Artist’s Notes on the Card: Shekhinah was the ancient Hebrew Goddess of wisdom and joy, the feminine part of Yahweh, and the light that dwelt within everything. She lived at the root of the Tree of Life.  It was said that she resided within the acacia, the tree that produces gum arabic, the glue that holds the world together. Although she was more extensively written about during the Middle Ages in the Kabbalah, her foundations can be traced back to the early Goddess imagery of Asherah and Astarte in Canaan. Behind her is a Canaanite cult stand from Taanach, late 10th century BCE.  The Paleolithic Goddess figure in her center is from Berekhat Ram, Golan Heights, c. 230,000 BCE. Her necklace is from Deir el-Balah, 14th-13th century BCE; her earring is from a falcon pendant from Tell el-Ajjul, mid 2nd millennium BCE.

....they work, in their flickering ways, to free
words of praise, and the joyous white fire that flares
from the buried Root of this thorn-bush world.

They shall make an ark of acacia wood....And you shall overlay it with pure gold, within and without shall you overlay it.

Acacia builds a protective ark around you, giving you direct access to female wisdom.  You are carried along, allowed to listen to the "voice of fire" from the Burning Bush as you travel (see Myth section below).  The tree itself has long thorns yet African lions often sprawl out in acacias and peacefully sleep.  Rouse the thickly furred lion in you and banish fear.

The acacia reveals the level of reality at which the Divine Feminine, the Shekhinah, is at work in your life -- and, having found her there, usually at a time of desperation, you may find a new way to live and relate to life around you.  This tree brings a promise of help and invites a deepening of faith, an awareness that divine wisdom can open ways where, to human sense, there are no ways.  Be on the lookout for an important message that might not come through an expected channel.

If to bless bread, wine and whatever else is around you is to release the Divine Feminine within it (see Myths), then to bless yourself is equally to release the Shekhinah within you.  Where could there be a line past which the Shekhinah could not be?  So She is in each bone, tissue nerve, molecule, cell, atom, even each sub-atomic particle of your being.  Only blessing everything makes it yours -- and then you live immersed in the radiant light of that climate of blessings, and everything is flooded with the presence of the feminine polarity, the Shekhinah.

REVERSED:  This is a time to remain self-possessed and to act despite fear, without making judgments.  You need humane skills in dealing with yourself.  Renew your faith and trust in mysteries beyond the realm of logic.  Awaken a continual awareness that the Divine Feminine is shining in the Burning Bush of the world around you as well as in the shimmering synapses between the nerves in your brain.  Do not forget that it is you who are the acacia ark.  The in-dwelling life of the Mother-spirit of the acacia infuses each cell within your body with her own deep cellular-spirituality, down beyond the reach of all the obstacles placed in her path.

THE MYTHS

The Burning Bush, the tree Moses encountered in the desert, was an acacia.  Desert nomads had considered the tree sacred for countless generations: for them is was the Mother-tree, its gum-arabic a symbol of her menstrual blood, its long thorns a symbol of her power to repel harm.  Even for the Hebrews, the wild acacia would retain its intimate connection with the realm of the Divine Feminine, which is why the Ark of the Covenant, within which the Shekhinah, or Divine Feminine, would reside, was constructed of acacia (shittim) wood. 2  The Shekhinah vibrates within all matter, yet the acacia was believed to be her primary residence.

The association of the Shekhinah with a presence imbuing all life is linked to the Jewish concept of spoken blessings, or berakoth.  From daybreak to sunset, star-rise to the lighting of the lamps, and on through until day's end, the world of the ancient Jew unfolded within a climate of berakoth.  Life was intended to be lived as a single prayer of thanksgiving, a celebration of life and light, an uninterrupted sequence of praise.  Speaking these berakoth over one's food, the ground under one's feet, the clothing one wore, the sound of a cock's crow at dawn, the roof over one's head, released the holiness within it, activating the coiled power of the in-dwelling feminine polarity of the Godhead.  Not to speak the blessing was to steal from God.

