Morning Light in Marakkech, Morocco coming through the ceiling of one of the ancient palaces of the Royal Family
The sun is just peeking over the hills of Jacoby Creek. I can’t see it yet, only the light rose watercolor-like wash on the bottom of a few clouds. I’m sitting on the floor in my new, very own room. It’s the first room I’ve had of my own since I was nineteen. I got pregnant that year, so my space has been shared with children and a husband for a long time. There is joy and sadness in this transition. This room belonged to both my daughter and son respectively. They are both adults now and have moved into their own spaces and rooms. I miss them.
And, now there is some time for me, for exploring who I am and will become over the next few years. I still have one son at home and lots of time and energy for him. None of this can adequately convey the profound sense of exaltation and glorious wonder I feel when I step into this space. Let me describe it for you. I have painted the walls white, the room is an attic room and the ceiling is pyramid-shaped and paneled in beautiful lengths of a light-colored wood (I’m no carpenter, so I can’t tell you what kind of wood it is). I won a bid I made on eBay for a fabulously complex red wool carpet from Iran.
I wanted this Persian red rug because the majority of what I plan to do up here is just sit and meditate, pray, study, cry, dream or imagine a world filling up with Peace. In each corner items representing the elements are placed. I’ve got the four directions marked with air, water, fire and earth. Additionally I am putting the symbols for the twelve tribes of Israel; three in each direction so that I am surrounded by my ancestors. My tradition and the basis for life on this planet are represented here in the elements and in these symbols. There is one window in the room between the eastern corner and the northern one. Now the clouds are orange sherbet and the sun will be making its appearance soon. I’m also using this space to write in. My laptop is up here on a small bamboo tray that I move to the side of the rug when I’m not using it. The rug stays free of items, when my tush isn’t on it, it is itself a meditation (the rug!, not my tush).
Rosh Hashanah Flowers arranged by Nicole for Temple Beth El
By the time you read this, we will be in what are called the “Days of Awe” in my tradition. These are the ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). In this time period, we are granted a few more days to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged and to work on turning ourselves back towards the path of right actions in the world. On Yom Kippur, one of the teachings has to do with the idea of our fate for the year being sealed. I’m not sure I resonate with the idea of my fate being sealed, but I do resonate with the cycle of working on myself and correcting my behavior. I also look at the idea of fate sealing as a sort of template to work with, if I am angry and grumpy, nasty and unkind, my fate won’t seem as good as if I endeavor to be hopeful and cheerful. The practice of self-cleaning began with the new moon of this past month. I’m in it right now; making lists of mistakes I’ve made, folks I need to apologize to and get clear with, lists of my faults, qualities or things I’ve said or done which I am not proud of.
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone of Boulder, Colorado, passed on this image in a teaching she gave. I don’t remember who gave it to her, but it’s an ancient idea about the vessel our souls inhabit. On Rosh Hashanah, the Holy One grants us a new vessel, clean and vibrant to hold our self in and to pour ourselves out of. If, we have worked on our stuff, looked at our faults and made an effort to turn back to who we truly are in our hearts than we will not only notice this new vessel, but be enlivened by it. Every mistake we make during the year creates a crack in this vessel, big errors, like hurting other people makes for big holes. This means that by the time Rosh Hashanah rolls around, all that might be left of our vessels could be a shard or two; nothing that can hold water or light or love or laughter. In my tradition, if I do the work between myself and others, on Yom Kippur, the Holy One forgives me for the mistakes I’ve made between myself and myself, between myself and the Divine. Only those I wrong can forgive me for the wrongs I’ve done them.
So, I am endeavoring to do less wrong all the time. It’s actually a pleasure to be on this path. As I apply my intelligence and awareness to the task and work to live my life according to what is true in my soul, I feel lighter and clearer, never close to perfect, but just with a slight bounce in my step and a ready smile on my face. How can I smile when the world is a mess? Will my frowning or crying make it better? I cry in my new room, with the tribes of Israel surrounding me and the Holy One holding me and I sink into the elements which sustain not only me but also which breathe on all the children in every lonely place on this earth. I sit in Bayside California on Iranian wool crafted with flowers and complex curly swirls and send my prayer for peace into the wool and out through my window. Perhaps the sky will hear my cries for Salaam, Shalom. Perhaps you will.
And perhaps, all our collective crying, and praying and working will travel on the elements and reach those not only who are suffering but those who are contemplating hurting others or using violence to resolve their problems. I don’t know for sure, I’m just one woman sitting on her rug hoping while the sun rises.
Nicole lives and sits in Bayside California and hopes wherever you are sitting is a good place. She is wishing you Peace.
This piece is originally from September of 2006 and was published in The Arcata Eye. It is older writing but timeless information and so I share it here since I am actually busy and celebrating the High Holy Days right now. Next week, I will upload more of of my current Jubilee Series, which also deals with the themes of forgiveness touched on in this piece.
I remember when I was a young woman, for a fairly long time, every word my mother spoke triggered an automatic alarm system in my body. It became hard to even listen to a simple “hello” or request to “pass the salt” without feeling like a siren was being sounded. Why? She wasn’t doing anything “wrong,” she wasn’t yelling at me, inordinately demanding, or deranged. Yet, her voice stimulated me in the most intense ways. It’s taken me years to understand and three teenage children of my own raised to figure out some of what this was about.
Why do teenagers (emerging adults) need to lash out? Is it due to the fact that they are experiencing radical hormone surges? This is part of the picture, but not all. My experience as a parent and former emerging adult has shown me that the lashing out occurs as a direct result of their profound need for space to emerge into new beings; much like a butterfly from its cocoon.
Around me all the time, I see and hear stories about parents and emerging adults clashing and creating cycles of wounding words and great harm. I’ve lived this story from all sides. Reasons and recriminations won’t necessarily change the patterns. There may not be a traceable reason for behavior. There are currents and rivers and underground waterways that rule the lives of a young person as they emerge from the domain of their parents. These waterways are anything but subtle, controllable or understandable and they are usually impossible to see or have perspective on while you are in the midst of them. One minute you think you are on dry land and then suddenly you find yourself sinking in a whirlpool. This is how it unfortunately feels to parent an emerging adult and also, how it feels to be parented for that same emerging adult. NOT MUCH FUN!
I have friends and family who no longer speak with their children or parents, siblings or other family members. We are so primed in this society to take everything personally and to HOLD onto all the hurt. Kids will say things like “I can’t deal with you very much at all because you are mentally ill and your parenting of me reflects this,” or they will swear and scream and run out of the room or house. They will sulk and storm about. They will not acknowledge birthdays, mother’s day, father’s day, or any number of important things that used to be shared and celebrated. As parents we will go through a full range of emotions and not always or even frequently be able to maintain our equilibrium in the face of all the changes and challenges. This wild ride doesn’t just end when kids move out either. Patterns and problems can emerge now that have very long trajectories.
Also, our children will remember every slight or mishap we make. They will amplify it and remind us of it. This will undermine us if we don’t find ways to address the wrong we did and move through it or on from it and not have it be a broken car horn blaring at all times. When others see us acknowledging mistakes and sincerely apologizing and aiming to shift or change, even if it seems like nothing is shifting, our correct and proper actions do make a difference. Just because an interaction is flawed does not exempt us from attempting to correct the flaw or take responsibility. That’s our job as the parents, to be ON TOP OF IT, not to expect our kids to know or figure it all out. Yes, they need to grow and change, but we set the tone for the way things happen.
Support from others is critical to survive this period of time. When my friends and I speak we go over the incidents or problems we’ve had with our children and remind each other of patterns and what worked or didn’t work with us in similar situations. We give each other the necessary perspective and jettison the brutal words and junk like ballast that has be be emptied so the boat can right itself. We each parent differently and have our own techniques as well. To parent successfully, at this time, requires all the personal skills and reserves a person can find as well as the support and help of others. The goal is to have a relationship with your child, when you are done parenting. It doesn’t mean it will be peachy keen all at once or that it will be easy, but something that allows for a future together is the ideal. That goal is not always achievable, no matter how hard one works, but finding a way through this territory mandates support, lots and lots of support and some kind of fundamental trust and hope, even when there is no reason to be hopeful or trust.
It’s a huge challenge. My own daughter started the process several years before I was ready, way before I even thought I needed to think about this stuff. She has always been at full speed ahead, I call her my comet girl. Yet, for some reason, I was still surprised when things got complicated before she even hit the teen years. I remember one incident where she was screaming at me in our driveway about what a terrible person and mother I was and how I never took proper care of her or understood her or did anything correctly at all. This may have been in response to trying to get her hair dealt with, I have no memory of the actual triggering event. My daughter is now almost 30, so this was quite some time ago. She may have been ten or eleven years old at the time.
My husband told me to walk away from her tantrum. He’d sit there with her in the driveway. I was a wreck, snot and tears falling in equal measure down my face. I had zero perspective on this situation. I was roped into her pain and it was all I could see, the sense of myself being a failure was huge, epic. Later, when she’d stopped screaming and was resting in her room, my husband came and told me I absolutely had to learn to not take her rantings personally. He reassured me that I was a terrific mother and that even though he didn’t understand at all what was going on with our daughter, he knew that my mothering of her wasn’t the issue. My husband is someone who has a very different perspective on parenting than I do and he has MUCH better boundaries. He was hugely helpful in this situation for me and continuously reminded me to not take the ranting personally. I still did, but the reminder also found room inside of me and over time helped.
Nicole & Beardsley (18 Years) – 1982 by Helen Redman
I cannot honestly say I figured this all out while my kids were in their emerging adult phase. I actually just turned a new corner this year around long standing issues with one of my adult children. So, I don’t want to pretend this is simple or easily shifted. I have spent years in therapy, off and on, addressing the many layers of pain in my life and in my children’s lives. There are lots of “reasons” for folks to have issues, but everyone’s stories are different. Some kids respond very slowly or very deeply to things; you may not even know they are upset for years, others are sparky and shoot off all the time. The trick is to keep saying and reinforcing your love for them while and through whatever intensity or ugliness is unfolding.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I don’t use the word teenager and prefer emerging adult or emergence. I’d rather be overly cautious and aware about the feelings of others and how we frame these situations and dilemmas can often affect their outcomes. There isn’t anywhere to go with a teenager. They are by definition, frivolous, prone to emotional and physical outbursts and generally regarded and treated as troublesome immature aliens that one has to endure. Most often parents sigh when they say the word and all the making fun of them that goes on in the media only further cages them and our perceptions of them in.
