Entrance To The Mysteries

Miketz

On this week's Torah portion DovBear writes regarding Bereshit 41:19 (on one of Pharaoh's dreams):

The MT (Mesorah text) gives raqot (flat or hollow) on Gen 41:19; other ancient versions have daqot (meager).

This is a significant change, operating on the thought that the shorashim (Hebrew roots of the words raqot and daqot) are רקק and דקק respectively. The former (raqot) comes with the idea of a limit, while the latter more ancient (daqot) does not. Also, daqot (the one lacking an association with limit) is connected to the idea of the 'thin veil' which separates the worlds in both Celtic and Jewish tradition. Beyond the veil, in both Celtic and Jewish tradition, is a door - the faerie door of Witchcraft and the door of the Aron Hakodesh of Judaism. The Hebrew letter dalet ('d') of daqot is itself symbolic of a door, while the Hebrew letter reish ('r') of raqot implies that one is still actively involved in the process of clarifying physicality and not yet worthy to reach the door.

Taken together, the kine which came up in Bereshit 41:19 originally in the more ancient text brought with them a direct connection to the thin veil which covers the entrance to the mysteries. Importantly, the word raqot conjures a limit preventing access, while the more ancient word daqot does not preclude access to the mysteries.

I suggest that raqot is a deliberate error in the Mesorah text, placed there as a stumbling block for unworthy mystics.

D.

Crimson Thread By The Light Of The Moon

VaYeshev

... with the scarlet thread upon his hand; his name was called Zerah [Bereshit 38:30]

... through lips of a crimson thread [Shir Hashirim 4:3]

... the feminine energy of a witch's moon prevails over the breakout as Dinah bursts the box others may wish she'd remain in.

So mote it be.

Little Bottles And The Magic Mitzvah

Vayishlach

DovBear writes of two-way Torah on this week's portion:

Jacob finds himself alone on the far side of the Yabok on the night before he reunites with his brother and is attacked by a sort of demon. Rashi [from Gen. Rabbah 77:2, Chullin 91a] says Jacob was alone because "He had forgotten small bottles and returned for them." Some see Jacob's concern for the bottles as something praiseworthy, arguing that Jacob's actions shows us how the righteous act with their money, valuing even "small bottles" because everything we have is a divine gift.

You see, it is the little bottles of no-thing (בקבוקות שאין) which drive Jacob toward real acquisition of the noble name Israel. Why?

Interestingly, the gematria of "little bottles" gives us a clue as to why the putatively insignificant little bottles are, on the contrary, very significant. The gematria of the phrase בקבוקות שאין is 621, which is the value of 613 (general mitzvot) + 7 (rabbinic mitzvot) + 1 steadfast mitzvah. Jacob went back for the strategically important missing magic mitzvah, represented by a snake-wrestling witch's "little bottles". The mitzvot are little bottles of divine magic.


Little Bottles from Avalon Moon - some, like the one I purchased with a triskelion, have spiral curls

The Magic Mandrake

Vayetzei

Being a witch makes joy in me. Truly. There is no separation between joy and I. Joyful am I. Neither do I have cause to pray as one separated from herself.

Rachel said to Leah: 'Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.' Bereshit 30:14

In follow-up to my earlier commentary on Vayetzei discussing The Magic Ladder, the question exists for many reading this Torah portion - was Jacob's vision in the night really a dream?

I can't answer that, but I can answer that my own experience, as described in The Magic Ladder and correlated to Jacob's ladder, was no dream. The experience I described was one I had before I was born, before "I" was incarnate or connected to a physical body or bound up with any psycho-spiritual form or structure of any kind. Thus, the words of my poetic discourse on my particular magic ladder do not create a "picture", but rather, they elicit an apprehensional perception of pure Acting Awareness. Without structure, form or physicality, my experience was one of pure consciousness, known in Sefer Yetzirah as sekhel tahor. In practical kabbalah, sekhel tahor corresponds to the magical botanical called mandrake.

Sekhel tahor ... "purifies the Sefirot. It tests the decree of the their structure and the inner essence of their unity, making it glow. They are then unified without any cuttoff or separation." [Sefer Yetzirah, The Thirty-Two Paths Of Wisdom]

The Magic Ladder

Vayetzei

and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven ...
Bereshit 28:12

Sulam (סולם, ladder), from the shoresh סלל can mean "to pause, to retain for thought and meditation" like in my poem where "hard pauses startle into vision ... between depths of opposite observation ..."

Originally posted on my musical website of poetry in motion under the title, Shamir - DiVisions of the Night:

first rhythms ever plunge, eternal hosts driven into life
drawing through a field of topographic brilliance
where judgment lovingly flows, churning out whole stones
resting against asymmetries trying, like diamonds in chaos
proto-perception foams, over annihilating operations
and from it, dark bursts of lucidity finely entwine
coarse grains of almost something, almost yet sufficient
the silent rush of yet nothing slides, wildly as percolating pivots
diligently thread through it, casting clarity
upon myriads, hard pauses startle into vision
projecting arrays without mass, strings of confluency
impressing discovery, a shadowy tail-end lingers
between depths of opposite observation
iterating embraces of many meanings like quasi-quanta
gathering functions about the head and, and
spinning spectra, pushing forward, yearning toward home
not knowing, yet only knowing
as some featureless reach edging edges stretches out
the magnetic sweet dance
where divisions collapse like crystal caves
softly sprinkling the belly of the night divine
with bytes of thoughtbare kisses
extending the glorious field of apprehension