I have broken ice on a small stream to immerse myself, I have soaked in a steaming warm hot-tub to immerse myself, I have and do slip off my clothes and immerse fully into the Big Lagoon, or the Pacific Ocean, regularly. I do Mikveh, Mikveh does me, we meet in the
מּיםחייםMayim Chayim/Living Waters
A mikveh is a Jewish ritual immersion in living waters that transforms you from one state to another. From ritually unclear or ready to clear and ready, from the everyday weekday to the Holy Sabbath Day, from non-Jewish to Jewish, from single to married, from married to single, from broken to whole, from old year full of mess to new year full of hopes and promise. Women and men are supposed to immerse whenever they come in contact with their own blood or seminal fluids before they are intimate. Often people think it is only women who are required to immerse, but men are required to as well. We also do mikveh after caring for and preparing the dead for burial, as a transition from death back to life. The Mikveh is Magic and transformative. Many folks do not understand real Magic, which flows from the Divine and the creations of the Divine: waters, winds, earth, plant beings, animal, stone and human beings all hold sparks of this magic.
Because Mikveh is a gift from the Holy One and involves immersion in Mayim Chayim, which are waters that are alive and flowing (streams, creeks, seas, rivers, lakes, lagoons, rain-fed cisterns that fill a pool and move through those pools back out into the ground, stream-fed ponds, and of course, large bodies of water like oceans), it is connected to the origins of creation and to our origins. We swam in living waters in the wombs of our mothers, all of us did. When we return to living waters, we get to be reborn, re-watered, renewed and reimagined. Mikveh is critical to my life and has been for over thirty years, when I first learned about it and started engaging in it consciously.
I’ve always been drawn to living water and used to jump into any creek or stream I encountered while walking in the Rocky Mountains as a young girl and woman. Because my Jewish education began when I started dipping my own feet into it, at the age of 18, I had not encountered this tradition until then. I still was doing it though, just not knowing why and what I was doing. This has to do with my tribal cellular connection. The part of me that is my bloodline and core connected across eons to a specific lineage and way of engaging with the planet and the Divine.
I try to always do a mikveh on Rosh Chodesh Elul,/the new moon that begins the month of Elul. I always do a deep 40 day process connected to the beginning of the month of Elul, which just began, and which ushers in a time of contemplation and preparation and work before the release and rejoicing of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I invite other women to join me at the lagoon where I swim, I have done this for several years. There were five of us this year. I’m not attached to how other folks interpret or engage with the particulars of a ritual action. I lay out what is traditonal, give folks a chance to orient themselves around that and make their own decisions about how much or what they can or are comfortable with doing. I’m all in, when I do it, most of the time I go full-throttle traditional.
What is traditional? One is supposed to be naked, free of all jewelry, make-up, nail-polish or other kinds of body make-up. Scrubbed clean of all dirt. The mikveh is not a bath or a shower to get clean in. You come to it clean, with all your knots combed through, if you have long hair, like me, and with nothing but your clean body, as if you were a baby in the womb. Just as free and innocent as a child swimming in a healthy womb enviornment, you completely immerse yourself three times or seven. You offer a prayer of thanks to the Holy One for the immersion and for the Living Water. There is always someone there who witnesses you to verify that you were fully immersed, no fingertips or toes were above the water line, for at least one full second, you were totally surrounded by living water. You spread your legs and open your arms, you fully allow the water to find and enfold all of you. You are transformed.
I’ve done mikveh without a human witness, when I’ve asked the angels to witness me and I’ve done mikveh with many women present to witness me. The witnessing is an important part of the process. The acknowledging of your shifting, or your intention, of your immersion and transformation are part of the bond to it and confirm that you are indeed engaging in sacred action.
When I am in water, I pray.
As I move through whatever waters I find myself in, I am engaging in deep prayer for all, including our planet, our rivers, and all who depend on this earth. I surround all of those I pray for with love, light, warmth, healing, whatever hopes they have shared with me or pains I try to focus on those when I pray for others.On Sunday, September 4th, I turned 52, this is my Gregorian Calendar birthday. My Hebrew birthday is always two days before Rosh Hashanah, so the 27th of Elul and the piece of Torah I was born with while swimming in the living waters of my mother’s womb was and is always Nitzavim.
Big Lagoon on a sunny day, where I swim and pray.
I am trying to be on a mini-silent retreat right now, only talking or engaging with others when necessary. This is a new part of my Elul practice and for my own well-being. I really need to minimize contact with everyone for my own internal process. It feels necessary to be on retreat after the last few whirlwind months of my life. It is common to fast from various things during Elul. My choices for this month are to work on more silence, fasting from chatter of all kinds and I am also fasting from wheat and meat and entertainment and using my kindle/ipad for books or movies.
I am working on dealing with ESSENTIALS and the PRESENT moment as much as I can.
My mother’s older sister, Aunt Jean, in Florida, is in Hospice care and is not feeling good as she moves closer to the other side. I have friends going through extremely difficult and life-saving/changing surgeries and navigating hard, hard challenges and transitions. I am pretty sure this is always the case for people on this planet, my circle of care is just large, and I’m an empath so I feel these realities deeply in my cells and bones and core.
I am needing a great deal more space and quiet than ever before. I have made a sea-change since being away on my retreat in Ireland. I want to be present for folks, but can only really do so, from my prayer practice and from my own center of quiet and calm, at this time. It’s been an extremely intense adventure for our family over the last four months. Having space alone with Kevin, with my prayer practice, and with myself is what I need right now.
I hope this month of Elul will be noursishing, healing and calming for me and for those of you engaging in whatever journeys or transitions you are in. I will connect with folks and activities, as I am able, from within my cocoon.
In my eleven year old self, cocooning. This photo was taken by Francesca Woodman, 40 years ago, but it expresses my mood right now.
I’m wrapped up in my home, re-making it into a space for Kevin and I, who have never been alone without children, since we got together 28 years ago.
