One of my favorite books, by Ellen Frankel, to study when I’m wanting to engage in Torah. This book is essential if you want to have an engaged relationship with the stories in the Torah.
So, yesterday was Shabbat. It was also January 21, 2017 and almost everyone I know and members of my family were at protest marches all over the country. Friends in France, England, Ireland and all over the world were protesting. I stayed home and put on my pink fuzzy pajamas (in solidarity with all the pink pussy hats) and said some prayers and studied Torah.
I watched the protests unfolding on my phone and on Facebook. I felt the energy and the hope and exuberance and the anger as well. I am in a counter-current to almost everyone I know. My internal river is moving very slowly in a circular mellow eddy, where I am gathering leaves, moss, rocks, and sticks. I’m crafting something entirely other and different from what has been. I’m not at all in the main stream right now. I’m in the inbetween, in limnal, milky and birthing something different waters.
When I started reading the Torah portion, I was not surprised to see that the story for this day of protest and this week of intense complexity was the story of a wicked ruler/Pharoah who ordered the killing of all Jewish boys upon birth. It’s the story of resistance, of Miriam (the Prophetess sister of Moses) and Yochaved (mother of Moses) and Zipporah (wife of Moses) and Batya (daughter of Pharoah) and Shifrah and Puah (midwives). All Biblically powerful women who did not follow orders, who resisted the violent, crazy powers. They did so with cunning, with solidarity, with creativity and with courage. I encourage you to read this piece of Torah, it’s pretty powerful stuff.
Pink on Pink with Torah portion open to Shemot which corresponds to Exodus 1:1-6:1
So, the story of today, for me feels like the story of thousands of years ago. And while there were signs saying “It’s not 2017 B.C.E” all over the protests going on. Part of me is thinking, yes, actually it is. We are still navigating very similar territory and history is cyclical, circular, complex and has an intensely long arc. I believe there has been and is movement towards goodness and caring and kindness that is huge, but I don’t think we are ever free from certain dynamics.
This is why the Torah is still as alive for me today as it was thousands of years ago for my ancestors. It’s still telling the story of how to navigate life and all the challenges we will certainly encounter while we spin on this planet. It’s still advocating resistance to injustice, solidarity with those who are innocent, vulnerable, different or endangered. It’s still asking us to lead with kindness and goodness and to believe in goodness not just in our minds but in our actions. This is a radical thing to do.
What does active goodness look like? It involves a deep engagement with hope, with trust, with caring, with service, with soup-making and helping others in whatever ways one can. It involves extending our circles of love beyond ourselves and holding the suffering of those near and far in our hearts. It’s not a mental activity, it’s a full-bodied, full hearted, whole self involvement.
I try not to watch the news or participate in the cycle of crazy information that will pull me out of this internal eddy I’m currently in. If you want to understand this practice and my reasons for this read: Open Hearted Elections..
There is something here in the non-news zone to explore that is not angry or fast or stimulating. It’s the slow steady turning of life and love and the knowledge in my bones that I am here to serve and that this is a life-journey, not a sometimes-when-I-feel-like-it-journey. My children are adults now, my youngest just turned 20 on January 20th. I’m shifting my current and looking for how to best honor the Holy One in the coming years. I’m exploring how to flow into my best aware service in consistently trying, even more complex, and intensely challenging times.
Climate change is real, anger, sexism, racism, bigotry of all kinds, belligerence and violence are real forces on this planet. They are not the only forces though. I cannot battle these forces, I have no battle energy currently moving through me. I have tenderness, I have vulnerability, I have clean the kitchen and make soup energy, I have love my friends and family and community energy. I have pray in pink fuzzy pajama and study energy. I have dreaming energy and hoping energy and writing energy.