When I say emerging adult, something different happens. There is an implicit acknowledgment that something is growing or emerging. These words are positive and they also support the young person’s desire to be seen, heard and respected. They also reinforce the idea in our minds that our children are practicing and just like their adult parents, they will make mistakes and blunders. If we don’t give them the room they need to do this, we risk the following:
tampering down a volcanic amount of emotion so that it has to explode (this happens anyway, but there are ways to minimize it)
creation of all kinds of strategies to avoid interacting with parents because said interactions are painful and unpleasant for all parties. Not acknowledging the ugly nature of things won’t make that ugliness go away, i.e. Let’s pretend everything is fine and all go out to dinner or to visit gramma… This is a recipe for a disaster.
unhealthy eating and other habits developing as a further way to create space. If meals become a source of conflict then eating disorders may emerge and this pattern can and often is set way before kids are in their teen years
feelings of complete and utter failure and dejection about their ability to ever successfully navigate or complete anything
feelings of shame for their behavior with no idea how to apologize without giving ground which their initial behavior was about creating
increase in secrecy in areas that have previously been out in the open as well as new ways to conceal themselves or their activities which can include and lead to drug use and unsafe sexual practices, diseases and pregnancy
This list could go on and on and it clearly sobering. I want to take a minute to talk about this need for space and the need for boundaries. There is no magic formula here. If you are respectful, have good boundaries, clear, kind and give space you won’t automatically get the results you are aiming for. This whole time in your life and your child’s life is a gigantic adventure and growing experience for everyone. The trick is to find a way through it like characters in a good novel, not a sitcom or murder mystery. We’re aiming for functional adults and relationships that can endure the changes and challenges of life on this planet.
You are allowed and indeed need your own boundaries about what is acceptable behavior. These are the hardest boundaries in the world to maintain and create. They also need to be somewhat permeable so that if they get broken it isn’t the end of the relationship, “pack your bags” and “you’re on the street” kind of thing. That feeling is natural for a parent to have.
As parents we’re acutely tuned to our children’s pain, growth, processes and their attunement to us seems nil. This is where the biggest mistakes occur. They are also attuned to us, but in a different way. Every breath we take and tear we shed looms very large on an internal screen within them. I tried to describe this to my mother twenty years after we very roughly navigated those years together. Her emotions and her voice and her breath even registered for me as if the volume was turned up on the highest setting all the time. I had to physically not hear her voice or be around her in order to hear myself think.
Not everyone has this experience with their parents, but it is true that after a certain number of years living with them, you know their voice patterns, their usual responses and you may naturally feel a little irritated or tired of them. It’s our job as the parents to not get our feelings hurt all the time and take it so personally. It’s a kind of stretching out of the cocoon and since we are all so close together in there, it is inevitable that they will bonk and bump into us in the process.
I will share more about this in the future, but wanted to get this out into the Nicole Zone, for those of you starting this journey or in it now. I cannot say I did it right or even perfectly. I can honestly say that I have relationships with all my parents and all my children and that there is communication and love there. There are also times of stress and confusion, but we have managed to weather those and remember and affirm our love of one another and our ability to be present for each other. My mother has file folders full of all the nasty horrible recriminating letters I wrote her and she also has the ones full of my love. At some point in the future, we’ll probably have a burn the nasty letters day, but both she and I are creators and archival material is valuable and hard to let go of.
I share this to point out, that my mother who is 74 and myself, almost 50 have weathered some VERY serious storms and managed to still emerge in relationship. My daughter and I as well and my older son too have had bumpy rides. It’s all unfolding still, which is the whole point, the long perspective, not the short term when you are looking at family is the one you want to remember, especially when the immediate situation can be very fraught.
I’ll end by sharing a beautiful and very helpful teaching from a friend of mine. When things were at their worst for me with my daughter, my friend Akiva, told me to practice meditating on a future time with my daughter, where she and I would be laughing together or having tea together or making a meal together. Basically he said to focus on any future activity that would be something joyful or at least not miserable. This idea, at the time, seemed a little crazy to me, but it really helped. It set aside a space in my heart and mind for the possibility of a future that I really wasn’t sure would ever happen. I can say that I have laughed with my daughter and made tea and dinner with her many times now and this was not something I thought would be the case when we were in the middle of the storm.
Nicole and her Shadow (19 Years) – 1983 by Helen Redman
So, dream a little dream or a big one, of yourself and your parent or your child and you finding space and time together that is joyful and less stressful, even if it seems impossible, create that hope and that trust inside your heart and see what opens out from there. Practice and have faith/emunah!
From my Open Heart and Open Hands I wish you great good luck and skill as you venture out into the wild waves!
This series of three combined into one long posting together here was written last year right before Passover/Pesach in the Spring of 2013. The story is relevant now, but the time references are from last year. I have also been preparing for Pesach right here in real time this year.
“It’s a small world after all.” That was my favorite song when I was little and I guess, in many ways, it still is. As I rush around getting ready for Pesach (Passover) and also for a trip to Spain and Morocco WAHOOOOOOOOOO! I’m a little bit more crazy than usual. And, I am trying to ride the WAVE of this time, rather than get smashed by it.
My name, Barchilon, comes from my paternal grandmother’s Moroccan name Perla Barchilon. My paternal Moroccan grandfather’s name was Jaime Cohen. When my father came to this country after WWII he didn’t want the name Cohen. It was way too Jewish and so he took his mother’s name Barchilon. Barchilon is a Jewish name too, it comes from the city of Barcelona, most likely. When my grandmother Perla’s ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492 (the year the Jews were forced to flee Spain, convert or be killed), like many immigrants, the name of place left became the new name. The name Barchilon may also come from the Hebrew bar shelanu, or some form of those words which mean “son of ours.”
This journey I am going on with our son Ethan is through his school, the Northcoast Preparatory Academy. When I heard about this trip I told him, YOU ARE GOING! Then he asked me to come along. What’s money anyway? Who needs it? So, despite the cost and the challenges I decided to come along. My mother and my step-father graciously offered to help and since this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me with my sixteen year old, I am on board. My husband also felt that it was of great benefit and supported the choice.