One of the Holy Wells of St. Patrick on December 10, 2015, the 28th of Kislev, Fourth Day of Hanukkah
“On the Fourth Day of Hanukkah my true heart said to me, get thee out of thy cabin and go to the Holy Well of St. Patrick.” All of you know the tune to sing that alternative lyric to. Part of this time of year is always endless loops of Christmas music, so that even if you aren’t Christian and you don’t celebrate Christmas, you will still KNOW every possible Christmas song there is. That’s okay, most of them are really beautiful and my anger around this has completely dissipated over the years.
I am in a very Christian, truly Christian place, where folks practice their religion whether they are Catholic or Church of Ireland or Celtic/Pagan. All three of those forms of worship are part of my adventure here. I hope to be able to celebrate Solstice with a woman who follows the Gaelic calendar and rituals. Whether I manage to gather with her or not, I will definitely be engaging with the night, with Solstice, with the stars and offering thanks for this time of year, this time of turning.
It gets dark around 4p.m. and the sun or light doesn’t appear until around 8:45 a.m. So, that’s over sixteen hours of black, dark night. I am loathe to turn the lights on and find myself very averse to them. I use candles or low wattage lamps if I want light after dark. The darkness is bliss for me and mutes all my pains and my anxieties. That may sound counter-intuitive, but it is what is true for me. I often feel like going to bed around six or seven in the evening.
I still don’t sleep more than several hours at a time, but it is lengthening. I’ll get four hours in a row now, then two or three more. Brother Thomas has started praying for me to be able to sleep. His shining prayers are working, and the long hours of darkness as well. I so long to dance and dream with the Holy One in that place of deep slumber, which I am only barely doing here. Deep sleep will be a gift if and when it comes.
So, back to the getting out the door and walking to St. Patrick’s Holy Well. We just had Storm Desmond here and a great deal of Ireland is under water, folks have rivers running through their homes and the winds and rain were fierce. Many, many folks have lost everything. My little cabin Clare has been a solid haven from all storms outside. I am warm, dry and protected in this very solid stone cabin. My experience of the storm is just one of delight and awe and wonder at the power of the Holy One and the Elements in their constant dance on this Holy Spinning Mother Earth. I am also aware of all those not in joy or delight about this storming and I pray for them within my space of hope and warmth.
On this morning a few days after the wild storming, the sun was shining. I used my iphone to see if there was going to be rain and storms coming or if I might hazard a longer walk. I have not yet completely let go of time and technology. I use them way less, but they are still part of my life and learning to use them and have them enrich my experience, not detract from it, is part of my work here. So, my phone said, no rain expected until later in the afternoon.
The down side to sixteen hours of darkness and loads of rain and 30mph winds, is that you don’t really get much walking or venturing out done. It’s just much nicer inside. So, moving my body out of doors, even in 38 degree weather felt like a MUST.
I had seen signs to St. Patrick’s Holy Well along the small lane that is just near where we are and one of the work-study young women had mentioned that it was truly spectacular and even “more special” than the other Holy Well we had been to. Well that Holy Well, took my breath away so, I was thinking hmmmm, let’s see if I can walk to this one. It didn’t seem too far away.
I packed my bag and started my journey at 9:23 a.m. I knew it would take me at least an hour or two, so I put some nuts and cheese and filled my thermos with hot tea. I took birdseed to offer the birds when I got there and packed my outdoor wool blanket so I could sit at the well comfortably. I layered up and with my trusty walking stick went out the door.
I met Rachel, my neighbor in her red car, at the crossroads near my cabin shortly after leaving. She had her three lovely daughters (all under the age of five) with her and they were on their way to Tessa’s playschool. She asked me where I was off to and I told her. She expressed concern. “That’s pretty far away.” I said “a mile or two?” She said “more like three.” I reassured her that I had many hours to do the walk and that I would go slowly and was up to it and she drove on.
In my mind I was thinking maybe she meant kilometers and it’s not really that far away. I was determined and it was a gorgeous cold day. So, on I walked along the small, wet country lane between stone walls and ivy covered hedges. Streams and rivulets of water, birds and sheep as my companions. I went up and down and up and down the hills and my feet started to really ache. I have plantar fasciitis and bone spurs as well as being a woman of girth. So, my feet take a beating when I walk or dance and I feel it, I feel it acutely.
Pain is not something that stops me though, it just slows me down. I saw two more people on my walk, one elderly man tending to something in his yard came over and said hello. I asked him how far it was to the Holy Well and he said two miles or more. I’d already been walking for an hour at this point, but again, in my mind I went, he means kilometers, it’s just not that far away. He asked me to say a prayer for him when I got there and I shook his hand and continued on my way.
About half an hour later I encountered another elderly man walking towards me on the lane. He was looking for Holly with red berries still attached to use for his Christmas decorating. There is tons of Holly everywhere here, but the winds have taken a lot of the berries. I asked him “how much further to the well?” He said it was quite a ways, perhaps another two more miles.
In my mind I thought, I’ve entered a fairy tale. It’s always going to be two more miles away and I will NEVER get to the Holy Well. He gave me his advice about how to get there and directions and wished me well (all puns intended) and he continued on his quest and I continued on mine.
It started to rain, which wasn’t supposed to happen, according to my iphone weather report. I was an hour and a half or more into my journey at this point. I put my jacket on, the one I’d had around my waist, and hoped it wouldn’t be a torrential rain. It turned out to just be a slight drizzle for a little bit. I stopped by a rusted iron gate and tried doing my foot exercises to relieve my pain and kept hoping the crossroads with the sign for the well would be just around the next bend or over the next hill.
Alas, this was not the case. I just kept walking. I saw a lovely horse in a field and decided to take a moment by that particular field and fence. I made some friendly horse sounds and said hello. She came over to me. She was coal black with a white star on her forehead and a streak of white running down from it. I reached into my pack and took out my apple, thinking horses like apples right?
