Offering: November 26, 2023

Balaam & the donkey

A hand is holding a Tarot card, Ace of Cups by Bill Greer for the Morgan Greer Tarot. In the image, a hand is coming out of the sky holding a cup that’s overflowing as a dove overlooks. Water is flowing into a larger body of water below, where a lotus is blooming. Behind the card are a bunch of leaves from a houseplant.

There are four spots left in Wednesday’s Tarot for Change: An Introduction to Tarot for Spiritual Practice class, and several spots left in the December classes which you can check out here.

I’m applying to grad schools to study religion next fall, and one of the essays I’m writing is on friendship, and interspecies accompaniment in trauma and grief work. I’ve thought a ton about friendship this year; what it means to be a friend and what it means to have one. Growing up I always had a best friend, which to me was someone I could trust to be loyal.

I’ve been wounded before by an understanding of loyal that says we should want the same things. I think now that loyalty, like love, thrives in difference. Loyalty—and friendship for that matter—seem less about doing what someone else wants you to do and more about understanding what writer Zadie Smith has said, that “other people are as real as you are.” For all these reasons and more, when I pulled Ace of Cups last week I thought right away of Daniel Tarr’s meaning, that it may stand for “readiness to have a friend.¹” 

I had a good canter today and I cried as Kat, my sweet friend, shouted “freedom!” It’s been months now not trusting. Saying go when I really meant stop. Of clinging and curling and bracing. I knew that today would be different. While I zipped up my chaps I told Kat a quick tale. From the Book of Numbers, about a seer named Balaam. 

Balaam is heading out on a donkey to see a king God’s upset with, so God sends an angel to block them. As they turn a corner the donkey sees the armed angel poised to kill them, and stops. Balaam, not seeing why the donkey has stopped, becomes angry.

Balaam hits the donkey, but the donkey won’t move. The donkey lays down, declaring in the language of muscle and bone I won’t budge. Then something miraculous happens. The donkey starts to speak human words. He pleads with Balaam, “why are you hitting me?”

As the donkey speaks, God opens Balaam’s eyes so he sees the armed angel. The angel scolds Balaam for beating the donkey, whose only crime was that he refused to carry Balaam to his death.