Tag Archives: intention

Counting the Omer: Netzach

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Vetchanan 2014Vetchanan 2014

Netzach, like each of the sephirot, takes all the energy of what has preceded it and channels it. One way to think of the Tree of Life is as a funnel, where energies are concentrated as they flow into our realm of reality.

Netzach is about energy. Words to describe it include triumph, victory, and power. Think of being victorious in a way that has a chicken and egg relationship with confidence and personal energy. The one begets the other. Its negative counterpart might be self-centeredness or narcissism, or laziness and passivity.

Netzach is about focused will. It’s the chi that energizes you when you apply yourself to a goal. It can come through as a determination to overcome obstacles, to triumph in adversity. It manifests as a creative force, inspiring you to make and do. Netzach has been likened to the current of a river, the vital force that moves it rushing downstream.

Netzach is a very personal energy. It’s where the sephirot are becoming more specifically human. About you and how you live more than a theoretical expression of divinity or godliness. It informs your choices and actions.

There’s a lot of emotional charge to netzach. Charisma in the highest sense, the way a person can inspire people, themselves and others, to reach higher and beyond. To exert their best selves to achieve what might have felt out of reach.

Netzach gathers more power in context. The sephirah is like a placeholder, ready for you to fill and energize it. There’re also aspects of endurance and fortitude, of having the patience and the strategic will to follow through on the vision of knowing where you want to go.

Netzach is correlates to the kabbalistic world of emotions. People and situations take on greater meaning, the more we are involved with them. So the greater your emotional engagement, the more likely your efforts and intentions will succeed.

Netzach is what makes manifestation possible. If you don’t show up, the energy for a given situation won’t either. If you sit on the sidelines only to think and watch and worry about failure, you’re unlikely to be victorious.

One of the deep words in kabbalah is kavannah. It means intention or commitment, not just in the I wanna sense but in the I vow, I commit, I will sense. Netzach is when you make kavannah. When you put some oomph behind your words. Instead of just saying you’re going to clean out the garage, you grab the bucket/gloves, clear the drive, and start picking up and moving things. If you want a promotion, or a new job, or a new partner, what will you do to earn it?

Think about what motivates and energizes you. What makes you willing to get out of your routine, to reach higher, further, and with more effort for a goal? Try to remember times when you have been inspired and those when you have been a slacker. What gets you engaged vs. what makes you sit things out? What motivates you vs. what makes you feel/act like a shopping cart with a bad wheel? What would it take to change that?

Are you ready to feel energized again? Remember how much fun it can be.

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.

That Other Me: TorahCycle Toldot

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shoftim

As a front piece to her new book Small Victories, Anne Lamott cites a Billy Collins poem, In the Evening, the last line of which is And the past and the future?/Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

That’s this week. The yin and yang of us. The cunning and the simple one. The compassionate one; the selfish one. The wise and the innocent, calculating and trusting aspects of self. Dualities we’ve had imaged for us since Cain and Abel. You and that other you. Me and that other me. Nothing but us playing with different masks. Putting on the play of our lives.

Who’s running your show in any given moment is a matter of circumstance, habit, and sometimes intention. Some is trainable, amenable to growth. Other ingredients will stick in place for another lifetime or three. If you’re a witness to your own development, you’re probably aware what energies you’re running on and working on, and at least some of the what you stub your toe on regularly.

Eons ago I worked on a project to live “with greater awareness and intention.” On the clumsy, foolish days, I wanna ask How’s that going for ya, honey? But on the good ones, the ones filled with gratitude and wonder, I feel so very lucky to be doing that particular part of the puzzle.

My holiday wishes for us all, May you have many, many more of the good days. And may you understand clearly what the bad days are trying to teach you.

These readings offer us vivid examples of acting from desire and greed, and from nobility and compassion. We’re all of those things, depending on the day. Torah’s a mirror asking us to look at which one we’re being now, so that we can up the ante on our game.

Our attitude and point of view is almost always situational and relative. Even when we get to the big picture, a ten-thousand foot view of where we are in our evolution, it’s hard to hold onto. Our understanding scatters when we’re faced with crises or difficult outcomes. One more time we find “that other me” acting out or pushing boundaries. The big insight is knowing that it’s to help us better understand the lessons we’re here to work on.

We’re rarely appreciative. But karma’s such a patient process.