Two other majestic horses with thick winter fur came up at this point. The alpha female, of this group of three, was white and rust colored. She nudged the other horses away as if to say, “I’m in charge here.” She looked at me and I cut my apple into three sections and explained that I would be giving something to each of them, even if she was the “alpha.”
I offered the apple sections to each of them and none of them were interested. They were interested in me. They put their heads down for me to touch. I spent a good ten minutes or so communing with these horse beings and was grateful for them. They didn’t want my apple, but since I’d gotten it out, I took one of the sections and eventually continued on my way.
I walked on and finally after two and a half hours came to the crossroads with the signs for the Holy Well. At this point the sun was shining in my eyes and it was hard for me to see too far down the road. I had taken my sunglasses out of my pack before I left the cabin, thinking “sunglasses, who needs those in this weather?” Silly me. I turned down the road that said Cemetery and Holy Well, but I couldn’t see either of them. I kept walking and thought I must be close. I was in great pain and in tears at this point, but I took heart that I was too close to give up and besides the walk home wasn’t going to be any better if I never made it to the Well, so, I should just keep going.
And I walked another fifteen minutes or more and there was another sign pointing me to the left, so I took that road. Then I saw the cemetery and thought that the well was in the cemetery at the back or something. I went into the old, old cemetery and walked around looking for this Holy Well that seemed impossible to locate. It wasn’t in the cemetery, or it was hidden from me.
I walked all around the cemetery and saw a gate and a road and what perhaps was a statue down that way. I thought, hmmm, perhaps that’s the well. AND IT WAS! YAY, HOORAH, HIP, HIP HOORAY, I made it. Three hours and 3.6 miles from when I started I found what I was en route to. It wasn’t no two mile walk!
The Third Gate
There were three gates, all of which I opened and went through, before I got to the actual Holy Well. The final gate was to the walled in area that surrounds the Holy Well of St. Patrick. There was a large statue of him and another with Mary. I took off my boots and my wool socks and walked down the steps to the well. I sat on the cold wet stone and cried and gave thanks and put my feet briefly in the Holy Well waters and asked for their healing. I then laid down on the stone next to and over the Holy Well, which is supposed to heal your back.
The view from the Rock that heals your back. I am laying on it.
The Well was in shadow and it was chilly, but I was in my layers. I laid myself down on the stone and cried and said prayers for the man who had asked me to and for all beings in pain, myself included. I chanted the Shecheheyanu prayer and just laid there looking up at the trees and being grateful beyond belief for having arrived.
My view from the rock looking up at St. Patrick above me with the Well beneath me.
I took out my cheese and my nuts and drank my hot tea. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more grateful for a hot beverage. It was magnificent. I offered some tea to the trees and scattered some birdseed, apple slices and cheese for whatever animal beings or Fey Folk might want or need those things.
Then, because I had my trusty technology with me, I got out my phone and texted Brother Thomas, who I knew was out doing the weekly shopping. I asked him if he could pick me up on his way home and told him I’d be walking along the road. He and I managed to communicate via text and he said he’d be along in about a half an hour. I prepared myself to leave the Holy Well.
I’d wanted to stay longer and had packed my paints and my prayer shawl and my prayer book. But I didn’t want to walk another three hours home and I knew the rains were coming, and I was getting chilled. I said my goodbyes to the trees and the Well and as I closed the third gate Brother Thomas drove up. I cannot tell you how grateful I was to see him, to see that car, to know that I had made the effort and gotten there, but that an angel would carry me home and one did. By angel/Brother Thomas flight, it only took seven minutes to get home.
I’ll return to this place and spend long hours there, but I’ll know the way and plan accordingly. My feet are not hurting and neither is my back. The miracle of this place continues to unfold in me right now in this season of miracles, Jewish and Christian.
May you find your way and continue to walk on against pain and obstacles to all the miracles waiting to unfold for you.
Six oil filled cups: five for the fifth night and one worker/Shammes candle. The deep dark night, the rain drops on the window, the orchid blooming in the Dark on this fifth night of Hanukkah, one day before the new moon and the new month of Tevet, after my long, long walk and the miracles of the Holy Well of St. Patrick and Brother Thomas.
Erev Yom Kippur; getting ready for 26 hours of fasting and prayers alone. This photo is from my window-seat. I set my intention/kavannah and space with beauty and white flowers and decor to enhance and imbue my prayers with purity and clarity.
This was the hardest Yom Kippur that I can remember.
My beloved Rabbi Naomi Steinberg says, we should never compare Holy events. She remarks, “this Shabbat was in the top 500,” rather than saying this Shabbat was “the best.” I appreciate this teaching and try to incorporate it into my life, especially around Shabbat observance. It’s a very good reminder to not judge joyful occasions and a great encouragement to be fully present in the moment. The human tendency to compare and contrast and look at something from one celebration and measure it against another celebration can be a way to not honor the people you are together with and it can be decisive. Not doing this requires tremendous conscious effort. I consistently have to remind myself about this “top 500” idea. Nevertheless, sometimes making a comparison is what needs doing. Marking the boundaries of this Yom Kippur and defining them feels important because what transpired for me was so intense and significant.
I knew it would be hard to fast and do all the prayers without the support and help of a community of folks, all working together. Those who observe the full fast refrain from eating and drinking from sunset of the holiday, called Erev/Evening until the concluding service called Ne’ilawhich happens when three stars are visible in the sky of the following day. It was about 25 hours long this year.
On Yom Kippur, congregations around the world, come together and share in the heavy load of prayers. We pray for all people in the world and ask for forgiveness, stating all the wrongs a person can possibly do, we name each act of ugliness and violation that humans do to each other and our planet. We recite these prayers and confessions and supplicate for mercy and look deeply for hours and hours. We rise and we tremble before the Holy One as one giant body of beings, we sway and sing and chant and hope that our sincere presence and effort will help mend the suffering in this world. We support each other with our combined efforts and are all humbled by the process. Doing this all by myself turned out to be very, very hard.
I felt closer to death by 8:00 pm right before the end of the fast than I’ve ever felt in my life. After 25 hours without water or food I was weak and beyond weak, stumbling and dizzy when I tried to stand or walk. It was acutely intense and I was afraid, I wasn’t sure I would ever feel alive again.
My head ached, my limbs were heavy and hard to move, I felt awful, wrung out and completely DONE. I roused myself, in the dark, because my Holiday candle, which had been burning for 25 hours, had just sputtered out. I stood up to say the final three prayers and blow the shofar to mark the end of Yom Kippur. I made it to the end of Yom Kippur and as I chanted the final words of the service, my tears flowed, as they had been doing all throughout this never-ending day. I was dehydrated already from not drinking and because I’d cried so much as well. My water-reserves were at an all time low.
There is an element of Yom Kippur that is about death and getting close to it in a ritual, supported and honest way. We are not exactly trying to emulate the feeling of death, but rather to attend fully to our souls and their life within our bodies. This awareness perhaps will help us be a more alive in the here and now and also gives us a taste of what it might be like when the Holy One takes our souls back to journey among the stars.
I find myself weaving in and out of Holy Time and Connection when I pray, so there is timelessness to all my supplications and praying, and a loosening of the boundaries between space and time. The difference on Yom Kippur is that you can see everyone moving towards their angelic selves and it helps you get through the day when you feel bereft of vigor. We wear white, and in the most traditional communities folks actually wear their burial kittel (part of the Jewish shroud, but also worn for Pesach/Passover). This garment is always white and simple, but modeled after the garment that the High Priest wears. Indeed the Torah portion we read on Yom Kippur from Leviticus 16 describes these garments that the High Priest Aaron is to don in order to come close to the Divine:
He shall be dressed in a sacral linen tunic, with linen breeches over his body; with a linen sash shall he gird himself, and with a linen turban shall he be crowned. These are sacral garments and so he shall bathe himself in water before dressing in them. ~ Leviticus 16:4
These simple sacred garments are what we bury all people in. We are all clothed as the High Priest, rich or poor, we all get the same shrouds, made out of linen preferably or cotton, with no fuss, finery or pockets (who needs a pocket in Heaven?). This equalization in death, that does not happen in life, is an essential teaching. We are all bodies, we are all dust and ashes, in the end and will return to dust, our bodies that is. Our souls are another matter entirely. So, when we loosen our connection to our bodies and focus on our souls that process reminds us to attend fully to being in a body. It’s a funny twist of human nature, that we feel things more in contrast to their opposite. We feel most alive after a long illness, as if we have never ever had it so good. We feel most grateful for everything usually in direct relationship to how long or far away from it we are.
So, I miss my husband extremely now and when I see him again my joy will be beyond measure. I love him the same amount when we are seeing each other every day, but being away from him makes me appreciate and notice his presence and his absence even more.
If we are lucky or we work for it, sometimes all of us, in moments of deepest connecting, we can cross the boundaries of our habitual patterns and conventionality and then we can and do reach that deep place without having to be separated. But we do have to SEPARATE ourselves from the idea that we are individuals or that we are just bodies, in order to have that oceanic, intense, beautiful eye to eye, heart to heart, soul to soul feeling. We can have this feeling alone in prayer or contemplation, or with friends, with strangers, with beloveds, whenever we get over ourselves, literally.
GET OVER YOURSELF, and move into the person or the tree or flower across from you or near you.
Or, in the case of the Divine, we have to let go of our sense of being alone or thinking that we are only just a body without a soul. We have to get over our tired old story, or our fear, or all the mess and walls that we construct between all that is good and available for us. Yom Kippur is the perfect prescription for doing this.
Mireia, a new friend, and I, getting over ourselves, in front of a wall, and connecting from a deep place, in Barcelona, April of 2013
So, I am SUPER glad to be in a body today!
The sun is shining and I will go outside and work on creating a Sukkah, since the next Jewish Holiday, my favorite, very embodied holiday (NO FASTING, LOTS OF FEASTING), is in four days. OOPS, I just made a comparison between Holy Events. It sure is hard to avoid doing that. And, I do really enjoy Sukkot a whole bunch. I’m not sure how I will observe it alone, but like all the other adventures I’m having here, I’m sure it will work out beautifully! We do invite in our Holy Ancestors, so I won’t actually ever be alone, and the faeries are always happy to play and dine with me.
What enabled me to actually get through to this moment of aliveness and joy was the NOT BEING ALONE part of my being alone. Let me explain. I was able to connect with my Temple Beth El community, thanks to modern technology and the kindness of some Temple Beth El members who made it possible for there to be a live-stream of their entire Yom Kippur services, all of them.
So, when I was losing it, or too weak to continue my praying I could sometimes manage to log-on to their livestream and see my friends praying. They even said hello to me from the bima and for theKol Nidre service I could hear my son Ethan’s voice, which made me immensely joyful. I think it was Rabbi Naomi’s husband Saul, who took the camera and turned it at the end of Tuesday night’s services, so that I could see my boychik in the flesh. There he was, clapping and singing and I got a glimpse of him for one joyous moment before the livestream went offline. I cannot even begin to express the joy I felt. It was beyond expression! It was 5:45 a.m. for me and I’d been tuning in and out to their prayers since 2:45 a.m.
At Temple Beth El, they were eight hours “behind” where I was in my prayer cycle, but finding them wherever they were throughout the 25 hours of my process made all the difference for me. Here’s a link to one of the services, so you can see for yourself these magnificent humans in their white angelic garments and in their angelic personifications and expressions:
A friend also turned me on to a wonderful streaming of services. I could watch this community when I wasn’t able to connect with the Temple Beth El community. It is a new experimental community based in New York City and is called Lab/Shul. Here’s their definition of self-hood from their website: “Welcome to LAB/SHUL, an artist-driven, everybody-friendly experimental community for sacred Jewish gatherings based in NYC and reaching the world.” They have a musical line-up and people singing straight from their hearts and souls and their services were AMAZING.
