We closed on the Sabbath for the fifth and final day of the year’s exploration of holding sacred space, continued our exploration of the Tree of Life and the Hebrew Bible.
We looked in more depth at the four worlds of Kabbalah summarized here in Sam’s words:
First World – Azilut (english transliteration of Hebrew) often translated as ‘nearness’ (to God) or divine emanation – the world of pure light, universal energy, represented by the colour white.
The unconditioned – awakened or enlightened consciousness. Source.
Often symbolised by the element of fire, the Tree of Life and the first Adam, Adam Kadmon
Associated with the crown (Keter) of the Tree of Life diagram and when this is visualised in the body, with the crown of the head (the awakened crown as depicted in christian art as haloes)
Second World – Beriah, often translated as the world of creation or heaven
spiritual awareness, the world of the archangels (‘birds of the air’)
and archetypal spiritual and subtle energies. Being.
Represented by the colour blue and often symbolised by the element of air. The Tree of Knowledge.
Associated with the heart (Tiferet) of the Tree diagram and the heart centre of the body.
Third World – Yetzirah, often translated as the world of formation
The world of psychological awareness, of psyche and soul (ranging from depths to shallows) self
Associated with the garden of Eden and angelic orders (‘creatures of the water’), the colour purple and
the element of water
The ‘foundation’ (Yesod) of the Tree diagram and the pelvic/sexual centre of the body.
Fourth World – Assiyah, often translated as manifestation
Physical awareness and activity, body
Represented by the colour red and the element of Earth
Associated with the Earth and the ‘garments of skin’ (in Genesis)
The base or ‘kingdom’ (Malkut) of the Tree diagram and the feet
Then we moved into a period of meditation based on the Tree of Life, but drawing these ideas into ourselves and experiencing them in our bodies.
We created our own sacred space as Sam used the words of a beautiful Kabbalistic prayer:
Let us gather together,
draw together.
Let us form a Vessel,
to catch the dew of Heaven……..
As on the previous day, I found myself deeply drawn to the idea of the Garden of the Soul, a place where our pure souls and true selves dwell. Sam’s invitation was to come back to the seed of light deep within our own being and to listen to its Calling……..what is it that I most love? What is it that I want to do? What is the seed that I need to grow in the world? I was reminded of T S Eliot. Towards the end of The Four Quartets, his wonderful and complex spiritual pilgrimage, he writes these words:
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
We shared our rich experiences and then took a break for a welcome (and very grounding) cup of tea, followed by a second meditation which took us on an ascent through the four worlds. We started with a simple purification ceremony, washing our hands in a bowl of rosewater and then through guided meditation we then inwardly and imaginatively journeyed from our physical bodies and base in Dartington out into the cosmos. Then imagined the depths of physical space becoming the watery depths of the psyche. We imagined meeting inner creatures and swimming up to the mirrored surface of the water to look at ‘ourselves’. Passing through into the airy space of the spirit world above, we walked from the shore into the foothills to meet our inner teacher or guide. If willing we continued to the mountain peaks and into communion with the divine light, before retracing our steps and re-grounding in external reality. (Including lunch!)
In the afternoon we shared our wisdom and insights from the meditation and then move into a session of Contextual Bible Study, looking at the story of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28 v 10-22). CBS has many similarities with Christian Lectio Divina and Jewish PARDES (Entering the Orchard), but evolved in South Africa during the apartheid era – a very interesting bit of history worth Googling if you have the time. We read out loud and then considered the text, what caught our attention and how we felt about it. Then we considered what we knew about the historical context, the people and the places and circled back to the text for another in depth look. Finally, we reflected on the question: “How does this speak to our condition today and what can we take into our everyday lives?”. And what a feast we had with just twelve verses of text!
Our day finished with a collaborative silent blessing ritual and we anointed one another with rosewater before pouring the water in the garden as a blessing to the earth.
As this weekend concludes the first year of our journey together, I would like to end by saying that it felt for me like a true beginning. It has taken time for the group to become a community, and it has. It has taken me time personally to whole-heartedly immerse myself in the deep stream of Western spiritual tradition and to rediscover it as something beautiful, intriguing and deeply nourishing. I am finding “something whole inside this mosaic of broken pieces” (Sam’s words) and I cannot wait to continue the journey.
