Tag Archives: choice

Counting the Omer: Yesod

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Lekh LLekh L

Yesod is about possibility.

A core idea in Kabbalah is tzimtzum, a contraction of oneness into itself and then all universal energy exploding outward. The Big Bang, in physics terms. Yesod is the place on the Tree where that energy has made most of the circuit from big universality to here. The funnel has narrowed, and the only place to go, the next place, is the last place, you’re here and now, the smaller universe of you.

Take a moment to reflect upon the huge distance this energy has traveled to get to you. The universe channeling all that wisdom, love, and creativity into yesod, which is embracing and energizing you with its regenerative power.

It’s like riding a train where the next stop is your home station. You’re gonna disembark, and then do whatever you’re gonna do for the next part of your life. Perhaps for the rest of your life. You’re becoming changed. If you’re more cautious, think from now till autumn. But ask yourself, What am I gonna do with all this energy, this abundance of potential and strength?

Now, while all your deep work is fresh, is the perfect time to do a visioning. To move your sights to a further horizon than next week. To open the invisible channels so the universe begins to align in directions that support your best and highest good.

In the traditions of the names of God, yesod is associated with the word Elohim, which is a plural word, and with El Shaddai, the provider, which relates to abundance, the life force of creation that is self-sustaining and self-generating.

The traditional definition of Yesod is foundation. It’s the basis for all the higher energies to enter malkuth, the kingdom of the earthly realm. On the map of the body, it is associated with the sexual organs. As the procreative imagery suggests, yesod contains and suggests tremendous power.

I believe in using this paradigm as a tool for spiritual growth. It helps one transcend the distractions of daily life. Not the good parts, like love, friendship, home, adventure, and joy. But with actively shedding the stuff the grabs your ankles and holds you back from progress.

Yesod brings you the creative oomph of the four worlds to help. It’s about climbing that ladder to the 10-meter high-dive and walking to the edge.

Feel the necessity, even urgency, building in you. A sort of mini tzimtzum. Ready, ready, ready, almost go. The you who’s gonna jump will have opened a new window in whatever’s covering up your holy spark. You’ll be able to see a little further and more clearly, both into and towards your future.

Whatever makes you feel as though all things new are possible, that change is good, and that you are ready to move in a new direction……Now’s a great time to cozy up to it. Invite it home for dinner and a talk. Go dancing. Have a smooch. Because that’s the part of you who’s gonna help you optimize whatever’s coming next. The good news: it’s gonna be great fun and good for you. Hooray!!

Counting the Omer: Gevurah

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 Mishpatim- Gevurah

Gevurah embodies contraction and discernment. It is a container. It is about strength, about restraint, discrimination, and choice. About boundaries. About understanding the importance of a difference between self and other. Gevurah is conservative. It’s about choosing, in the sense of rights and wrongs, yeses and no’s, do’s and don’ts.

It’s a lot more about absolutes than relativism, though in its higher sense that’s not a bad thing. Being able to choose and decide is a valuable and necessary trait. It’s only when you always choose yourself first, selfishly, that you are on the “bad inclination” (yetzer hara) side of gevurah.

Gevurah tends towards stasis rather than growth. It’s about keeping things the same and safe rather than risking change and choosing the unknown, which might lead to things becoming unpredictable or uncontrollable.

It’s about giving yourself what you need, but not more than you need. About giving yourself what is good for you, but not what is excessive. About making choices and judgments. Not in the way talk about judgments as in judgmental with the connotation bad. Rather in having a metric. A way of saying this much is the right amount. Sufficient. Nurturing. Beneficial. Giving and getting what’s good. Not locking the gates so tight that nothing and no one can get in but keeping good boundaries about too much of you leaking out.

There’s a clarity and precision of your emotions that allows you to see with a detachment that is independent of your instinctive desire to just love and to want to be loved.

There’s some mother bear in gevurah. The protectress. The one who keeps things safe by creating proper boundaries. Understands there should be a line between what comes in and what stays out. Knows the where when and why of it. More than what’s polite or socially appropriate, gevurah understands the importance of nurturing and keeping safe the energy that is yours.

Gevurah is about knowing when to say No and not always getting entangled in other people’s dramas. Gevurah is about teaching you to savor your life. To make sure you appreciate every piece of it, and make it so that you do.

Sometimes that’s hard stuff. Asking for things you are afraid you won’t get or don’t deserve and other times it is saying No to someone else asking it of you.

How does your willingness and ability to have boundaries reflect on your higher aspirations? What kinds of situations motivate you to be open or closed? Take a moment or two to list them As you do, observe how you feel, and if there’s anywhere in your body that feels a certain way – looser or tighter – when you do so.