They chant a line or two from one of our traditional long prayers and dispense with the volumes of words that accompany the usual liturgy. Their knowledge of the Hebrew and the prayers was deep, deep enough that they could fly out to the stars with their roots grounded but able to fly straight up towards the Heavens. It was pretty extraordinary when I could catch them. Amichai Lau-Lavie, their Spiritual Leader, also gave a great teaching, in between the chanting, music and praying. I was transported when I could catch up with them. He mentioned Pope Francis and his Encyclical. I’m in the land of Catholics and Pope Francis and his teachings are a common feature of discussion here. I’m not sure how many Jewish folks were talking about Pope Francis this Yom Kippur, but it was pretty perfect for me, considering where I am.
And, here at my hermitage, three other hermits came and spent a brief amount of time with me in prayer. They did this out of the kindness of their hearts and because, even though this week is a silence and solitude week, they wanted to support me in my Jewish practice. So, two Catholic nuns and one Catholic contemplative came to sit with me and pray with me late in the afternoon of Yom Kippur, This is usually one of the hardest times of the day, when I was feeling pretty gray and not interested in continuing to pray or even be much in a body. Their presence uplifted me. It was lovely to pray with folks across the boundary of religion. It made no difference what specific faith tradition we identified with. We were able to be as one in our GETTING OVER OURSELVES. That’s my new mantra, I hope I can carry it through beyond this moment.
My “getting over myself” Yom Kippur crossed several time-zones. I started before all my community, eight hours earlier than the Californians, five hours before the East Coasters, two hours later than the Israelis, but somehow all of us were joined in a completely other place, a Holy time. After all, Divine time is nothing like human time. So, I crossed lots of boundaries and went a little too close to that feeling of weakness and torpor that comes from the body not having enough nourishment. I almost always observe the complete fast, no water or food, so this year’s feeling closer to death was unexpected. It gave me tremendous compassion and more appreciation for those who are actually approaching death of their bodies, friends who are in hospice care right now, friends who have been and are struggling with long debilitating illnesses and/or cancers that come and go, folks who are starving, literally because they are poor or because they are being tortured.
Why would anyone willingly choose to feel these things?
Doing so, even once a year, renews my commitment to serving the Divine in all my parts, with all my organs, senses and abilities. Until the world is a place of wholeness, kindness and equality, like what we pray and hope for, we all have to dedicate ourselves and look at ourselves deeply so that we can attune to Justice and to Goodness. This day is also called Yom Ha-Din which means the Day of Judgment or Trial. We are on trial for not doing enough for those who are suffering and for whatever we do that increases suffering on this planet.
Now, the good news is; that many, many, more people are doing this good work and are engaged in lessening suffering and violence, than the newspapers, news agencies and stories you hear in the mainstream media, would make you think. We are the majority. Those of us working, praying, living for Goodness, Justice and Mercy are in numbers beyond measure. We will make and are making a difference and every time one of us reaches deeper and longer and connects it makes a change in the flow and fabric of time and in the flow of events on this beautiful and wild spinning orb we call home. We are all b’tselem Elohim (in an image of Holiness). This means we are POWERFUL and CAPABLE of doing miraculous things!
To end my fast, before I began it, being the Virgo, Alpha female that I still am, even alone, I had made my brother Paul’s Dahl. I did indeed have a little bowl of it, which was more than I could actually finish, at the end of my ordeal. I was still a little too close to the other side and felt sick and weak. I ate because I knew I needed to, not because I felt hungry. I was beyond hunger when the three stars in the sky had emerged to announce the END of the fast. So, after my three glasses of water and my small bowl of soup, I slept for a few hours.
My usual sleep pattern is, if I’m lucky, four hours, than maybe another two if I get really lucky. So, at my usual time, which was around 2 a.m., I got up. I was hungry then and I opened my tiny fridge and decided to have a small bowl of yogurt. This was yogurt that the nuns had gotten for me. I had asked for organic plain whole yogurt. I am endeavoring to not eat sugar or gluten currently. But, somehow, they and I, missed the blueberries on the label. Those small blue berries were tiny in the picture at the bottom of the container. In fact, the plain yogurt and the blueberry yogurt look very similar, but guess what, they aren’t similar at all.
I was so HAPPY, you have no idea, with that blueberry surprise. That marvelous “mistake,” that the Holy One surely orchestrated for me, of blueberries and just a drop of sugar in a perfect blend of Irish whole milk yogurt, ummmmm, yummmmm. I cannot even begin to tell you how fabulous that bowl of yogurt at 2 a.m. in the morning was. I only hope, wherever you are, in whatever timezone, or faith tradition, or state of wellness or illness you are currently experiencing, you stop and take a moment to breathe and appreciate this moment of your being alive, in a body. Hopefully you can find a moment and are able to say with all your being Todah Rabah/Immense and Great Thanks! If not, have somebody go get you some blueberry yogurt!
I’m closing with a photo of my lunch today, which was at 3 p.m.; this seems to be when I want to eat lunch here. I basically don’t eat dinner, just a snack, or piece of fruit. But, my appetite has returned and so this was my lovely large luncheon. The carrot salad was a new invention and I’ll put up that recipe sometime soon. The Dahl, yogurt raita and lightly cooked kale are all recipes you can discover here, should you want to recreate this meal. The lamb chops are from a local butcher with lamb from a nearby field. The kale and carrots and cucumber (in the raita) are all from the garden here. It’s nice to feel alive again and have this kind of feast for my tummy as well as for my eyes and heart.
Food for my Body and SoulDetail of the Holy Feast!
The View from where I sit and pray and meditate, just a two-minute meander down the bank of brambles I cleared.
I ordered a shofar from “the Tallit Man,” an operation out of Florida. Along with the shofar, the owner made a YouTube for me, with my shofar, showing me how it sounds and that it sounds. A shofar is made from a ram’s horn.