The early Hebrew Tradition and the Tree of Life and Kabbalah were themes for the final Saturday of our first year together. I, Jan, am standing in for Beth in recording this last weekend for our Journal, and what seemed like an easy task when I volunteered is proving challenging. So much happened and both days were so full of rich experiences that is hard to distill them into a tidy summary. I will do my best, and I offer my thanks and blessings to Beth and Sam who have chronicled our journey so beautifully for the rest of the year.
On our journey from Ancient Mesopotamia, through Sumeria and Egypt we have now reached the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (c. 3000 BCE) and the beginnings of the Hebrew people. This was our first contextual encounter with the Hebrew Bible, and what an exciting encounter it proved to be.
We started the day with the Tree of Life and the way it represents and explains four worlds or four levels of consciousness and two sides, the active and receptive, all beautifully integrated and flowing. The work of Kabbalah is about realising this unification. Through a mystical and meditative narrative from Sam we explored the creation story in Genesis from a Kabbalistic perspective: creation as a continual process, happening in every moment as things move from unmanifest to manifest. Everything out of nothing, called into being by the light of willingness shining on the darkness. We were invited to tend the garden of our soul and to seek for our true divine nature and the pure soul in all beings.
We ended the meditation by chanting together some of the Hebrews names of the Divine in both masculine and feminine form.
EH HEY YEH
YAHWEH ASHERAH
EL HAI SHADDAI
SHEKHINAH
After a short break we turned to the story of creation and the Hebrew Bible.
There has been much academic and theological analysis and debate about the authorship of the Bible and the extent to which the stories of the Old Testament have any basis in historical evidence. The “Documentary Hypothesis” relies on the evidence based within the written text itself, including language and its usage, references and cross-references, and it concludes that the early Bible comprises four different documents – so multiple perspectives on the “history”. In more recent years, archeological finds (artifacts and texts) have added to our understanding and have either refuted or questioned many long help assumptions.
As Sam led us gracefully through this minefield we came to realize that there is profound value in an appreciation of the difference between story and history, and that both in turn have profound value in our exploration of the great Western tradition. If some of the history turns out to be story, does it matter? Stories and myths hold truths which resonate across time and that is why they can still teach, challenge and uplift us, bringing beauty and awareness into our lives. It doesn’t matter how often we immerse ourselves in a story – there is always new treasure to find. And so, if some of the great narratives of the Hebrew Bible have no basis in fact, they are still astonishing and symbolic stories which help us understand that period and the people who lived at that time.
For someone like me who has struggled with the apparently irreconcilable tension between the Bible as the revealed Word of God, and the Bible as a mass of contradictions ruled over by a mercurial and sometimes rather unpleasant Bloke, Sam’s gentle exposition of the contextual issues was a real “aha” moment. Accepting that the Bible we have today holds many strands of sacred tradition, that it weaves together many myths and motifs from many peoples, and that it was written down at a particular time when a particular political agenda was dominant…well, it simply makes sense and it makes it more accessible. In Sam’s words: “So contrary to what many people imagine, the Bible really reflects diversity and invites debate rather than supports orthodoxy”.
With this insight to light our way, we then returned to our quest for the Divine Feminine. There is evidence that She was systematically excluded as a paternalistic theology with its insistence on monotheism came to dominate and the stories and laws were written down. But there are traces of the female forms of the Divine in the Bible and archeological evidence from the time that shows us She was an important part of the mainstream religion until the minority reformers won the day. We considered Asherah (consort of Yahweh), Anath (goddess of love and war) and the Cherubim which included male and female forms. And the Shekhinah.
The Shekhinah, whose name means dwelling and has come to represent the presence of God. The Shekhinah, who argued with God in defense of human beings. The Shekhinah who travelled with Adam and Eve when they left Eden and went into exile with the children of Israel. The Shekhinah, the holy presence of God that hovers as a cloud above the Ark of the Covenant. The Shekhinah – a feminine noun with a deeply feminine sound…………..
This was an extraordinary and deeply moving day and it felt as if the Shekhinah entered into the room and touched us all in different ways.
Weekend 5, Saturday 13th June 2015
Written by Jan
Our altar with 2 versions of the Tree of Life either side and Sam’s menorah in the centre, and of course the hare, our very loyal member of the group.
Our very rich selection of books for the day, including the Hebrew Bible and the Tanakh.
Figurine of the mother-goddess Asherah, consort of El