Part of why this trip appealed to me for our son Ethan, is that he and the other students going are acting and performing in a play in Barcelona. This play, “The Sheep and The Whale” was written by Moroccan playwright Ahmed Gazhali. The play is about crossing the Straight of Gibraltar and about illegal immigration, the hunger for a better life, murder, violence, poverty, and the longing for home and country that lives in the heart of many immigrants. It is based on a true story:
“ June 8th, 1992, at 2 AM a small wooden boat transporting 20 Moroccan illegal immigrants sank in the Straight of Gibraltar. A Russian freighter, that happened to be passing through the Straight as the drama was unfolding, managed to save one person and to pull out several bodies from the sea. In order to return the survivor and the bodies to the Moroccan authorities, the freighter was obliged to pay right of entry fees to the Port of Tangier. Negotiations dragged on until dawn…This event occurred a few days before Aïd Elkebir, The Festival of Sacrifice.” ~From the Moroccan newspaper, L’Opinion, 11th of June, 1992
Well, my father illegally crossed the Straight of Gibraltar as a young man on a fishing boat under a tarp of fish. He was with one other young man, they were both fleeing Nazi-Occupied Morocco to join up with the Free French Forces who had a large fleet ship in the port of Gibraltar. My father made it to that ship and joined the Free French Forces. He emigrated to this country after the war and that’s how I got here, although I was born in Paris. My father will turn 90 in Paris, while my sixteen-year-old son plays an Islamic Moroccan immigrant in a show in Barcelona. How could I not have my son be part of this story about crossing the Straight illegally and going to Marrakesh and Barcelona?
My father’s family lived in Morocco for over 500 years, it is only in his generation that they left Morocco. Before they left Morocco, they were in Spain, and before that they lived in the Holy Land of Ancient Israel and Palestine. I have one Uncle still living in Morocco, my Uncle Maurice Cohen, whom everyone calls Bébé (which means baby, since he was the youngest). My Uncle Bébé is now 86. He was a Moroccan tennis star when he was younger. Another small world connection, Ethan loves tennis and is currently number two on the “ladder” at his school. We will see my uncle when we go to Marrakesh, he lives in the mountains about two hours from there.
It feels absolutely monumental to me that I am getting to have this experience, earth-movingly huge. I am crossing the globe, this small planet with my son, flesh of my flesh of my father’s flesh, of his parents flesh, etc… back to our homes from not so long ago and from VERY long ago. Our family stories cycle in many many ways. This particular circling is one of choice and joy and yet, I can’t help but be thinking about all the folks forced to flee their homes seeking a better life or respite from war, famine, and oppression.
My own life has been one of abundance and love, with plenty of hurt and mess too, but not because of oppressive governments, war, religious intolerance or grueling poverty. The story of my people is one we tell every year in the present tense, never in the past. As long as there are people oppressed and endangered the story of fleeing oppression is not over. My son accompanies me on this journey, where he plays an illegal immigrant, a man torn in two by his need to connect with his people, his family and his home in Morocco and also a man who loved a woman and hoped for a different life. The character named Hassan is forced to confront his story on the freighter amidst great turmoil. He’s been living a life of lies with his Parisian wife and the story unfolds on stage and in real life, every day.
So, as many of you sit down for your Seders or celebrate spring in all the various ways we do in this country, I hope you will remember that the story is not over. Our re-telling and remembering must be followed up with ACTIONS to make this whole small world a place of peace, justice, kindness and goodness. A place where the flavors, colors and tastes of home are not forfeited as the price for the possibility of living with dignity and hope. Isn’t it time, really time, now to see everyone on this planet as members of our own family and to embrace them, not shun them, for their differences, languages, practices, gifts or wounds? It’s a small world after all.
Nicole will be winging her way to Barcelona and Marrakesh as you read these words, she will try to pen some thoughts while in the lands of her ancestors, and she sends you wishes for sumptuous feasts around your tables, with room for guests unknown and perhaps who don’t have home, but who might find it at your table if you invite them in.
The picture here is from a building on Calle Perla. My grandmother’s name was Perla, my Sephardic grandmother. I am surrounded everywhere by the history of my family. Every street feels familiar, every balcony seems like it could have been mine. The city feels like a friend, someone I had to leave behind but who never really changed.
Today I went on an Orange Donut Tour with Lisa, the other Chaperone on this trip and my friend Shullie’s parents Rona and Bernard. I am at the Ristorante Compostela waiting for them because I just couldn’t walk much further. City life is all about walking, walking, walking.
Walking is wonderful and my weight and feet make it hard for me to do everything at the same pace as thinner, more determined to see and do everything folks and also all those younger folks.
I love the neighborhood where we are. Each quarter or area has its own flavor and energy and unique character. There are currents here that, like in a fast moving river, you cannot always see or be aware of in advance and that catch one unawares. The whole Catalan vs. Spanish issue here is huge and I don’t know the signs of who is who yet. So, for example, I have been trying to learn and speak as much Catalan as I can, really just Thank You and a few other words. Thank you in Catalan is different. It is moltas gracias (spelling phonetic, no idea how it is spelled in the actual language). So, while I was at the Ristorante Compostela, which was not in Gracia, where I am for the most part, but which is in the Gothic Quarter, where the Cathedral of Barcelona is and where the Pope stays when he is in town, I said “Moltas Gracias.” The waiter looked at me like I was vermin practically. Clearly, I had left Catalan without knowing it. I did have the best coffee (cafe con leche) of my life there though, so I guess I can handle the look. Actually had two, ’cause one just wasn’t enough.
It is 5:05 a.m. as I write this, sleep is complex here as well. I am in the home of a single mom, Belen, who has rented out three of her rooms to guests from Airbnb. The others here are the other mom Lisa, who is a chaperone with me on this trip, and two German Opers who look to be in their early twenties, perhaps. They are sharing a room. It is great here and for $32 a night, completely unbeatable.
The toilet is a tiny room, with just the toilet, and no room to really pull your pants down though, so you kind of have to have the door open a drop to get that part done, then sit down and close the door to do your business and then vice-versa on the way out. And, this is not because I am big, the space between the door and the toilet is about five inches and the word water closet describes the space pretty accurately. The flush handle is the old fashioned pull down kind.
The tile in this place could be hundreds of years old at least, the flooring is all tile. The shower is outside in a small room but is magnificently hot and strong. The stairs up to the bedrooms are about six inches maybe wide, so I have to put my feet sideways on them to get down and brace myself on the walls as I navigate the twisting small steps.
I will fill in more about the students next time, but wanted to get this off to those of you following me on this adventure. Today, I will accompany the children for their presentations at the host school here as they talk about Arcata and NPA in the English class at the IES school here in Gracia. Then, Ethan’s host family has invited me for lunch, which is called diner at 3, which is when they eat that meal. What we call dinner is eaten around 9pm.
MOLTAS GRACIAS for accompanying me on this journey, in your hearts, wishes and thoughts I feel supported! Big Love from the Casa de Belen y Mario (14 month old angel who is the baby here).
Bread and Salt
Mireia Nicole Kiss with Flowers
I am sitting at the Vegetarian Indian restaurant not far from where I am staying in Gracia, Barcelona. I slept until 12:41 today and I needed it. The last few days have been very long and very intense, full and wonderful as well as a little too rushed for me. We leave tomorrow, for Marrakesh, and from the moment we landed it has been a running at full speed kind of experience. The kids especially have been put to every imaginable test and are rehearsing for their play, interacting with new families and experiences and foods while adjusting to life in an ancient and large city with thousands of people on the streets. It is about as far away from Humboldt as one can imagine. The show last night was phenomenal and I only regret that my technological acumen is shoddy and hope that between Marceau’s camera and my ipad mini I managed to capture most of the play. I have yet to see if any of it came through.
So, today, Saturday morning, which is Shabbat, no matter where I am, required a slower pace and I guess those extra hours of sleep guaranteed that. Best moments are so plentiful for me here, to put it in Rabbi Naomi Steinberg’s language: “this celebration is in the top 5,000,” a reminder that we shouldn’t rate joyful or prayerful moments. Very hard to do.
Comparing and rating are easy to fall into. Being in the moment with exactly what is going on requires something different from me. When I allow the present to flood my being and stop focusing forward or backwards, true magic occurs.
Friday afternoon, was just such a moment. I took a brief siesta on the sofa of Ahmed and Mireia before the small Shabbat I was going to observe before the show in the evening. Ahmed is the playwright of the Sheep and the Whale and together with his wife Mireia they are Jiwar a residence for artists that hosts workshops and creates home for folks to come and be creative. Their house in the center of Gracia in Catalonia was our home away from home, complete with a lovely garden courtyard. I should say that the whole endeavor wouldn’t work without the help and support of Mireia’s parents also, because in Spain, la familia is part of everything. So, the two small sons of Mireia and Ahmed were often there in the home or hanging with their lovely grandparents and the whole endeavor runs better because of this extended family that is not an anomaly, but the norm in this part of the world.
After my tiny siesta on their sofa, I prepared a little Shabbat moment for us on their table. It was a first Shabbat moment for them. Ahmed, my new Moroccan brother and Mireia, his Catalunian wife and my new sister. These two folks, immediately felt like my family, the nicest, warmest best folks ever. I want to be part of their family forever and hope for many years of connection to all of them. While Mireia and Ahmed were on their computers, I made myself at home in their kitchen, something I do in most homes I enter. I found some salt and located a small bowl from their china cabinet. I had brought some wine and some bread and arranged the flowers I had given them and finally I set out the candles.
I invited them to join me and unfortunately, at first, we all regretted that it was just the three of us. We wanted the kids and the grandparents there. But, as it turned out, I couldn’t get through any of the prayers without crying and there were tears in everyone’s eyes. I am not sure if this would have been the case with a fuller cast of characters. In the play that Ahmed wrote and Ethan and his classmates performed, there is a line about Europe and Morocco having had bread and salt together. This line kept playing in my mind and I reminded Ahmed of it. He said, he had never had bread and salt together like we were and that this line in his play, written over twenty years ago, came from some memory inside his being, but not from his actual having lived it. This exact moment we shared together on Shabbat eve, was the first time that his internal tribal kind of memory experience and this actual living present moment came together and made a new kind of sense. Europe, America and Morocco, Christian, Jewish and Muslim all breaking bread together with flowers, wine, salt and olive oil. The water for all of us, was our tears and the warmth flowing through our hands and hearts in hope and shared companionship.
I long for these moments in my heart all the time, with everyone. The times when barriers completely dissolve around a shared table. When the conversations, tastes and flavors of our lives all become common and precious and the feeling of family is palpable.
I hope you will all find ways to break bread and salt with anyone you encounter and especially those you imagine might be other than you. The more we sit around each others’ tables and share our lives, the smaller and more whole this aching and wounded planet becomes and the task of mending all the brokenness becomes as doable and perhaps as simple as sharing a meal.
Room with a View
View of Cemetery from Riad in Marrakesh
The View from the terrace at the Riad Spa Luxeux Bachawya. So, this is a cemetery across the street from where I am staying in a home that is over 1500 years old and that was the home of Moroccan royalty. My first day in Morocco so full already and now I am home and resting. It is 6:16 pm my time as I write these words. I put my friend Arik Labowitz’s first CD on and I will try and put down what is in my mind and heart while I listen to his divine Hebrew and the flute of his music mate Maxine.
After taking the taxi from here to downtown Marrakech and finding Ethan and the other NPA students along with their host families at the American Language Center, I walked from there, about twenty minutes to find my Uncle BB. He was waiting for me at the McDo (McDonald’s) across from La Grande Poste. There he was looking very young for 86, thin as ever with his very large nose, the nose of my grandfather, the nose that identifies one as a Jew, even if practicing Judaism is the last thing on your mind. BB, like my father, has no interest in his Judaism. BB and I walked to his car, parked about five blocks away, an old blue chevrolet. He took me on a long drive into the mountains to get the “best tagine” in Morocco. It was very good. I do not have much to compare it to. What was the best was just being with family. My ties to family are beyond description and this is something all of us know, or should know. A feeling of complete home that emanates from the connection.
In Spain and here as well, folks are “chaleureux.” This word does not translate well, it is more than being warm, it is being hot and friendly and warm all combined. Warm, just doesn’t communicate the feeling. Everyone holds hands, hugs, kisses, and is physical. There is a palpable heat that is from connection, not just from the sun. It is so different from the colder world of the United States. I feel so at home here, I am not an anomaly here. My size, largesse of expression and behavior as well as of body is just fine. It is pretty wonderful to not feel other and of course I am other. I have a very different life that what most folks do here.
BB kept referring to himself as gatté, with an accent on that last “e”. This means spoiled. We spoke of many things and he is more like a young boy than an old man in his eyes and in his expressions. He has no children, but many friends. His wife of 40 years died not too long ago and so he speaks of her still very much. It has been many years, but she is still present for him. He told me about his piano playing, something I had no idea about. It turns out that Ethan and him will have so much more in common than just a blood tie. Ethan plays piano and tennis and has some of BB’s last child qualities, a well-taken-care-of-ness. It is a kind of ease that comes with being the last baby around. As a mother, with Ethan, everything is precious, every moment there is a sense of “this is the last time.” Perhaps this is true for all last children. I like comparing them in this place and time, even though, they are also very different.
I am going to go lie down now. Just wanted to get these few words off to those of you wondering about how I am. Tomorrow, Ethan and I will leave NPA here and go off with BB to his home in the mountains for an overnight stay with him. Every single hour here is packed with more feeling and emotion than I can possibly convey. It will take me many months to capture any of this in depth. I am grateful for the stream of consciousness style writing that flows easily for me. I am also wanting to spend time with each feeling and thought and that is something I cannot do here. Everything is on full speed ahead and I am already aware that by this time next week, I will be flying home to California.
Shalom/Salaam
Omar and The Bowls
Thinking about serving, serving the Divine, serving others, serving family, serving a meal, being served and encountering a servant. While I was in Morocco this last April, I met Omar. Omar is my Uncle’s servant. There is no easy way to say that. The word itself is primed and full of meaning. It connotes both positive and negative things for me. My first encounters with servants were in Morocco as a child. My grandparents’ home had three full-time servants; Hassan, Sadia and Fatimah. Sadia and Fatimah did the cooking and the cleaning and my grandfather was tended to by Hassan.
I vividly remember being surrounded by these large warm women, who smelled heavenly, unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before or after. The combination was something like sweat, cinnamon, heat, roses, musk and cumin, vanilla and linden flowers. If I could swim in this scent or be near these women again, I don’t think I would ever emerge. I can’t describe it properly, but their smell, their warm arms wrapping around me and carrying me around or chasing me around the kitchen is something I carry with me and which I long for. It is the smell of work, of service, of excellence, of laughter and care and anger and heat and heart and some mystery too. It is the opposite of contained or relaxed or mellow and so very not of this place here.
My whole trip back to Morocco has really been a trip back inside of myself and into myself. I find I am reluctant to land fully here in this country, because so much of who I am is actually embedded in where I have been and in these memories, but also in the work of service. It’s a very foreign concept in this country. We don’t have servants, or at least most folks don’t, and unless you are active in a religious community or other non-profit organization “serving” is not always viewed as positive. The idea of being an actual servant to someone is frowned upon and rightly so, for many, many reasons in most work situations. I am not trying to justify servitude to a flawed system, servitude to a wealthy unjust boss or factory here. This kind of service though is not the only kind of service. I see no use in hiding from what is true for me and what I know from my life and my experiences that are the positive side of service.
My own service to others is a primal choice on my part in many ways. It is something that gives me tremendous energy and is a kind of tuning or truing. There is a tuning fork in my soul and when I am following the call of the Holy One, the sound inside of me is so pure and so whole and so right that I can’t imagine it being otherwise. That feeling doesn’t always manifest, often if I am asked to be of service or find myself pulled into it, I am not happily singing inside. I can be resentful, tired, frustrated, worried and so many other things, all of which are human and okay for me to be. The difference between those feelings and the feeling of being in tune is an order of magnitude difference.
The proper alignment puts me in a groove and there is the touch of the infinite there. I could lift a car off a person, or have a conversation with a star as it is being born somewhere light years away or back here on earth I might find myself helping someone to cross over the river Jordan singing them to their next destination. It’s just not a common experience or a mundane one. I feel blessed and lucky and grateful whenever I find myself there, amazed and renewed, awed and lost and full of tears. It’s the feeling of being a true servant, of serving the Creator and of wanting to do it again and again and to do it well and joyfully and of being so glad I was asked to do it. There is trembling and awe and a deep shaking and rushing to find the core of the task and to rush to do it well. In the Jewish tradition there is a teaching that one should RUSH to do a Mitzvah, not hesitate or stand back, but rush and hurry to do what is being asked. We don’t do this for people we don’t love or beings we don’t revere. If you are in service to a tyrant, you might rush out of fear, but you would never rush out of joy to serve.
I’m not serving a tyrant, so my movements are ones of speed and force towards the hope of helping or healing or finding the right words or actions or moment to grow some love in the world. I am so not alone in this. And, I am so very far away from serving humbly and with grace. Which, brings me back to Omar.
