Antoine/maleness and femaleness on the Tree

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Hi Antoine -

It's been a long time ago that I went through a study of the Tree

of Life in Qabala. Here is my understanding, perhaps

clouded by the intervening years of nonstudy, of some of this:

Hod is female, meaning intellect, and Netzach is male, associated

with passion. There are reasons that intellect (Hod)

and power (Geburah or Godolah) are associated with the female side

and passion (Netzach) and love (Chesed) associated

with the male side. It has to do with contraction and expansion.

Study of the tree, for me, culminated with an awareness of the

contractive and expansive aspects of energy working, seeing these

throughout all, thus a maleness and femaleness to any being or event.

Each sephirot (sphere or realm of energy transformation),

whether it is "male" or "female" has both a male and female aspect,

as each sephirot receives and gives energy.

Through maleness and femaleness, energy transforms continually.

 

Chokmah is male and associated with wisdom, Briah is female and

associated with understanding. The maleness of wisdom and

femaleness of understanding have to do with the unity of

conscious and unconscious, time and space, to come together at

Kether, the all-containing point - which emanated Chokmah and Binah.

The Tree is within and around us, and we "travel back" along the

path by which we emanated, finding the Source that is us.

This journey is within ourselves, within the present, within Infinity.

 

The fact that there is, historically, a social

association of maleness with power, control and intellect and

femaleness with passion and love, is, according to the Tree,

part of our social problem and confusion. Please also remember

that each individual "contains" the entire Tree. So we are all

male/female and neither. The meditation suggested by the

structure of the Tree is the Middle Way between the opposites -

the way through Yetzirah, the dream/astral, to Tipheret, beauty/the Heart,

through Da'ath, knowledge within the abyss, and Kether, the

single point - bindu in the Hindu representation. Moving

through Kether to the reality that can't be articulated -

through ayn soph aur (limitless light), to ayn soph (limitlessness)

to ayn (pure "no-thing").

 

Love, Dan

 

At 07:10 PM 11/25/99 -0500, you wrote:

>Antoine <carrea

>

>RainboLily wrote:

>

>I like this,

>

>Exploring with you this middle way that shows itself deeper by simply

>looking in you.

>

>> On males and females, men contribute the seeds of wisdom,

>> women the waters of understanding, it's a Hermetic principle of

>> polarity, and the balance is essential to travel the Middle Way.

>> I think people appear in our lives to provide just

>> that ... perhaps, especially on a spiritual path.

>

>The wisdom/understanding polarity is a way to aboard this genderized

>Fem/Masc approach, but it is not the one i will aboard in this email.

>

>> When one learns a few languages, one discovers that the first

>> will be on one side and the next language on the other side,

>> for example my two Germanic languages are on opposite sides

>> and the two Romance languages are on opposites sides. This perhaps

would be

>> nice if, for example when I can't

>> think of a word in Dutch if I were to move to English instead of

>> then finding a word in Spanish.

>

>From my brief experience in various language speaking, i find it

>wonderful also to remark how words in certain language find no

>equivalent in others. As if a "pattern" of the culture was reproduced

>someplace in the brain for a word or bunch of words. Like a tree growing

>in Canada will not have the same pattern in the branches and in the

>roots than a tree growing in China.

>

>At first, in learning a new language, those structure one touch in the

>other language will fell mostly as HOD, to take a word, or as theory or

>words. Something we can communicate and understand from logic. We

>observe simply those "pattern" of the new language. After a while, after

>we stop translating in our mind to speak an other language, something

>strange appends, but that all who have learned more than one language

>have noticed. The words or patterns, start to resonate, they become a

>empathic home for who we are, its NETZACH in a form. This empathic

>ability that we cannot communicate or change in theory, but that is

>there making the "pattern" more than theory, making it alive. We start

>living the language instead of simply translating it.

>

>Some seems to associate Hod to Masc, and Netzach to Fem. I do agree that

>generally men do stick more to their Hod side, and women to there

>Netzach side. And this email is mostly Hod in expression. Maybe it's the

>medium of exchange and not the male/female proportion in a list that is

>responsible for such a thing. Writing, not talking of the telepathy one

>may feel behind the words, or the empath approach, or simply projection

>in them, writing, without using those categories of expression, is most

>strictly in the form of HOD. Poetry trying to reach NETZACH in its

>expression, what is it in comparison of the simple and beautiful picture

>of a sunset Gloria sent. What is it in comparison of simply being there

>assisting to this sunset, what is it in comparison of simply being

>there, or simply being...

>

>> Interesting thread Xan, thank you for opening it for exploration

>> to look at deeply, I find this extraordinarily interesting, but then

>> neurochemistry has always been an arena that appeals to me,

>> and when Shakti and Shiva dance at the crown, what is firing?

>

>Sharing,

>

>Antoine

>

>>All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights,

perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside

back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than

the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of

Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is

Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality

of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge,

spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to

a.

>