I have a strong desire to listen to the elders of all wisdom traditions and try to do what is wise to do. I’m very grateful to cede the territory of battle, protest and shifting, on a larger scale, to those who are called to do that kind of work. I don’t think we all serve in the same ways and I don’t think we need to. I’ve been on the front lines and this is not my time for that. I also trust and have Bitahon (absolute trust) in the Holy One, whose plans are not knowable or known to me. This teaching below is an hour long, and crucial because it informs how I understand this period of time we are living in. My teacher, Reb Zalman, May his memory continue to be a blessing, talks about this time as being a time of Axial turning, not a paradigm or quick shifting. A turning towards goodness and change that is several hundred years long, not one or two generations. This resonates for me right now.
The closest I can come to understanding what is impossible to understand is to fall back on what I know is true. What is true for me is that I feel more bound to the effort, than the outcome and to the means and not the ends. So, I will continue to pray in pink, swirl slowly, make medicine, listen to folks in need, help when and where I can, honor the Sabbath, and send out messages when something surfaces that may be of value to others.
Winter Full Moon, Holy Hill, County Sligo Ireland, January 2016
Under the covers, under the stars, under the radar, under, under, under, snowed completely under.
Lost in blankets, wholly surrounded. How the hell to emerge? I don’t seem to have an answer and have had to push myself physically and mentally to move outside of my bedroom. The death of a beloved community member and the grief around this also got me up and out to attend to the details that are mine, as Chair of the Hevra Kadisha, to do when someone dies. Being surrounded, in this process, by good people and community, sharing the tasks, holding each other in our pain and sorrow. This, then, becoming the new blanket I want to be folded into.
The blanket of community and shared carrying of the load. My friend, the grieving widow was expressing, on one of the nights of Shiv’ah, how special it was to have people in her home and how she was so terribly sad that it had to happen as a result of her husband’s death. She was expressing her anguish and loneliness and it was raw. We all know this, we don’t go visit folks or make the time, feel too overwhelmed or just have too much going on, we make excuses or just cannot get ourselves to the homes of others.
When there is a death, that drops away and we get there. This, by itself, is a correct and good thing. The stark contrast though between having your house full of folks for seven days after your husband dies and the fact that prior to that and after that your home will again be pretty empty, that is not a correct or a good thing. But it is the territory we are all in. We push ourselves when the need is great, the grief is current. We slide back into old patterns and ways of being as soon as we can.
There is no judgement here. It’s just something I’m living and experiencing and noticing. The cycle of connection and effort and how that unfolds in my community and life. I remember many years ago, when I was very sick and my husband was as well. We were very contagious with MRSA. We were hoping our young son wouldn’t get infected and he didn’t thanks to the help we got. There was a crew of folks coming to my home washing all the sheets every day, bleaching bathroom and kitchen counters, basically disinfecting my home daily. This enabled us to recover and allowed me to navigate my allergic reactions to various antibiotics. I only had to let folks in my community know I needed help and what I needed and BOOM it was there.
Now, I don’t ask for help that often. I’ve done it a few times in the over twenty years I’ve been a member of my congregation. This time, I’ve mentioned above, was one and more recently when my son got hit by a car, which crushed his right foot, last April. I had too much to navigate and needed meals delivered so I didn’t have to cook on top of everything else. My community was there for me, is there for me.
My cozy bed. Artworks by Alice McClelland and a student of my father’s named Simone. This flower has been over my bed since I was a little girl.
Simone, my father’s student who painted the flower above my bed. Simone is painted here by my mother Helen Redman. My mother’s portraits and colors surrounded me as a child and they inform my life still and always are waking me up.
I attend to my community as I would to my family. I try to be there as much as I can and I also work with my boundaries and knowing that it’s a shared home. This works if everyone in the community is part of the work-force. Not everyone in our congregation or the world is functional or able though, so those folks who need constant help or more help than we can actually provide makes the work a little heavier and harder, because it’s just impossible to actually “fix-it.”
