Knesset Echad, Key Circle Of The Black Knot

י'ז באדר א' תשס"ח
Keolwulf 18

I dreamt.

Of the details, the following survived into waking consciousness.

I was in a protected house surrounded by a "circuiting" path, like a running track.

A magnificent lion-like creature ascended to the "track" around the place. The creature of singularly awesome power was potentially lethally dangerous. It's potential danger lay in the idea that the energy it embodied was discerned to be finely balanced upon the dimensionless tip of a scale of iterating measures. If the energy stayed on the track and contained within it's set boundaries, it was very good - for no enemy could cross the track of the lion. Should anyone enter the track of the lion from outside the house, the lion would encounter them in it and rip them to shreds.

As the lion ran it's circuits, I needed to stay in the protected house as well. The danger of going outside for me lay not in being ripped to shreads by the lion, but in "throwing" the lion off it's finely balanced track - almost as if my presence in the house kept everything safely held together in order and balance.

The lion ran circles around the protected house, looking for any unprotected opening into the house which would allow it to enter into and break the integrity of the protective barrier which completely surrounded us. In this manner, the lion tested the protective barrier which formed the inner circle and kept out harmful chaos. It found no opening. The circle stood intact.

I woke up.

The lion represents pure Gevurah. The projective protective barrier which "resists collapse" of the surrounding circle represents pure Chesed. Embodying the principles of integrated order and balance, I represent manifest integration of Tiferet and Malchut. Embodied within the "protected house", I also embody Torah, and more specifically in this dream, I embody the Torah found within the bayit of the tefillin shel rosh (Iyyun):

From the bayit — and the Torah contained within — flow the straps, first surrounding our heads, then tied in a knot the shape of a dalet for the word da'as, and from the reality of da'as (albeit sometimes only in a state poverty, dalus in Hebrew) flow the two straps: one to the right and one to the left, representing the general flow of the emotional attributes of chesed (kindness) to the right side, and gevurah (restraint) on the left.

In truth, chesed and gevurah emanate from the same "space," the transcendental knot interweaving both these elements, rooted in the deepest place of kesser, the "black," the level beyond comprehension which is called the space for "the light of darkness."

In da'as is the key to our emotions, so that they open and flow in the general direction of either right or left, giving or restraining, openness or confinement.

With respect to circle of sacred space I've cast as the Jewitch Liorah Lleucu HaMasovevet, I hereby call the covered Coven of One, Knesset Echad, Key Circle of the Black Knot.

Interestingly, the dimensionless tip upon which the energy of the archetypal lion balanced corresponds to the Hebrew letters yod and hei mappik (הּ) and to the dark crocheted handflower (designed and handmade by DragonInKnots) which I wore on my left hand yesterday at work for "crazy sock Friday". Instead of crazy socks on my feet, I "thought outside the box" and wore a crazy knotted sock on my left hand, in an "intended manner" of a Jewitch's tefillin, achdut ha'shaveh.

A note on the concept of achdut ha'shaveh from Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources:

In this term we can see the influence of R. Azriel of Gerona, for the concept of hashva'ah, equinimity, is central to his writings. Tishby has noted that R. Azriel "usually employs this concept in connection with the conjunction of opposites within the Supernal Root, shoresh ha'elyon." ... Although it is generally assumed that shaveh implies equivalence or balance, H. Yalon demonstrated that shaveh is synonymous with chibbur, conjoined.

Interestingly, the concept of chibbur is associated with the symbolism of the lion and the barrier. In my dream, both the protective barrier and the lion are very good.