HSS: The Shekinah is the Cosmic Womb

[Guest guest]

Dear Jagbir,

 

Can you please add this to the Holy Spirit Shekinah (HSS) site.

 

thanking you,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

The Shekinah or feminine face of the godhead is the Cosmic Womb, the Palace, the

Enclosure, the Fountain, Apple Orchard, and Mystical Garden of Eden and, at the

same time, the radiance that becomes the successive robes or veils that are the

spheres of consciousness or dimensions of created life. She is named as Mother,

Sister, and Daughter, Beloved and Bride, the architect of worlds, the source or

foundation of our world, who is the Radiance, Word, or Glory of the unknowable

ground or godhead; she brings into being all the creative powers and entities,

both female and male (the ten sephiroth), all the spheres or dimensions of

manifestation that are ensouled by the godhead until she generates the manifest

world we know.

 

The Kabbalists called this last sphere Malkuth, the Kingdom, where the divine

Mother-Father image is expressed as the male and female of all species.

Humanity, female and male, is made in the image of God, the reflection of the

duality-in-unity of the godhead. The Shekinah is forever united with her beloved

spouse in the divine ground or heart of being, and it is their union in the

godhead that holds life in a constant state of coming into being. The sexual

attraction between man and woman and the expression of true love between them is

the enactment or reflection at this level of creation of the divine embrace at

its heart enshrined in the words: " I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine. "

Human sexual relationship, enacted with love, mutual respect, and joy, is a holy

ritual that helps to maintain the ecstatic union of the divine pair.

 

Text after text uses sexual imagery and the imagery of light to describe how the

ray that emerges from nothing is sown into the womb - the Great Sea of Light -

of the celestial Mother and how she brings forth from this womb the male and

female creative energies, which, as two branches of the Tree of Life, are King

and Queen, Son and Daughter. A third branch of the Tree descends directly down

the center, unifying the energies on either side. Surely a long visionary

tradition, meditated on for centuries, must lie behind these images. The

Shekinah is the waters above and below the firmament, the Divine Spouse, the

indwelling and active Holy Spirit, and the divine guide or immanent presence who

delivers the world from bondage and restores it ultimately to the heavenly

spheres. Wisdom, compassion, justice, and mercy are four intrinsic qualities of

her being; yet, like the goddesses of Egypt and Sumer, she can also be terrible

in her power to destroy and in her fury at the wanton desecration of her life.

 

Because she brings all worlds into existence as her robes or veils, and dwells

in them as Divine Presence, nothing is outside God, nothing excluded. Everything

is connected to everything else as through a luminous circulatory system, a

seamless robe of light. Moreover, the Shekinah is deeply devoted to what she has

brought into being, as a mother is devoted to the well-being of her child and,

in particular, to the mystic community of Israel.

 

In the last chapter of the Book of Revelation (Rev.21:2), written by a Jewish

Christian hand, the imagery of Shekinah can be recognised in the description of

the Heavenly City, " descending from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her

husband " with pearls and gold and precious jewels, having no need of sun or moon

for light, for she is the Light, the Glory of God. Christians, knowing nothing

of this lost tradition, cannot make the connection between the Shekinah as Bride

and the Holy Spirit, the feminine aspect of the divine.

 

The Divine Feminine

Andrew Harvey & Anne Baring - Conari Press

Berkeley, CA

ISBN 1-57324-035-4 (hardcover)

Pgs. 89-90; 94.

[Guest guest]

[Jagbir, i have just titled the exerpt, which i forgot to do before -

violet]

 

 

,

" Violet " <violet.tubb wrote:

>

> Dear Jagbir,

>

> Can you please add this to the Holy Spirit Shekinah (HSS) site.

>

> thanking you,

>

> violet

>

>

>

 

The Shekinah is the Cosmic Womb

 

The Shekinah or feminine face of the godhead is the Cosmic Womb, the Palace, the

Enclosure, the Fountain, Apple Orchard, and Mystical Garden of Eden and, at the

same time, the radiance that becomes the successive robes or veils that are the

spheres of consciousness or dimensions of created life. She is named as Mother,

Sister, and Daughter, Beloved and Bride, the architect of worlds, the source or

foundation of our world, who is the Radiance, Word, or Glory of the unknowable

ground or godhead; she brings into being all the creative powers and entities,

both female and male (the ten sephiroth), all the spheres or dimensions of

manifestation that are ensouled by the godhead until she generates the manifest

world we know.

 

The Kabbalists called this last sphere Malkuth, the Kingdom, where the divine

Mother-Father image is expressed as the male and female of all species.

Humanity, female and male, is made in the image of God, the reflection of the

duality-in-unity of the godhead. The Shekinah is forever united with her beloved

spouse in the divine ground or heart of being, and it is their union in the

godhead that holds life in a constant state of coming into being. The sexual

attraction between man and woman and the expression of true love between them is

the enactment or reflection at this level of creation of the divine embrace at

its heart enshrined in the words: " I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine. "

Human sexual relationship, enacted with love, mutual respect, and joy, is a holy

ritual that helps to maintain the ecstatic union of the divine pair.

 

Text after text uses sexual imagery and the imagery of light to describe how the

ray that emerges from nothing is sown into the womb - the Great Sea of Light -

of the celestial Mother and how she brings forth from this womb the male and

female creative energies, which, as two branches of the Tree of Life, are King

and Queen, Son and Daughter. A third branch of the Tree descends directly down

the center, unifying the energies on either side. Surely a long visionary

tradition, meditated on for centuries, must lie behind these images. The

Shekinah is the waters above and below the firmament, the Divine Spouse, the

indwelling and active Holy Spirit, and the divine guide or immanent presence who

delivers the world from bondage and restores it ultimately to the heavenly

spheres. Wisdom, compassion, justice, and mercy are four intrinsic qualities of

her being; yet, like the goddesses of Egypt and Sumer, she can also be terrible

in her power to destroy and in her fury at the wanton desecration of her life.

 

Because she brings all worlds into existence as her robes or veils, and dwells

in them as Divine Presence, nothing is outside God, nothing excluded. Everything

is connected to everything else as through a luminous circulatory system, a

seamless robe of light. Moreover, the Shekinah is deeply devoted to what she has

brought into being, as a mother is devoted to the well-being of her child and,

in particular, to the mystic community of Israel.

 

In the last chapter of the Book of Revelation (Rev.21:2), written by a Jewish

Christian hand, the imagery of Shekinah can be recognised in the description of

the Heavenly City, " descending from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her

husband " with pearls and gold and precious jewels, having no need of sun or moon

for light, for she is the Light, the Glory of God. Christians, knowing nothing

of this lost tradition, cannot make the connection between the Shekinah as Bride

and the Holy Spirit, the feminine aspect of the divine.

 

The Divine Feminine

Andrew Harvey & Anne Baring - Conari Press

Berkeley, CA

ISBN 1-57324-035-4 (hardcover)

Pgs. 89-90; 94.