Forty-seven days of the Omer 5777

Today is forty-seven days, which is six weeks and fivedays, of the Omer. Hod of Shechinah / Malchut, Splendor of the Indwelling /Sovereignty of the Divine.

I wrote a post last night that Facebook ate. My primarypoint: how do you create physical space for the spark of Goodness, the eternalflame of knowing, within? How do you ensure it is expressed in all yourthoughts, feelings, and actions?

Secondarily, I spent yesterday wrestling with Rabbi Finley's Gnostic notion of this sephira as The Shadow, Pharoah, Yetser Hara, the broken vessel, shattered aspect of the Divine. This is a very powerful aspect of inner meditation. All the parts of you that are denied in childhood are stuffed into this inner void. Everything you deny in order to form your persona lives within your shadow. That is why it is the permanently exiled princess -- you can reclaim aspects of your shadow, accept those things as part of you, only to discover new depths of hidden dimensions within.

Is the inclination towards evil, towards repression, an aspect of the Divine? Or does it exist because the Divine contracted and created space for something else to be? Are these two halves of the same whole?

Binah isthe supernal womb, as Shechinah is the physical womb. Our shadows live withinthat secret dark space within each of us that gives birth to our personas.Through Yesod, our inner essence is revealed to the world. May we alwaysremember the splendor wrapped within the disgust that repels us from people andplaces that connect to our own shadow. May we never forget the generative forcewithin our wombs.