Qoph Essay

The 29th Path: QOPH
Malkuth to Netzach

“He produced Qoph, predominant in Mirth, crowned it, combined and formed with it Pisces in the Universe, Adar in the Year, and the spleen of Man.”
- Sepher Ietzirah trans. by W.W. Westcott
The Letter
The origin of Qoph is uncertain. The most ancient form of the letter Qoph was a picture of a large knot tied in a cord. According to another suggestion, it may have also been a picture of a monkey and its tail. Later, this latter was represented by a symbol which stood for the back of the human head (qāf in Arabic meant "nape"), and this has been conventionalized in the character ק. Qoph is the nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Q or hard K. It is the twelfth and last of the twelve "single letters."

Yesod is an emotional, astral sphere as are the characteristics of the Moon, the ruler of this Path. Yesod is the sphere of illusion and the Moon the Path of illusion. The Path is controlled by the element of Water and the Moon rules the zodiac sign of Cancer, a watery sign, although Pisces is the governing sign of the Path, again a watery sign. this *

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The Path of Qoph is one of cycles, of ebb and flow. It is also one of evolution where the student experiences various levels of psychic development. One of the lessons of this Path is that the mind and the body must work together for balance. The body is not to be looked upon as simply the gross container for the spirit. Body and spirit are not enemies. Both must work in harmony for true spiritual growth to occur.

In the Tarot Trump we notice that a stream of Yods are raining on the body of the earth. Many Kabbalists refer to this rain as actual blood and mythologies connect this theme with the menstruation of the Moon Goddess, Artemis or Diana, who represents the life-giving properties of the child-bearing woman. The words for menstruation and Moon are clearly related; the root mens means simply Moon and it is an ancient archetypal theme which links the two