Oukaimeden, Atlas Mountains
When we arrived in Oukaimeden, where my Uncle lives, about 9,000 feet high in the Atlas mountains, there was snow on the ground. It is a ski-resort during the winter months and my 86 year old uncle BB still has a ski rental shop there along with his home. This is where Ethan and I came to spend our one night with him. Omar lives downstairs in the small cabin and my uncle lives upstairs. Omar has a wife and two married children in a village about twelve and a half miles away. He rides a large motorcycle and could be anywhere between forty and sixty. I couldn’t tell. He made the fire in the cabin when we first arrived. In Marrakesh we were burning up with heat and the temperature was in the 90s. In Oukaimeden we needed a fire. Omar prepared dinner, he served us dinner and then sat in the kitchen while we ate it, he cleared our plates and did all the cleaning up. He smiled at me, he smiled at Ethan. He speaks no French. I speak only a little Arabic. I said Shukran about fifty times. Shukran is “Thank You.” Omar just smiled.
After dinner we prepared for bed. My uncle gave Ethan and I his bed and he slept on the sofa near the fire, something he insisted he did regularly so he would be warm. Omar prepared the sofa and went downstairs. Ethan and I said goodnight to my uncle and climbed into the large and lumpy and cold bed that was graciously given to us. We read a little bit from The Crucible by Arthur Miller and then we tried to go to sleep. There are no street lights in Oukaimeden, most of the homes don’t have electricity.
It was VERY dark and very cold and just a little spooky. Ethan got up to use the bathroom which was a tiny room full of dusty, grimy, half-used bottles and looked like most bathrooms I’ve seen that belong to older folks or those who are otherwise-abled and who can’t see or get to the dirt. Ethan came running back into the bedroom and he was hyperventilating. He said that while he was peeing a giant spider the size of half his hand started to drop down from the ceiling towards him in his exposed state. He ran back into the bedroom.
Needless to say, I wasn’t too excited when it was time for me to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. There was one tiny light and everything looked creepy. I didn’t want to wake up my uncle so I was trying to be quiet but also doing the Nicole is tapping on the floorboards in a funny way dance. This was my “Spider if you are here, please do not come out, there’s a large person here and it’s better if you stay away” dance shuffle. I’m sure all spiders understand that this particular combination of footwork, shuffling, tapping, scooting, and slight jumping that I was doing is universal code for “do not disturb or emerge.” I tried to use the toilet, but was so terrified of the spider and unsure if my message had been properly translated or received. I made it through the event and quickly rushed back to the bedroom. I didn’t get much sleep, but at least I didn’t need to go into the bathroom until morning again and clearly, along with French and Spanish, I can now add Spider Language to my repertoire.
We had a lovely morning walking the area and then got ready to head back to Marrakesh, which was a three hour drive on twisty roads in the old blue 1976 Chevrolet with no air-conditioning being driven by my 86-year-old uncle who told me he needed a new glasses prescription, ummmm, that’s a whole other story. I wanted to buy some ceramics, small things, to bring home and my uncle said Omar would help us negotiate better prices and would accompany us part way down the mountains on our way back to Marrakesh. I was very happy to have the help. We had to drop something off at the only hotel in Oukaimeden and so I was sitting in the car with Ethan waiting. Several men came up to the car with their arms covered in necklaces and jewelery of every kind. I didn’t want to buy anything, so I tried to ignore them, but to no avail. All of a sudden Omar was there, he took off all the jewelry on one man’s arm and he picked through it and handed me ten necklaces. I tried to shake my head no, but Omar would have none of it.
No money was exchanged and I couldn’t communicate with any of these men. My uncle came back and I explained what had happened. He told me that this man owed Omar for something and now that debt was partially forgiven. I said, but I didn’t pay Omar and what is Omar getting from this? I asked my uncle if I could give Omar some money, but he said absolutely not and it would insult Omar. I arranged to give my uncle some money and asked him to do something extra for Omar or his family and then we went down the mountain looking for ceramics.
Omar stopped us at a roadside hill that had thousands of ceramic tagines and bowls and tiles in piles making up columns and columns and rows and rows of red clay, unpainted bowls stacked on top of each other which were entirely covering the hill leading into the factory. There was a tiny path with small steps through these columns into a large dark building. To my right, once my eyes adjusted, I saw a man who was kneading a large bunch of red brown clay with his feet; stepping in and out of the clay in a large square tub. As my eyes got more comfortable, I saw thousands of bowls and dishes leaning every which way in stacks of tens and twenties and more. It was a jumble of sizes, shapes and colors. I walked through trying to find something small I could safely pack in my bag and bring home. I found some beautiful white and blue bowls with a thin strip of silver lining on the bottoms and around the lip of each bowl. I asked the merchant the price and he said they were the most expensive ones and quoted me a price I didn’t want to pay. At that point I noticed some others that I also liked and they were smaller and didn’t have the silver. He told me those were made in this factory here, unlike the others I had previously selected. He quoted me a price and Omar nodded and I paid him.
On our way back to the car, Omar handed me the two other bowls, the expensive ones. He had bought them for me without my noticing. I couldn’t understand. I asked my uncle why and he told me Omar said I was family and he wanted me to have them and to have joy and that it made him happy to think of me with them. This man, who I only just met, was rushing to do something for me. He owns no home, he has worked for over twenty years or perhaps thirty for my Uncle, and he couldn’t stop trying to serve me, to offer to me. I didn’t and don’t know how to properly thank him. His gift was coming straight from his heart. He had the largest grin on his face, so happy with himself. This generosity and desire to please was radiating off of him. I told my uncle to thank him and tell him that I was so happy with the gift and that I would treasure these bowls and think of Omar always when I used them in my home in California.
I gave my uncle some more dirhams and asked him to pass them on however and whenever he could as he saw fit for Omar or his family. Even if I hadn’t had a penny to give, Omar would have been and done exactly as he did. He wanted to make me happy, he wanted me to smile, he wanted me to be served and he wanted to do the serving. He served me. He is serving me still, because I can’t get him out of my mind or heart. His simple kindness, his generosity, his humility, his smile, his strength. All these qualities and more dance around in me and beg me to pay attention.
Serving with joy, serving with kindness and with no thought of reward, serving out of a sense that the person before us is family or Holy or just deserving, this is the service I want to embody. How am I family to Omar? I am family to him because we are all family. My Omar bowls have a special place in my home and every time I see them or use them, Omar is with me. The jewels he gave me also connect me to the Moroccan soil, they come from the red earth and the mountain caves of the African continent, the birthplace of humanity. When I wear them, I feel myself connecting back to the Atlas mountains and to an ancient reality, to a warmth and strength and beauty and even to the large, prehistorically large spiders that come down in the night.
Nicole serves herself by writing to you from her home in Bayside, where she has a lot more to say about serving, but she’ll keep you on edge, waiting for the next installment in her Spain and Morocco narratives.
“In the name of the Holy One, the Holy One of Israel, May Michael be on my Right and on my Left be Gavriel, Before me be Uriel and at my Back be Raphael. Above my head and below my feet Shechinah-eyl.”
This is an adaptation from the prayer said before going to sleep in the Jewish tradition. It is one of several prayers that are part of what is called the Bedtime Shema. My dear friend Arik Labowitz has the Hebrew melody beautifully recorded on his CD Simu Lev (track 10, called Angel Song) and you can listen to it on his website or buy the CD. I play his music all the time. The English quote above here is slightly different from what you will find in some prayer books. Hebrew to English never translates perfectly and this is what I sing and sang to my children before they fell asleep. This prayer or any prayer or ritual practice of protection and love spoken ritually and regularly for young ones will help in so many ways. Nightmares just don’t have as much of a doorway in when you have surrounded yourself or your child with four guardian angels.
I also sing or chant these words over and around folks before and after medical procedures or if they come into my home for healing. It is very soothing. It is good to teach to others. I will look into recording a voice memo here and uploading for future reference so you can see the way I sing it. Just saying the words in any way you want is a good idea.
Whenever you see any word in Hebrew or translated into English with the “el” in it, this refers to the Divine. So Elis one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Hebrew word for a Divine being. Please see Why Ha-Shem, Not Naming the Divine post for more detail about naming the Divine. In brief, we don’t name the Divine in the Jewish tradition, we use various kinds of descriptors. There is one name used in the Torah which is made up of the four Hebrew letters, but this configuration of letters has no vowels and the original pronunciation for these letters was only passed down orally from High Priest to High Priest. No one except the Cohen Ha-Gadol/High Priest ever knew how to pronounce this name and only did so once a year. See articles on Yom Kippur. This name is called the Tetragrammaton since it is made up of four Hebrew letters. It is inaccurately translated and pronounced sometimes as Yahweh or Jehovah or some variation of this.
Additionally, all Hebrew words are linked to their roots and each root spawns many, many words, which when you know the root for those words links you to a whole system of interconnected words and which informs you about the deeper meanings of a word. Translation is always tricky.
“… Translation, above all, means change. In Elizabethan England, one of its meanings was ‘death’: to be translated from this world to the next. In the Middle Ages, translation meant the theft or removal of holy relics from one monastery or church to another…” ~ Eilliot Weinberger
And my favorite teaching on taking Holy works and trying to understand them literally.
“The surest way to misunderstand revelation is to take it literally, to imagine that God spoke to the prophet on a long-distance telephone.”
Even if you cannot access it in the original language that doesn’t mean you cannot benefit from the teachings. I just like to remind folks to think of translation as a kind of very adept word yoga, with lots of bends and twists and flexibility built-in so that you don’t think there is ONLY one way to engage with a word or concept. When learning about the Hebrew prayers and practices and adapting them for any person, regardless of their religion or ethnic or cultural background, it is important to remember that the energy of the word or the prayer is what matters for those who cannot access it in the Hebrew. The other important thing to keep in mind is your kavannah/intention. If you set your intention the meaning will fall into its proper place.
Each of the angel’s names have meaning and can be translated variously as:
Michaelis the angel of love/mercy. Mercy of El, the energy of love angel or the angel of mercy.
Gavriel or Gabriel is the angel of strength, so strength of El or energy of courage and boundaries, armor, protection.
Uriel or Ariel is the angel of light from the Hebrew word Or/Light. So, Uriel is the angel of vision and light.
Raphael is the angel of healing, the word for healing in Hebrew is Refuah
So, please engage how you are comfortable and for further teachings on this please see Rabbi David Cooper‘s book God is a Verb (order if from your local bookstore). Much greater detail than what I’ve given is included there and he has an excellent Archangel Meditation on page 144 of this book. He also has CDs and other sound recordings on angels and tools for those looking to connect more deeply. Rabbi David is a master of Kabbalah and I use his materials all the time.
I have had personal experience with the Archangel Raphael and always experience his presence as being a warm wide-winged embrace that I sink into. Raphael is always a being I fall back into or sink backwards into. There is a profound feeling of trust and warmth. When I pray for others I imagine the wings of Raphael being so big that the person is completely held inside this Holy Being and is comforted and well there in the protecting and deeply healing embrace.
May you find comfort in these practices and please feel free to ask me questions and go and study more!
Open Heart Open Hands 