We just arrived in this new Hebrew month of Sivan, a special month as it is the one we receive the Torah. It is following two other important months:
Nissan, in which we learned about freedom through the holiday of Passover.
Iyar, in which we learned what to do with our freedom, how we get free through our commitment (see last post about this month)
Now that we are free in various dimensions and that we committed ourselves to work on our character traits through the Omer counting of the Kabbalistic tree Sefirot (also explained in last post), we are worthy to receive the Torah. What does that mean?
The Sefirot in the Kabbalistic tree
Counting the Omer for 49 days, the lower 7 sefirot of the tree being the ones accessible in our lives, each sefira existing in each sefira, it creates a Matrix with specific aspects to work and meditate on, more info in last post.
As we count the 49 days of the Omer, 7 weeks of 7 days, 7 representing the limits of our world (seven colors of the rainbow, seven days of the week, seven musical notes, seven chakras, etc), we arrive to the 50th day, with Shavuot, the gift of the Torah, and we transcend the limitations of this world.
This day, this gift, is about coming back to the unity, to the source. The Torah is showing us the way to be balanced between our material and spiritual worlds. Sivan is indeed about the harmony, the balance, represented by the Sefirah Tiferet. Yet, to transcend the duality perspective of this world and come back to this balanced harmonious unity, we must go through the concept of trinity.
Indeed, the unity is expressed in our world through 3 polarities: positive + / negative - / 0 ; feminine / masculine / neutral ; in alchemy Sulfur / Mercury / Salt... We can see various example how through the 3 we can transcend to the unity: a man and a woman having a kid and becoming a family is one of the most natural and magical example. But we have another beautiful example in Judaism symbolic rituals with the Challah, the Shabbat bread with 3 parts braided together, tapped in some salt before being passed to everyone, salt being the principle that anchors, braces.
Sivan is the 3rd month, and its gematria total calculation is also the number 3. It's all about how to use this principle of the 3 into our lives to transcend our dual perception of the world. Our judgement of what is good or bad, right or wrong. Taking a step back and observing, being conscious of the miracle of life in each step of the way, and having faith.
We are 3 dimensional beings. Even our "soul" is separated into 3 layers: our Nefesh נפש like our thoughts, the "lower" part of the soul, most material aspect of the soul, our Ruach רוח, like our heart that makes the connection between the lower and higher parts of the soul, and the Neshama נשמה, closer to the divine, the universal consciousness, the source, the "higher" part of our soul.
In alchemy, the Sulfur principle, masculine principle, is about the matter. But more concretely for our inner work, it is about our emotions - what moves us. As our body is like a stock, we need daily to evacuate those emotions, this energy, for this stock not to explode (and get diseases or burnouts). We can evacuate in a dynamic or thermal way: dynamic is about physically moving such as doing sport. Using the voice is also dynamic. Not controlling this dynamic way to evacuate can be by screaming, hitting... As we are not mindful we are the slaves of our emotions reacting to them passively, and incidents like this can happen. A thermal way would be to cry or to sweat, it is linked to the temperature of our body and to water. Going to watch the sea, letting yourself cry, taking a good shower to cleanse yourself not only physically, warming or cooling your body, all those are ways to do so. A not controlled thermal way to evacuate is to blush or worse to get inflammatory diseases. Our work with sulfur is about observing, acknowledging, not judging, evacuating actively, not passively reacting and taking the responsability of our emotions.
The Mercury principle, feminine principle, is about what is spiritual, and for our work more concretely it is about our thoughts, our spirit. Spirituality רוחניות in Hebrew is from the same root as the second layer of the soul we talked about רוח Ruach. It is indeed about the connection, the communication. The notion of language is also to take into account here, each word has a vibration, and vibrations shape the matter. This is an interesting notion to understand especially as it is said when receiving the Torah on the Mount Sinai - they "saw" the voices / sounds. With the same idea as we can observe cymatics, Hebrew letters have a direct link in terms of frequency between their shape and their sound. Our work here is therefore about how we vibrate, how we communicate and interact first with ourselves, then with the divine, and finally with other people and the world, in all ways and aspects of communication imaginable or unimaginable, being fully aware.
The Salt principle, neutral principle, is about our physical body, this magical temple we use to experience together those thoughts and emotions. It is through it that the Sulfur and the Mercury principles express themselves and can come together. It keeps what it needs and give back to the land the rest, the land will transmute it, it's the cycle of life. In French Salt sounds like the place to discharge (or in other words to poop!) - Sel and selle, and that's in alchemy and language of the birds, is no coincidence. In our salty tears also - the salt anchors the emotion (sulfur) into the water (mercury), discharging it from the body. Salt is anchoring, creating the space for the opposite principles to coexist peacefully. This coexistence is to be looked for everywhere, at every scale: within us, within our spirituality, within our couple, within the society. This is the 3rd step to come back to the unity. Salt is not only the unifying principle, it is also purifying. Therefore, we must always come back to the wisdom of our body, taking care of our body, being aware of what enters and what goes out from it. As the vibration gives the shape to the matter, the shape of our matter is the reflection of our vibration, and observing the body can teach us deep insights about us.
To feel and work on those three principles into one, I invite you for a walk!
According to Sefer Yetzira, the sense of the month is walking. Meditating as you walk is a great practice, especially when you’re late and didn’t have time to meditate in the morning, you can meditate as you walk or even eat. Here is a step by step meditation you can do as you walk:
- feel the gravity
- be aware of your senses (sounds around, colors, smells…)
- scan your body to observe how you’re feeling today. Check on the sulfur, mercury and salt aspects of your 3 dimensional being! Start a conversation with your body, do not intellectualize, just observe what come up, physically, emotionally or mentally, with no expectations nor judgments.
- start focusing on your feet touching the ground, the feeling, the rhythm, you can count also your steps from one to ten (it is usually the practice you’d do with your breath). If your mind starts to wander, notice how long it took you to realize it and come back to your steps.
- for a few seconds stop focusing on anything, let your mind do whatever it wants.
- come back to your senses and the gravity.
- set an intention for your day. Try to include the people dear to you on this intention.
It made me think of this cute Headspace video about Meditation “the hole in the road”: https://youtu.be/vQxTUQhVbg4
And also made me think of this beautiful song called Walk by French artist Jean du Voyage: https://youtu.be/BXOWCg48PQE
Walking is obviously not just about the physical act, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually, keeping the movement, moving forward, but in which direction, with which attitude and perspective? We got free in Nissan with Passover, we committed to a way in Iyar, and in Sivan we get the intention of being worthy of this path.
Being worthy is about showing up, creating the space in us necessary for the life to happen, being available to serve it and to give it the best we can, being aware, being grateful, being kind.
As Viktor Frankl said, it’s not about what we expect from life, it’s about what like expect from us. "We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."
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