“All horns may be used, except those of cows and oxen, because their horn is called keren and not shofar. And also the horn of the cow and the ox is not acceptable because the accuser must not be made to serve the defender, that it may not be said: Yesterday they made the golden calf, and today they come to appease their Maker with the horn made from it.” ~S. Y. Agnon (from page 246 of Mahzor Hadesh Yameinu ~Renew Our Days~A Prayer-Cycle for Days of Awe~ Edited and translated by Rabbi Ronald Aigen
Jewish folks blow the shofar during the month of Elul, in the mornings, except on Shabbat. We blow it also to usher in our New Year called Rosh Hashanah and to mark the end of Yom Kippur. We blow it whenever we want to pierce the protections around our hearts and also the layers of klippot (hard shells created by our wrongdoings) that obscure our pure and radiant souls. It is not an easy sound, it is not an easy thing to make a sound with.
I think, other than ancient shepherds, the sounds I’ve been making in the hills of Eire with my ram’s horn are pretty unique. Although the cows across the stream in the next field and I seem to be communing as a result. Also, the crows don’t seem to mind the sound. The sound is supposed to remind us of the Akedah, (the story of Abraham and his sacrifice/binding of Isaac). At the very last second, an angel points out the ram in the bushes and the ram becomes the sacrifice, not Isaac. But Isaac was the sacrifice and this story is a haunting and intense one. There are many, many interpretations of it, perhaps another time, I’ll give you some of them.
I need to get back now, here and now, to “my Elul” in Eire. So, the loud, Jewish, Alpha female is living at a silent Catholic Carmelite Hermitage/monastery, no, this is not the beginning of a joke, but it could be. Here are some of the practices, sayings, rules here: No Fuss, Silence from 7pm-9am, every day (exception of prayers said in mornings and evenings), Silence Mondays-Tuesdays (complete day), Silence for a full week once a month, oh yes, silence in general, unless you really have to ask a question, but even then it’s preferred if you write a note. Oh and let’s not forget the basic vows of Catholic religious folks: Obedience, Chastity and Poverty.
Those of you who actually know me, are going to be laughing hard right now. I am the opposite of “No Fuss.” Obedience and I have never been cozy, Chastity and I aren’t and never have been related and while I’ve lived in poverty in my single-mother years, it was never something I wanted to be doing. Simplicity and I are also like oil and water. If I can make something spicier, more involved, more complicated, then I usually do. Visually my home, body and any spaces I live in, are fully colored, adorned and they are also full of imagery and visual patterns. I am also the opposite of moderated, quiet, and sparse.
When I got to my simple cabin named “Clare” for the companion of St. Francis of Assisi, I opened a card from one of my dear friends. She had instructed me not to open it ” ‘til you get to your cabin in Ireland.” So, I opened it to one of her original art pieces with Hebrew teachings. It said: “I am dust and ashes” in Hebrew and English. I broke into tears, and am doing so now. This person knows me very well and is my “spiritual buddy,” I’ve given her permission to always say the hard things to me and to help me grow and she does. Five minute pause to sob here….that’s what I just did.
Elul is about self-examination. I timed my arrival here so that I would be here in time to have the full month of Elul in this space where all I get to do, if I choose to, is self-examine and correct. So, here where it is actually more perfect than I could ever have imagined, with robins, swallows, crows and the wind as my companions, I am and have been looking deeply at myself.
I do this every Elul, but this Elul is different because I am alone. Except, I feel anything but alone. The presence of the Divine is with me all the time and the Holy One is more accessible to me here, because there is no NOISE and no DOUBT and no INTERRUPTIONS to my connecting. The only sounds I hear from my cabin, are the stream outside my window, the crows, the cows, and the wind or rain. I can avoid seeing all people by choosing what hours I go to the main house to get my food or do my laundry, or I can choose to see folks but go on a day of silence so no conversations will ensue. Or, I can choose to join the people here in prayer and silent meditation on the days when that is happening.
I didn’t think I would set foot in their chapel. I mean no offense to my Christian friends, but hanging out with a cross on a wall while I am praying, has never been something easy for me. I used to have violent images come up for me with crosses and pyres of Jews combined, the crosses pushing the Jews into the flames. That is not the case for me here. First of all, it’s a beautiful space where the hermitage folks pray, very simple wooden small space, “no fuss,” and thankfully those images, from my people’s historic past, are no longer haunting me.
The most luminous part of being in this place and worshiping with these folks, is that everyone here is in love with Ha-Shem. The deep delight and beauty of that is extraordinary for me. It’s a feast for me to be around people who are in a relationship with Holiness that is not a chimera or philosophy. These folks have been living a religiously engaged life for their entire lives. They are not neophytes at worship, at communion, at listening to the voice in the silence. They are deep practitioners and to be in their presence is to be in the presence of Peace and Holiness. (Don’t worry, I’m not planning to become a Carmelite Nun).
I know this feeling of complete connection. I’ve had it whenever and wherever I go that people are not in question about the presence of the Divine in their world. I have experienced it with my Moslem friends, with my Jewish friends, with my Buddhist friends, with my Wiccan friends and my Native American Friends, with my Hindu friends. I experience it wherever folks are connecting from a place of love to the Divine, however they define that. I do not want to cause any distress to anyone who does not have this feeling. I am just trying to explain that the environment here is very different from the world at large. This place is steeped in and radiates Relationship to Reverence.
That’s why I’m here. Hee Ney Ni-Here I Am, which is what Abraham says to Ha-Shem when he is called. It’s what I am trying to say here, every day. Here I am, in my mess, my mistakes, my loud intensity, my large appetites, and my fussy, particular, complicated humanness. As I get better at sounding the shofar, the layers of my junk, the hard shells that obscure my soul, are getting shattered. Shattering anything is not easy or gentle. While I am in a gentle landscape, the work I am doing is not particularly gentle. It’s ragged and rough. It’s dark here at night, all my fears come forward, all my pain around issues that are old and familiar for me emerge, all my missing of those I love, most especially my husband, comes to the forefront and I find myself sobbing and sobbing. AND, the Exciting and Enraptured part of this is that there is no one here to interrupt my process or for me to appease or be taken care of, so I get to go really deep and actually heal from my core.
