Kabbalah By Heart

My Purpose?

I have written most of my blogs here first as an email blast that I started in 2016. The first thing I will always remember a psychic telling me when my husband was diagnosed in 2017 was that my soul had plans and had been desiring to accomplish something important and that all of this trauma will help me to do that. Is my Kabbalah class the thing that my soul wanted to accomplish? And the cards I had created? I have been wondering. Maybe it's what I will learn through accomplishing that. I guess I started the cards in 2015. But the Kabbalah class was much earlier - maybe 2011? I don't know.

But I had abandoned all of that in order to go through the excruciating last years of my husband's life - it was a gradual 3 year decline. I believe I put everything on the back-burner. And I kept thinking, is this Kabbalah stuff I'm teaching going to end too or do I need to revive it? Since May, I have decided to revive it and realized that much of my wanting to let it go had to do with overwhelm and fear of not doing it all correctly. I have always had a belief of needing to do the right thing and also have had much insecurity about doing the wrong thing - as if there was one right thing for me, and as if I could prevent bad things from happening if I just did the right thing, and could avoid regrets over doing the wrong thing. I am letting go of that irrational belief because truly, there is no one right thing and whatever is done "wrong" can be corrected anyway and it isn't the end of the world to do the "wrong" thing! Regrets are irrational too because I believe that everything happens for a good reason and have learned from Kabbalah, that it was all in G-d's plan or it would not have happened. Anyway, I simply moved forward and did whatever made me happy because writing, and being creative makes me happy.

Retiring

I am retiring from my psychotherapy practice too. I decided that I deserved to be retired after all I have been through. And I deserve to take a nap every day. And I deserve to have a happy, relaxing, fun life now, full of creative pursuits, like writing this blog to you! It's scary and sad though, to let go of people who have been with me for over a year and some of them for over a decade! Endings are not easy! March 1st of next year is my deadline for retirement. And I have planned a trip to Israel mid-March to celebrate all I have accomplished and to "put forward into the Universe" all I wish for my new life.

This Month - New Beginnings

This last month of the year on the Jewish calendar is really feeling like new beginnings for me. The month is called Elul and is so mystical and magical!! I love it. It is said that the King is in the Field. And this year I am so in tune with that feeling! It's a huge blessing to see the Mystery here in our realm, in our "boots on the ground". It's a month of letting go of and correcting missteps that you have done over the past year, making your amends, and making your recommitments to the Purpose of your life for the coming year. It's all in preparation for the Jewish New Year starting next month: Rosh Hashanah - which is the day that man was created on the 6th day of creation! You can read Genesis and not know this if you don't learn from Jews! And you'd never know that this time of the year is when Moses went up Mt Sinai for the 2nd time to get forgiveness for the debacle of the Golden Calf. So the month is replete with the energies of forgiveness!

This is the Kabbalah card I created for Elul:

Kabbalah and Judaism 101 Class

So I re-did my class for Elul in my Kabbalah and Judaism 101 online class, and it is available for viewing online. And I broke it down into sections so that you can go and look and read a bit at a time. Those of you who have taken the classes I taught in Soquel, will recognize the handouts and lectures. But here it's all online so you can easily click on links to watch videos, listen to audios or read articles that I've recommended for each month of the year. In my class, I go through the entire year of the Jewish calendar - 12 classes for 12 months. I figure that the best way to learn about Judaism and Kabbalah - even if you know nothing about them - is to go through the calendar, applying the concepts to your life on a monthly basis, like Jews do. It's been called, "living with the times". This way, you get all of the holidays and learn all of the concepts that come through us on a yearly basis, new moon to new moon.

I also re-did my class for the next month - Tishrei - which is full of all of the High Holy Days on the Jewish calendar. You can see that here too. At some point - maybe (if it doesn't feel too overwhelming) - I will do a zoom class that I can record and add to the online classes. Here's the

Kabbalah card for Tishrei:

The Kabbalah Cards

The Kabbalah cards are used in the Kabbalah and Judaism 101 class but not required for the classes - the classes stand on their own. But I do incorporate the cards into the class by having a specific Layout each month tailored to exploring yourself and your purpose, coinciding with the themes and concepts of that month. It's similar to the self-exploration I was taught to do with Tarot cards' concepts. But the Kabbalah cards have nothing to do with Tarot cards! Instead, they contain cards for the 12 months of the Jewish calendar, 12 Sefirot cards (from the main Kabbalah Concept of the Tree of Life), and the rest of the cards are all Kabbalah concepts that are important to learn, adding up to 49 cards total. The Kabbalah Cards can be seen and purchased for yourself here on the PrinterStudio website where I created them. I don't make any money off of them but think they are useful for people who want to learn by simply shuffling and pulling one card per day to apply to your daily life. It's a quick, easy way to learn these things.

Here's a concept card for this time of the year:

Recommendations for Inspiration

**If you want to have a companion book to guide you through the High Holy Days - this book is highly recommended. It's a daily reader that goes for 60 days starting a few days ago. Today is the 4th day. It's like a workbook but goes through Jewish history, traditions of these days, and lessons from Torah (Old Testament). You can also subscribe to a shortened version for free by email here.​

**I also highly recommend reading Psalm 27 every day for the next month. This is a beautiful translation of it. Get the PDF here. It's a Psalm Jews read every day, twice a day during this time of the year. It's full of hope!

**In addition, I recommend a free class that one of my Kabbalah teachers is only up for a few more days and you can learn more about it here on Shifra Chana Hendrie's website - the workshop is called, "5 Days of Soul Activation".​

**Lastly, if you wish to get a Jewish calendar for yourself, google Chabad and the town you live in. You'll be able to find one from your local Chabad House. Ask for their Jewish Art Calendar, the new one usually comes out this time of the year. It will tell you the time to light candles on Friday nights along with all of the holidays and chapters of Torah that are read each week of the year, so you can "Live with the Times!"

I wish all of you a year of completions and new beginnings.

Blessings,

Allison