Tag Archives: kabbalah

Burying the dead in the beginning

Adult raven photograph by Ron Hanna via https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/common-raven#photo3

Studying Jewish folklore brings one around many old testament stories, and with that, the source of many cultural idioms and expressions: “the writing on the wall”, the value of atonement, among much else.

Something new to me is a source of wisdom on burying one’s dead. I did not realize advice about it for Jews goes back to beresheit:

…

After Hevel [aka Abel] was slain, he was lying in a field, his blood spattered over sticks and stones. The dog who had been guarding Hevel’s flock now also guarded Hevel’s corpse from the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky.

Adam and his mate came and sat by the corpse, weeping and mourning for him, but they did not know what to do with Hevel’s body.

A raven whose companion had just died said: I will teach Adam what to do. The raven took his dead companion, dug up the earth before the eyes of Adam and his mate, and buried him in it.

Adam said: We will do as the raven. At once he took Hevel’s corpse and buried it in the ground.

…

Commentary on the fourth reading of the first torah cycle, via https://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/MidrashBereishit3.html, with image via https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/common-raven#photo3

3, 2, 1, Animism

Elemental ingredients

Every one has mind, body, spirit

Every being expressed by Mind, Speech, and Body

That is:

Archetypal essence, idea, consciousness

Pattern formation, design, name

Specific presence, action, physicality

3, 2, 1, “It’s Alive!”

3, 2, 1, “Hello, hi” (go ahead, talk, like talking with a pet)

“May peace be upon you”

שמע ישראל Receiving Home: A Simple Qabbalah of Shema Yisrael

A beautiful bit of wisdom along with a very meaningful tapestry.

The prayer on the bottom of the tapestry is the most essential Jewish prayer, the Shema:

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohanu, Adonai Echad

It has great significance in many layers and is especially sacred written in the Hebrew alephbet. The prayer can translate directly to:

Hear Israel, "G-d" is "our Lord", "G-d" is the one

The Hebrew word for “G-d” as used in the Shema has deep meaning and is associated with the allso profound Tree of Life, as shown in the above tapestry.

One mystical interpretation is:

Hear, inner spiritual 'Home': The ALL is (All) our world, The ALL is One.

A brief but potent reminder about a metaphysics of panentheistic panpsychism – two words with much to unpack, put less academically as: One Love אהבה אחת

שלום שלום שלום

Point Pros of Animism

  • Poetry and singing prayer and blessing for food and all other things to be thankful for. May it be healthy, come from good health, and go forward in good health. May it be for the best, may it be of minimal suffering.
  • Ancient and prevalent tradition of theurgy, as in Greek cults bringing statues to life with spirits of the gods, or Jewish Kabbalists trying to repair the world by awareness of the oneness of the spheres of the Tree of Life. Visualizing the color of an object as blue red and white is one simple theurgic exercise, serving as a means of conveying blessing to minerals, plants, animals, and humans (practice patiently in that order). Imagine practices along those lines and Greek mystics animating statues, or mystic Christians seeking connection with their higher self in All.
  • Connection to place, relationship with being. Even the ________ (e.g. toaster oven), what is one’s relationship with it? What is its Source? What are its connections? In oneness one recognizes the valuable ripple effects of mutual benefit.
  • Focused gratitude and well-wishing for the well-being of an entity. As in the exercise of imagining the highest and best potential for ___________ (e.g. land as in ecological restoration), casting blessings from an animistic awareness can help bring about a better world.
  • Lessons from ecosystem restoration: “Connection to place”, “Love”

Not a secret teaching, the teaching of a secret

Kabbalah is not a secret teaching. It is the teaching of a secret.
“The secret teaching” means that we are trying to hide something from you.

“The teaching of the secret” means that we are trying to teach something to you, to open up and reveal something hidden.

Now, you might point out, if the secret is taught, it is no longer a secret. A revealed secret, it would seem, is an oxymoron.

That would be so if we were discussing an artificial secret, one that is secret only because it is shrouded in secrecy, because others don’t want you to find out. True secrets, even once taught, explained, illustrated, analyzed and integrated into your consciousness, remain just as mysterious as before. No—vastly more mysterious, for as the island of knowledge expands, so too its beach upon the infinite sea of the unknowable.

Life teems with such mysteries: What is love? What is mind? What is life? What is existence? How do they come to be? From where do they emerge? What is your soul, the person within your body? You experience all these at every moment. They are you. And yet, the more you gaze upon the depths of their mysteries, the deeper their waters become.

The deepest of all secrets are those best known to all, that which we learn as small children, take for granted the rest of our lives, live with daily—and yet never manage to unravel or grasp with our cognitive mind.

There is. Things are. I exist. I am alive. Life is not death. Darkness is not light. There is that which is bigger than me.

