Counting the Omer - week 5 --Welcome the wonder of all our sensations

On this path toward greater possibility  (the following is excerpted from Rabbi Ted Falcon
 
On this path toward greater possibility and expanded freedom, we engage in meditative processes designed to encourage our availability for a more inclusive Wisdom, a more pervasive Love, and more effective ways of walking compassionately in our world. Surely, we live at a time of great yearning for the Love, Wisdom, and Compassion that flows from the shared Source of our being.
We all use the equivalent of Focus Phrases all the time, but usually those phrases repeating in our minds simply support well-practiced patterns of thought, feeling, and action. Our intention is to use these days to release old beliefs that no longer serve us, and replace them with the energies of the Focus Phrases assigned to each week and to each day. These weekly and daily Focus Phrases are designed to help us step more effectively into new places of expanded possibility.

These weeks invite us to welcome the more profound Wisdom and Lovethat springs from the One Presence and seeks to express more fully through each one of us.
     
The Focus for the Fifth Week
Hod: The Forms of Sensations  
beginning the evening of Saturday, May 18
 
This week, we focus again on the left side of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the side representing the forms that contain energies offered from the right side. Hod represents the forms of sensations: the images, touches, sounds, tastes, and smells that we perceive -- each sensation a container allowing us to experience the formless energy it holds. Without the forms, we are unable to have the unique experiences offered to us.

Physical sensation and perception allow us to know our world and to discover ourselves within it. Hod brings sensory information already containing mental and emotional energy and form.
    
I welcome the wonder of all sensations. 
 
Day 29 Focus, beginning the evening of Saturday, May 18  
I am more aware of my perceptions today. 
I am more aware of time as each day of the counting of the omer continues.  I am aware of the passage, of how I use my time.  I stop more often to visit with the neighbor or the stranger, to say hello, to be present in the moment.  My awareness of the passing of time has heightened, of what is important each day--not so important is getting stuff done, more important is showing up.
 
Day 30 Focus, beginning the evening of Sunday, May 19
I am mindful of each sensation I experience. 
Today I am aware of the sensations in my legs from ascending and descending the stairs.  And of the wind across my skin, in my hair, and even in my eyes.  I am grateful for the physical and emotional pleasure I feel walking into my condo and seeing it develop. I am aware of all of the emotions experienced during this evening's performance of Wally Lamb's All I know for sure.  
 
Day 31 Focus, beginning the evening of Monday, May 20 
 
I meet each perception with compassion. 
I am working at being more sensitive to how I spend my time, and to choose people over projects and things.  I am also working at being kinder to myself, not to push too much.  To also be sensitive to others stress and to keep mine under control.  Working on kindness.

Day 32 Focus, beginning the evening of Tuesday, May 21
I am aware of the energy held in every sensation.
I am having difficulty separating the sensations, or tuning into them.  I'm more aware of the emotional sensations, rather than the senses.  I know that I am tuning into people and I can feel the connections I am making are getting stronger and stronger.  Maybe Marci had it right all along and it's about the people, about being water and flowing into others.  I just got off the phone with Iris, and then with Amy, and I'm surrounded by all of these wonderful women.  I don't know that I will want to trade those relationships for a man---mmm interesting thought.  Do these thoughts count as sensations?
 
Day 33 Lag B'Omer Focus, beginning the evening of Wednesday, May 22
I honor the form of each sensation.
     
Lag B'Omer is a special day of celebration during the Omer period, the day of celebrating the Creation that expresses through the forms in which we live, particularly focusing on the forms of our sensations. Traditionally, this is a day to celebrate the world of nature and our place within it. 

Day 34 Focus, beginning the evening of Thursday, May 23
I know beauty now. 

Day 35 Focus, beginning the evening of Friday, May 24 
I sense the Oneness behind all the sensations I experience. 
    
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Covid, Lockdowns, Isolation, Spiritual Growth, and More

 No one could have accurately predicted how the advent of the Covid virus would begin a rolling lockdown across the world.  At home we were told, especially as the more vulnerable senior population, to hanker down, shut our doors, order on line, isolate from everyone.  Up popped Zoom, FaceTime surged, but touching and hugging, collective activities faded.  Along with Zoom, we continue to see an uptick in depression, alcohol usage, domestic violence, suicide.  We are a people needing people, and I am one of those. The Covid lockdown caught me in Israel, mid-trip, which ElAl airlines truncated--get home tomorrow or risk unknown departure date sometime in the future.  Still aglow from my Israeli adventures, I sailed into lockdown without belief that this might last for weeks, morphing into months.  So much to do, so many quilts to sew, so many masks to make, books to read.  By April it was harder to get out of bed in the morning.  As a solo trav...
Read more
The Perfect Storm - Challenges without end Aunt Roz is 95 years young/old.  She's mentally sharp, although her patience gives out more quickly than in the past.  Physically she's only slightly frail using a cane for balance, sometimes reluctantly pushing a walker.  She fights every slight loss of more independence.  She struggled against giving up her car, but wisely made the decision at 93 that it was time.  She bemoans the independence she lost as a result of no longer driving herself about town.  Today was a bad day, the perfect storm.  Roz's Verizon flip phone lost all of her contacts.  Not only the important family and long time friends, but all of her increasingly important doctors.  After three frustrating hours with customer service the best they could do was locate her info in the cloud, somewhere, but still unable to return the contacts to her phone.  Late into the night Roz copied contact info from her handwritten address ...
Read more

Growing a New Chapter

 Three years into my widowhood I realized that I was unhappy living alone.  I felt more like a half of a whole than a whole person.  The world, my community, is certainly still geared to couples life.  While weekdays could be readily filled,  evenings and weekends remained difficult.  Adult children and grandchildren are busy with their lives, or live far away.  Friends are off with their spouses doing couples things and invitations are rare.  Singles are plentiful and my Meet-Up groups certainly allow for 7 nights of activity, if I so choose.  But how much Trivia, bar eating and dancing can one do?  For me, once a week of these inconsequential activities is enough.  Along with Pickleball, mahjong, and stitchers, I have social contact.  What I thought I needed was a mate, a special partner, a Stu stand-in if not a replacement.  And so I joined two dating sites. I learned there are many lonely older men, some widowed, other...
Read more