Yesod: The Tzaddik (Righteous One) Within [Kabbalah Root Medicine Series]
Yesod! The sexy nexus of Masculine and Feminine; Heaven and Earth; Tiferet (the Holy One in masculine form) and Malchut (the Shechinah.) Within us, Yesod is our creativity, generativity, personality, and egoic foundation.
In Kabbalah, Yesod gathers together all the energies of the upper sephirot and directs them for the good of the lower realm. So imagine Yesod as the actualized YOU, a chariot driver with the reins of three wild horses in your right hand and three wild horses in your left hand, mastering all with grace and finesse!
Yesod is the Tzaddik in each of us, the one who can endure great trials and still manage to maintain faith, stamina, and even a sense of humour. Take a lesson from Kabbalah's heroes at the Yesod center: Joseph who raises himself up out of the dark dungeons of Egypt by deciphering the dreams of his fellow prisoners, and Tamar, the cunning widow, who poses as the harlot on the road and thereby shifts the karma of our tribal history. Both of these unusual figures represent Yesod because they are able to move in and out of seemingly impossible situations with mercurial alacrity—shape-shifting as needed—to fulfill the greatest outcome possible. And they both pass formidable tests, mastering their personal desires for the sake of a greater good.
This week is about bringing forth your fullest, most grounded self. As the great Siddha Muktananda said: God lives within you as YOU. So be that! Be the Tzaddik or Boddhisatva who is here to serve, in the personhood of you, no other, with all your personal traits, quirks, and idiocyncracies. Living with the remembrance of your self as kadosh, holy, with a purpose to serve, heal, connect, and bridge the many divides in this world—that is Yesod. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said:
Many of us are conscious of the hiddenness of things,
But few of us sense the mystery of our own presence.
Practice:
Every day this week, in the morning if possible, call yourself to remembrance, that NOW, right now, wherever you find yourself, there is a channel of love flowing directly to you and through you. Receive it. Let it saturate your body. Then direct it to the people and places most in need. You are the channel through which it flows, if you choose to be.
Text #1:
Be strong then, and enter into your own body.
There you have a solid
Place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this:
Just throw away all thoughts
Of imaginary things,
And stand firm in
That which you are.
—Kabir
Text #2:
Effortlessly, Love flows from God into man
Like a bird
Who rivers the air without moving her wings
So we move in God's world,
One with God in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
—Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210-1297)
Text #3:
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving…
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
Reach out, deep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
For every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
After the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
—Marge Piercy