Dancing, Trusting and Pruning: Yesod's Final Blueprint

Part six of our Omer series: The Flour and the Wisdom

Yesod is the foundation — the bonds that hold us, the relationships we build and tend. As we near the end of this Omer journey, I find myself thinking about the foundation that is this wisdom community. Faith takes us deeper into that territory.

— David

I start with Reb Nadya’s words from Wisdom School:
Yesod is The Final Blueprint of Creation

When I think of a final blueprint, I see an architect’s design printed on oversized paper and laid out on a table to be examined. I see a collaboration of the homeowner, designers, builders, and engineers bringing together imagination, knowledge, and talent. The final blueprint, ready to be built. Ready to be manifest. This is the work of Yesod.

Yesod lies at the base of the trunk of the Tree of Life. It is the Tree’s foundation and is the final sefirah before the manifestation of Malchut/Shechinah.

Yesod receives the energies from the Tree above as they flow into the lower triangle. It is alive with creativity; mixing, blending and adjusting the energies of Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach and Hod. With “a little more of this, a little less of that,” Yesod tweaks their relationships for the right balance.

Yesod invites us to embody the energies of the sefirot on our personal Tree of Life. We feel it in our guts and are called to trust that feeling. In Yesod we participate in creating the final blueprint.

Ego’s Stronghold

I admit: I am afraid to participate.
How do I add my unique and essential contribution?

What is this frightened child/elder woman part of me, where tears lie close to the surface and so much wants to be known?

Will I do damage to others, to the Earth, to the Whole? Will I be a fool? Will I be True?

I sit in Yesod.

How do I shift fear into curiosity?
What is here now?

The Bowl & The Mixing

A mixing bowl appears. I see my grandmother, my mother—and now myself—with spoon in hand. I reach farther back through time and feel the longing to create, to sustain life.
A longing for Life. An impulse, the knowing, the trusting, the mixing, the adjusting, the blending. Yesod is the bowl and the mixing.

The Process - Opening the Flow & Trust

The Creative in me knows letting go of constriction
This is Yesod

The Creative in me is present to this moment in time
This is Yesod

The Creative in me opens and allows that which longs for relationship
This is Yesod

The Creative in me trusts in “the right measure” from my gut feeling
This is Yesod

The Creative connector in me adjusts my will with Divine Will
This is Yesod

My mother’s voice reaches through this veil in this moment,
“Share”
This is Yesod

I open and trust. I contribute.
This is Yesod

Dancing with the Trees

Early spring begins with pruning fruit trees. This year I felt prepared, having studied and observed. With shears in hand and my clippers tucked into my work belt, I was eager to fix previous mistakes and reshape the trees into good health and productivity. I began by evaluating where to make cuts, distance, angles, size, and direction of growth.

What I saw before me was not the simple sketches from the pruning books. Everything was new and unexpected. The worry about “getting it right” paralyzed me. I was stuck in my head, slow, doubting myself, second guessing and tight with judging. After an exhausting day of pruning, I was ready to give up.

Feeling defeated, I sat down in the grass and then I laid on my back, the cool earth beneath me and the wide blue Colorado sky above me. I closed my eyes and let go. Breathing, I remembered another tree from 30 years ago that needed trimming. I saw myself standing on a small ladder looking at the tree. I saw the tree and trusted something inside of me to act. I remembered the enjoyment of the process; letting go, “being with” the tree in the moment, and trusting.

I sat up. I felt the questions in my gut. “Where is the apple tree in all this pruning?” “Did I even see the tree? The tree in her present moment – her shape, her flow?”

A sudden gut feeling - a message and an insight. Here was a different approach, an approach that I had forgotten. This approach is centered around connection, relationship, and the right measure of my will.

I paused. I stood up feeling stronger and grounded. I looked at the apple tree in front of me. I breathed with the tree. I listened to its movement with the afternoon breeze. I saw the tree and I felt connected. The tree and I began a relationship. I asked the apple tree to dance with me. To move with me and for it to move me. We were together, in relationship, sharing the moment, present, and dancing.

This is Yesod.

Yesod is the foundation — and you are part of ours. The Flour and the Wisdom campaign is entering its final weeks. If this teaching matters to you, now is a wonderful time to show it.

Join us on May 21st for a tikkun leyl, kicked off by a session with Steve Klaper and Brother Al Mascia — an evening of shared wisdom for Shavuot and Pentecost. Register for both or just the later tikkun leyl.

Want to sustain this work beyond the campaign?