This is where it gets sticky and hard. The feeling of failing, of just not being able to fix or provide enough comfort or help for all the broken things in this world right now, the hopelessness of having someone I cannot bear to look at, or name, be elected President and all the problems I anticipate this will cause. I’ve been telling everyone I know, it’s not going to get easier folks. And, I’m tired, very, very tired of fighting all the battles and extending myself continuously, but the work is not done.
As our beloved prophet Leonard Cohen, may his memory continue to be a profound blessing, says on his last album: “You want it darker, we kill the flame…” It seems extremely dark to me right now, and this song has been a clarion call for me because in the middle of all the darkness there’s the line in this song when Leonard chants “Hineyni/Here I Am.” and then says “I’m ready my Lord.”
These are the words of Abraham and Issac and they are the words of those drawn to service, to the willing offering of everything, absolutely everything, in service to the work in service to the Holy One, even when the territory is full of fog. My hineyni has been whispered lately. It’s been really hard to actually stand up and be heard and loudly proclaim that I am ready to continue serving. I’ve just wanted to be under the covers.
Several things are helping me emerge:
knowing that my hiding will not make anything better
knowing that I am not alone in my feelings
knowing and working always to remember this teaching by Rabbi Tarfon:
a recent teaching shared with me by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone that has to do with us being the food for others and not knowing the end of our story, having to trust and serve without knowing outcomes.
This post by Rebelle Society about these times being dark Goddess Kali times
finding comfort in small-scale victories locally, globally or personally
the patience and kindness of my beloveds
I’m a very lucky and resourced person, in the privileged category. This doesn’t mean I don’t have troubles or concerns, but they are manageable. This is not the case for so many other folks. So, I venture out to be food and nourishment to offer these things as well as be these things for those near me. It’s all I can do. I’ve made a new vow to not get into my bed before 9pm at night. So, between 9 and 9, I’ll offer and navigate my world. On Shabbat and during the night, I’ll re-connect to the Divine and get the nourishment that will enable me to emerge.
My bedroom door with the new “Not before Nine sign” underneath the beautiful Klimt poster that reminds me of my husband and I.
My Mussar assignment this month has to do with creating a fence in front of one activity that takes me over a cliff I don’t want to go over. I identified that getting under the covers wasn’t where I wanted to be, it’s wasteful and not helping anyone as well as causing concern for my husband and friends. It was necessary for me to be in bed for the time I was.
I’m not sorry I’ve spent a large amount of time in bed trying to recover—RE-COVER— I just noticed that this word is extremely apt for where I’ve been, lost in bed recovering myself, like re-wombing myself going into a safe warm place to grow into the next phase.
I’m no newborn though, which is good. I’ve got the tools, the friends, the community, the time and the wherewithal to engage more fully, so it’s time to get out of bed!
“Whatever we are doing, however great or small the act, may we remember to take the wisdom of Joseph with us, and the shamanic medicine of the Baal Shem Tov to help us align ourselves to a Will greater than our own, to become michyah, life-giving food for the great unfolding.” —Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
Queen of Open Hearts and a Rosey Witch of Good Repute who found herself travelling on Halloween, so she gave out organic candy to all travellers she encountered on the path between San Francisco and Denver and she also offered Blessings to anyone who wanted one.
On my perpetually long and expanding “to do list” is….write a piece about my feelings and perspective on the upcoming elections. So, here goes. Welcome to my world:
The Nicole Zen Zone
I do not consume or participate much in the mainstream media realm. I do not own a television. I do not watch any kind of news. I do not listen to any kind of news. I no longer listen to NPR, the BBC, or any other program when news is on. It is not really news. It is the information streamed and filtered through the extremely flawed and fractured lenses of whomever is in charge of that particular stream of information. I am not a conspiracy theorist who believes everyone is evil and has a plan to take over the government or brainwash all of us. Nevertheless, I do think that what we listen to, watch and consume visually and auditorily impacts us as much as what we eat.
