An ascent

Malchut: First step: establish the ego, one’s kingship in this world (ego).

Yesod: Once your foundation in the world is well rooted, the next step is to develop a strong foundation in your own self. It is not a foundation that should anchor you even more in the world, but a foundation upon which you can begin the journey (of two legs) to the world that awaits us all.

This can only occur by having a strong enough personal foundation to be able to find balance and harmony between the duality of self and other through both personal and community service. This nourishes both the particular and the general, the immanent and transcendent, opening up the gate to one’s higher I, and the beauty and splendour of your (and other’s) being.

Netzach & Hod: This awareness is based made up of two elements. One that is “involuntary”, in that it just “perceives”. The other is that the being has the ability to “receive” and cognite his (or her) experience. It is made up of the innate aspects of life, and the particular, individual apprehension of that experience, which is unique to the person.

Netzach is on the pillar of expansion, the push to infinity, and Hod, on the pillar of contraction, the push to nothingness. The central pillar, upon which we need to align our axis mundi, is the connection between infinity and nothingness, at that space-time point which is our present present.

Gevurah גבורה is the holy splintering. It is our shadow manifest on the canvas of Creation. It is, in it’s weird way, also our connection to the Greater Manifestation. This is why we need to do our shadow work, why the dark night of the soul, the hero’s journey, our trail through darkness, leads us to an encounter with the Divine. By growing from the challenges of our shadow, we can reach a state of grace.