Think about people and situations in your life where your gevurah has felt out of balance. These can be in the past or current ones. Look for patterns and similarities.

What would the darker side of gevurah be? Where are you too selfish, too constrained, too ready to close out the world and keep yourself safe from what might challenge you to reconsider your views or to change? Between now and next Saturday evening, think about affirmations that would help you remember and create more openness and balance.

Getting Clean: TorahCycle Tzav

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VayechiIn the psychological thriller Descent, author Tim Johnston sets up several interlocking pairs of troubled relationships, mostly father /son, but there’s just enough pervasive misanthropy and sense of imminent threat, that you’re just never quite sure when everything’s gonna erupt. And then, hope against hope, with not a shed of evidence to even hint you should imagine, you find yourself rooting for one of the meanest ones to become a hero, to be moved by sense of humanity you’ve had no reason to believe is there.

That’s the holy spark. The essence of being that on a soul level each of us recognizes in the other. No matter how unlikely it may seem on any given day.

That’s what this getting holy is all about. Seeing and being those people.

All the rest, in the words of the great sages, all the rest is commentary.

Hide and Seek: TorahCycle Vayakhel-Prkudey

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Yitro

In the mid-80’s a British illustrator came up with a clever set of visual puzzles that challenged viewers to identify a playful character amid throngs of other similarly-clad folks. It reminded me of a game that readers of the Sunday NY Times played, in the days of the great Al Hirshfield. He signed each week’s entertainment cartoon with a number, like 3 or 5,  by his name: that was how often the name NINA would be hidden in the angles of his cover story drawing.

They’re variations of hiding the truth in plain sight. Challenging and simple. And like the optical illusion of the old/young lady or lady/vase, once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee, or believe it took so long, or that you could ever not have seen it. But until you do, there’s so much mystery and searching.

This and recent readings have focused on the building of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary the Israelis would cart with them through decades of trekking. The instructions are given twice, in such tediously exquisite detail that one finds oneself hoping against hope that there’s a revelation so simple and obvious waiting for us once we perceive it. In the interim, there’s counting and measuring of objects as diverse as dolphin skins, spices, and jewels.

We’re told that HaShem will hover over the mishkan in a cloud, so everyone will know they are not alone on their journey. (Always a deeply satisfying reminder: Spirit is with you!) Moses alone will be invited in to talk face-to-face, like you and your best buddy over a cuppa. Come in; sit down; receive the word. That’s when the system works well and you’re in synch with your guides, listening to and hearing one another.

When I was far younger, and every incoming call was a blush-evoking maybe-a-date, my father would answer the phone saying just too loudly, Nobody home! on the principle that anyone too easily cowed was someone I’d be better off without.

That’s how the mishkan works. Your inner Moses has to be brave and smart enough to receive truth. And the universe generous and lined up for you to actually hear it. (Note to self: it helps to be listening.)

Each of us has our own cues: a deer on your walking trail; a synchronistic message from a loved one; a vibrant dream; or even a bright penny by your feet. When things like that appear, we listen a little harder.

The mishkan’s like an extra antenna. Designed to operate on all channels like a SETI beacon beaming out and scanning the heavens, hoping we’ll meet another set of souls with a different cosmic address,

We’ve got a lot of trekking in front of us. But having the mishkan with us helps keeps out feet and souls aimed pretty much aimed the right way, assuming we can hear the directions.

However you think of your mishkan, this is the perfect time to visit it. You’ll find something much deeper and more profound than Waldo.

Thumbs Up: TorahCycle Ki Tisa

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BoIn gladiator movies there’s invariably a scene when the honorable protagonist has a sword pointed at the throat of prone combatant, while evil Romans signal thumbs down, so the defeated’s life can be given for their amusement. Our hero throws down his sword and turns away, in essence saying I choose mercy even at the cost of my own life.

Most of us make much less important decisions, with less serious consequences, with much more fanfare and ado than they deserve. Too rarely do we demonstrate the qualities that’re at the core of this week’s reading. In addition to the Golden Calf story, we’re told of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which in the mystery traditions transmute into a thirteen-petaled rose signifying both forgiveness and remembering.

In our lives I see them as the ability to say to yourself: Stand down. Put those sharp emotions and feelings aside. Put your weapons, your anger, and your destructive patterns away. Give yourself, and whatever you’re pointing all that negativity at, a break. Take a breather. It’s kinda like a time-out period for grown ups. A good kind.