Physicists tell us that a huge percent of the universe is “dark matter”– the stuff we cannot see that probably makes everything we can see function as it does. To me it’s soul matter, directing the reality we live in. NPR had a story the other day about mitchondrial DNA. It’s what make our cells run; a mere 27 genes out of 20,000 plus, but they function like a battery or energetic motivation. So it’s especially important to pay very close attention when that other you–your inner Esau–the one you’re not always in such a rush to claim–acts out and does something stupid or short-sighted.

Because that’s how our othernesses get our attention. By starting fires in and under us. It’s our job to look at them and listen to them. And to to choose our next steps carefully and wisely.

What You Say: TorahCycle D’varim

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Dvarim 2014There’s a Chinese proverb that says the symbol for crisis also is the symbol for opportunity. In the midst of the current Middle East violence, I’ve been thinking about how we use language and how that influences how we perceive and act.

We’re at the very beginning of the last book of Torah. This week’s reading, D’varim is a Hebrew word that means both words and things. In the beginning the world is spoken into being. This whole universe we inhabit and share with one another begins with speech: energy and intention taking physical form. At each step, creation is given a cosmic seal of approval, And it was good.

Things were simpler without people to get greedy or angry, to start sparring with their kin and other tribes. Though even within the first family story there’s strife and murder: Cain killing Abel, a battle between brothers that continues with Isaac/Ishmael, and Jacob/Esau.

As Torah progresses, the stories become less personal, but peace is always shattered and blood spilled. Those people/they/them are defined as other. As fair game for our tribal rage. As acceptable collateral damage in modern parlance.

What would happen if instead of saying enemy people said neighbor? If instead of The man who killed my brother, we said The man whose son I killed?

I confess to the sadness/fatalism about Middle East politics that Israeli novelist David Grossman bemoaned in a recent speech: a loss of hope, especially ironic given that Israel’s national song is Hatikvah (Hope). For the record, I believe in Israel’s right of self-defense, but also in its responsibility for different, better, socio-politics.

As long as the people of the region identify as warring tribes rather than neighbors caught in a complicated situation, we’re all doomed to cycles of violence and retribution.

It is a sad, sad waste, given what we humans are capable of in our best and most creative times. But like Jacob wrestling an angel who could represent his most crippling aspects of self, we seem to be trapped in an endless struggle of killing and revenge. Time heals some wounds but seems to deepen others. There’s such a long legacy of anger and pain; forgiveness and healing feel far away.

Writers try to wrap their arms around it: In The Jewish Lover, Topol uses a contemporary murder mystery to dramatize the 1,000-year ambivalence between Russians and Jews, from the tenth-century Jewish Khazar kingdom in southern Russian until now. The Lemon Tree, by Sandy Tolan, is about a house built in 1930’s Palestine by an Arab patriarch, taken in 1948 by Israelis, and settled by immigrants from Holocaust Europe. It’s a microcosm of regional conflict that recounts good and evil on both sides, with all the tangled roots and acidic fruit.

I believe in the power of words, be they fiction, essay, or self-talk. My writing focuses on personal growth because it feels like a necessary precursor to larger shifts. Also, because it’s what we can wrap our heads around.

So the only thing I know for sure is that while people are using words of war they are unlikely to create peace. If we can change our words maybe we can change the world.

 

Fingers Crossed: TorahCycle Mattot

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Mattot 2014Sometimes we cross our fingers for good luck. We’re wishing and hoping. Other times we cross them while rationalizing a “white” lie (to protect someone’s feelings, though as often it’s our own self-interest). And sometimes when we promise something we cross them because we want a great big loophole to vault through later.

This week’s reading deals with the rules for breaking vows: commitments made with sacred intention and obligation. A kind of spiritual promissory note. Often made in times of great stress, and abandoned later when what caused that stress abates. Think hospitals, wars, night terrors, and other forms of acute fear.

More optimistically, individuals make pledges to everything from diets to fund drives. Countries make promises too, as treaties and alliances. But when conditions change, we break our vows. It’s no more honorable in a country than a person, though there’s usually  spin-doctors to wrap the betrayal in flags and slogans.

Making a vow you’re not going to keep reinforces the idea that your word is worthless. Why would anyone else believe your promise to them if you don’t keep your promises to yourself? Why would you make a commitment if you didn’t really plan to keep it? Mostly, because we’re human. Fallible. Filled with good intentions and lousy habits.

