Skip to content
Soulful Focus
Menu
  • Home
  • Instagram
  • Virtual Co-Working
  • Patreon
Menu

Instagram

tumblebeewings

Day 34. Yesod she b’hod. #countingtheomer Found Day 34. Yesod she b’hod. #countingtheomer

Foundation within awe, grounding in humility. A strong stillness within the energy of meaningful surrender. Standing with strength in reality. 

Yesod (for me) brings to mind a feeling of gathering, but like a tree does it, still in the earth, planted and strong but soaking up sunlight and nutrients and continually accepting the current conditions in order to respond/grow/rest/toss leaves/sway… all while remaining right where planted. 

It has been hard this week to feel grounded enough to accept where I am planted, but creating this last night cracked it open a little bit for me, brought the bigger picture into focus. 

*I couldn’t bear to trim much of the timelapse so it’s in two minute-long snippets here. Full 2 minutes on TikTok.
Day 33. Lag B’Omer sameach! Hod she b’hod. #co Day 33. Lag B’Omer sameach! Hod she b’hod. #countingtheomer
Jubilee! #torahstudy #parshastudy #hottakesaretora Jubilee! #torahstudy #parshastudy #hottakesaretorah
Day 32. Netzach she b’hod. #countingtheomer The Day 32. Netzach she b’hod. #countingtheomer

The eternities we carry and can maintain within necessary surrender and humility. Really grappling with how to be all of me sustainably and what needs to be surrendered in order to do that sustaining. 

I may be cramming my infinity into a particular space that takes too much of my endurance and doesn’t create enough safety for me to truly unfurl or surrender. 

Wise human @mmmjaysmith commented “you can’t be the only one in the room” with regard to showing up in certain spaces where one advocate is so outnumbered, dismissed, and overpowered that the endurance is better used finding another way in/through/forward.

I’m not great at certain types of surrender, so this week of Hod has really nudged me in that area in helpful ways, all while contemplating a real test of my resolve/humility/endurance.
Lots of really great hot takes tonight in Pirkei A Lots of really great hot takes tonight in Pirkei Avot class with @maimonides_nutz @torahstudio. #pirkeiavot #chevruta
Day 31. Tiferet she b’hod. #countingtheomer Har Day 31. Tiferet she b’hod. #countingtheomer

Harmony within the act of surrendering to all of what is, never in order to give up but to instead be more in tune with what *can* be done. 

Time lapse soundtrack is inspired by some of the reading and resulting conversation about harmony created by allowing and appreciating the interplay of different sounds, which had me reminiscing about my jazz trombone days and the trombonist whose distinctive sound I really loved (Tommy Dorsey). 

Tiferet has been bringing to mind music notes in my head each time it shows up, and the shofar is a great example of an instrument that sounds completely different from shofar to shofar and from player to player, each version valid and valuable, and in the truth of that something both simple and majestic is created.
Psalm 30 and I started with @a.r.k.ofthecovenant a Psalm 30 and I started with @a.r.k.ofthecovenant at Psalm 1 @torahstudio! Now to go buy a book, in a shocking turn of events. 😆 I loved this psalm and as I often do, I tried to be profound but said “HaShem’s Neosporin” instead. It made sense in the moment. Chaos analogies are my jam. 

#tehillim #psalms #jewish #chevruta #hevruta #newishtojewish
Day 30. Gevurah she b’hod. #countingtheomer I Day 30. Gevurah she b’hod. #countingtheomer 

I really struggled with this one, which was fitting for the theme. Watching the time lapse of me trying to find an end point and failing to allow simplicity in the art over and over, and then repeatedly re-writing “acceptance”… wow. Point taken.
Day 29. Chesed she b’hod. #countingtheomer Love Day 29. Chesed she b’hod. #countingtheomer

Love in simplicity. The art struggled in my brain until I settled into the simple awe of a rising sun and a loving exchange between those things which feed on that light and then grow toward the source of it… like a thank you. Thinking today about how to grow toward available light while also remembering not to block light meant for others.
Day 27. Malchut she b’netzach. #countingtheomer Day 27. Malchut she b’netzach. #countingtheomer

I attached the bit of the reading the inspired today.
Day 27. Yesod she b’netzach. #countingtheomer F Day 27. Yesod she b’netzach. #countingtheomer

Foundation/grounding within endurance/fortitude/eternity = trees, especially after enjoying my favorite local trees and morning coffee earlier today with @barbarapearles and the pup. Constantly changing and adapting but rooted… Yesod within Netzach.
Little gifts from morning walk. We found lily of t Little gifts from morning walk. We found lily of the valley and now my car smells divine from the few I picked. ♥️🌿 Shabbat shalom. Omer art for today still to come. MercR is messing with my tech this week.
Day 26. Hod she b’netzach. #countingtheomer I Day 26. Hod she b’netzach. #countingtheomer 

I found simplicity in fortitude while staring into the bubbles in my coffee this morning and listening to nostalgic music after hearing the tragic circumstances of Naomi Judd’s death. Lots of other thoughts, but they’re mostly floating around in my brain like the little foam bubbles.
The way I cried out for my Robert Alter translatio The way I cried out for my Robert Alter translation during chevruta with @mmmjaysmith tonight in parsha study was worth memorializing. “WHERE IS ROBERT?” is going to be my new way of declaring that I’m reaching for commentary henceforth. 

#torahstudy #parshatemor #leviticus #doodlenotes #procreate #digitalbujo #visualnotes #chevruta
Day 25. Netzach she b’netzach. #countingtheomer Day 25. Netzach she b’netzach. #countingtheomer

Halfway there!! Eternity within eternity. Personal endurance within collection endurance. Infinities within infinities. Persistence of one bee in creating a community that itself persists. 

This idea is part of the idea behind the bee tattoo I got on my hand the year I opened my own practice and decided to work for myself, on my terms, remembering that my singular addition to collective healing is best offered to the world on terms that maximize my endurance for the work. 

Bees have been popping up everywhere this week, like a nod to where my own endurance has landed me, and I’m really in love with this exact landing point along the way, as imperfect and messy as it may be. Today’s personal eternity is a checkpoint on the exact route I want to be on in so many ways. Not all ways, but many, and I’ll take it.
Pirkei Avot for Goths, week 3 with @maimonides_nut Pirkei Avot for Goths, week 3 with @maimonides_nutz at @torahstudio. Post-class hot take: In between the drop and the dust, we are invited to be knowingly small but miraculous, mindful within time and relationship, accountable in every moment to truth as a judge, fallible with capacity for repair, and witnessed in all of it. 

#pirkeiavot #digitalnotes #digitalnotetaking #illustratedjournaling #ipadpro #procreate
Day 24. Tiferet she b’netzach. #countingtheomer Day 24. Tiferet she b’netzach. #countingtheomer

Forgot to post again but I finished most of this last night. The cycle of endurance and the symmetry of harmony just kept creating infinity shapes in my head. Infinity created by endurance and the harmony that increases that endurance, potentially infinitely. I love the weirdness of this one and how it makes perfect sense somewhere in me.
Day 23. Gevurah she b’netzach. #countingtheomer Day 23. Gevurah she b’netzach. #countingtheomer 

Discernment within endurance. I really loved illustrating this one and trying to capture the way that discernment and boundaries deeply impact shape and alter what endurance looks like and how recognizing our trajectory and reading signs can help us alter course while continuing through all the things we need staying power for, recognizing which paths recharge, which paths will deplete, which paths are on someone’s course but would divert from our own. All of it framed with Gevurah as a crossroad under a dark sky with Netzach as the flame we’re always tending or drawing from. Wishing us all a discerning endurance, especially right now.
Day 22. Chesed she b’netzach. #countingtheomer Day 22. Chesed she b’netzach. #countingtheomer

I finished this super early and then forgot to post it! 

Expansive love within endurance as the sustainability that is created through the kind of love propelling us toward finish lines we won’t see but that our future generations will. My friend @leia_joy talked this morning about the tree we plant that will bear delicious fruit but not in our lifetime, while we enjoy the fruits of our ancestors prior plantings. ♥️
Day 21. Malchut she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer Day 21. Malchut she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

Starting the feel these days accumulate and build on each other and I love that each week culminates in this place of sovereignty. I don’t have good caption words but this one took a long time to settle and feel done, maybe because sovereignty in balance is a sizable task and a big one to try and illustrate. I can feel my art wiggling around and changing now that the first three weeks are done, and I’m digging it. The song I picked for the time lapse felt like the innate sovereignty in the harmony experienced in early childhood, those moments where no one has yet taught us to give too much of ourselves away and we carry around so much love and joy over even the simplest things.
Day 20. Yesod she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer T Day 20. Yesod she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

This week has me listening to my folk nostalgia playlist and I was drawing something totally different until this Dar Williams song came on. I scrapped what I was doing and this just happened. 

I thought about the foundation I’ve built for myself and also the foundation I have innately and internally, and then the harmony that is carefully and beautifully constructed from those moments when the overall grounding in me sings with someone else’s or with a moment of being aware of my arrival at the other end of a leg of this journey. 

This song is such a treasure. I’m so glad that I finally made it to this version of me, knowing things that only time can tell. I’m aging well. Thanks to Dar for the abrupt left turn into art that cracked me open a little today. I needed it, even if it aches a bit.
Day 19. Hod she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer Tha Day 19. Hod she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

Thanks to @mmmjaysmith for help with the Hebrew and laughing at my delight in creating “ALEAF BET.” 

I’m going to gender neutralize the poem snippet in today’s reading that inspired the art:
“[People] look for [HaShem] and fancy [HaShem] concealed;
But in earth’s common things [HaShem] stands revealed 
While grass and flowers and stars spell out [Their] name.” 
- Abraham Ibn Ezra
Day 18. Netzach she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer Day 18. Netzach she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

Thinking on today had me visualizing the innate and divine endurance of breath (both in my body and the way earth “breathes”) and the intentional aspect of endurance that is relationship to that breath (noticing it, calming it, directing it as needed) and the harmony created between the two. That as a model for our collective liberation (through a balancing of the innate and the intentional) and thinking about truth as a form of harmony/balance has allowed me some hope this morning. 

I had the inner ring of words done differently and then looked again at @nomyteaches’ Omer Oracle deck and collective liberation had to be added, given its timeliness as a focus this week. 

Collective liberation in a world of protected and revered truths. Tikkun olam.
Check out @plancpills for information and resource Check out @plancpills for information and resources, including ways to take action, and check that your path forward is led by voices already fighting and existing from within multiple marginalizations. 

#abortionrights #abortionishealthcare #shoutyourabortion #bodilyautonomy
Day 17. Tiferet she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer Day 17. Tiferet she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

It was hard to focus on this theme today, given broader conversations, but in sitting with part of my reading of Rabbi Kantrowitz’s book I felt something bloom from the Hebrew word l’hitpallel, which means “to pray” but also “to disembowel.” 

When I dig deeply into myself, look unflinching at my insides, and find that initial root spark of my own divinity, truth cannot be altered or stolen from me. The balance, beauty, harmony I seek to help create in the world starts with that inner work of creating resonance and truth in myself.
Long overdue, the part of me that used to have a f Long overdue, the part of me that used to have a flower altar somewhere in my home at any point in any given season before COVID. Now to watch it change with the season and look forward to building more. 

#flowerart #flowermagic
Day 16. Gevurah she b’Tiferet. Discernment withi Day 16. Gevurah she b’Tiferet. Discernment within harmony. #countingtheomer

This kept bringing to mind music as harmony that we complete through the structure and systems we’ve create in order to make music others can listen to, play, share. Systems as unification, division that protects and restores balance. Music is limitless, but also harnessed through the instruments and patterns we’ve discovered and practiced together. And this translates in my head to justice (disproportionate wealth as a note that’s too sharp), negotiating relationships (is one voice too loud), and self care (am I rushing, missing a rest, practicing a piece I want to master). Letting the art spill over a little bit felt cheeky and fun to do with gevurah/boundaries in the mix.
Day 15. Chesed she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer Day 15. Chesed she b’tiferet. #countingtheomer

No big thoughts or words. All of them are in there, saying things my brain can’t articulate for this day of counting the omer.
We have arrived. #itsgonnabemay #sorrynotsorry #fa We have arrived. #itsgonnabemay #sorrynotsorry #favoritememe
Day 14. Malchut/Shechinah she b’chesed. #countin Day 14. Malchut/Shechinah she b’chesed. #countingtheomer

Sovereignty in discernment. This visual came from reading about this day of the counting and the proposed of imagining Shechinah with wings that can envelop while we also contain a spark of divine image ourselves. We are held with sovereignty so that we may hold others with sovereignty and all of that is best rooted in (and possible because of) deep discernment. I had a hard time being “done” with this visual, choosing the ordering of the layers, having to let go of wanting perfect feathers.
Day 13. Yesod she b’gevurah. #countingtheomer Day 13. Yesod she b’gevurah. #countingtheomer
Day 12. Hod she b’gevurah. #countingtheomer Day 12. Hod she b’gevurah. #countingtheomer
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Recent Posts

  • Updates on this space and me
  • Flip-through: 5 Weeks in my Savor Life planner (Video)
  • Massive Unbox: Hobonichi 2021 & Amazon Japan Haul
  • Journal Flip-Through: 1st Grader Edition (Video)
  • Flip-Through: Savor Life September 2020
Become a Patron!

Blog Categories

  • Audio Drops (8)
  • Community (6)
  • Finding Focus (9)
  • Intuitings (2)
  • Latest on the Blog (54)
  • Product Reviews (20)
  • Seasonal (7)
  • Soul Circle (2)
  • Tips & Tools (13)
  • Video Content (17)
  • Yearly Faves (1)

RSS / Login

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Privacy Policy

© 2022 Soulful Focus | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme