"There's a legend that the Shekhina - the feminine aspect of God - comes in to bless the congregation," said Leonard Nimoy (Spock), explaining the origins of his interest in the divine feminine that led to a display of his photographs currently on display in Northampton, Massachusetts.

An Associated Press article on Nimoy and "The Shekhina Project" describes his spiritual development - including his discovery of the hand symbol that he would later use as the Vulcan greeting, "Live long and prosper", on Star Trek.

"The hand symbol represents the first letter of a Hebrew word for God," notes the article by Adam Gorlick.

Many of the women in Nimoy's Shekhina photographs are naked, the actor-director stated, because "I didn't want to do misty, cloudy figures. I didn't want to shroud [this aspect of divinity]. I wanted to make her flesh and blood, and I wanted to make her definitively female."

The light from the Shekhina, he was told by a rabbi, "could be overwhelming and you could not survive it, so you shouldn't look. I was taken by that when I heard the explanation."

But the presence of the unclothed women, and women appearing with traditional Jewish symbols, has made his work controversial.

"The Shekhina Project" closes May 31 and will not travel.

The AP article appears here.

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