Week Five in the journey of self-examination we call “Sefirat Ha-Omer”: observing the “sefirot” (Divine attributes) within us.
The Hebrew word Hod can mean “splendor,” in the sense of “majestic beauty.” Hod can also mean gratitude. Majestic beauty and gratitude can be connected in a single spiritual moment, as beauty brings us to gratitude. Experience offers examples of such moments, and linguistic wordplay reinforces them.
Even on a difficult day, a glimpse of natural beauty can shift our consciousness. A passing butterfly or a falling cherry blossom can cause us to cry out, “I’m grateful for this gift of life!”
When people disappoint us, causing our faith in humanity to wane, a work of art can restore us. Artists reflect, critique, and transform. The arts remind us that the human soul can grow in refinement. They encourage us to be grateful for our intellect and emotions.
The Ramak (Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, 1522-1570) implies that Hod offers two different pathways to God. Hod, he says, is among the “limudei HaShem.” (Isaiah 54:13). The phrase limudei HaShem can be translated as “students of” HaShem as well as “studies of” HaShem – and both translations apply to Hod.
As a metaphorical student, Hod carries a bit of the energy of its teacher. In other words, Hod is an emanation of Divine energy. To us, it appears as the splendor of God. Majestic beauty is thus a direct vision of the Presence of God.
As a metaphorical study, Hod is an attitude of approach. A good researcher studies with appreciative humility, aka gratitude. Gratitude is a receptive posture that allows us to recognize the Presence of God.
In your daily routine, and on your daily route, can you find places where majestic beauty opens your heart to gratitude? What variations can you make to increase your opportunities?
Image: www.daviddarling.info
Another lovely and wonderfully eloquent post speaking to abstract and difficult to express concepts.
As a creative person, I feel that while in the creative process, one is infused with this same emanation, allowing the Divine to speak through the us.
Oftentimes this state of creative “fugue” is what I find to be the most healing to what ails me, and provides a most needed shift in consciousness, the ability to hone in and see the majesty that is (in everything) to feel it coursing through me. That must sound a little crazy. 🙂
I love your posts. 🙂
What an eloquent comment! Not crazy at all. I experience this “fugue” in free writing, which always takes me in a different direction than I expected, and always someplace better.
I feel like the things I discover are the things that have always been there all along; that there is nothing new, only that which has been newly revealed to me… A funny experience: most of my drawings look like they came from my hand because I can usually find something off or wrong that shows my inadequacy of talent or technique. However, every so often, a line – or a shade, or a shape, or a hue – comes out so right, so perfectly that I look at it and wonder, who did that, for it could not have been me.
Mark, thanks for reading. I’m so glad this short post invited you to reflect on the creative process. It is sometimes amazing to see what comes out of the less conscious parts of consciousness.