November 30 2018

Pulling from The Kabbalah Deck by Edward Hoffman, here’s what came up this time.

This week, what came up or was present for us?

Yud, the smallest letter of the alphabet, encourages us to lean into the power of momentum to bring change into our lives. A single tiny dot, yud emphasizes the ability of the small to notice, to ripple, to add to or break up the large. Yud begins the word yad for “hand,” thrusting us forward into action, into the reminder that everything, even the small things, matters.

So, this week, reflect on the ways you are noticing, acknowledging, making space, and making change. Maybe you donated during Giving Tuesday, called your representatives to support asylum seekers at the border, bought holiday gifts from a local artist, volunteered your time with a community you care about, went to therapy, sat down with Layla Saad’s Me and White Supremacy Workbook, took a break from social media, cooked a meal for yourself, or sent a sweet voice memo to an unsuspecting friend. Let these small things gather and roll together, setting yourself into energetic motion!

This Sabbath, what nourishment do we need and what deserves our sacred time?

Comprised of two yuds situated above and below the Hebrew letter vav, aleph offers us a look into our higher and lower selves.

This Shabbat, explore the contradictions of your life – all that is separate and connected, tearful and joyful, close and distant, tragic and miraculous, dark and light. Aleph begins the word and number echad for “oneness,” reminding us to engage in and embrace contradiction to find wholeness. To do so, get silent. The only letter that makes no sound of its own, aleph can teach us where to find and how to sit in the silence.

During this Shabbat, leave behind the noise of the week, of the internet, of your head, and find real quiet in waking up to an early morning, taking a walk outside, looking out the window on the bus, making art next to a loved one, or sitting with a cup of tea. Be OK with reflecting stillness. Be OK with feeling uncomfortable with reflecting stillness. Sometimes, stillness can feel like wholeness.

Moving towards this world to come, how do we hold our values and bring the ways we want to build into the next week?

The shape of the letter kaf is like a cupped palm of the hand, a natural container, holding and receiving. What are you acting as container for? What are you holding in yourself – worries, stress, anxiety? Dreams, aspirations, hope?

Beginning the word kavanah for “intentionality,” kaf asks us to get intentional about how we give form to matter. How do we want to receive information, hold it and adapt it to our bodies, and shape it into new growth? All spelled out, kaf can break down into the word koach for “potential” and poel for “actual.” This next week, focus on your intentions to actualize the potential of the spirit and femme-ifest it into the actual of the material.

During this next week of Hanukkah, in this darkest time of the year, in this dark time of the world, find the potential available in each moment and bring it into the light.

Let us know how this reading sits with you and what it’s asking you to bring into your life with the hashtag above! As always, take what you need from the cards and leave what you don’t. We’ll see you next week. Shabbat Shalom ✨

Maya Sungold is a facilitator, farmer, and fiber artist who works through practices of cultivation and collaboration to support relationships in continued resistance and resilience. In spinning both fiber and web, they build change and creative adaptation, queer time and radical imaginings, tender accountability and perfectly possible contradiction into their art-making and community-building. Their work aims to shape space and structure for connection, reflection, and creation to resource us as we live into the world to come. You can connect with them on Instagram at @soulxstitch.