Meditation on Water from Breath

Water from Breath · Letters Taking Form · Chanukah

Welcome. As we enter this vessel of time and place, find your seat. Allow the body and mind to arrive together. Feel the points of contact - floor, chair, earth holding you. Bring attention to the breath as it is, without shaping or directing. Notice the natural fluidity of the breath - its running and returning, arriving and leaving, like waves on the ocean. An ocean of breath, held by the sky of a bodily container. Already, fluidity is being contained.

Today, we continue to learn from Sefer Yetzirah. Chapter 1, verse 11..

11) Three: Water from Breath. With it He engraved and carved [22 letters from] chaos and void,  mire and clay.  He engraved them like a sort of garden.  He carved them like a sort of wall.  He covered them like a sort of ceiling.  [And he poured snow over them and it became dust as it is written "For to snow He said, 'Become earth'" (Job 37:6)].

Water from Breath

The verse begins, Three: water from breath. With it, God engraved and carved chaos and void, mire and clay. Breath condenses, movement gathers to become substance. What was dispersed begins to coalesce. What was formless begins to take shape. This is the work of Binah, the sefirah that is connected to water. It's not sudden creation, but patient gathering. Binah is the place where spirit agrees to be held long enough to be understood. Today, of course, we're also in the midst of Chanukah. The flames on the Chanukah menorah are no longer singular. Light has companionship, and something ignited has learned how to stay and grow a little. Its presence is reinforced by the presence of flame growing stronger. And this evening, the brightness will continue to coalesce and grow.

Just sit quietly for a minute or two with these words from Sefer Yetzirah. 

Three: water from breath. 

With it God engraved and carved chaos and void, mire and clay. 

Water from breath. 

Breath becoming water

There's an invitation now just to bring a gentle, non-fixing, fluid attention to the breath. Sense the airy quality of the breath: light, moving and subtle. And now pay close attention to the moisture within your own breath as you exhale. See if you can feel the wetness of your own exhalation, the warmth and density gathering in the mouth, the throat, even in the chest. And now imagine that breath cooling, thickening slightly, becoming fluid - breath becoming water. Feel this water-breath in the body, in the chest, the belly, the back body. A quiet inner sea. There's nothing to control here. Nothing to seize or freeze. Just water receiving the shape of the vessel, receiving form.

Letters: voice and carving

The letters themselves live at a threshold. You can even picture them huddled up together inside of a mezuzah, resting in the threshold of a doorway. When a letter is uttered, breath and moisture shape it. So, those letters also live at this physical threshold within our bodies. The threshold of the throat and mouth. After being shaped by breath and moisture, the letter either dissolves into the next utterance or into silence. And when a letter is written or engraved, water, in the form of ink submits to surface and form remains.

Our Sefer Yetzirah continues: "He engraved them like a sort of garden. He carved them like a sort of wall. He covered them like a sort of ceiling.” Notice the gentleness of these images: a garden - alive, tended, receptive. A wall - defining, supportive, discerning. A ceiling - sheltering, holding space. He engraved them like a sort of garden. He carved them like a sort of wall. He covered them, like a sort of ceiling. This is Binah once again - not rigidity, but wise containment. 

Notice the garden spaces within yourself tended to and nourished by the waters of your own breath. Notice the wall-like structures of your own physicality - what is holding you up and supporting you? What is distinguishing between self and non- self? Notice the ceiling of your thoughts and aspirations.

And now let the body sense where something needs to remain fluid; where something is ready to be shaped, to coalesce; and where a letter of the soul is asking to be held long enough to become clear.

If it's available to you, conjure an image of multiple companion wicks resting in oil, suspended in water. You yourself are the shammash, igniting the wicks to emerge as companion flames. Not forcing the flame, simply offering light. Simply notice how light behaves when the vessel is trustworthy - water holding water holding oil, oil holding flame. Understanding holding light. 

We're going to enter into silence for about 13 or so minutes, and as we sit in the silence, you might stay with breath becoming water, water becoming form, or the image of multiple flames coalescing their light. Choose one of those places to be for the next period of time and just use that as an anchor, coming back whenever the mind should wander. If you become distracted or the mind wanders, or you're engaging in planning, just come back to that anchoring image, whether it's breath becoming water, water becoming form, or the flames coalescing their light. 

Just gently rest with your anchoring image. 

(Returning after silence)

Closing

Allow the eyes to remain closed or at a soft focus, but gently return your consciousness to this space. In some versions of Sefer Yetzirah, the verse concludes with these words: "He pours snow over them, and it became dust, for to snow, He said, ‘Become Earth.” This is fluidity settling into ground, and softness becoming reliable.

Before we come back into the space and open up our eyes again, just notice the weight of the body, the heaviness of physicality, the steadiness of the floor. We'll just stay in this place for a few minutes where awareness hasn't disappeared. It's just learning how to dwell within this physical space. 

So on this day of Chanukkah, the practice is not only lighting the flame, it's trusting the vessel and it's trusting the process that allows light to endure.

May what needs to remain fluid stay alive and may what needs to coalesce do so gently. May the letters of your soul be held with enough structure to allow understanding to deepen and continue to grow.

The S'fat Emet outlines what God desires for B’nei Yisrael, for the children of Israel - to draw all beings toward their soul roots and to bring light to the world, because there is a point of vital life force that shines in every created being to raise up the eternal lamp and the explanation of this tamid - this eternality - is that every word, every matter, everything, and every deed exists only to be elevated, raised up, to the Holy One of Blessing.