energy and form

This week resonates with the energies of the level on the Tree of Life called Gevurah (Strength, Limits) or Din (Judgment). Last night and today was the day of Gevurah in Gevurah, and tonight we enter into the day of Tiferet (Beauty, Balance) in Gevurah.

Rabbi Ted points out that,
"Gevurah, 'Strength,' is the most problematic sefirah on the Tree of Life. It is generally seen as the sefirah of Judgment, since another traditional name for this sefirah is Din, which literally means 'judgment.' Gevurah is on the left side of the Tree and so represents form, and within the world of form unfold the polarities of our experience. Gevurah represents the forms called 'feelings,' forms which contain and limit emotional energy. With Gevurah comes happiness as well as sadness, pleasure as well as pain. We cannot know one without the other. So Gevurah is seen as the origin of 'evil,' since it is the place where we first feel 'good.'

Part of the Ted's suggested meditative focus for Gevurah in Gevurah is "When I accept my current experience, I allow an expansion of feelings. New forms emerge to express deeper levels of my own integrity."

And now we've entered into the day of Tiferet -- the center and heart of the Tree of Life, which holds the qualities of Balance, Beauty, Compassion -- still in the week of Gevurah.

Today's meditative focus: "Today what was closed opens again. New possibilities awaken with the day, as I experience a renewed sense of wonder at the expansion I feel deeply within. I discover a fountain of Compassion that nourishes the fuller expression of my Being. In this Compassion, I discover forms of feeling more inviting for the energies of openness and Oneness. There is new joy in this day."

the bottom of the tree of life

Counting the Omer (with Homer!) and continuing to take the steps from the place of enslavement ("mitzrayim") towards the place of revelation ("Sinai") that correspond to levels of energy on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, we walked yesterday through Malchut (kingdom) in Chesed (lovingkindness), and tonight into a new week, with Chesed in Gevurah (discipline, limitation, strength).

Malchut is the energetic level at the "bottom" of the Tree of Life (the bottom being the branches and leaves and fruit, with the roots reaching the other way, "up" into undifferentiated Source); all the previous energies pour like a fountain into the kingdom, the dense realm of materiality, the world of our ordinary reality. Although the material world (the earth, the dirt) is regarded in some systems of thought as the opposite of the spiritual (the heavens, the sun), far away from the realms of ascended realization, in this perspective the mundane world is always, absolutely, just as suffused with Being as any other realm -- even though it can be shadier here, and foggier. Dark, and cold, and heaviness, are all Yin qualities, as are interiority, femaleness, receptivity, stillness, depth. In many ways the most Yin aspect of the Tree of Life, Malchut corresponds to the aspect of the Divine called the "Shechinah," the Presence that dwells within (shechinah comes from the Hebrew root that also branches into the word for "dwell"), the interiority of Being, often described as the feminine aspect of the Eternal.

Rabbi Ted writes,
"In Malchut all the flavors of the upper vessels manifest, but the Holy is hidden in husks of materiality..."

"I grow more aware of the Presence of Lovingkindness in which this world is held. I feel this deeper influence through every cell of my being. I am always one with this Universal Source of Life. All reality reflects this Loving Presence. In all I meet, I sense the blessing of this Love."

The meditative focus for this next day, of Lovingkindness held in Limitation (the energy that restricts, constricts, and allows for the shaping and channeling of what would otherwise overflow and flood; allows for the formation of all the array of feelings from pure Love):
"I awaken to a new reverence for all the feelings which arise in me now. I grow more aware than ever that the energy of Lovingkindess animates all feelings. This awareness helps me appreciate the incredible dance of feelings I experience. I begin this second week with blessing."

bonding in lovingkindness

"The sixth day of this meditative process brings the energy of Yesod (Foundation) into Chesed (Lovingkindness). Yesod...represents the ego identity in all its glories and all its limitations...

Chesed, the center of Lovingkindness, needs Yesod to carry its energies into the world, and Yesod needs Chesed in order to remember the deeper Nature of its being...

Yesod brings the personal identity, through whom all Creation will be met, into Chesed, the Lovingkindness which seeks that realization."

from A Journey of Awakening, Rabbi Ted Falcon, PhD

"Yesod of Chesed: Bonding in Lovingkindness

For love to be eternal it requires bonding. A sense of togetherness which actualizes the love in a joint effort. An intimate connection, kinship and attachment, benefiting both parties. This bonding bears fruit; the fruit born out of a healthy union.

Exercise for the day: Start building something constructive together with a loved one"

from The Meaningful Life Center, Rabbi Simon Jacobson

eternity and glory in lovingkindness

Today was represented by the energy of Netzach (Reverberation, Endurance, Eternity) in Chesed (Lovingkindness), with the suggested focus phrase from Rabbi Ted, "...There are no limits to the energies now available. Today I honor the new possibilities for self and for the world."

And tonight -- which is not the fourth, and not the sixth, day of the counting of the Omer (the curious custom is that you don't count the day till after you have said the blessing) -- begins the day of Hod in Chesed. Hod means Glory, and Splendor, and according to some teachers is also associated with devotion and humility.

Jay Michaelson writes, "Netzach means 'eternity;' it is the aspect of revelation which stretches horizontally for all time, and the attribute of endurance within the Divine — in the sense both of "God's mercy endures forever" and the more common usage of endurance through difficult times. Hod, its complement, means 'splendor.' It is the aspect of revelation which exists vertically, as a peak experience, or contact with that which is transcendence. It is the source of what Heschel called the experience of radical amazement: the shattering encounter with the numinous that engenders the birth of wonder.

"On the more mundane planes, we can (borrowing from Thomas Edison) understand hod as inspiration, and netzach as perspiration. Hod are those moments of insight at which we sing and shout "awwww!" Netzach are the rest of the times. Hod are, in relationship, those perfect evenings on tropical islands, where the sun sets over the water and the night is filled with love. Netzach are the times you pick your lover up at the airport. To paraphrase Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, hod is like a Ferrari; netzach like a Jeep. To paraphrase Jack Kornfield, hod is the ecstasy; netzach is the laundry."

Rabbi Ted offers this focus for meditation: "My sensations embody Lovingkindness. Through every sensation this Lovingkindness manifests. Today I perceive this Lovingkindness reflected in every perception, and know the blessing of the One Who gives all life its beauty and its glory."

(Kabbalistic Tree of Life above, silkscreen print by David Friedman in Safed, Israel)

tiferet in chesed

Tonight is not the second, and not the fourth, day of the counting of the Omer. Still in the week that corresponds to Chesed (lovingkindness), this day corresponds to Tiferet (harmony, beauty).

Rabbi Ted writes, "On the third day of our process, we seek the balance of Tiferet in Chesed. Tiferet is the Heart Space, translated as "Beauty." It is the sefirah symbolizing the energies ofthe Greater Self, the Individuated "I."
"The Greater Self that lives within each one of us is drawn this day into the field of Lovingkindness. We receive from this outpouring of emotion that which supports the fuller awakening of our deep self. And, in turn, this Self contributes to the reality of Chesed itself..."

The meditative focus for the day:
"Within my heart I meet the deeper message of Love to be expressed through word and deed. I honor the Compassion brought this day into the flow of Lovingkindness. I feel the light of Lovingkindness illuminate my entire being, as I breathe these universal rhythms deeply. I am nourished by the compassionate flow of Life awakening within me now. In this fuller awareness, I grow and I share."

gevurah in chesed

Tonight is not the first, and not the third, day of counting the Omer. This week corresponds to the sefirah of Chesed (lovingkindness) and this day to Gevurah (might/limitation).