For a little and maybe longer, you surrender to something that’s better than the way you might feel or act reflexively. You give up the helm. Stop trying so hard to do, make, please others, or struggle. You look at your crap and you say simply, Ya know. Let’s try something different this time.

In Torah metaphor it’s dawn. You can stop wrestling. All past failures gone and forgiven. Evaporating like an old bad dream. Sunk cost, as an economist might say. Time to move on in a better direction. Don’t look back, because it won’t be pretty.

Because while you were out carousing, getting caught up in office politics, or in personal dramas, you were pretty much dead to the world as far as living with awareness goes. The more you prattle stories about how you’re trying as hard as you can, unappreciated, entitled, victimized, needy, afraid, blah blah blah, you’re really building a golden calf instead of getting more godlike. And like the Jews condemned to trekking penance, you’re gonna have to serve your time.

This can be a moment of waking up. Albeit it may only be for an instant. But many eastern paths tell us –and hold out for us the hope – that an instant is all that may be needed. A favorite story is of the housewife who, when she hears the chapatti batter hit the splattering oil, suddenly groks the oneness of all things.

Talk about something to pray for.

The next sections of wandering in the wilderness offer us many paths to work on our holiness, assuming we aren’t granted a swift and dramatic revelation. We have yet a lifetime of getting to walk our talk: loving and quarreling, being thoughtful and thoughtless, jubilant and sad, triumphant and questioning, and exploring worlds seen and unseen as best we can.

Sometimes it’s hard to simply take a breath before we do something we will regret. But that’s what a mercy moment is: consciousness knocking hard on your door, hoping you will answer.

Playing With Dolls: TorahCycle Tetzaveh

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Kedoshim In my tomboy years I denied ever having played with dolls, even while seated next to a picture of younger me holding one. I did like the nested wooden dolls. They start out five inches tall, but when you’ve opened them all, the teeniest sits like a helpless baby in your palm. My closet’s pretty similar. In the work/playtime/dressy groupings, side by side hang the may-one-day-fit, looks-fine-now, and yikes-need-bigger-today wardrobes.

This week’s reading is about priestly garments. Would you think me more priestly in my smaller or my larger duds? In my jeans or a ceremonial robe?

The ways we appear to others may be very different than how we feel inside. We can look spiffy on the outside, while we protect and hide our smallest inner doll.

What makes us holier? The outer doll we dress for the world or something else? I’m definitely more priestly when my compassion and sense of responsibility to truth telling are greater. But I might be cleaning house or making bad puns about the sacred at the same time. Like our jeans and our ball gowns, we’re wired to be both sacred and irreverent. Neither makes us priestly by default. We have to earn it.

Science confirms faith: we definitely become more like how we say we and believe we are. Words or thoughts, if you aspire to something long enough, even if you’re playing dress-up and pretending, you help make it so.

Where I used to work, our standing joke about the boss was his request (so often prefaced by Helen,…) was Please make it so! The old Bubbe Jewish equivalent, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

But what if, indeed, as in quantum physics theories visualized in movies like What the ^%^#@*& Do we Know? or studies of the shapes that water takes around various emotions, we actually did make it so? If we became the selves we act, talk, and wish we were?

How does your “me” doll act and look to others, in your suits, your jeans or your robes? Can you be a holy fool, laugh at your foibles? Do you choose to be in the middle of the pack, suppressing your true self? Or can you strip down to your essence and interact directly with the world?

If you read any random fifty match.com profiles you might think virtually all of us were into long walks on the beach and romantic evenings. The few that stood out would either draw you in or push you away. Too often we with very used to hiding our most personal and special parts, be they sacred or damaged. Just like our wardrobes, we’ve all got both parts that make folks want to run like hell and others that inspire love and holiness.

Which aspects of self you encourage and nurture, which you believe in, and dress in like they are the truest you, are the ones you will grow into. Just like your inner holy robes, or your smallest inner doll, that’s the you we all deserve to witness and honor.

You Turns: TorahCycle Terumah

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terumah 2015The big image of the week is The Golden Calf. The ultimate u-turn of unconsciousness. The biggest, shiniest, recidivist party in Torah. The Israelites blow it big, and model for us how to be deaf, dumb, blind, impatient, and afraid. Not an example to follow, but a familiar enough one for most of us to recognize.

Like the comfort foods of childhood, some things exert a strong pull. The imagery of the 1950s Ten Commandments movie is one of those for me. While seemingly silly in our pixilated age, the images are still iconic. Everyone singing and dancing around a giant golden idol like they’re at an ecstasy-fueled rave, oblivious to their recently granted state of grace. The issue isn’t how many commandments the idol violates but what it represents.

After several margaritas, one of my friends told me about her “bad boy” phase. Choosing the gnarly motorcycle rider over the safe doctor. Enjoying sex, drugs, rock and roll instead of working in grad school or a career. We’ve all been somewhere similar, whether the siren is singing about sex, money, or rampant desire in another costume. Gimme, now! Feed me, now! More is better! Now! Now! Now!

The old saying about plumbers goes All you gotta know is that water flows downhill. That’s us, tumbling towards the abyss of our old bad habits. Our internalized bad boy reminding us once again that we don’t deserve better. We roll belly up what we’ve known and done before, no matter how bad for us it may be. We screw up the good we worked so very very hard to earn.

Is there an antidote to this psychic kryptonite?

No quick dose in Torah. We’re given forty years of wandering to make up for the calf. In our real lives, bad decisions cost us years of heartache, with sides of shame, debt, and worse.

One of the images this parshah evokes is not the smashed tablets or the mass frenzy. Rather, a kid blindfolded and spun thrice around and back at the beginning of a game. Lost and confused. How you feel when you genuinely don’t know why you’ve done what you’ve done, or what to do next, or next after that.

For all the noise and glitter, the reading invokes a quiet sobriety. Sadness about having made a bad wrong turn. One that requires not only remediation, but a depth of self-examination deeper than you’ve done before.

Lip service won’t be enough. You’re going to have to actually commit. To getting it right. To the long hard slogging path through the desert. To change.

Dig deep. Keep marching. One foot, one year, after another.

Along the way there are many teachings. Ones you want and ones you’d prefer to never know about. Lessons you can go to a movie the night before and still get an A+ on your exam. Others that will spin you in circles so wide and scary that you’ll long to tear off your blindfold.

Don’t get lost in the slogging. Keep an eye out for those feelings. Because if you can catch one at just the right moment, you can reclaim something important you might not even remember you’ve lost.

 

Edge to Edge: TorahCycle Beshellach

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Chayei SarahOf all the images in Torah, the fleeing Israelites facing the (as-yet-unparted) Red Sea has a special place in my heart. Long before I started using these readings as a weekly exercise to view personal process, I understood the challenge of facing a challenge and having no frigging idea what the &^$#@%^ to do next.

We often feel like we’ve come so far. Made it through so much. Made a shift, made some progress, on the road to somewhere better. It’s time for celebration even reward, not another rough patch. I’m willing to enjoy kale chips instead of cookies, so it doesn’t seem fair for a giant new obstacle to appear on the path. Not just a daunting one. But a test to my skills, imagination, and commitment. Even my faith in the process itself.

The old saying goes No way out but though. Or in this metaphor, in.

The classic commentary is of the guy who jumps first. Supposedly the sea did not part until the water reached his nostrils. This while most of us are standing around muttering about making a u-turn back to slavery, aka the known, even with its known bad results.

The waters rarely part quite so easily for me or mine. There’s almost always more drama, even when we think we’re in well past our eyebrows. As I’ve paced the edge of my own Red Seas, I’ve paid attention to my reluctance to jump-start change. A recipe for resistance that includes fear, denial, laziness, and contentment….. plus knowing that change has a compelling momentum of its own, as in, more change happens next, and keeps happening. Add your own favorites.

I’m great at vow-making, drawing lines in the sand, and dipping a couple toes at a time in and then out when the water is cold or the undertow is scary. I’ve gotten wet up to my ankles more often than I can count. But to fully commit without turning away or back, still hard to do.

Each edge is a doorway for the next transition. We’re being asked to say Yes, and… and to follow through, no matter how scary it looks or feels.

In the classic before and after pics used in gym and weight-loss commercials, progress is promoted as effortless and speedy. But any of us who’ve tackled a big shift know there’s a whole lot more middle than advertised. That comes later. But unless you take that first big step now, you’re gonna stay stuck on the “before” shore. I can’t guarantee any seas will part. But I can testify that you will feel better once you begin to change your story.

You’re likely to keep basics like your name and your incarnation. But you might have to choose to recommit or leave a partner, job, home, or health regimen. What you gain from leaping over all that resistance is a new sustenance that the metaphor of manna offers: knowing that you are capable of change. To get to your own version of “after,” you need to keep believing in that.

For now, jump in and keep breathing. Oh yeah, sing and dance often on the next edge.

 

Good Morning, Mitzrayim: TorahCycle Shemot

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Shemot 2015jpgIt took forever but we are finally here. After all the festivities, gifting, and celebrating, we woke up the other day to a clean new year. One unsullied by bad decisions or old habits. A blank slate. Tabula rasa. A new chance to get things right. Resolutions made. Vows to keep them. Optimism abounds.

Not so fast. We have just entered the book of Exodus.

I’ll assume you read the book or saw the movie. Baby Moses cast into the bulrushes to escape genocide: raised in the palace; kills an overseer who’s abusing Hebrew slaves; is exiled to the wilderness; sees a burning bush on Mt. Sinai; talks directly to God; returns to free the enslaved.

The big punch line of the next several chapters is that we get out of slavery. But the work in-between now and then, and the even harder work after, when the overseer is inner not outer, fills the next four books.

This process is a metaphor of “the hero’s journey” that Joseph Campbell wrote about so eloquently. You have to go into the darkness and make it through to find and appreciate the light. Baby Moses represents our holy spark: waiting to be rescued and reclaimed. For now we need to engage the parts of us that are willing to look into that dark place and use what we see to transform ourselves.

It’s the journey of a lifetime, with oh so many paths, both twisting and straight, obstructed and clear. It can be hard to find our way, but it happens with small steps, one step at a time.

Making bricks under an overseer’s whip is a vivid image of the darkness. Direct communion with The Source is a worthy goal. But to get there you must choose the light, and reinforce that choice with every small decision that follows. That’s what our resolutions are about. I’ve been stuck doing X, Y, or Z. I want to change. Instead it’s time to do _______. Fill in the blank.

In Torah there is a deus ex machina to help. Literally. The divine hand, expressed through acts of wonder and magic, plagues and punishment. More on that soon. But the core question remains: Do you like things how they are or do you want them to change? Really? What’re you prepared to differently to turn your resolutions into reality? Are you waiting for a miracle or are you ready to step up? Now? When? How often and consistently? What will make the changes sustainable, not failed attempts?

Moses answers at the burning bush with a word we see at important moments in Torah. He is called and he answers hineini, I am here. It is an acknowledgment both that he has heard the call and that he is willing to be to respond. To step up.

This journey is all about showing up. Step by step. It’s not about saying No, thanks. Please don’t ask me to up the ante on myself. It is about listening to the guides around you and the knowing inside you, and then doing your work 24/7. It’s about choosing hineini, to be present in every moment and choice of your life, Every step on your journey.

Happy New Year.

Finding Your Way: TorahCycle Vayigash

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Vayigash 2014Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: It seemed like a great idea at the time. You have all these hopes. It’s inspirational to think you have found “the one,” “the answer,” or at that you’re making if not the finest decision of your life, at least the right and best one for that time. One that’ll have great outcomes. Make you happier, healthier, richer, wiser, whatever quest you are on and hope to make a great leap forward pursuing. If you’re in peril or danger, there’s that special relief that you’ve found sanctuary: happily ever after, lush fields, safe home, goats in every yard, and grain for every pot. Good luck with that.

Life is cyclical: this week’s harbor will become next month’s prison. Now we’re being welcomed by a long-lost brother; soon we will be slaves. That’s Torah. In real life, events usually take longer to unfold, and situations are rarely as dire, thought they can feel like it, which helps ready us for the yet next shift.

Torah is a metaphor for evolution. The morals of the next sections: You have to be ready and willing to change to actually change. It may feel great in the beginning but it gets harder. There’s rough stuff and tough times to get through. Freedom and evolution are great goals. Getting there requires hard work. And then more hard work. It’ll feel better before it gets worse, and eventually better again. The in-between matters. How you do it helps determine when you land.

We have one more chapter in Genesis. Remember this all started with creation. From the void till now, we’ve gone through several cycles of starting over, as a species, families, and individuals. We screwed up before, and are likely to do it again. But if we’re living in good faith, trying to improve, to do better each time around, if we’re paying attention to the lessons and continuing to do our homework, the process is worth it. We may never get where we think we want to go. But each new there will teach us what we next need to learn.

For now, we’re choosing to go down into Egypt. To the place that looks good, for now. Like the new love who offers rescue from lonely evenings, or the job that promises income and advancement, Egypt seems like a sure bet. The reading is optimistic: Joseph is united with his family and they’re invited to move in. Smiles, handshakes, and toasting abound.

Part of the message: before you start engaging with new deep work, make peace with as much of your history as you can. The less you’re packing, the better off you’ll be when you enter the murky, mucky parts.

It’s all a mirror of the healing process, however you go about doing it. This is a powerful time to take stock. Not just the end-of-year best and worst lists. But a soul level, What am I working on and How’m’I gonna do it? kind. Asking and answering will serve you well in the times to come.