[Applies to yesterday, from Tuesday night through Wednesday, May 6 - 7 - sorry for the delay!]

Chesed in Netzach - kindness and compassion in the ego everlasting.

My spiritual path often leads me into pendulum swings between devotion to self-care and selflessness. This week of the Omer asks us to explore Netzach, the sense of the eternal as personal, the notion that, with a little bit of ego, we can see the world as created entirely for ourselves.

With that message in one pocket, Jewish sages also remind us to keep the idea that we are nothing but dust and ashes in the other.

So I want to approach my self with compassion. If the things I care about are going to last, I need to treat them - ideas, emotions, people, my very self internally and externally - with kindness. Being kind to ourselves does not mean being selfish, it means that we need to see the bigger picture of our needs, both immediate and in the long term.