Rabbi Marcia Prager explains in her lovely book, The Path of Blessing: Experiencing the Energy and Abundance of the Divine,

"Chesed is God suffusing all the worlds with life without restraint. Chesed is the boundless outpouring of divine desire to give. [Gevurah, or] 'might,' on the other hand, refers to the energy of constriction or withdrawal, also called tzimtzum, which contains and circumscribes the rush of life-force.
Through tzimtzum the full and unbearable intensity of God's unrestrained energy is reduced, cooled, and modulated...Through the quality of "might" divine light is shielded, hidden, so that our lives are possible.
...When we are in touch with [this] aspect of the divine, we discover that divine self-restraint, withdrawal, and constriction, far from being negative, are as full an expression of God's love as is God's chesed. Both are essential for our flourishing."

Rabbi Ted's meditative focus for this day:

"I honor both the energy and the form of emotional expression now. I relax body and mind, and trust the higher energies to manifest through me in supportive and healing ways. I receive more fully now, that I might express more effectively in my world."

journey of awakening

Today is the first day and tonight is the second night of Passover. Tonight we begin to count the Omer, the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, the 49 stages between leaving the place of enslavement, and standing in the place of revelation.

Rabbi Ted's book, A Journey of Awakening: Kabbalistic Meditations on the Tree of Life (for some reason, this book is crazy expensive on Amazon -- but you can find it at many bookstores), is a guide through those 49 steps (with the encouragment to travel through them at any meaningful time during the year). He writes,

"The traditional Counting of the Omer includes the following blessing, recited in the evening (or during the ma'ariv, the evening worship service), followed by the counting itself. When you are practicing these meditations during the actual days between Passover and Shavuot, the meditations follow the blessing and the counting.

"Our blessings themselves become meditations when they flow with kavannah, with "intentionality" and "one-pointed attention." Savor the blessing. Let it speak through the Heart of your Inner Silence. Be receptive to the meanings it holds.

"The Blessing Preceding the Counting
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheynu Melech ha-olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu ahl s'firat ha'Omer. Blessed are You, Eternal One our God, Universal Creative Presence, Who sanctifies us with paths of holiness and gives us this path of counting the days of Omer.
The formula for Counting the 49 Days of the Omer Journey
Today is the ____ day, [comprising _____ weeks and ____ days] of the Omer."

Rabbi Ted's meditations for this time follow the flow of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, with each of the seven weeks of the journey, and each of the seven days of each week, reflecting one of the lower seven of the ten universal energies (sefirot). The first week, and the first day of the week (which is tomorrow), correspond to Chesed (Lovingkindness).

There is much more explanation and guidance in the book. Here is a little bit of Rabbi Ted's suggested focus for the first day: "I step beyond the safe confines of my enslavements now. I am filled with exactly the energies I need as I begin my journey toward greater purpose and meaning. I welcome this deep Lovingkindness that naturally supports my growing."

And here is the poem-of-the-day from Panhala:

Passover

Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . .

and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
-Exodus 12: 7 & 13

They thought they were safe
that spring night; when they daubed
the doorways with sacrificial blood.
To be sure, the angel of death
passed them over, but for what?
Forty years in the desert
without a home, without a bed,
following new laws to an unknown land.
Easier to have died in Egypt
or stayed there a slave, pretending
there was safety in the old familiar.

But the promise, from those first
naked days outside the garden,
is that there is no safety,
only the terrible blessing
of the journey. You were born
through a doorway marked in blood.
We are, all of us, passed over,
brushed in the night by terrible wings.

Ask that fierce presence,
whose imagination you hold.
God did not promise that we shall live,
but that we might, at last, glimpse the stars,
brilliant in the desert sky.

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

songs of ascent

As I sit down to begin this post, it is not quite sunset. So it is still, just barely, the 15th of Shevat -- Tu B'shvat -- which is the date of a Jewish holiday called the New Year for Trees. Being a lunar calendar, the beginning of the month is always the new moon, and the 15th is the full moon. The full moon this month marks a traditionally minor agricultural festival whose esoteric meaning is not minor at all: it is the day in the very dead of winter when the Tree of Life begins to reawaken. In modern times it has become a popular time for tree-planting and remembering the importance of wise ecological stewardship and for celebration of the wood beings.

