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Yesod – Foundation, Integration, Connection, Creativity
by Kohenet Ruach D’vorah Grenn, Ph.D
Yesod, you ground me, bring me back into balance. Every time I call on you, I sink into you as Foundation, Rootedness, Stability; I am brought back, at least for a few moments, into alignment. Although one of your attributes is Ego, you often take me out of my egoic Self and into a sense of Connection—reconnecting me with the Divine, with my beloveds, or with community.
My moral compass and perhaps some of my deepest guiding values live here, where the flow of energy through all the attributes come together to form the final blueprint for creation. It is the place from which I have made many decisions. It shares qualities similar to the root chakra and is our ground of being.
What holds you steady? For me, it’s always been about family, and in mid-life also became very much about being in sacred community. I had been so wrapped up in patriarchal corporate structures, I hadn’t explored this vital source of sustenance. Our foundations can be rooted in part in our work, but also from finding, exploring and expanding connections, discovering places and spaces where we can share our experiences, feel seen and heard, witnessed and believed. Perhaps that’s in part because Yesod is so close to Shekhinah, the non-judgmental divine energy that enlivens all that is.
Finding connection—with Source, with each other—is something that’s been very challenging for us since the pandemic, something which we’ve had to find new ways of doing. And yet this period, a place in time and space that left us feeling we had no grounding at all at first, eventually forced us to have more reflective time, allowing us to connect more deeply with self, with our innermost, often unrealized or unrecognized desires. In the process, many have chosen new career paths or discovered new forms of expression, embracing passions we’d long ignored or dismissed because they weren’t “practical”, didn’t pay well or didn’t meet others’ expectations. It gave us a chance to integrate so many parts of ourselves, as Yesod does.
Yesod integrates and balances the energy of Netzach and the humility of Hod. It is said that Yesod functions as the connector between all the sefirot which precede it and Malkhut/Shekhinah, that it is a portal through which divine forces and lifeforce flow. Yesod, prepares us to enter fully the Assiyah space on earth which Malchut/Shekhinah animates the sefirah which Rabbi Nadya will address in next week’s teaching.
A PRACTICE & A QUESTION:
Practice: Inspired by Rabbi Nadya’s Hod teaching last week, I want to offer a Yesod practice for you to consider – and of course invite you to create one of your own:
Create a space in your home or office dedicated to grounding yourself when all seems chaotic or your mind or body are absorbing an excess of stimuli, especially the media-driven kind. If you don’t yet have such an altar or “intentional space” set up, think/journal/meditate/dream about what one might look like, and when you are ready, create one. It can be as simple as writing a kavanah, an intention (or two) about the things that help ground you, bring you back to center. It can have a small bowl of earth, stones, or salt water to cool the energies around you.
Question: What foundation and connections hold you? Who can you turn to in an emergency; who can you rely on in times of crisis? How might you expand your connections, your community?