Kabbalah plunges into these secrets and pulls their depths into the open. It provides metaphor, parable, understanding. It shines light and opens our eyes. It inspires and guides us to use this wisdom for healing and growth in everyday life. That is why the experience of learning Kabbalah is one of “Yes! I knew that truth all along! My heart knew, but my mouth was unable to speak it!” The truths of the Kabbalah belong to every sentient being.

Yet, most of all, Kabbalah provides a sense of the beyond; the knowledge of that which cannot be known, the wisdom of mystery, the understanding that we do not understand. Kabbalah is the knowledge of wonder.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Artwork – Ryan J Flynn
via https://www.facebook.com/lightsofkabbalah/photos/a.319056761576811/1416967365119073/?type=3&theater

שלום Receiving Peace: Exploring Qabbalah of Shalom

via https://www.myjewishlearning.com/jewish-and/achieving-shalom

I give thanks to the Source. And I say shalom שלום.

Introduction to Qabbalah and Hebrew Alefbet

Qabbalah קבלה means ‘receiving’ in Hebrew. It is a mystical discipline of Jewish and alchemical traditions. At its heart is the role of language in Jewish thought. That is a subject in and of itself – one brief angle:

In Hebrew, there’s no word for objects, only names. “Things” exist essentially as name, as language in thought and breath create the potential and material universe.

The Hebrew alefbet is of great significance. It is the fruit and pathways of the Tree of Life. Each letter having many associates such that, as a whole, the letters of the Hebrew alefbet contain, correspond with, and create All of creation. An elementary particle if you will, near the Source of All.

In this post and possibly others I will share some simple glimpses of the qabbalah of simple words, songs, prayers. Through that receiving will be more information on Qabbalah, or you can read about it at https://www.crystalinks.com/kabala.html or ask about other approaches.

שלום

שלום: Peace; hello; goodbye; a name of the One, synonymous with ‘the Lord’ or Allah الله. Shalom is a common word used by Hebrew speakers, and its equivalents in other languages are common as well. Arabic says salam سلام, Latin pax, English peace. Peace.

Peace has many forms. I will not speak on that in this post. I encourage you to seek and dis-cover peace in your life. “May peace be upon you” as these ancient languages say.

ש ל ו ם – letters read from right to left: shin, lamed, vav, mem – Sh L U M – four letters form shalom, representing four sounds or ways of breath. Or four classical elements, or . . .

Here is a table of each letter and some of its correspondences, after which is a stream of meaning of the letters together to spell peace ש ל ו ם

Continue reading →

Sacred Bolts

I give thanks to the Source.

However gifted I am with what to be grateful for

It is not I, it is All,

All the synchronicities&harmonies

Enlightening ball, lightening bolt

Tree of Life right to auth

Like lightening and trees, the movement builds on thee through the four worlds, going with the light flow:

[Seed – Yod] ~ What was once unfathomable and nothing is becoming a clearer inspiration.

[Seedling – Heh] ~ What is longstanding inspiration becomes deeper imagination.

[Sapling – Vav] ~ What is mature imagination becomes firmer tendencies and formations.

[Tree of Life – Heh] ~ What is solid form becomes active life and actions for/of/with/by oneself.

PHIre cycling LVX: Life, Death, and Renewal

A Judgement and A Tooth: Mysteries of the Hebrew Letter Shin

The 21st Hebrew Letter: Shin

The Hebrew letter Shin. It is the 21st letter of the alephbet, it is a “sh” or “s” sound, it indicates the number “300” in the Hebrew number system, its glyph means “tooth”, and it is interpreted in mystical Judaism to be the active element of the world, Fire. Various spiritual interpretations of this letter would say that it corresponds to the soulful force inside us which is pure awareness, bright and hot like fire, which destroys illusions.

How does one’s tooth correspond with judgement? Do I judge my food as I eat it? Or is the action of my teeth on food analogous to the action of judgement on ‘soul food’ or experience itself? As I chew, various teeth are put to work. At risk of disgust, here’s a look at partially chewed food, hopefully to inspire good chewing and food selection for oneself.

Continue reading →

Orienting 1 in Space

Cube of Space via https://alchetron.com/Cube-of-Space

Cube of Space via https://alchetron.com/Cube-of-Space

From one’s perspective
We look inward to our heart and the past it holds within it
We look overhead to the celestial bodies and the futures they carry out as directed by physics, cause & f(x)
We look to the east for the gateway of a new day and the winds of a rising sun
We look to the south for the fires that inspire, warm, and calcine
We look to the west toward waters of rest and reflection, reaping what the day has sowed
We look to the north, heads to the Earth, and we face the darkest and most close-to-death time of day. Yet inherent in it is
From one’s perspective

Truth – אמת

via Lights of Kabbalah page on Facebook

“Truth can come from anywhere—there is nothing that does not have its truth. Because, without a spark of truth, nothing can exist. Not even falseness.
Therefore, the wise person is one who knows how to learn truth from every person and discover the truth of each thing.”
~ Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

via Lights of Kabbalah page on Facebook

Alef – the breath of life
Mem – the water, memory, reception
Tet – the world, completion

Truth!