The Cosmic Shekinah Quotes

“The depiction of the divine family is one of the key expressions of the greatest word of power, the Unpronounceable Name of God, or Tetragrammaton.  This fourfold name is comprised of the Hebrew letters Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh corresponding respectively to the Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter.  The correct pronunciation of Tetragrammaton, which was said to be immensely powerful and capable of destroying the universe, has been lost for centuries.  Significantly, if the Yod, symbolising God the Father, is removed from this name, we are left with Heh Vav Heh, which spells Eve, the first woman of the Book of Genesis and some of the Gnostic texts.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“we see interesting parallels between the cultural manifestations of the divine feminine as the Shekinah and as the goddess Hekate in the Chaldean Oracles and the all-encompassing Indian goddess Shakti. ”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“I flame above the beauty of the fields to signify the earth -- the matter from which humanity was made. I shine in the waters to indicate the soul, for, as water suffuses the whole earth, the soul pervades the whole body. I burn in the sun and the moon to denote Wisdom, and the stars are the innumerable words of Wisdom.”
― Sorita d'Este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“I am Protennoia, the Thought that dwells in the Light. I am the movement that dwells in the All, she in whom the All takes its stand, the first-born among those who came to be, she who exists before the All. She (Protennoia) is called by three names, although she dwells alone, since she is perfect. I am invisible within the Thought of the Invisible One. I am revealed in the immeasurable, ineffable (things). I am incomprehensible, dwelling in the incomprehensible. I move in every creature.”
― Sorita d'Este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“You will never find the life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“Manuals of wisdom literature were taught to children and contained all the essentials for being a valued member of the community, including ethics and manners.  This idea of virtuous behaviour equated to ‘upholding Ma’at’, and everyone in society, from the lowest peasant to the Pharaoh to the gods needed to uphold Ma’at to preserve order and harmony, and prevent chaos. ”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“a perception presaged in the medieval Kabbalistic work, the Bahir, “it is impossible for the lower world to endure without the female.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“God is the space of the world.  What is the world?  The Shekinah.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“The Wisdom Goddess drew on precedents from other cultures the Hebrews had been exposed to, “seeing wisdom as an Israelite reflection or borrowing of a foreign mythical deity — perhaps Ishtar, Astarte, or Isis.”[38] Following the period where the Wisdom Goddess occurred in texts, around the third century BCE to the second century CE, camer the naming of wisdom as the Shekinah in the first-second century CE Onkelos Targum. Contemporary with the Shekinah and drawing on some of the same earlier sources we see the Gnostic wisdom goddess, Sophia.  There are many parallels between these two goddesses which suggest cross-fertilisation of ideas, which we will explore in more detail in subsequent chapters.  It seems apparent that both the Shekinah and Sophia influenced perceptions of the Christian Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, seen in textual references to titles and motifs.  The Islamic figure of Sakina is clearly derived from the Shekinah, both through her name and also the references to her in the Qur’an, as we will demonstrate. Ancient textual evidence does not link the Sumerian goddess Lilith to the Shekinah.  However allegorical references made in medieval Kabbalistic texts have encouraged us to consider the changing cultural perceptions of Lilith from Sumerian myths through to medieval Jewish tales to determine the extent of her influence on the portrayal of divine feminine wisdom.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“The first glimpse of the power or function of the Shekinah is seen in the meaning of her name, which is derived from the Hebrew root Shakhan meaning ‘to dwell’. This meaning hints at her tangible presence as a visible manifestation of the light of wisdom in the books of the Old Testament, as the burning bush seen by Moses, in the Ark of the Covenant and in the Temple of Solomon. ”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”  ~ Proverbs 13:12, C3rd BCE”
― Sorita d'Este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“In the stories of the founding of Mecca, the patriarch Abraham was guided on his journey by the Shekinah, who directed him where to build.  Significantly the Shekinah was said to have marked the spot for Abraham by curling up like a serpent.[191]  The serpent imagery here is reminiscent of the Egyptian Goddess Qudshu, the Gnostic Edem as well as the serpent of wisdom or temptation in the Garden of Eden.”
― Sorita d'Este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“I am the mother and the daughter. I am the bride and the bridegroom, and it is my husband who begot me. I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the idea whose remembrance is frequent. I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word whose appearance is multiple. I am the utterance of my name.”
― Sorita d'Este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the Elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of powers divine, Queen of heaven! the principal of the Gods celestial, the light of the goddesses: at my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“Lions were also frequently associated with Asherah, she was often depicted standing on the back of a lion, or seated on a lion throne.  This was common for a number of Middle Eastern goddesses of the time, including Inanna, Astarte and Qudshu. Indeed there is “a mass of inscriptional evidence from the Levantine Iron Age showing that a frequent epithet of the goddess Asherah was ‘the Lion Lady’.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah

“The earliest of these dates to around the eighth century BCE and was found in Jerusalem, and is the earliest known image of the god Yahweh, dating to the period when he was part of a pantheon rather than the sole god of the post-Deuteronomic-Jews.[84]  As with other images of Yahweh, his gender is not emphasised and he is depicted without genitalia, and in this instant it is a simple figure with the face being an inverted triangle and stick-like legs.[85]  Thus we can see that Asherah was the first divine wife of Yahweh, replaced by the Wisdom Goddess, and then at a later date by the Shekinah as the bride of Yahweh.”
― Sorita D'este, The Cosmic Shekinah