing rather than remaining stranded in uncertainty.
Seven of Cups - The Illusion of Choice
Persistence - נֶצַח
Proliferating desires and imagined outcomes. The need for discernment.
There are many possible explanations for feeling unwell. My imagination can generate futures faster than reality reveals them. This card cautions against treating every imagined outcome as certainty.
Samekh - The Chariot
Sagittarius - Sleep
The Path Between Reverence and Compassion
Carried in the unseen. Movement that continues.
The final card advises reverence for the body and compassion toward vulnerability. The most important thing I can do right now may be to rest and allow the process and healing to unfold.
One reason I created the Eilat Tarot was to explore tarot not as prediction, but as a symbolic language capable of clarifying lived experience. Sometimes the cards do not remove uncertainty. Instead, they reveal the structure within it.
Seven ⭑ Persistence (Neẓaḥ) ⭑ Element of Water ⭑
Month of Ḥeshvan ⭑ Scorpio ⭑ Tribe of Menasheh ⭑
Sigd
Essence
The number seven introduces a test of perception. Not every path that appears before us leads to truth.
Neẓaḥ represents persistence, but persistence can falter when desire becomes confused or scattered. The challenge is not effort but direction.
The suit of Cups corresponds to the element of Water and the realms of emotion, imagination, longing, and spiritual vision. Water can inspire devotion, but it can also dissolve clarity.
This card falls corresponds to the sign of Scorpio and the Hebrew month of Ḥeshvan. Scorpio deepens the emotional intensity of this card. Desire here is rarely superficial; what is imagined often conceals deeper needs, fears, or longings.
The tribe linked with this card is Menasheh, the firstborn son of Josef and Asenath. The tribe’s story reflects displacement and adaptation. In this context Menasheh evokes the emotional complexity of navigating multiple possible identities and futures.
Imagery
Pamela Colman Smith’s image shows a dark silhouette facing a cloud containing seven chalices filled with symbolic forms: a castle, jewels, a laurel wreath, a dragon, a snake, and a human face. From the central chalice rises a glowing human figure still wrapped in a burial shroud. One hand of the silhouetted figure remains visible, open before the vision.
Integration
This card is titled The Illusion of Choice because Pamela Colman Smith’s image shows a figure gazing at seven cups filled with symbolic visions. Each cup offers something different: power, beauty, mystery, danger, wealth, transformation.
In the Seven of Cups, Neẓaḥ appears as the challenge of maintaining direction in the presence of many possible futures. Desire multiplies possibilities faster than wisdom can evaluate them.
Water in this card becomes imagination, longing, vision, and projection. Some possibilities are genuine callings. Others are distractions, fantasies, or forms of avoidance. The challenge is not to reject imagination, but to discern which visions can truly sustain a life.
The figure remains still and has not chosen. The danger lies not only in choosing poorly, but in becoming lost among imagined alternatives and never acting at all.
Yet this card can also reflect the beginning of genuine vision. Many realities first exist as longing, prayer, or imagination before they can take form in the world. Discernment means learning to distinguish between what merely dazzles and what can truly be lived.
Persistence here means remaining faithful to what can truly be lived, even when many other paths appear possible.
Interpretative Possibilities for Divination
Upright:
-
Multiple possibilities without clear direction
- Desire or imagination exceeding discernment
- Difficulty choosing among competing visions or futures
- Longing shaped more by fantasy than reality
- Attraction to possibilities that cannot truly sustain a life
- Hesitation or passivity in the face of many options
- Vision, hope, or imagination seeking grounded expression
- Awareness that not every path is meant to be followed
- Sustaining a vision whose fulfillment is not yet visible
Reversed:
-
Seeing through illusion or emotional projection
- Letting go of fantasies that prevent movement
- Choosing a direction after prolonged uncertainty
- Grounding desire in reality
- Regaining clarity after emotional confusion
- Committing to what can genuinely be lived
- Distinguishing true longing from distraction
Reflections
This card often appears when imagination outpaces action. You may be considering many futures without knowing which can truly be lived.
Not every vision is false. Some possibilities begin as longing before they become reality. But discernment is required. A life cannot be built from fantasy alone.
Sigd reflects this tension between vision and reality. For generations, the Beta Israel community of Ethiopia preserved the hope of return to the Land of Israel before that return became possible. The holiday continues to be observed not because the longing failed, but because redemption remains incomplete.
The Seven of Cups asks which visions deepen your life and which only distract from it.
Hebrew Calendar - Sigd
Sigd is observed fifty days after Yom Kippur. The holiday expresses commitment to covenant, return, and spiritual renewal. It reflects the persistence of a vision carried across generations before fulfillment became possible.
Even after returning to the Land, Ethiopian Jews continue to observe Sigd because redemption is understood as incomplete.
Traditionally, the community gathers in prayer and fasting on a mountain or high place. Passages from the Torah and from Joshua, Judges, and Ruth are read aloud. The ascent reflects both physical and spiritual orientation toward Jerusalem and toward a restored world.
Arlan and I often spent this day hiking in the hills around Eilat, honoring the Ethiopian Jewish community’s invitation that all Israeli Jews observe the holiday alongside them.
Journaling Prompts-
What emotional need is shaping the future I imagine?
- What am I trying to move toward, and what am I trying to escape?
- What would this dream require from me in lived practice, not only in imagination?
- Am I imagining a new life, or relief from my current one?
- Which visions would remain meaningful even after disappointment or delay?
- What would it mean to pursue one path fully instead of remaining among many imagined alternatives?
Closing Thoughts
Some visions sustain life. Others keep us from living it. The challenge is not to abandon longing, but to remain present long enough to discern what is real.
