The primary characteristic of Yetziratic consciousness is multiplicity. There are lots of "things". It's like a great sea, churning and roiling with possiblities and interesting distractions. It's very easy to drift along, experiencing events in a random, chaotic fashion. It's how most people live their lives.By rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control, the
wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
Dhammapada.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I believe the first 22 verses of chapter III relate to the Tarot/Hebrew letters. This verse is Atu III The Empress - Daleth. This makes me think of a protected and enclosed space in which something may grow. A masculine "being" manifesting inside a feminine matrix of possiblities. A womb?Jellybean said:I was thinking of the connection between Malkuth and Binah. The Island is Malkuth surrounded by the Great Sea of Binah. Consciousness in Malkuth is striving to reach Binah and this line suggests to me that the process is not linear, that we are already surrounded by Binah consciousness, like a child in the womb waiting to be born. Binah is Malkuth in potential and is the 'throne' that Malkuth sits on. Binah is the restriction and limitation that allows Malkuth to be manifest.
It seems very female to me, the references to water and earth lead to Mother, Daughter etc.
The last sentence in the above quote is significant. Island transliterated into Hebrew is 155. And so is the Hebrew word for, "a seed", QNH.Liber 231 - The Empress
3.The Virgin of God is enthroned upon an oyster-shell; she is like a pearl, and seeketh Seventy to her Four. In her heart is Hadit the invisible glory.
Luke 8:5-8
A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.