This is part of a 7-week series exploring the seven core emotional attributes that drive human interaction, as presented by the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. These attributes are collectively called Sephirot. Each individually is a sephirah.
This week we are exploring the seven aspects of the sphere of Hod.
embody your faith
open to your experience
let life live through you
One of the over-arching themes of Hod is surrendering to life as it is. Releasing our desire to control things or have them be different from how they are.
The week of Hod invites us to ask a pretty bold question:
What if there are no problems to be solved? What if everything is whole and complete as it is?
It asks us to consider that the things we view as problems — both individually and collectively — are not in fact problems to be solved, but part of the Divine plan, a plan that we are not privy to.
In a world besieged by a global pandemic, social unrest, systemic racism, rampant gun violence, a lurking mental health epidemic, the looming loss of health care autonomy for half of the US population, climate change, inflation, and war, this feels like a hard concept to hold.
How can we accept that these things are not problems? How can we accept that they don’t need to be fixed?
In the abstract, I actually find myself able to grasp this on a cognitive level.
I can wrap my head around it in theory.
In practice it’s a different experience. With both global events and individual moments, I might find my body tightening up, contracting against the life that is here.
Cognitively understanding this is one thing; getting it into the body is another.
And this is the invitation of Yesod of Hod. Feeling those moments when I can embrace the situation and be in acceptance, not just in my mind but also in my body.
Yesod is about integration. At the Yesod of each attribute we can consider:
How are we being in integrity with this attribute?
More specifically, I believe this speaks to embodiment. Yesod of Hod asks,
How am I embodying surrender?
If my mind has surrendered but my body is still under threat, then I haven’t integrated.
Training the nervous system to surrender and open is part of the work of Yesod of Hod.
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