Loving Kindness, New Podcast, Omer Day One
Honor the wisdom of the ancient mystics and count the omer with me.
(Preface: My personal understanding and definition of “God” is something like the force that sparked the Big Bang. So if I use the word “God”/g-d, or related words like divine please keep that in mind. My primary Jewish community is the Jewish Liberation Theology Institute. I’ll be sharing daily omer prompts via Making Mensches instagram stories. I’ve been helping to fundraise for my beloved comrade Khalil T. Zeyara in Gaza, please consider supporting his family’s fundraiser.)
MOOD stands for My Online Omer Diary.
From the second night of Passover until Shavuot, I’ll be counting the omer and sharing reflections on some sefirot—chesed (loving kindness), gevurah (discipline), tiferet (harmony and truth), netzach (endurance), hod (humility), yesod (connection and foundation), and malchut (leadership)—the mystics connected to the next seven weeks of observance. In the recording I didn’t give any sort of description of what counting the omer is or why we do it, you can learn more here.
As explained by JVP: “The practice of counting the Omer, counting down the days between the second day of Passover and the first day of the holiday of Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah, is a time dedicated to personal growth – a spiritual journey. By counting each day of the Omer, we connect the Passover story of freedom from slavery, as told in the Haggadah, with assuming responsibility for living an ethical life as free people, with the guidance of Torah.”
I have 48 more days to unpack all of this and more so I’m trying to take it easy, show myself some loving kindness, and keep this first one simple.
Day one is loving kindness within loving kindness. Here are my reflections for omer day one in the form of a new podcast that I just launched, just now. An Omercast, if I may. And if you’re not on instagram and want the journal/reflection prompt for day one here it is: in what ways do you need to show yourself more loving kindness?
I’m going to take it a step further, though, given my personal understanding of being and existence with and of our shared planetary homebody: how could upholding an expansive, interconnectedness-based, anti-colonial understanding of “you” impact how you show up for yourself? how can you impact our shared planetary homebody in nourishing, nurturing, reparative ways? in what ways do you perpetuate violent systems in your relationships? in your relationship with your mindbody? what kinds of support do you need, and must you ask for, to better combat violent systems?
On a lighter note, laughing at myself for impulsively launching a podcast. That’s gonna be a wild ride. I won’t be editing it at all. Just stream of consciousness recording and uploading. Why not? I’m going to show myself some loving kindness and not overthink it too much. What a great way to practice rejecting perfectionism.
Cheers to day one. Good night.
RSS link to podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/my-online-omer-diary/1985491
Spotify link to podcast: