The Paradox of the word “Breath” and the mistranslation of the word “God”.

In the ancient teachings, The word that we translate as “God” is made up of Hebrew letters. “Letters,” isn’t quite accurate though either, because it’s really a four chapter narrative, each letter a symbol for part of the process whereby the Infinite materializes as the Finite. 

“God” is a creation story, a cosmology. Within the four symbol narrative that spells “God,” are the answers to the timeless questions of who are we are and why are we here. Therein lie the answers to the questions of where did we come from and where are we going. (And as I write those words, as deep and esoteric as they may sound, I am having a flashback to middle school line-dancing to cotton-eye-joe- where-did-you-come-from-where-did-you-go?”) 

In all my years of studying and speaking about “God,” the best definition I have come up with so far is “The Infinite life force that animates all of creation.” In the Ancient Hebrew, the word “God” itself isn’t even really pronounceable through any language. Some people say it like “Yaweh” or “Jehova,” but really, the letters themselves, if they were possible to pronounce, would probably sound more simply like the breath. 

Inhale, exhale. And you’ve just called out to God. 

Inhale. Exhale. 

And what if you did? That is, what if you did treat every breath like a prayer, like you were calling to the Divine, in each moment? Inhale, exhale. I am here, here I am. Each new intake of aliveness a reason to be grateful, a reason to be in service to something greater than oneself.

“In service to something greater than oneself,” is a sentence that causes me to pause. Inhale, exhale. And in the pause, I notice that I stand, an actor on the stage of the Culture of Consumerism. I reflect on my path as an entrepreneur. I am an American, and I am a citizen of the world some 10,000 years after Totalitarian Agriculture became a thing way back in the Fertile Cresent, when We The People began to slowly but surely attempt to take the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die out of the hands of the Gods and into our own hands. (Reference to Daniel Quinn). Is that what this struggle is about? The struggle over life and death? Who shall live and who shall die. The amnesia that we are all God because on the one hand, God is all there is, an we are of God and will go back to God, and the opposite truth that we are separate beings because afterall, I am Sheefra and you are you.

Today,  there is so much rhetoric around external motivations. Do this thing so you can have the car, the house, the money, the vacation, the multicolored designer nails (ok, I admit, that trend is super cute and catchy, although I use my hands too much to keep my nails long and painted, as much as I enjoy the look). With enough money, you can buy yourself just about anything. Almost. You don’t have to do anything because it can be done for you. Heck, with enough money, you can buy yourself to outer space, as long as the rocket ship doesn’t blow up in transit. Because you can’t buy immortality. The irony is, you already have it. And the paradox is that, one day, you will surely, inevitably, indubitably, die.

wanted to know God. I was a little girl who could see and feel things no one could explain to me, and I wanted to understand. 

At age 8, my Dad got sick, and I made a pact. If my Daddy lived, I would make a school for God. I never meant a religious school, or even an educational school. I meant, though I didn’t have the words then, a mystery school. Even then, I wanted to know the Infinite Life Force That Animated All Of Creation, in each moment anew. I wanted an intimate relationship with the Divine. Unbeknownst to me then, I had committed to a path of Self discovery. Of finding the divine both without and within. Inhale. Exhale. 

My relationship with my father can best be described as ironic. That one man could play both a major antagonist and major ally in the same story. That soul contract runs deep. 

When at 16, my grandfather died, I wanted to know where he went. And no one could give me an answer that made sense to me, but I am stubborned and have an insatiably curious mind. So I went looking for answers. 

I went far and wide. I travelled to far away places around the world. I meditated in caves and studied old mystic texts in the ancient Hebrew and ancient Aramaic. I studied alternative healing modalities with world class teachers… but so what? 

Inhale. Exhale. 

What if I could be so aware as to know each breath as a prayer. As a song of gratitude. 

As a blessing brought to life. Through my eyes and my actions. Through my breath and each step. 

I remember when I came home from my time in Israel, I played a game with myself. I dedicated one week to each of the major senses. Seeing, hearing, smelling tasting, hearing, touching. And that whole week was a dedicated commitment to being hyper aware of whichever was the sense of the week. This was just the beginning. 
The teaching of the Merkaba, the star tetrahedron, is an image which is the best explanation of creation that I have ever found. The thing about “God” (if you will), is that It is limitless, infinite, boundless, and undefinable. But the thing about God incarnate (creation), is that now, we can see, taste, touch, feel, hear that which was before undefinable, and through the senses we get a glimpse of the Infinite.

The story is, in summary, that The Endlessness aka God (aka theOneness aka The Infinite) is really the only thing. Period. It is all that existed and therefore it is the fabric with which creation is made. But there is a catch. 

Since  It takes up all the space such that there is no room for anything else, and It is so powerful that Its light would overwhelm anything else anyway,  It removed itself from a small area of Endlessness to create a Void. In that void was made Creation. And creation was animated, of course, with the energy of the Divine. So essentially, God is all there is. So when we say there is only one God, monotheism misunderstood. There is only One God, because there is only God, because there is only Oneness. So there is only One. Period. All of the multitude of what you see is, at the core, all One, made up of the only fabric there is, and that is what we call God. And so we come to the two truths of this reality:

Truth number one: Change is the only constant. 

Truth number Two: Everything that is true is a paradox. 
This is what I was speaking on around the country some 13 years ago and this is what I am still here writing about today. But this is all so lofty and esoteric and spiritual. What does this have to do with earth and dirt and feet and meat and how ever did I go from speaking about God to growing my own food and making fire with sticks, and what does one have to do with the other? Why, everything, of course. 

There is an old saying “resourcefulness is next to Godliness.” I don’t even know where that came from, but I have a theory about it. For me, spirituality and the teachings of the Merkaba are about both embodiment and ascension. This path is about how I can both more deeply embody into the experience of having a body and being a human being, as well as how I can, while deeply grounded and rooted in the body, access higher and higher levels of the soul and higher realms in my meditations, etc. Balance is a both, and. So the goal then is to become both more Godly and more Human, simultaneously, at the same time. 

If we are “made in the image of God,” it is because we are, first of all, made of God because that’s all there is at the highest level, but also because we too are Creators. Well, we are co-creators, for while we cannot make something from nothing, we can imagine a thing and use the materials in this material world to mold those materials into something they  previously were not. So to fully embrace our Godliness is to embrace our creativeness, and to embrace our creativeness is to be resourceful, to learn new ways to create solutions to challenges, to learn new skills, to learn more about my humanness. To become more Godly, I realized, I needed to become more human.

So after having dedicated years to deep diving into esoterics and teachings and texts, I went on a decade long adventure to learn more about what it truly meant to be a Human woman of the earth. 

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Last American Man,” she writes, “We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all, but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we’ll all end up when we die, and , during the interim, is our home. And there’s no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we dont at least marginally understand our home.” 

I agree with the above, and that is why I went to live on the homestead. That is why, for six years, I grew nearly all my own food, harvested my own meat, and even made many of my own clothes, sometimes from recycled fabrics, or sometimes from leather I made by my own hand, skinned for the deer by my own hand. It’s why I went into the woods for a while to live on the land and chop wood and carry water from the artesenal springs and took baths in the cast iron tub that was set in the middle of the forest beneath the fir trees. It took about three hours in the winter to melt the ice in the tub by making fire beneath it. But when, in the evening, the water was hot, I would set down in the tub, naked there, all alone the forest, and let the snow fall from the canopy and onto my face while the steam rose up around me. It’s why I love to cook and make food, to be physical and move my body and challenge my physical strength, and it’s why I also moved to the city, started my businesses, and came to be in the world of worlds for a while. 

Because to be alive is to do and be both. To be alive we must inhale as well as exhale. 

We are a walking, breathing paradox.

We are equally spiritual beings as we are human beings. And as long as we are here, we are both. 

That is the wisdom of the Merkaba, the upward and downward facing triangles that merge in perfect balance and harmony to create the star. 

So the question is, can you embrace both? Can you fully embrace both your humanness and your Godliness? 

And outside of yourself, can you fully comprehend both the humans and the Godliness or your sisters and bothers, your other Human Kin. Can you recognize that we are all the Divine incarnate, we are all evolving, and evolution will include time, process, and mistakes. Can you embody forgiveness. Can you recognize the earthliness and the Godliness of the non-human aspects of creation, down to the tiniest wild-flower, down to the earth worm who dutifully does not stray from it’s purpose of churning earth. May we be as clear on our purpose as the earth worm. 

And since I seem to be on a roll this morning, one more thing, is that, life takes life to live. Every day, we consume life force energy to live. Be it the water we drink, or the plants or animals we eat. That energy is taken from where it was and repurposed into our very own cells. To continue to animate the Godliness we are as the Human we’re Being. 

So my challenge to you this season of Thanksgiving, is to remember each breath as a prayer and a blessing and a reason to open your heart and be of service to spreading love in the world. 

Inhale, “I am grateful.”

Exhale “To be alive.”

Don’t think about it too hard. Simply practice this simple mantra and meditation. Remind yourself through out the day, until you’ve trained your unconscious to sip in the breath as a sacrament, and then every moment is remembered as sacred.

Blessings to you this Day. Much Love,

Sheefra