The fortieth bead on the blessing cord is the blessing of Body. This is the blessing of earth in Malkuth. Our bodies—no matter their condition—are a true blessing. Many religions discount the body and the physical, seeing them as impure expressions of our nature. They either seek to deny the body or to detach from it. They seek to be of pure spirit or to cast aside the illusion of the body in pursuit of a “higher” experience.

It is my belief that we are incarnated in bodies for a reason. There are lessons to be learned on this plane and our way to learn them is through the body. It is both a vehicle of our journey through Malkuth and also a great teacher of our lessons. The body is our vehicle and medium to experience the pleasure and pain of the physical world. It is the vehicle born of desire and destroyed by it. It is more then just a vehicle of our worldly experience, it is also our teacher in this lifetime.

Our bodies are sending us information all the time. Pleasure and pain tell us more about how to survive in this world. Our heart races when we meet a special someone, or beats uncontrollably as we escape from an attacker. Our body relaxes when we meditate, giving us better ability to tap into the flow of spirit. It tells us when we need healing, rest, nurturing, love, or even to fight back. Each message the body sends us has layers of meaning. A pain in the neck tells us we are working on something that annoys us and we need to take a break. A pain in our back tells us we should ask for help and not try to solve it all by ourselves, carrying the weight of the world. Hearing loss asks us to examine what it is we don’t want to hear and to be more open. There are hundreds of different messages that our body gives us that can help in our healing process and our great work. We have only to listen deeply to get more of the message.

This conversation is not just one-sided though. We can ask our body questions to gain more insight in even our day-to-day problems. Think about an issue you have been struggling with. Tune into your body and feel how these thoughts affect your body. Do you feel warm or cold when you hold this thought? Does your heart beat faster or slower? How is your breathing? Where do you feel tension within your body? Asking yourself what you feel in your body can give you information when you know how your body talks to you. Warm and cold can tell us if something is agreeable or not, expansive or contractive, inviting or scary. Your heart and your breath can gage how excited you are or how peaceful something makes you. Where you feel tension can tell you where this issue sits within you. It can give you symbolic information about the issue. A pain in the neck for me is an annoying trial, a sore foot is not wanting to take the next step, and tired eyes can tell me there is something I don’t want to see. These are just a few examples.

The body is part of our evolution in this lifetime, by beginning our discussion with it we can learn our world’s lessons faster. It is important that we also take care of our vehicle and teacher. By caring for our bodies we get to stay in them longer, learn more lessons, and our bodies can channel more of the energies of the spirit. Eastern spiritual traditions combine physical exercise with spiritual work. Yoga, qi-gong, and tai chi all are used to balance our body with our spiritual work. Yoga “yokes” the body with the work of the spirit. In our western traditions we seem to ignore the body and we need to bring it back so we can find balance. It is the combination that makes us stronger. With exercise and diet we can make our bodies stronger to help us channel our spiritual work.

In the following meditation we use our awareness to connect deeper to the body. In this deeper connection, we tune into the body’s wisdom to receive it’s messages and to ask about situations and get the answers of sensations.

Meditation of Body

Hold the fourtieth bead on the blessing cord. The blessing of Body, the bead of Earth in Malkuth.

Count yourself down in to a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand out around you, forming a sphere. Feel the slight shift as a garden begins to grow up around you in the sphere of your mind. Resonate the god name of Malkuth: Ah-do-nai Ha-ah-retz

The thirty-ninth bead on the blessing cord is the blessing of formation. It is the blessing of earth in Yesod. Yesod is the sephira sometimes called the storehouse of images. This is where all the images, archetypes, patterns, memories—the foundations of our manifestation—are held. It is sometimes attributed to the astral plane, the layer of reality where our own physical world’s patterns of manifestation are held. It is the place often called the Foundation of our own world in Malkuth. The images, ideas, and patterns all have the possibility to be manifested within the realm of Malkuth. The patterns of Yesod are our blueprints of what we bring into formation in our lives.

This concept of a plane of energy patterns reminds me of a New Age concept called the causal plane. The causal plane term was used by Neo-theosophists. They believe there are four planes of existence: casual, mental, astral, and physical. To make formation in the physical world we must move our idea or image from the causal plane through the mental and astral and then it has formation within physical reality. As multidimensional beings we can move between these planes in astral travel and in some meditations.

You can think about these planes like the work of a factory. Inspiration occurs in the causal plane. The mental plane is where we draw up the blueprints for whatever we are making. The astral is where resources and energy are brought together in that pattern. Then the physical is our end product. When we “beta test” our physical product and it does not work as we thought or is not quite right, we go “back to the drawing board” to change our blueprint and create a better product.

The energetic planes can be used this way to take something that has manifested in your life and dissolve it by symbolically going back through the factory, taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together in a way that works for your purposes. In this meditation we will go through the different planes, taking a problem with us. As we bring something back to the causal plane, it dissolves back into its component parts, allowing you to reassemble it according to a new blueprint of your creation.

Meditation of Formation

Hold the thirty-ninth bead of the blessing cord, the bead of formation, the blessing of Earth in Yesod.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand until it is a sphere around you. Feel a sensation of rising as your sphere begins to fill with a misty purple light. Resonate the God name of Yesod: Sha-dai El-chai.

The purple light grows to a darker shade of purple, like the color of an egg plant. The darker it gets the closer you are to the plane of the physical. Bring up on the screen of your mind the issue or problem you have been experiencing. Visualize it fully with all of your senses. Say to yourself “I am now changing this problem.” Imagine the problem being encased in a bubble of energy, then shrinking down until you can hold the bubble in your hand. You can see the representation of your issue inside the bubble.

Intend to take this issue into the causal plane to dissolve this blueprint and create its solution. The purple light around you begins to lighten to a medium range purple like a violet. Feel how your problem has moved with you higher into the astral. Look at it and observe what images and feelings make up its form in the astral level. It may appear more symbolic here.

Intend to move higher and observe how the light around you becomes a light purple. Look again at your problem and see the thoughts that made it up. You may hear them as words or experience them as knowings or images.

Move even higher into the causal plane. The light around you becomes a prismatic white that holds all colors within it. Your problem begins to dissolve in the pure energy of this place. You may feel like you are merging with the plane around you. There is a great peace here and all solutions are possible. Begin to take in this higher vibrational energy and form an image of your problem as solved. Visualize the solution or the end result you truly desire, then begin to descend with your solution.

The light becomes pale purple. Here in the mental plane, form your thoughts about this solution. You may want to say an affirmation of this new end result. For example: I am in perfect health and I become more vital every day.

Descend again into the violet light and reinforce images of your end result. Watch as it pulls in energy from the astral plane all on its own, moving towards formation.

Descend again to the astral plane where you are close to the plane of manifestation. See the deep purple light all around you. Let your end result expand so it fills the screen of your mind. Step into the vision and experience it with all your senses. Doing this makes it real for you. Return back into your sphere of the mind with the purple light of Yesod all around you. Allow your end vision to fade and know that it goes to be manifested in the physical world.

All around you is obscured by the purple light. You feel a slight gentle descent as the light fades from view. The screen of your mind becomes its normal color and shrinks back to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Ground and center, as needed

Contemplation

What ideas shape what you have created in your life? What long-held beliefs have gotten you to where you are? Do they still serve you? What is it you want to bring into formation?