Copper Objects: Aids for Meditation©2012 Liz Rosenblum & Peter Noble

 

Meditation- that class of mental disciplines leading to precise perceptions of one's place in the world and one's relationship with unseen powers that govern the properties of the physical world. With the exception of austere practices meditation uses objects as aids to concentration:

Rosaries and beads count prayer and mantras.

Sutras support complex texts that inform time in a dream Mandala.

Singing bells fill acoustic space with throbbing resonance and govern the changes chanting texts from dark ink manifests dreams.

And then there is incense, fire, fruit, and spice, which represent gifts to deities and fill sacred spaces beyond the confines of known space.

Our copper vessels are creations birthed in blue water meditation; illusions of time and space lead the eye to states of tranquility and internal ease.This creation story taken from an interpretation of the Zohar- a Jewish gnostic text- by Luria (a 17th Century Jewish scholar) is built directly on notional vessels.

When it arose within Ein-sof (the Infinite) to weave Yesh (Something) from Ayin (Nothing) Ein-sof performed an act of Tzimtzum- contracting and concealing itself from a point- thereby forming a central, metaphysical void. It is in this void that the Primordial Man, Adam Kadmon, and all the countless Worlds (Olamot) emerge.

From lights flashing and recoiling from the eyes, nose, mouth and ears of Primordial Man emanate the ten archetypal values, the Sefirot and the 22 holy letters (Otiyot Yesod), which were to be the building blocks of the universe and the structural elements of all things. This initial exhalation of energy created vessels to contain further emanations. Unfortunately the vessels proved inadequate and shattered causing their contents- language and the emanations of Ein Sof, , to tumble into the vacuum creating husks (The Kellipot)- corrupting zones of chaotic emptiness. It is the purpose of humanity through compassion and charity to repair these Vessels and return the universe to its initial condition of sublime beauty and rationality. Called Tikkun ha-Olam (the Repairing of the Vesels) it describes how human action can through time and intent transform the universe and God Itself. (http://www.newkabbalah.com/newkabbalah.html)

Vessel Meditation Techniques

Our copper vessels are analogues for those vessels created to contain the surfeit of Contracting Infinity. Eyes closed, mind focused, hold the vessel and rotate it. Lose your mind knowing the nodulations and crenellations of unseen space will always guide the way. In anamorphic reflections a beauty rises and sets over the surface and we may see the truth; life never ends, time is an illusion of a rotating path. These are only suggestions.

The object exists within a multiplicity of potential encounters with the real.

It is a tool.

Find yourself in it.