Recognizing the all-pervading presence of the Shekhinah, the medieval Church honored her as the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, even though Christian theologians saw her as mortal and refused to accept her as the female pole of divinity.  Yet among the common people as well as poets and artists, the cosmic imagery associated with her clearly links her to the realm of the divine: she is Queen of Heaven, Morning Star, Tower of David, Throne of Ivory, Mystical Rose.  Interestingly, she is also called the Ark of the Covenant and she has an additional strong connection with the acacia via the Burning Bush motif.  In the Russian Orthodox Church, for example, there are ikons depicting her as identical with the Burning Bush of the Hebrew scriptures.  In these ikons, she appears at the circular heart of petalled fire-blossoms, burning but not burned, consuming, but not consumed, speaking with the voice of the wind out of that burning bush, speaking with Moses.  From the mystical viewpoint of the Russian Orothodox believer, as Moses' Burning Bush gave "birth" to divine words, so would the Burning Bush of the Virgin's womb give birth to the fire of the Divine Word.

As medieval Christians were more fully expressing their beliefs about the Virgin Mary, so too mystical Jewish thinkers of the period were exploring and deepening their own beliefs concerning the Shekhinah.  A joyful spirit is given as the essential pre-condition for human awareness to experience this aspect of God.  In one legend, the archangel Michael brings a heavenly wine to Isaac --

...that an exalted mood might descend upon him, for only when a man is joyously excited the Shekinah rests upon him. 3

Overindulgence in despair drives away this presence.  This is not to imply that she ever leaves, but consciousness is too burdened to experience her:

...[Moses'] dejected spirit was the cause of his not receiving divine
revelations  during this period, since the Shekinah dwells only on those whose spirit is joyful. 4

In addition to joy, it is consoling to learn that sickness also brings the Shekhinah to human awareness:

Jacob, noticing the Shekinah over the bed's head, where she always rests in a sick room, bowed.... 5

There are many beautiful stories about the Shekinah.  She resides at the root of the tree of life.6  She lives in pure light, a great, bright light more intense than that of the sun.  When Moses' face shone with radiance on Mount Sinai, it was because he had gone to this place of light, where she is brighter than jewels and pearls.7  When she speaks, it is with "a sweet, pleasant and lovely voice," ringing out towards those who hear her.  Frequently, music (especially that of wind instruments) accompanies her appearances.8 The archangels Michael and Gabriel often announce her presence, going before her.9  Those whom she protects, she surrounds with her great wings; thus when Moses dies, it is she who bears him aloft, up into the light.10  Nothing can exist without her presence.11

Moses appears repeatedly in the medieval legends as the one who had the most intimate relationship with the Shekinah.  His first encounter is with the Burning Bush in the wilderness.  The thorn-bush is burning, yet unharmed, even erupting into new blossoms, for these flames are from a celestial fire:

...the celestial fire has three peculiar qualities: it produces blossoms, it does not consume the object around which it plays, and it is black of color. 12

Black: the mysterious union of all colors in one, hidden, numinous, the fertile womb of nature, the genesis of all light.

Years afterwards, after Moses has led his people out of Egypt, he is instructed to build an ark of acacia wood.  According to legend, Adam took the wood from Paradise.  It passed into Abraham's hands, then his son Isaac's, then his grandson Jacob's, who took it to Egypt, where it remained until the Exodus, when the people took it back with them.  It is from this Paradise wood that the acacia ark is to be constructed.13  God tells Moses that the Shekinah-fire will burn forever upon the altar, but Moses worries that such fire will melt the metal overlay and destroy the wood.

God replied: "Moses, thou judgest by the laws that apply to men, but will these also apply to Me?....For, 'I am the Lord who maketh peace between these elements in My high places.'"14

The "elements" are those of earth, air, fire, water.  They form oppositions on earth -- earth and water quenching fire; fire exhausting air; air (wind), fire and water eroding earth.  Within the Shekinah, however, just as all colors merge into a shimmering darkness, so too all the elements find peace.