Folks who would NEVER eat a Twinkie or a huge plate of really deep-fried weird ugly food that looks stale and smells bad, somehow have no problem consuming huge amounts of vile information and imagery. You cannot watch, listen to, or engage with ugliness and fear without it impacting you. It has the same effect on our systems as if we ate poison. But somehow folks feel that they have to “be informed,” “be educated,” “be aware” and be “on top of it.” It’s unlikely we can ever fully be any of these things.
There’s also the intense addiction and thrill that violent television, gaming and movies engender. The thrill seeking, fear-inducing, sexually stimulating survival based urges which drive much of the hunger for this kind of entertainment is part of the tainted stream that makes folks numb to violence. It gets to children early and hooks them on violent, angry stimuli. It encourages a complete lack of consequences related to aggression and violence. Poison, Poison, Poison.
Dragon I found in a bag of garbage along Cherry Creek in Denver. I took a small walk near my parent’s place along the creek bed. I put my feet in the cool water and then picked up garbage under the foot bridge and on the banks. I took this small walk in between writing this blog post and publishing it. When I was emptying out the bag of garbage and sorting out the recycling I had collected, at the bottom of a pile of stuff was this dragon. I couldn’t throw him out, figured he was a gift for me. I turned him over and it said Nintendo. This, is how the Holy One plays with me. I have just been writing about violent games and media and went for a walk. I can’t stand garbage in nature so I chose to pick up what was on hand near where I was. I found this dragon. I had no idea this image was related to a Nintendo computer game. It’s a really quirky and immediate sense of humor the Universe has!
The idea that we are informed by soundbites is strange to me. Anyone educated knows that all information we receive online, on television, on the airwaves is coming through massive filters. We don’t see the streams and rivers of those filters, but we know many folks with massive educations and degrees and money have made very clear decisions about colors, sounds, visual displays, timing, the color of skin of the folks presenting, which particular story gets to go first, second, third, etc…. The amount of stuff going on behind the scenes of all news or film is truly massive. Yet, folks forget this and are just drawn in, which is exactly what the folks in charge of all these streams of information want. If you are drawn in, you are hooked. If you are hooked you are stimulated. If you are stimulated, you are committed to whatever energetic activity or action the information you just swallowed has created inside of your mind and heart.
When we listen to music we love, or see folks we love, or participate in some activity that gives us joy, we feel good. I do not understand why folks think consuming or watching ugliness is any different. It is like eating poison. If we choose to watch repetitively and deceptive polls and statistics, that are touted as the most important critical piece of information, while they incrementally shift second by second by second, we are ingesting fear. The information being collected by huge systems and organizations that are behind the curtains have very strong agendas and desires that are not about informing us, but are about generating more of our engagement and stimulating us. The collective media engines and the powers behind them need us to be hooked in order to ensure their ongoing existence. It’s not news, it’s statistics.
“There’s lies, damn lies and statistics.” -Mark Twain
I have no issue with reading the news in a visual format or in watching an in-depth program addressing something relevant cogently and with accuracy. Indeed, as long as the story is not a sound-bite, I do actually consume news this way. I have written for The Arcata Eye and the Mad River Union. I love the newspaper. It is vitally necessary to be informed. I am not advocating a blithe naive attitude or that we shouldn’t care or know what is going on. We absolutely must engage with the information that is relevant to our lives. How we do that though is up to us and we can be more choiceful than we are.
I endeavor to have a boundary around my consumption of all that is flawed, broken, unfolding in crisis or ugly. I don’t automatically have those streams of information coming in. I choose when and where I am going to engage based on my energy level, how many folks I am taking care of on any particular day, and what is actually happening for me. If there is an emergency, of course, I would listen to the radio to know where to go and what to do.
Barring an emergency though, I avoid ugliness in the media and stories about murders and violations of any kind. I am extremely sensitive and if I read about or see an image of something gruesome or someone raped or murdered, it enters me physically. I literally feel it in my body. So, I cannot just blithely consume what others do without hesitation. The thing is, just because other folks don’t have my hyper-sensitivity doesn’t mean they aren’t being impacted.
