Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved - Winnie the Pooh
A year ago today I began this exploration of the lower sefirot with the intention of writing each week about an interpretation of one of them. With the exception of a couple of weeks missed due to my travel schedule or writer's block, I have been quite consistent in this practice and find myself sitting down to write my forty-ninth and final entry exactly one year later.
As has often been the case throughout this journey, upon sitting down to write, I find myself called to explore something other than what I intended. Today, as I sit with the sefira Malkhut/Shechinah, which is often interpreted as sovereignty and transcendent presence, I find myself reflecting on my experience of this writing journey, this deep dive into the divine characteristics that according to Jewish mysticism live in my body.
This final sefira, sometimes called Malkhut, sometimes called Shechinah, is said to exist in the space between the legs. I always imagine it as a ball of energy, like when you’re exercising and the instructor says imagine a ball between your knees and squeeze your legs together. And like that imaginary ball of energy that, when you squeeze it, activates the muscles in your core, this energy we call Malkhut and Shechinah lives outside the bounds of our physical body and acts as a container for our energy field, also activates the energy at the core of our being - connecting that which lives inside of us to that which exists outside. It is an energy force that lives in the spaces between our body and surrounds our body. It is an energy force that seeps in and out of our pours, connecting what we think of as our bodies to what we think of as not our bodies. It simultaneously holds our individuality by forming the energetic field between what we call ourselves and what we call other, and it breaks the delusion of our separateness - from each other and the world around us.
The invitation of malkhut/shechinah, the invitation that has arisen from the entirety of this process, is for me to show up to my life with and as all of me. To bring all of myself, to integrate, to break the delusion of separation, to not try to predict, to not try to solve, to not try to know where it is that I am going, but to show up in the fullness of myself to each moment, to carry my stories and memories, my dreams and desires, even my fears and worries - but to carry them lightly, to remember that they are each a part of a greater whole, and that that whole does not need to dwell on any part, does not need to be defined by any part, has the capacity to hold all of the parts - contradictory as they most certainly are, and still have room for more, and still have room for what is not yet, and still have room for what might never be.
The invitation that comes with holding all of me is to live into that space where I am both a singular being, responsible for the ways that I show up to the world and people around me; and that I am not separate from any of it, from anyone, from anything.
This is what I have been practicing this year, this is what I hope to carry forward.