The Angels and the Holy One are here taking care of me, the stream and the green leaves are here taking care of me, the roses outside my front door are taking care of me, the view of clouds crossing the sky is taking care of me, the silence and the stillness is taking care of me, the warm cup of milk I fix myself with honey, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla (not a simple, no-fuss glass of warm milk) is taking care of me. Hee Ney Ni, Here I Am, open to whatever needs to unfold.
Shofar, Challah under orange cloth, Shabbat oil-wicks and one of my Holy Views right before Shabbat.
This place is the safest, kindest place I’ve ever been in my entire life.
I have never felt more enclosed and able to be fully tender and exposed than here. The quality of this place is delicious and gentle and I feel held here in ways I cannot completely express. So, I’m not traveling to Dublin to spend the Jewish New Year/Rosh Hashanah with other Jews. I’m staying here, and quietly and deeply saying the prayers that all my folks will be saying. I’ll play the recording, lovingly offered and made for me, of our Temple Beth El Choir, singing the songs they would be singing. I’ve actually been listening to it over and over, and sobbing or singing along. I miss my family, I miss my community and my friends. And, it is okay for me to miss them, because I am not missing my connection to what runs through all of us and the world. That is here for me in every breath, in every view, in every birdsong and stream sound and in the quiet smiles and presence of those around me who are also in communion with the Divine.
L’Shana Tova U’Metuka (A sweet New Year) I wish for you all.
August Full Moon behind the clouds, my cabin, (named Clare) below, Hee Ney Ni/Here I Am, safe in Home and Hearth and Enraptured in Eire.
Having moved across a great many miles by plane, train, taxi and using my own feet, I’ve arrived in the “major” town near where my solitary time will be. I have so many stories to tell about the last month of my life. Adventures in Paris, folks I spoke with, the Hammam Pacha in Paris (a Hammam Pacha Post coming in the future), the Lebanese restaurant Chez Nagi, the Gentle Gourmet (vegetarian and vegan restaurant in Paris), time with my husband that was precious beyond words, lovely luncheons with my father and Judy, long walks through Paris and pounding pavement and endless going up and down stairs in the metro, time at museums, moments of breathtaking wonderment at the master works of some of my favorite painters and discoveries of beauty and joys previously unknown.
But right now I’m in the county of Yeats’ child-hood in the home of Hadi and Lorena. I am watching a murder of crows or ravens wheel about and grab the grains of rice Hadi left out for them from last night’s Iranian feast. The garden is small; off their backyard. I arrived by train from Dublin’s 4pm train, where I flew into Ireland from Paris. I got here around 7pm in the evening, where I am (secret location), and I needed to find accommodation for one night. I knew this ahead of time and so while I was still in Paris I found several possible places to spend the night, thanks to Airbnb, that was easy. What was spectacular is that I landed here in the home of Hadi from Iran and his Lovely Irish wife Lorena.
In the breakfast nook of Hadi & Lorena
What always amazes me is the way the Divine has such a light and lovely touch in my life at this point. Not sure if that is the Holy One taking a personal interest or more just my eyes opening and seeing things from a very specific kind of perspective. But basically, everyone I encounter and engage with, so far, on this journey has been a tremendous offering with something I specifically and deeply wished for and needed offered from out of seemingly nowhere, but clearly somewhere.
This is primarily a story about spices though. The people and the flavors I’ve encountered and the massive engagement with them and reveling in food that I have been on before heading into my more sparse and spare food reality. I knew that Paris would be a place of eating and no holds barred. Why bother being there if you aren’t going to have a chocolat chaud or a croissant or canard or plat des fromages or poisson cuit au amandes et miel? So, yes, a lot of good food has been eaten by me since I left my home, where I cook the good food. I did make a few meals for my beloved in Paris at our Airbnb flat, and one luncheon for Dad and Judy, but otherwise, I’ve been fed and not feeding others for the last month.
While writing this I got an email message from the person who will be picking me up in a few hours. Her message was she’d come get me from this home where I am, but she might be “late.” This is what I responded with:
“I’m writing up a storm here, enjoying the rain, the murder of crows in the yard and will keep my eyes open for you. There is no more late or early for me. I’m on the rain time, the Hermitage time, the time of Holy Happenings as they unfold in Grace.”
Just saying that makes me gleeful. Hadi, Lorena and I have just shared some coffee with honey and delicious almond raspberry cake, made by Lovely Lorena and, of course, more honey. Hadi is from Iran and just recently got to see his family after ten years apart. He has a twin brother and big family there. Because of the wounded crazy and politically complicated parts of our world, it is very hard for him, as a man of Iranian descent, to travel and connect to his family physically. This is part of my story that makes the tears flow.
When I arrived here, I entered in and smelled some very good cooking. I met these two lovely humans and after my long day of travel sat in their kitchen drinking water (tea was offered, but I wanted water). I said it smelled heavenly and wondered might I be able to join them for their dinner when it was ready. The answer was of course. So, I got an delicious Iranian dinner of lamb stew with lentils and an incredible yogurt dish and basmati rice. Hadi also regaled me with his tales about the wonders of honey and the many uses of honey. Hadi and his love of honey were very clear and Lovely Lorena mentioned that many, many. many spoonfuls of honey a day are consumed by her husband. It was clear to me that all the honey eating had made Hadi honeyed and I told Lorena that, let him keep eating all that honey, it’s clearly making him sweet!
Now onto the spicy part of this story.
Paprika from le P’tit Souk
So, while I was in Paris, I knew I needed to buy spices for whatever fare I’d be cooking and consuming in my small cabin. I am just fine with the idea of simpler meals and basic foods, which will be my lot starting tonight and on-wards for many months. I’m not okay without some spice or flavor to put on my legumes or zucchini or grains. So, I went to the market off Maison Blanche metro stop on l’avenue d’Italie on one of the market days, while I was in Paris. Hundreds of people walking in a tiny corridor between vendors offering their watermelons, fish, meat, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, clothing,flowers, bathroom supplies, perfumes, linens, electronics, all calling out to you, in French loudly; all hoping you’ll stop at their stall and not the one down the line for your apricots or your baguette.
