Counting the Omer, week six: Yesod: The foundation of self

The ego is a vehicle  Rabbi Ted Falcon


We will spend the final two weeks of our journey focusing on the central pillar of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, where the levels of identity are represented. This sixth week, at Yesod, we honor the self behind our experiences, the one at the center of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. 
While we tend to denigrate the significance of our ego identity, this sefirahencourages a greater appreciation for the possibilities for which our separate self exists. The ego is a vehicle through which more profound spiritual consciousness can connect to the manifest world. So this week, we focus on the promise contained within our individual identities.  
    
The Focus for the Sixth Week
Yesod: The Foundation of Self 
beginning the evening of Saturday, May 25


At Yesod ("Foundation"), we meet the self-awareness we call the ego. It is the place of our nefesh, the level of the soul associated with the body, our separate vehicle for maneuvering in the world. This self is constructed and supported by the flow of thoughts, feelings, and sensations we experience from outer as well as inner worlds.

Our separate self is the necessary intermediary between our Greater Self at Tiferetand the physical world at Malchut, which will be our focus during the seventh and final week of the Omer. As we move down the Tree, and the energies become more dense, there is greater need for fuller awareness. Yesod is the center of conscious choice. 
We honor this ego-identity, the self at the center of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and awaken to the wonder of our individuality. 

I honor the one at the center of my experience.
Day 36 Focus, beginning the evening of Saturday, May 25  
I welcome energy into my separate self. 
I am in the midst of a 
colossal life change--living on my own, in my own space, purchased, imagined, and created by me.  I honor my physical energy and am committed to use it and not exploit it.  I honor my ability to reach out to others to both give and to receive energy from them.  I welcome new sources of energy coming from experiences and from people as well as from study.  
Day 37 Focus, beginning the evening of Sunday, May 26
I honor both light and shadow as parts of my separate self. 
I may be delusional but I feel very much more open and light, few recognizable negatives.  Open to hearing and learning and listening and putting myself out there.  Do want to show off my new condo, so maybe that is a bit vain.  
Day 38 Focus, beginning the evening of Monday, May 27 

I am supported compassionately. 
I am blessed and grateful for all of the primarily women friends who have surfaced to be my support group, to compassionately assist me on this grieving journey.  They invite me to their homes, to go out, to play mahjong, to share my stories about redesigning the condo, and much more.  My family, both birth and adopted daughters and step son are also compassionate as are my granddaughters.  I am blessed in having a rabbi who cares enough about me to call just to say hello.  Thank you Stu for enriching my life, for helping me to be more open to the people around me, for loving me and allowing me to love you.  

Day 39 Focus, beginning the evening of Tuesday, May 28
I am filled with new vitality.
To an outsider I probably look like the energizer bunny, and I most likely am. But I fall into bed each night ready for sleep, deep sleep from physical exhaustion and it's good.  I'm beginning to think about what the days/nights will be like when I'm settled into the condo and life is smooth.  I am daily aware of the many blessings I have in my life, people, and things, and activities--all wonderful and great.  I walk into this memorial season with Stu more prepared to say goodbye than I have been.  Rabbi tells us that the Jewish belief is that the soul departs with the setting of the tombstone, hence the unveiling.  This is our time to allow Stu to move to his resting place, and to be in peace knowing he has been so loved.  
Day 40 Focus, beginning the evening of Wednesday, May 29
I acknowledge the beauty within me.
I am really a nice person becoming more so.  Anyone who doesn't choose to see me the way I am, but only the way I was, harms both of us.  That includes Royce and Eric who are stuck.  I am happy with my becoming, caring of my friends and neighborhood, willing to go out of my way to assist others and to love others.  I carry the knowledge within me that I am deeply loved, that Stu, and Gene before him to some extent as well, loved me without reservation.  That we shared a soul and that soul, the goodness which evolved from that soul, didn't die with Stu, but continues to grow and evolve.  For that I am most grateful.  I believe I am becoming the person I was meant to be.
     
Day 41 Focus, beginning the evening of Thursday, May 30
I celebrate my self. 
(I lost the original post from last night.)  So interesting that tonight I am about celebrating myself when I have spent a great part of the day being there for and celebrating Connie and Jim while they were at the hospital.  I am pleased with my outreach to others, with the wide circle of friends I am developing, friends with many and varied interests.  I am awake to being out there and celebrating myself through others.  I don't want to lose sight, however, of the quiet inner me as well.  

Day 42 Focus, beginning the evening of Friday, May 31 
I share blessings in my world. 
I am so rich in family and in friends and in finances.  I share myself, my knowledge, my growth.  I am truly happy.  I miss Stu and talk to him, but it is a different kind of missing.  It's a missing of another person, not of me.  It's almost as if we were one and now we are two--bound together, loving and loved, but also on two paths.  Stu is taking his journey and will be released at the unveiling.  I am taking my own journey.  I would love to be able to tune in to view and to understand his journey.  I know that he is watching over me sharing my life, applauding, my greatest fan.  
    

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