Ironically, more often than not we do better at meeting commitments we make to others. That’s part of why behavior modification programs like diet plans, AA, and the like have public meetings. External accountability is often more effective than putting patches on your arm and hoping that you’ll be able to quit inhaling.

I believe in few absolute vows. Thou shalt not kill, is an example of a good one. But as I age I’m becoming more of a relativist. Not just to go easier on myself when I stray from my program du jour. But because I don’t think they work well for really effective change.

I’m finding vows more of a guilt trip than a benefit. Thou shalt not eat gluten, for example, in the absence of actual ciliac disease, is more a chance to screw up than to stare down temptation. The sense of failure that comes with a bagel is worse for me than the actual gluten.

Better to build up our sense of progress and pride by honoring intentions more gradually, more naturally, and more authentically. By making the right choices in each moment, time after time. Not saying something once and hoping I’m done. Because “done” is more often the path to backsliding and recrimination, looking for the loopholes, rather than taking the next step on the right road.

What vows do you make and which do you keep? What would happen if you allowed your deep intention to guide you rather than struggle with a one-time promise?

Too often vow-making and vow-breaking go hand in hand. Far better to choose good in the moment than out of fear or obligation. Regular reinforcement of your intention by making good choices more often is far more effective, llong lasting, and gentler on the soul.

Better to count the times you get it right, not the ones you blow it.

Because I Said So!: TorahCycle Chukat

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JoshWhat pisses you off? Bad drivers when you’re late? Annoying colleagues, stubborn friends, or forgetful partners? Poorly designed tools, new software? What makes you lose it? Grit or gnash your teeth. Shriek, smash pottery, or just plain lose your cool.

I recently lost a beloved pet. Death’s high on my things-that-piss-me off list. Not so much my own death; if that was gonna happen now it probably woulda. But the damn finality of it. The can’t pick up the phone and find you now finality. Or in this case, shake the bag of tuna treats and see my kitty come running.

Even though I believe in reincarnation, the transmigration of souls, and high-falutin’ stuff like talking to unseen guides and all the wonderful things my generation helped scatter about, connecting with spirits that are energetic rather than manifested is harder and less reliable. It requires a certain sense of intention, kavannah. A committed, more focused way of doing things. Slower than my instincts generally motivate. Not to mention careful listening and a whole lotta faith.

So I can empathize with Moses, who’s spent 40 years shepherding the whiny masses. They’re hungry and thirsty, and when HaShem says water will flow from a rock, Moses gets impatient and angry and wonks it with his staff to hurry things along. I’m amazed he didn’t snap sooner.

Anger is such a murky emotion. So seemingly transparent, but usually the tip of a deep pool of other, older, feelings. Flailing at what doesn’t obey us, what doesn’t confirm to our desire to reshape the universe as we think it should be, can be momentarily cathartic.

I’m empathetic. I’m often moving too fast. Not always paying enough attention to fine details or sharp edges. My recent construction project helped. Enforced an ability to be more at peace with, or at least more tolerant of, what I could not control. It was a good and needed teaching.

But like most folks I’m not very good with a profound sense of helplessness. We like to say, Let go and let God. But really! Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith. And then we blow it.

Usually there are consequences (rarely good ones), to us or worse, to others. They tend to make us rueful and sad, angry at ourselves for not paying better attention all along. This reinforces the helplessness, because we can’t change the past any more than we can avoid the deaths of those we love.

The day after, one of my wise friends quoted me a great line of lyrics: Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. It helped.

If we’re paying attention, we’ll learn from our lessons. Get a little smarter. Do better or at least maybe different the next time. No guarantee we won’t blow it again. And again and again. That’s why we’re here, doing this work. To keep blowing it until some day we don’t, and get to wherever it is we go next.

We get wiser. A little more healed. Find enough solace and blessings in what we have and can hold, love and be loved by, that even though we don’t get to enter the promised land right now, we get to see it is indeed there, waiting for us when we are ready.

Lucky us.

 

What’s It Worth?: TorahCycle Bechukotai

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Bechukotai 2014When we make promises we expect to keep them. That’s not just blind optimism, though most often we fail at promises we make to ourselves, rather than others, whom we disappoint less regularly. It’s an expression of hope springing eternal, even if it’s unsubstantiated, even contradicted, by experience.

This week’s reading has instructions on valuing pledges made to HaShem. You know the kind: If you do/fix/make x y or z situation, I promise to be/do/act more or less _______ing.  I promise.

