Step 2: Fire and Faith

Welcome back! This time let’s explore a reading for Step 2. For reference, the text of Step 2 (as laid out by Alcoholics Anonymous) is below:

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

As alluded to by the chapter on Step 2 in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions by Alcoholics Anonymous, this step is a sticking point for many. I want to refocus the conversation about Higher Powers away from belief or disbelief, but to what it means to work with the Tarot in recovery. Working with the Tarot implies a certain level of believe in something talking to us through the cards, even if that something is merely the randomness of the universe. If there were no meaning in the Tarot, there would be no point in trying to interpret the cards.

This raises the question: What about the Tarot makes it an instrument of communicating with a Higher Power? Rachel Pollack refers to the Tarot as a divination system that derives meaning from randomness, using the term “aleatory”¹ in her book A Walk Through the Forest of Souls. For Pollack, there is an element of gambling that generates meaning. She connects Thot—the Egyptian god of knowledge and one of the alleged mythical sources for the Tarot—to gambling, citing a story where Thoth wagerss with the Moon to create extra days of the year². One could, of course, argue that a Higher Power guides the cards to fall into meaningful patterns. Whether one believes in divine guidance or meaningful randomness, reading Tarot is an act of faith.

In my own act of faith, I asked the Tarot, “What do I need to know about Step 2?” Below are the cards I drew from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

The first thing that struck me was the absence of Cups and the presence of only a single Wands card. Pentacles is not the suit I typically associate with a Step that is deeply tied to faith. One might expect Cups, the suit of emotion, to appear in this spread. I imagine Bill W would see this as proof positive that “Faith without works was dead.”³ I take a more nuanced approach. The presence of two Pentacles cards suggests that action is just as essential to Step 2 as it is to any other. While the actual surrendering of one’s life to a Higher Power comes in Step 3 (the more obvious “action” step), believe has never been passive. Engaging with a Higher Power is necessary to bring about long-term sobriety.

Now onto the first card: the Knight of Pentacles. This is the most grounded of the knights, the only one whose horse has all four feet on the ground. In contrast with the other knights (especially the Knight of Wands), who charge forth with fiery action, the Knight of Pentacles instead seems to contemplate. Charlie Claire Burgess in Radical Tarot uses the gender neutral term “Seeker” for Knight⁴. Instead of name Knight of Pentacles, Burgess prefers the moniker Seeker of Earth, and expounds on this by calling the Seeker of Earth “the artisan.”⁵ As an artisan, the emphasis is on slow, steady action. Flash-in-the-pan acts of faith won’t due here, only steady devotion to one’s Higher Power.

The next card deepens this message: Eight of Pentacles, reversed. This card is also about craft and mastery. But in reverse, it takes on a different meanings for me. I immediately thought of the DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skill known as “opposite action.” Opposite action involves recognizing when you’re inclined to act in a way that’s destructive or misaligned with your values and instead do the opposite. Want to use or drink? Go to a meeting. How does this relate to faith? In addiction, faith is itself an act of opposite action. It shifts the locus of your action away from yourself and your desires, towards a Higher Power and that Higher Power’s desires. Unlike the artisan in the upright card who toils for mastery, someone in recovery works not for self-gain, but for their Higher Power and for service to the larger group, hence the reversed nature of the card.

Finally, we come to the card that ties it all together: the Ace of Wands. As an Ace, it embodies the core essence of its suit, in this case the fire suit: action, momentum, willpower. I would offer a personal interpretation for the Ace of Wands: faith. Fire is an essential metaphor for G-d in the Jewish tradition. In Exodus, Moses first encounters G-d in the form of a burning bush. Later, the prophet Elijah proves G-d’s presence by asking calling down fire to ignite a drenched pyre. Even with just these two example, we see a strong connection between fire and faith, at least for me personally.

Let’s bring it all together: Only through consistent, grounded action can we align with our Higher Power’s will and expirience true faith.

I hope this has brought some light to your own recovery journey. Please stay tuned for the next post in the series, where we’ll explore Step 3.