Psalms 120-134 are known as the "songs of ascent," (shirot ha'maalot) and are traditionally chanted on Tu B'shvat, or on the fifteen days between the beginning and middle of the month. Rabbi Jill Hammer teaches that the ascending nature of this practice echoes the rising of the sap in the trees at this time of year (in the mid-east countries, anyway!) It's also thought that these 15 songs of praise might have been sung by pilgrims ascending the great steps up to the massive Temple in Jerusalem.

Last night, with a misty full moon glowing through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Bastyr's darkened cafeteria, the student-organized Mystery School hosted a circle gathering in memory and mourning and celebration of their beloved mentor and professor, Dr. Bill Mitchell. Circle participants were asked to bring something that reminded them of Bill, for a small altar set up in the center of the room. Bill's long-time companion Joanie brought Bill's amazing beaded wooden rattle, the top made of a twisted tree branch that looked vaguely like the skull of a goat, and which we got to use as a talking stick. Many people brought special plants and poems and music, and everyone had a story. Just as during his memorial service, the abundant stories last night revealed again and again Bill's extraordinary capacity for infusing all of his relationships and even brief encounters with presence and kindness and joy. How amazing it is to realize that every one of us who considered ourselves his friend is correctly certain that our relationship with him was a particularly treasured, and intimate, and loving connection -- and I think that, without exaggeration, "us" equals thousands of people -- family and friends, patients and colleagues and especially current students.

For the circle, I brought one of those songs of ascent, Psalm 121, as translated/interpreted by Stephen Mitchell.

I look deep into my heart,
to the core where wisdom arises.
Wisdom comes from the Unnamable
and unifies heaven and earth.
The Unnamable is always with you,
shining from the depths of your heart.
His peace will keep you untroubled
even in the greatest pain.
When you find him present within you,
you find truth at every moment.
He will guard you from all wrongdoing;
he will guide your feet on his path.
He will temper your youth with patience;
he will crown your old age with fulfillment.
And dying, you will leave your body
as effortlessly as a sigh.

(This illluminated text is a fragment of the Psalm by Jerusalem scribe Avraham Borshevsky)

I also brought to the circle the Hebrew words set to music, which I learned from the gorgeous Israeli group Sheva (I can't figure out how to access the direct link, so if you go to their site, choose English, click on Discography, and then on the second CD from the top -- "Day and Night" -- then on the first song, and you can hear a tiny tiny snip)

Their translation for what Stephen Mitchell calls "the Unnamable" is "the Pure Being".

Now, it really is dark, the moon is on the wane, and so it's become the 16th of Shevat.

The Tree of Life continues to surge with the juices of new vitality.

And in our basement office, with its plant-friendly compact fluorescent lights, a descendant of the Tree of the Consciousness is already bearing leaves and fruit (Rabbi Ted like to point out that in the Hebrew version of the Eden story, it does not say "apple," it says "fruit," though afterwards the incarnating beings did sew fig leaves together for clothes...as long as we're pretty sure it couldn't have been a mango, then can't you imagine the luscious fig in that role of the sweet irresistible temptation luring the new humans onto the path of awakening incarnation?)

happy birthday, rabbi ted!

Yom huledet sameach, Rabbi Ted! Happy 65th birthday, with deep love and appreciation for the way you have been willing to enter the center of the fray all your life in order to offer the teachings of the one silence.

A birthday sort of poem, courtesy of Panhala:

Instructions

Give up the world; give up self; finally, give up God.
Find god in rhododendrons and rocks,
passers-by, your cat.
Pare your beliefs, your absolutes.
Make it simple; make it clean.
No carry-on luggage allowed.
Examine all you have
with a loving and critical eye, then
throw away some more.
Repeat. Repeat.
Keep this and only this:
what your heart beats loudly for
what feels heavy and full in your gut.
There will only be one or two
things you will keep,
and they will fit lightly
in your pocket.

~ Sheri Hostetler ~

(A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry)