I'm very sorry for the lateness of this post; there's been some good but very urgent and intense stuff happening here and I had no brain at all for it. I'm still not sure I have brain for it tonight, but I know a few people have been counting along and I didn't want to leave you hanging any longer.

For week five, I wrote, "At the end of this week, you have taken three concrete actions for social change, and one action to sustain and preserve what's already good in the world. You've loved yourself as you are and made a plan for being who you want to be. You've supported yourself through anxiety, and hopefully out the other side. You've built some rituals and habits, extending now into the future. And you've expanded your idea of what taking positive action looks like." I... did some of that, at least. Not the rituals, but I made some donations and did some thinking, and that's better than nothing.

Week Six: Yesod - Foundation, Motivation, History, Vitality, Creation

This is the point at which I feel malchut/Shechina approaching, just a week away, and I want to gather myself up in preparation for it. If malchut is the marriage of the divine realm with the physical realm, yesod is that last rush of things before the wedding day, the bachelor party and the dress fitting and the quiet late-night talks with long-married friends all rolled up into one. As we count down to the election, that shit's getting real feeling seems quite apropos.

Yesod is sometimes associated with a genitive force in a very earthy way, as well as with the sixth day of Creation, when the creatures of the Earth—including humans—were made and blessed with fruitfulness. A journey that began with the intangible wonder of chesed is now engaging with the physical, the primal, the power to create, life in all its messiness. We can dig our toes into the mud from which the Torah says we were made and feel our connection to the planet and all our ancestors and all living things. We can till that same soil and make things grow, and eat them and sustain ourselves, and plant again for the future. And we can do all that work more metaphorically within ourselves and within our communities.

I'm going to encourage us to take an action every day this week except Shabbat. If that's more than you can do, or if it clashes with other plans you've already made, it's always fine to skip the suggested action and ponder the day's themes in some other way.

10/20: 36. Chesed sh'b yesod, generosity within creation: Love shared is love multiplied, as I learned from Spider Robinson's work many many years ago. Today is a day to make something and share it with someone else in a way that sustains them and their good work in the world. Maybe that means getting a weary activist to sit down and eat something you cooked. Maybe it's a spreadsheet that helps people to coordinate giving rides to the polls, or a thoughtfully crafted note of appreciation for someone who's been tirelessly sharing useful links. Whatever it is, create it with love and give it without expectation of return.

10/21: 37. Gevurah sh'b yesod, discernment within history: I've talked a lot about drawing on the work of activists who came before us, but those aren't the only ancestors we have. If you possess wealth, status, or power that stems from colonization or enslavement, take an action to support reparations, and commit to using your resources to lift up others who lack them. If you're white, straight, cisgender, or otherwise culturally privileged, take an action to support people who don't share that privilege. If you live on unceded colonized land, pay a land tax to the Indigenous community of that land. Suggested reading: "Native American 'land taxes': a step on the roadmap for reparations" by Maanvi Singh.

10/22: 38. Tiferet sh'b yesod, harmony within vitality: Do you know someone with whom you can get into wonderful positive feedback loops, encouraging and supporting each other to greater things than either of you could manage alone? If you do, ask that person to encourage your activism, and ask how you can support theirs. Brainstorm creative ways to do more together than you could do separately. Pick actions to do right now to get yourselves in the groove. And if you don't have a person or a community in your life that serves this purpose, take some action to benefit a community-based organization that brings people together to do good work, and consider how you might find and join an effort like that if you think it would inspire and invigorate you.

10/23: 39. Netzach sh'b yesod, endurance within motivation: Everything after the election feels very uncertain, but we can control our own actions, and we can keep returning to our core principles and our core causes. Take some action to support one of the causes you've identified as being particularly close to your heart. Then set up a reminder to support it again a month or a year from now. Whatever happens between now and then, you will be making a difference and doing some good in a way that matters to you.

10/24 (Shabbat): 40. Hod sh'b yesod, acceptance within history: When I get caught up in wishing I could change the past, I imagine that the world was created in this moment, like a book that begins in the middle of the action. History is the prologue that has already been written. Take some time to think back to the recent or distant past, your own past actions or someone else's. Be present with your regrets and your pride, your unhappiness over what's been done badly and your gladness for what's been done well. Accept it all: what's happened, and how you feel about it.

10/25: 41. Yesod sh'b yesod, foundation within creation: When you have finished rereading the prologue, begin to write the first page of chapter one. Think of something you want to bring into existence for the good of all—something concrete like a community or a physical space, something more abstract like justice—and take an action toward making it real.

10/26: 42. Malchut sh'b yesod, manifestation within creation: Our time of creation is coming to an end. Take today to put some finishing touches on your work over the past six weeks. Did you rush through something? Spend a little more time with it. Did you skip an action or two? Take them now. Did an action or exercise feel really good and right? Do it again. When you've done all you can do, look back on everything you've accomplished, no matter how flawed or unfinished or insufficient it might seem, and know that it is good.

At the end of this week, you have taken six concrete actions for social change. You've worked on letting go of the urge to change the past and taken responsibility for repairing past wrongs. You've actively created some good things in the present. And you've taken time to look back over the past six weeks of thinking and planning and acting and appreciate what you've done. Even if you only made a single donation or sent a single postcard, that's a tangible accomplishment that could do some real good.

The seventh and final week is malchut/Shechina, the divine made real.