There are no actions in the universe that we can take or do that do not have consequences. Every action has a ripple. Every choice we make has an outcome. Everything we eat, see, hear, touch, breathe, and experience imprints on us and continues to impact us sometimes invisibly.
So, instead of consuming poison and anger and fear and stupidity visually and auditorily, I choose to use the same time to pray for a good outcome for our country. I choose to surround all the players with light and love. I choose to hope and trust that the right outcome will unfold. AND if the person I don’t want to be President becomes president, I will have to trust that this is because the Holy One has a plan I cannot comprehend. This is actually always the situation.
I am not advocating just doing nothing. I am a firm believer in always voting and always contributing to the campaigns and organizations that we believe in and support. But the OUTCOME of huge and even tiny things has very little to do with my participating in this flawed cycle of massive information guzzling and grinding through all of our lives. There are forces at work, that are so much greater than my ability to comprehend them. I have to cede all finally large and strange outcomes, to The Holy Maker of this amazingly perplexing universe, this Olam Ha Ze/This World Here.
Once I do this, I move from scared to, sacred.
I recognize that I am not in charge or in control. This is huge for me. I have agency and power to make a difference, but I am not responsible for the end result. I also refuse to let the negative energy and fear that others live in or experience take up residence in my mind. The only way I can prevent the fears and flaws from influencing me in corrupted and insidious ways is if I fill my heart and mind with something loving, kind, mindful, good or prayerful.
Post my Big Lagoon Swim, where I pray while I swim for, all those in need of healing, our country, the Lagoon, the Native Ancestors whose presence I am in when I am here, and for all the waters of the world to be clean enough to safely swim in.
I don’t want subtle and subversive streams of junk in my heart and mind. I will be fearful when I am standing before the abyss, when my family members or friends are in danger, when someone I love is crossing the street and a truck is heading for them. I will be afraid when I think about how fracking is destroying the blood-streams of our mother earth and how our rivers and streams are still full of toxins. I will be angry every time a person is violated, tortured, beaten, disrespected and treated as less than a Holy Vessel by anyone anywhere on this planet, but I will not spend all of my time thinking about all this horror. I will swim in the stream of pain when it is required of me. When I can make a difference in an outcome and my physical and emotional presence is required, then I will be right in the middle of the ugliest, scariest and worst stuff, no hesitation whatsoever.
The rest of the time, I will be making salves to heal broken skin, or syrups to soothe angry throats. I will be making soups for my friends with cancer or who are feeling unwell. I will sew heart-shaped pillows and fill them with lavender and rose petals from my garden. I will offer prayers of healing to all those who are unwell on my prayer-list. I will pray for our country and the world. Instead of listening to the angry voices and hating the players, I will imagine them, yes even the one I don’t want to be President, and surround them with love and light and ask the Angels and the Holy One to keep them safe and help their hearts to soften or be strong. I will pray for whomever is in a position of power to listen to their hearts and to the voice of Holiness that speaks for kindness and correction of flawed behavior. I will pray forTikkun Olam/Mending the World, for folks to heal and mend what they have broken or what is torn asunder.
Jars of Henry’s Olive Oil stuffed with French Lavender or Calendula petals from my garden. These jars sit in the sun and absorb the moon’s changes for one to two months in the summer. They are infused with bird-song, moon-glow, sunshine and bee blessings. This is the base with which I make the lavender-infused oil or the calendula-infused oil that I use in the salves I make.
On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 instead of being glued to a TV screen in fear, anticipation or giddiness, I will sit in meditation for several hours, with one of my teachers and friends. I will be with others, who like me, choose to use our prayers. our mindfulness and our connection to Holiness be the way we navigate our fears and our desires. We will chant and pray and sit in stillness. I will ask for Loving-Kindness to be a permanent president in residence in the heart of whomever gets elected.
