Stewardship and 'the Malkut Pot'

Coming down to earth - an ancient yew tree in a graveyard on the Dartington Estate

In our final sessions of the summer, we both drew to a conclusion much of our earlier work over the last year and began to prepare for a new stage of exploration. From these sessions and from the Autumn term onwards over the next few years (God willing!) we shall be slowly making our inner way through the individual sefirot of the psychological Tree of Life and the paths that connect them. We might think of this as another take on a masters degree in psychology... from a practical and esoteric, rather than an academic, perspective.

For these two sessions on the 17th and 31st July we focussed on the Malkut of Yetzirah/Formation, exploring ideas and practices around physical awareness and our responsibilities and stewardship of our bodies, our homes, families, communities and environment.

In our first session we created a virtual collective 'wisdom pot' of everything we had understood about Malkut over the last year or longer. This was a rich brew of ideas, images and impressions which I'll try to give a taste of here:

Images for Malkut included that of a seed or acorn, of the earth and its core, of a stone with starlight in it, of a treehouse and of a cauldron...

Ideas included a sense of connection and of bindings, the earth as being like a library of knowledge, the importance of taking care of the body, of valuing our past, our ancestors and family - those whose shoulders we stand on and the soil we grow in, of the Malkut of Yetzirah being like standing in our hearts and it being a cosmic catflap between the body and psyche...

Key words included the traditional translation of Malkhut as kingdom and also related words such as commonwealth, the commons, sovereignty and stewardship.

We also experimented with a practical exercise in speculative Kabbalah by considering how a whole Tree of Life could be placed within Malkut. In our final session at the very end of July, we returned to the theme of stewardship and related this to a 'Tree in Malkut'.

In meditation we returned again to simple breath and 'Tree in the Body' meditations but with more discipline in our stillness and in finding an aware balance of relaxation and clear focus. Our meditations over the year have increasingly dwelt in finding our feet, our ground and our sense of place as a starting point. Of the importance of befriending the body and inviting it to be an ally in the meditative journey. Also on working with subtlety in listening to the natural rhythm of the breath rather than forcing the breathing into controlled exercises and similarly to see developing concentration as a deepening process of intimacy rather than a tight focus. Body Tree meditations have focussed on the four main centres at feet, pelvic base, heart and crown on the Middle Pillar, with a gentle, steady and honest awareness of these areas of the body and growing a sense of holding an awareness of the whole earth to heaven experience.

To conclude these sessions, each of us chose our own practical 'Malkut task' to be working on.

Physical and Psychological Types

In our first six sessions for the Summer Term from April 24th until July 3rd 2012, we moved deeper into exploring some basic Kabbalistic models of the psyche as taught by Halevi through the Kabbalah Society. We were focussing particularly of the 'lower face' of the psychological Tree of Life (the world of Yetzirah) starting with the 'great triad' that centres around Yesod from Malkut to Hod and Nezach. (Which is Hebrew code for the interplay of physical sensations (Malkut), thoughts (Hod) and feelings (Nezach) that form our ego self (Yesod) moment after moment.)

We started by revisiting the corresponding great triad in the physical tree of Assiyah. Halevi describes the three smaller triads within this great triad as representing the three body types of :

1) Mesomorph (muscle based and placed on the Malkut, Yesod, Nezah triad)
2) Ectopmorph (nerve based and placed on the Malkut, Yesod, Hod triad)
3) Endomorph (gut based and placed on the Yesod, Hod, Nezah triad)

Joyce gave an interesting session relating this Western model to the Eastern Ayurvedic one with the Three Ayurvedic Doshas being compared to Sheldon's Somatypes as follows:

1) Mesomorph, Pita, muscular structure and quick, articulate and passionate character with efficient and regular habits and a quick temper.
2) Ectopmorph, Vata, lean structure and changeable, imaginative character with a tendency to be anxious
3) Endomorph, Kapha, plump structure with a relaxed, laid back character with a tendency to be overweisght and sometimes slow or obstinate.

In the group we had fun filling in some dosha/body type questionnaires and figuring out how we saw ourselves and each other. Although these categories are generalisations and each person contains aspects of each, most of us could relate more to a certain type and there was something helpful in seeing this as the genetic cards we are dealt and need to work with. There are also useful insights in recognising how different people are and seeing this as equal expressions of divine diversity!

In subsequent sessions we moved onto the four triads centered around the Yesod of the Yetziratic Tree on which Halevi sets out four psychological or ego types (and relates these to the four traditional 'humours')

1) Sensing Type (Malkut, Yesod, Nezach) Phlegmatic
2) Thinking Type (Malkut, Yesod, Hod) Melancholic
3) Feeling Type (Yesod, Nezach, Tiferet) Choleric
4) Intuitive Type (Yesod, Hod, Tiferet) Sanguine

Again, Joyce drew some interesting comparisons, this time with the Jungian Ego functions, which particularly highlighted how each of us has a highly developed function, with its opposite function being underdeveloped. Reflection and discussion within the group showed that most all of us could identify with this and wished for greater awareness and a more balanced relationship between these different aspects of ourselves...and in our relationships with others!

We explored this balancing and healing potential through working with our Soul Garden meditation. Here we could imaginatively walk the paths between visual images symbolising these functions... connecting through awareness, for example, our inner study with our inner creative studio. We also literally 'walked the Tree' (having set out the structure with plates for the sefirot on the Vicarage lawn!) as a ritually intentioned act of awareness and balance.

Our Inward Freedom

The Summer Term saw the welcome return of Peter Brennan, our visiting tutor from the London base of the Kabbalah Society, on Saturday 30th June 2012. Once again we gathered at Joyce's beautiful Dartmoor home, this time for a study day focussed on Milton's Paradise Lost. 

While outside the summer sun and cloud shadows moved over the moors, inside we were beginning with "God is Light" in Book III... a similar and potent blend of "unapproached light" emerging from "the rising world of waters dark and deep, 
Won from the void and formless infinite". 
With Peter's help we could better understand Milton's sense of calling and inspiration and the difficulties he faced in losing his physical sight alongside the opening of his inner vision. In our small way, our group too is seeking for inner wisdom that sometimes is harvested from other gates than those of the physical senses.

Soon we were moving on to later passages and meeting the lost archangel Satan. Through him we grappled with some fascinating questions. Is it really freedom to forsake the service of God, in order to rule in hell? In our terms... is the freedom to do whatever the ego desires, really freedom? Or is there a deeper liberation in knowing ourselves part of a greater whole and acting in response to that, even when it constrains our personal preferences? Perhaps Satan's great independence is rather a tyranny and bondage? When he describes,
"A mind not to be changed by place or time. 
The mind its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" 
is he describing an inward freedom or fixed and limited state?

Then in Book V we encountered the Archangel Raphael speaking of the freedom given to Adam and Eve,
"God made thee perfect, not immutable; 
And good he made thee, but to persevere 
He left it in thy power, ordained thy will 
By nature free, not over-ruled by fate 
Inextricably, or strict necessity; 
Our voluntary service he requires

...  freely we serve 
Because we freely love," 

Eve meanwhile, in Book IX, pleads for the freedom to learn from experience, including mistakes,
"And what is faith, love, virtue unassayed 
Alone, without exterior help sustained?

and later

"For good unknown, sure is not had, or had
And yet unknown, is as not had at all."

This stimulated much discussion in the group, for while many of us could see how we had learnt from making mistakes in our own lives, we wondered about the boundaries that we might also feel the need to set for our children or others under our protection. In such contexts it gets much harder to accept loss of innocence as the fruit of knowledge. Can we accept the diabolical as part of the process of enlightenment, and for others as well as ourselves?

Our day concluded with the poem, in a vision of Adam and Eve leaving Paradise that was sad and yet also hopeful and full of possibility...

"The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

Holy Creatures

The Spring/Summer Semester was a challenging period in my (Sam's) life with the death of my Father at the end of February and the huge impact his loss had on my family and especially my Mother, his companion and soul mate for over 50 years. For the first time since I came into the Work thirty years ago, I had no choice but to miss meetings... even ones I was supposed to be tutoring! So my sincere apologies for the lack of journal notes during this period. Looking back, I think the best I can do now is to offer sometime of an overview for the four Spring and eight Summer sessions and convey my grateful thanks to all the Kabbalistic companions who worked hard and contributed so much to our shared learning during this time.

We started our Spring Term in the Tree of Life School, on Valentine's Day, with a session on Holy Creatures, which remained our key theme until our closing Spring Session on March 27th 2012. This followed on from last term's exploration of Sacred Ground as we began to shift our focus further into the Tree of the Psyche, though still very much in integration with the body.

Several spiritual traditions have an idea of an evolution of consciousness throughout lifetimes and sometimes this is linked with a kind of hierarchy of consciousness from that of the earthly or mineral level, through that of the plants and on into the animal and human level. Although I can see a symbolic sense to this, I personally have no feeling for such human centric models... I've met as many spiritually alive trees and animals as people! So it was a pleasure for me to focus the Spring sessions around celebrating our animal souls and getting to know them a bit better.

When Joyce and I visited the British Museum in December, we especially enjoyed gazing at the Assyrian stone carvings, including the protective figures that would have stood at the gates to ancient cities and temples. We saw huge carvings of Holy Creatures with the bodies of lions, the hooves of oxen, the wings of eagles and human faces... they reminded us of the creatures described in Ezekiel's vision and revisited in Revelation and perhaps were an inspiration also for the Seraphim that gazed upon the Presence of God in the Most Holy Place of Solomon's Temple.

There's something rather wonderful about this visual reminder that perhaps it is sometimes the most instinctive and natural parts of our being that are most open to the Holy Spirit. In Jewish Mysticism the first aspect of the soul or psyche is called the Nefesh, the vital or animal soul. The Zohar says "Nefesh is the lowest stirring to which the body cleaves, like the dark light at the bottom of the candle flame which clings to the wick (body) and exists only through it. When the candle is fully kindled, this dark light becomes a throne for the white light above..."

In the Christian Tradition there has been for centuries a tendency for judgement and suspicion of the body and the physical 'passions', which has led to an unhealthy split between the body and soul and a disrespect for the earth and our fellow creatures, which perhaps underlies our current environmental crises. How much more wholesome and holy to see the outer world as a throne for the inner light.

So for these Spring sessions, as the sap was rising, in our little Kabbalah Group, we too were connecting with the beauty and power of the vital soul. In our sessions, we took walking meditations in the Vicarage garden and in sitting meditation we made inner journeys, of an almost shamanic nature, involving meetings with wild and beautiful landscapes and creatures within us. For each of us in our own ways, this was a healing process. One that gave us a renewed sense of the sacred being of nature and our place within it. In meditation we also came close to the natural rhythm of the breath and the sensations of the body, giving them the interest and attention we would give to any other beautiful, wild creature.

What a blessing it is to realise we don't have to be other than ourselves to be whole and holy, to be free. As the poet Mary Oliver says "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves". It's such a relief when we realise again and again that we don't have to go somewhere else to be spiritual but simply arrive with more awareness and love for where we already are..

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

from Wild Geese by Mary Oliver