I found a stall that was full of gorgeous dried fruits, buckets of olives in many different kinds of brines, nuts and middle-eastern foods, hummous, and baba ghanoush and anchovies and tzaziki and a large array of spices. YAY! I started asking the vendor if he had cumin, coriander, hot pepper, etc… He and I fell a little in love (my husband has been informed). Ramadan, that was his name, was probably somewhere between 60-75. It is hard to say because I’m terrible with figuring out how old or young a person is and he was un petit homme mais avec un grand coeur et un ravissant sourire (a small man but with a big heart and a delightful smile). He had a smooth beautiful hairless head and his skin was lovely and the color of roasted almonds and he was young-looking, but he wasn’t a young man. The first time we met, we just liked each other.
I knew I would come back to his stall and went back there on Sunday (the market was Thursdays and Sundays). I walked too many blocks between all the other vendors and found no Ramadan and his wares. I was very sad. The open air stall is a small representation of their larger presence in Paris called Le P’tit Souk, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to go there, so I thought this was my last chance and I missed it.
I found some time and tried again on the following Thursday and wonderfully, there he was. This is when the love-affair really began. A love affair of spices and enthusiasm over life and the Divine and living with flavor and joy. He kept exclaiming that I was a “femme exceptionelle, extraordinaire” and many other superlatives were used. Now, any vendor knows, complimenting your customer is a VERY good idea. But this wasn’t that. There was a connection and a spark between us, momentary, but real and so kind and genuine. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am always falling in love with everyone. Men, women, birds, beasts, flowers, paintings, the texture of a fine linen, a particular shade of orange on a woman’s dress, I’m just falling in love all the time and everywhere. This is not always so easy for those who love me, but at this point, my most beloved has gotten used to it.
So, I collected all the spices I needed and said Aleicum Salaam/ Aleichem Shalom (which is the farewell portion of the greeting Salaam Aleicum/Shalom Aleichem) to Ramadan and the P’tit Souk stall on avenue D’Italie. Because Sunday was Tisha B’Av, and I was fasting and chose to stay home and observe this day of mourning at “home,” I couldn’t get back to the P’tit Souk. And, perhaps he wouldn’t have been there. Unfortunately for me, the one spice I had forgotten to get was saffron, and I realized this but had no time to return to the market or go to another one before leaving for Ireland. Oh well, one can live without saffron.
But, not really, at least the Holy One and I are aligned in this manner. Ha-Shem gifted me with these people and upon entering the home of Hadi and Lorena and smelling the smells and starting the conversations before dinner, somewhere in all of this, Hadi started getting out all the spices he had brought back with him from Iran. Hadi and I began a conversation in spice and smells. When a good cook meets another good cook, just like gardener to gardener or painter to painter, you share your wares, your secrets, your seeds. So, he gave me a pot of something small and red to smell. I told him I had to say a blessing first before smelling something delightful. I said my blessing and smelled HEAVEN in crushed deep red saffron. I smiled and said, “saffron, from Iran or Turkey?” Hadi said:
“Iran, the best is always from Iran, never Turkey or anywhere else, Iran!”
I’d have to agree. A little while later he gave me a bag of his precious saffron and I almost cried. I’m crying now as I write this.
Perhaps a bag of saffron is not something that would make most people cry, but for me, it’s like being offered jewels or water in a desert. Spice and color are the oasis in a landscape that too many people have made barren and dull. For me, and for those who engage with spices and herbs, the boundaries of delight that we can create with a simple pinch of saffron or a drop of cinnamon or corriander, is our way of making magic real in this world, and on your tongue and in your body.
The Holy One made all of this and all of us, Ramadan the Parisian vendor, Hadi the honey-loving saffron sharing Irish-Iranian, Lorena the Lovely, kind and almond-cake making hostess. You and I and Mick, the Yeats’-quoting poetry taxi-driver and Gearard my train-ride companion for the three-hour train after Dublin, Caleb, the maintenance man, at the Paris flat who carried my hugely heavy suitcase up the two flights of tiny wooden stairs around 4pm in the month of Ramadan, when he hadn’t had any food or water, simply because he was kind and could see that it was going to be very hard for me to do. All of these people and more, all gifts along my path, shimmering jewels of human goodness and flavor that the Holy One has placed on my path as I make my way.
Crows or Ravens enjoying rice offered by Hadi and Lorena
I have lots more stories to tell and I will tell them as they need to be told. For now, if you are in Paris, find the P’tit Souk stall on Avenue d’Italie, say Salaam Aleicum to Ramadan the spice vendor for me. Eat at the Lebanese restaurant Chez Nagi (I’ll tell that adventure, in detail, another time). Also, if you happen to be a vegetarian or love one, as I do, go to the Gentle Gourmet. It is not so easy to find truly Vegan/Vegetarian food when you are traveling, also they have gluten-free, soy-free, and vegan specialties, so if you have particular food requirements and allergies, this is the place for you. I’ll write up a longer narrative about that meal as well, later.
How kind of Ha-Shem to give me these folks and these moments of human connection with excellence and color before I head deep into stillness and contemplation. I’m grateful beyond words and ready to begin a different kind of journey. Heading out to my hermitage shortly and off to unknown territory, but in my bag, my heavy, heavy bag full of what I need for the next ten months, there is one ingredient, lighter than all the rest, it’s the one that will take me straight to Gan Eden/Paradise, the Iranian saffron given to Honey-Loving Hadi by his sweet mother and shared with me, here in Ireland.
Heavenly View from my train ride between Dublin and …..
How can you possibly doubt the presence of Holiness and Honeyedness (a new Nicole word), after hearing this story?
In love of honey, saffron, humans, crows, rain, Yeats and the green, green Isle of Eire,
Open Heart Open Hands 