Then, when I emerge, if things go the way I wish for them to go, I will be relieved, but not done caring or praying for all the people in this crazy story. If, when I emerge, things don’t go the way I wish, then I will know that my understanding of the universe and the Divine is once again inadequate.
And on the note of disastrous outcomes, let’s be honest. Most of us do not change our behaviors or habits until the last-minute, when it’s so bad that we have to make a shift. How many folks actively seek out personal growth and correction before there is a problem? How many folks have time for this when they are working full-time jobs for miserable wages and cannot feed their families?
So, if things get horrible here, which is my fear, it will be the catalyst for a greater change than we can imagine. Change is never easy. It is always dangerous and fraught. So, there will be a lot of turmoil and difficulty, kind of like a hard labor, one with complications. I’ve had two of those. I have two beautiful sons as a result of that kind of labor. We don’t know what more labor pains our country and the world have to go through before EVERYONE on this planet and all the BEINGS on this planet are honored and loved. I believe in thatOlam Ha Bah/World to Come . The distance between here and there is the thinnest of veils. This world here, where we live, walk, eat and dream can be Heaven, a Heaven here on Earth. It’s a place we create and make real. It isn’t just a destination post our deaths. It’s a garden we have to cultivate and tend to now and everyday.
Holy One, please help us remove the veils from our eyes, get rid of the film over our vision. Help us to create the world we want and to work for justice and goodness all the days of our lives.
Rainbows in Ireland, off the Western Coast in County Sligo
May your fears be allayed, may your hearts be open, may your mind be calm.
Purple Poppy with Frilly/Frayed Edges from my deck in CaliforniaThere is no way to tell this story without lots of tears, mine, yours and the world’s. It’s an old story and one that repeats all the time and is going on now. It’s my story and it, unfortunately, may be yours as well. I begin to unfold it, here and now, breaking years of silence, on my part. I do this for my healing and hopefully for the healing of someone I love, in the spirit of Elul, and because it is time. There will be much more about this in the future….this is just a beginning.
I failed my prime directive as a mother. I did not keep my children safe from harm.
I was young, single, on welfare and living with charlatans, who I trusted. I cannot justify my failure and indeed it is against Jewish understanding to ask forgiveness or try to explain or justify a wrong action when asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking for forgiveness here. Forgiveness, if it is granted, is a private personal process between my children and myself.
Nevertheless, Here, I am/ Hi Ney Ni, turning in the harsh and cold wind of my pain and regret. One of my beloved sisters, by Love, Terret, recently gave me a piece that has helped me understand this territory more. She has been part of this particular story from its beginning, in terms of being present for my children, and being with me since we met when I was eighteen. I became pregnant with my first child when I was nineteen. Terret reminded me that I would willingly have cut off both my arms, if it had meant I could stop the suffering of my child. Cutting off my arms will not stop the suffering, nor will wishingI had been smarter, wiser, seen what was happening or prevented harm from happening.
If there was a sacrifice, of any kind, that I could make so that the pain in my child’s life would lessen, I would have made it a thousand times over. We cannot go back in time and erase what was done to us or those we love. Hindsight is always 20/20. I can and will continue to support healing and hope for there to be a Refuah Shelemah (Complete Healing of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul). I will do whatever I can to make amends, but I cannot change the past.
Just a few days ago, I met with my child’s therapist, with permission. My children are all adults now, but I am wanting to respect their privacy, so I’m not naming them. This man told me to “take heart.” He said that the fact that I was allowed to speak to him meant that there was an inclination, on the part of my child, for reconciliation.
Taking Heart, for anyone who knows me, seems like a no brainer. I’m all about that, I’m all over it, I’m a poster child for it. Nevertheless, it’s not something I have done or can easily do in this situation. So, it was nice to hear those words.
In two weeks I will stand before the Holy One, with my congregation, with my friends and with my teachers. I will hope for renewal and to be granted a new vessel to hold my soul in. I’m definitely due for some renewal!