This harmony of the elements reappears in medieval alchemy, where the acacia's gum-arabic played a crucial role.  Moses' sister Miriam appears in alchemical literature as a prophetess, Maria Prophetissa.  Gum-arabic was her "special concern."15  She tells the adepts, "Marry gum-arabic with gum-arabic in true marriage," a confusing request unless this alchemical marriage is understood as a state of total union and peace, like the black fire, the peace made among the elements, or the unified cosmic serpent (the Ouroboros) circling around to hold its tail in its mouth.  Gum-arabic as a symbol of the Shekhinah was a transforming substance, the life force --

...[it is] the "glue of the world" (glutinum mundi), which is the medium between mind and body and the union of both....So the union of the two is a kind of self-fertilization, a characteristic always ascribed to the mercurial dragon. 16

The acacia, chosen abode of the Shekhinah, produces this gum-arabic, a red-gold substance viewed mystically and alchemically as that adhesive power which holds the world together at every level, from the heavenly bodies circling through the cosmos to the subatomic particles circling through the nucleus of a cell.  The acacia gives a profound example of what it is to live imbued with a sense of the adhesive, holy interconnectedness of all life, even in difficult, painful situations.  In everything is a life-energy deserving of care and respect.
 
 

1. Russ, "Prayers at the Broken Gate," in Parabola, Summer 1983, VIII, #3, pp.26-27.   2. Walker, WD:459; McKenzie:54a.   3. Ginzberg: I,334;V,284.
4. Ginzberg: VI,98,n.550.   5. Ginzberg: II,130-131.   6. Ginzberg: V,122,n.126;152,n.56.   7. Ginzberg:VI,50,n.260; III,446.   8. Ginzberg: III,185-186; I,124; V,416,n.117; VI,36,n.201.   9. Ginzberg: V,416,n.15; II,303.   10. Ginzberg: III,75;460.   11. Ginzberg: II,303.   12. Ginzberg: II, 303.
13. Ginzberg: VI,66, n.344; Graves, WG:518.   14. Ginzberg: III,162. 15. Jung, P&A:384,n.166.   16. Jung, P&A:153-154.

BOTANY/ HISTORY

There are approximately five hundred kinds of acacia, a shrubby, scrawny, low branching, often multi-trunked and flat-topped tree, usually with delicate feathery leaves, ivory or bright yellow flower-clusters, seedpods, and long thorns.  The tree grows worldwide in warm climates, blossoming even during times of severe drought.  Gum-arabic oozes from an African species, whose limbs also provide space for napping, half-grown lions.  Africa's Masai warriors make an acacia bark-brew which serves as an excitant; an acacia species called cutch in India provides khaki dye; the Australian trees are called wattles and their bright flowers are the country's national emblem.1

The ancient Egyptians carved exquisite chests and wooden statues from hard acacia wood.  Since the wood is waterproof, some of the earliest Old Kingdom records report that acacia ships were constructed in Lower Nubia and used to transport huge slabs of granite for the pyramid of a Sixth Dynasty pharaoh.2

For the ancient Hebrews and other nomadic tribes of the region who, unlike the Egyptians, lived where the conspicuous acacia -- and little else -- grew wild, the wood was sacred and its use for secular purposes was forbidden.3  Its durable, yellowish-brown, light weight and waterproof wood was ideally adapted for the nomads' portable shrines, the most famous of which was the ark of the covenant, which accompanied the Hebrews on the Exodus.4

1. Cowles:78a;129b; NG 11/62:632 (top lion photo);NG 10/54:505 (Masai).
2. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs:42;436.   3. Lehner:23.   4. John L. McKenzie, S.J., Dictionary of the Bible:7b.

Text © 2000 by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.
Art © 2000 by Sandra Stanton.
Latest updates: 22 July 2004;
22 January 2006: moved "Reading" to the beginning.
All rights reserved.

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