Generally these vows are made in circumstances of need–even desperation–acute or perceived. But there you are. Sworn. Pledged. Ostensibly committed. Some part of you has grabbed the wheel and given it a hard turn in the right direction. (P.S. And this time I mean it. I really do.)

I’m reading a great book on breaking through creative blocks and overcoming resistance: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. As he says, it’s good for anyone who’s ever said they want to be more creative, start a new health regimen, cure an addiction, or tighten their abs. Read it. Please contact me immediately if it doesn’t mirror your own dance; I want to know your secret.

When you make a pledge you’re supposed to want to keep it. And then do so. This reading details how the loopholes are calculated: what it’ll cost to weasel out of your promise. Many are measured in market value with a 20% markup, though many of us would happily pay double to escape following through on what we’re not quite ready for. Please wait. We’ll start next Monday. Really. Trust us.

I recently organized an event. It was only a qualified success. But I tried. Planned. Did all the right stuff. Why? I had a vision. I was pledged. I had a passion. I made a commitment. I wanted to follow through, and I did.

So what’s the difference between that and say, starting and failing with a diet? What are we willing to put our energy behind, and what do we just give lip service? If we only give lip service over and over again, but never invoke energy, what’s the message? Would having to pay a hefty fine change your behavior? What stops you from following through on your promises?

Often life intrudes. Energies and events get in the way, whether they’re entrepreneurial surges or bouts of insomnia, planting your garden, falling in love, or caring for ailing parents. When they do, what happens to your vows? Do you hit the pause button? Or use them to help get you through the hard and busy times?

I think Pressfield is right: the more important what we’re trying to embrace and accomplish is to us, the more resistance we will encounter. There’s no enemy stronger, cleverer, or more persistent than the obstructions resistance can conjure. So be careful about what you pledge, because each time you do, the cost of not following through goes up. Like yo-yo dieting, you can make a problem worse by not actually dealing with it.

If you want to avoid the costs of delay and avoidance, your first pledge should be to overcoming resistance. If you want help with something, start by asking for that.

What If? : TorahCycle Tzav

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KarmaRide 2013If you ran the world, how would it spin?

Everybody’s idea of happiness is different. (For some clues about how different, take a handful of buzzworthy quizzes.) Your idea of relaxation might be a four-star beach; your friend’s could be backpacking. You might aspire to being a musician or a CEO. Another’s dream is being a priest, a seeker whose job is to make ritual and to bless.

This reading tells us about the seven-day purification process for Aaron and his sons to become priests. But because I think this whole story is really about/for us, it suggests how to shed whatever’s keeping you from living not just holier but happier.

So, what would make you happy?

Most folks want to change something: from their bodies to a bad job, an unhappy relationship, or an unhealthy habit. We hope the payoff will be a better life, a good life. I’d like to expand the “good life” to be more than a satisfied sense of achievement and self-indulgence. I’d like it to include goodness in the moral and ethical sense.

One of my favorite bumpers stickers has always been If you want peace work for justice. Collectives, whether they’re tribes, nations, or political parties, tend to have goals that seem complicated. Individuals are easier. They mostly want to be happy. To not have to fret about safety, love, or money. To know the bills will get paid, that there’ll be food on the table, and that the house and kids are squared away. That there’s hope for the future.

Social equity breeds peace. Happy people are less likely to fight or kill.

If you decided to initiate yourself as a happier person, what would it take? Making and keeping vows? Making more time for your own priorities? Doing more for others? How would you do it and how will you know when you’re there?

The classic Buddhist answer is to shed desire. But for most of us there’s always one more nagging gimme, big or small, profound or silly.. The classic Jewish answer is similar: be happy with the life you’ve got. See everything that happens to you–no matter how undeserved or painful it may sometimes feel–as a chance to step up and show your faith.

Those may be the enlightened views, but small steps are a great start. Happiness with ourselves can amplify our caring and compassion for our friends and neighbors. And happier, more satisfied, people make this a better planet to hang out on.

We’ve all seen zillions of internet and email promises of Just 10 steps to [insert goal]. They generally include buying vitamins or pills, CDs, or books. But what if, as this reading suggests, taking seven days to focus on initiation could actually change you. Commit to doing any one thing, and actually stick to it. You might not become a priest, but what if you could become more/less  _____________?

What if you committed to one change for the next seven days, just to see how you’d feel on the other side? Nothing dramatic, just a single right step, repeated consistently. I’m going to do it, and pay good attention along the way. Please join me.