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.
Vase/Vessel by Paul Barchilon, Table by Shullie Steinfeld, Flowers by Ha-Shem, arrangement by ME! This is the kind of vessel I inhabit, a very colorful, Moroccan one made with love and of EARTH.
Tikkun Olam/Mending the World, and Refuah/Healing are continual processes. Every year of my life, until I leave this world, I will have to look at myself, my mistakes, my leaks and holes. There is no free ride or free lunch when it comes to personal spiritual growth or practice. If you want to serve the Divine and to serve Goodness, you do not ever rest on your laurels. When all people on earth are fed, when all children are safe from harm, when all those whose lives have been broken by hurt are healed, when the planet is free from wanton and grievous pillaging and rape, when we honor and treasure each other in our differences of shape, size, religious inclination, age, gender identity, sexual preference, pigmentation of our skin, income bracket or whether we are human, animal, plant or river, THEN and ONLY THEN can we rest.
This doesn’t mean you can’t take a break. I take a break every Shabbat, and on every Holy Day. We have days for mourning and feeling all the hurt in my tradition. Those are important for me. Most of the time, I live in a state of constant gratitude to the Divine. I am lucky enough to be able to hear the song of the flowers and the planet. I have tremendous support from family and friends. I have a phenomenal husband who has my back in every way imaginable and who has been with me on this journey for a long time.
I will never regret having my children young and alone. This was how they came to me and I chose to keep them and have them, even without support. I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. Their unique genetic blends, their deliciousness and magnificence is something I will forever delight in. Being their mother has been and is the greatest gift the Holy One has ever given me. And then, I was blessed, to have a third child, finally, with a man who loved me. A man who, not only has stayed the course through very difficult territory, but who has held, supported and nurtured all of us.
I am profoundly and painfully remorseful and sorry that I did not protect my children. I am working all the time to make amends for that harm. My husband was our rescuer, the person who brought us all into his heart and under the protecting shelter of his arms. He came into our lives when my children were three and one. Because of him, healing for all of us is possible.
This photo was taken by my husband, our rescuer. I was 24.Since starting this post, I’ve broken down and cried several times. This territory is so terribly hard and I feel such shame, pain and grief. I’m listening to Berel Alexander’s music right now, it’s helping me. He’s singing a gorgeous song called “Giving Thanks,” from his album Hooked, and because of him, his mother Rabbi Naomi Steinberg, my family, my friends, my community, my prayer practice, and my teachers, I am able to hold this much pain and grief. Because I am not alone, I can and will keep trying to make Tikkun in the world and in my family.
I cannot know if there will be a Refuah Shelemah in our lives, but I won’t stop working for it and praying for it. A wound cannot heal if it is kept in the dark and never tended to. Wounds need to be seen and to have the pus drained out. There is no way to do that without pain and without addressing the root causes of the wound.
The great South African Archbishop, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, gave us the Truth and Reconciliation process/model. With that in mind, I am hopeful. How can anyone think that it isn’t possible to “take heart,” when we have this amazing example of South Africa and their courageous efforts towards healing from the most heinous crimes?
So, I will Take Heart. I hope you will as well, and together, with our very broken hearts, we can come together, each of us, being honest, taking chances, crossing hard territory and trusting that the only way to be whole is if we all are holding hands and working hard to speak truth, being kind, endeavoring to forgive those who have hurt us (if they are genuine in their efforts towards reparations), and even if they aren’t. Forgiveness is healing for us as well as for those we forgive. We still and always must take responsibility for the wrongs we have done and hope and pray to be forgiven.
May you find yourself held and supported as you navigate your own hard territory. You are not Alone!
Rose and Dew drops by the Holy One, reminding us all that there is more Beauty and Grace in the universe than we can ever fathom. I grew this Rose and she returns every year to remind me of this and she smells like Heaven!
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.
Open Heart Open Hands 