Counting the Omer is a metaphor for counting the steps on the journey from slavery to freedom, from unconsciousness to greater awareness. The journey, of course, is never quite that simple. We are not coming from total unconsciousness, nor are we going to be able to achieve full awareness this year. Yet our task is to meet the challenge of becoming more aware of the Life that is your life, of the Freedom that awaits you. So we begin the second week of our journey.

This second week focuses on Gevurah, the sefirah placed at the left shoulder which balances Chesed on the right side. Gevurah itself symbolises the dark side, the Sitra Achra, the place of Other. It holds the possibility of being mere shell without energy. It is the place of the shadows lacking light. It is the place of restriction and constriction, since it limits the pure flow from Chesed. Because it provides a form for Chesed, it allows that Love to manifest. Because any form will limit Chesed, it threatens to strangle the very energies for which it is a vessel. At Gevurah we sense most clearly the essential paradox of form.

Since Gevurah expresses itself as the form of emotions, it is our task to to inform these emotions the energy of Love that flows from Chesed to better recognize and appreciate the feelings which have arisen within us. This first day of the second week brings Chesed into Gevurah, to help us sense the presence of that Lovingkindness within all the feelings we experience.

This week we focus on the left shoulder, and today we imagine a channel of light between the illuminations at left and right shoulder. Notice that this channel passes through the throat, which is the place that we enter and impact the world with our words. With this awareness, we enter into our experience this day.