Category Archives: Teachings

We are One….Shema

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Chanting the Shema at my Bat Mitzvah, eyes covered, in September of 2001
Chanting the Shema at my Bat Mitzvah, eyes covered, in September of 2001, photo by Amanda Devons

I don’t want to preach to the choir, especially since I’m Jewish. I want desperately to make contact with folks who don’t think the same way I do. I’m not expecting more than some initial points of connection. A spot where something might adhere, attach itself and grow. No, I’m not a virus hoping to infect unsuspecting and vulnerable adult minds. Piercing the skin or the boundaries we construct around our beliefs is an important exercise though.

 

There’s a slogan that we “left of center” folks live by: “Think Globally, Act Locally.” This idea emerged when the first pictures of the planet earth from outer space started to appear in the media and in our consciousness. Previously, the idea of the world as a globe was conceptual and rendered by artists. Now, we (all of us), are used to looking at the photographic image of our floating blue/green marble in an ocean of black space. This vision of our planet was revolutionary because it was an image void of country, state, county, city or neighborhood property lines or boundaries. From outer space it’s just green and brown for earth, blue for ocean and white for clouds.

 

In fact, to the rest of the universe and from the Holy One’s perspective, that is what we are, plain old inhabitants of the planet earth. We share the planet with billions of other life forms from bacteria and floras and faunas to animals and lava flows. I don’t spend a lot of time relating to my volcanic neighbors, since it can be quite dangerous and I live in the rain zone, but volcanic flows and eruptions impact my life even here. The temperature of our planet is affected by myriad interactions, few of which I can see. I can see the exhaust spewing from the tail pipe of an old beat up pick-up, or the steam coming from the pulp mill towers. I can’t see the continent-size hole in our ozone layer. I don’t have those kinds of eyes. Just because I can’t see this huge behemoth of a wound in our atmosphere doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

 

What I see with my heart and with my eyes closed is very different than what I see with my eyes open.

 

In my tradition there’s a prayer we are advised to say three times a day, there’s lots of those, but I’m going to focus on one of them for the sake of brevity. This prayer is called the Shema, which is a transliteration of the first Hebrew word in the prayer: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Eh-had. All translations mangle the original, but this prayer means something like: Listen all you, who question, struggle, wrestle, or wonder, Holiness is everywhere, is ONE, the Divine is One.

 

This radical monotheistic mantra means the Divine is everywhere and ALL CONNECTED! On top of saying this three times a day, we’re supposed to cover our eyes when we say it. I first learned about covering my eyes when saying this prayer from Rabbi Arieh Hirschfield, of blessed memory. He talked about how with our eyes open, we see distinctions: green grass, brown chair, person wearing blue shirt and green skirt, other person who is older with glasses in black suit, carpet, window, etc…. When we close our eyes, distinctions evaporate and all is black/blank. If we additionally cover our eyes with our hands, there is no sensation of different levels of light, it’s truly dark and all is blurred into one color (black isn’t even a color, it’s the absence of color). This is the place the sages wanted us to be in, the physical sense of being without distinction or boundaries. Our physical act of actively covering our eyes is designed to help us enter the prayer and “get it” that All is One.

 

Every time I used to fill up my 15-year-old Volvo’s gas tank, whether I did it at the Union 76 near the plaza, the Shell Station in Northtown or Cash Oil on Samoa Boulevard, I was contributing to the damaging of my environment. There is blood on my hands, no matter where I purchase my gasoline from. I do not have to pick up a gun or a knife for this to be true. I have to live with this and work for justice and change, but I cannot pretend I am innocent.

 

I’m trying to buy from my local Arcata vendors more often than not. I’m able to do my errands, run our small business, and live my life with greater ease. I don’t ride my bike everyday to and from Bayside, I should, I should, but I don’t. I drive my car (at this point I drive a 2008 Toyota Prius) for lots of reasons, mainly so I can get all the things done I need to do in a day. I try to drive less or to combine all my errands into one outing, so I contribute less to the problems I believe are connected to our fossil fuel addiction.

 

That relationship with fossil fuels is part of the picture in Iraq, and Iran, and all over the globe where there is violence. I’m not willing to say it is all that is going on, but it’s one of the reasons we are often in Iraq but not in Dar-fur. If we don’t have a financial connection or reason to engage with a country whose policies we dislike, we won’t often bother. When Peace becomes profitable, it will be the norm, not the exception. I hope we move towards it regardless, but I cannot control others, only myself.

 

I shop where I live because this is where I’ve chosen to live and my need for relationship and connection to other small business owners supersedes my need to be comfortable or always at peace with their beliefs or the beliefs of those I disagree with who live here as well. I might be buying something from someone who I argued vehemently with at a city council meeting, but I will still greet that person with kindness when I see them the following day. We are living here together. This is actually something that can be multiplied out and apply to all of us on the planet. We are all living on this planet and we have to find ways to see ourselves as connected.

 

I recognize that if it costs me a tiny bit more to buy a book at my local bookstore, Northtown Books than it does from Amazon.com. I’m contributing to my community directly when I purchase things locally and that has more value for me. Local vendors give away thousands of dollars every year for every raffle, benefit or event that school children or non-profits come up with. You will find their names on the list of benefactors always. Even when I can’t see the connections, I recognize that they are there. When I think globally and act locally I believe I am making a small difference in the cycle of destruction so many are engaged in.

 

I treasure those who join me in this. I want to understand and reach towards those who cannot find these connection points. I don’t know that I’ve been successful in my efforts to not preach to the choir. I am verbose, overly intense at times and irrepressible (even my beloved husband says so). I hope some of this makes sense and I’m a work in progress, as is my writing. I ask for your understanding as I learn to express what is true and meaningful for me in service to the idea of being in deeper relationship with all of you.

 

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to close our eyes and listen. We’re all sharing this space together and the more compassionate, caring and tender we are with one another, the more likely we are to live harmoniously. I’m hopeful because I choose to stop, several times a day, and remember that we are all connected and sharing this space together. This gives me hope because I know how magnificent, intelligent and lovely most of the people I come in contact with are and because even without my prayers, thanks or noticing, the sun rises and the planet spins on its axis and there is rain for my garden.

 

May you find what binds you to your community and continue to struggle, dance and wrestle with those you may not always see eye to eye with. I promise you, it’s worth the effort and if we think before we speak and take a moment to close our eyes and listen, our engagements will be less fraught and more likely to bring about resolution and a sense of how we are all ONE.

 

Nicole lives in Bayside, shops in Arcata, and prays all the time, everywhere.

 

©Nicole Barchilon Frank

This piece is adapted from a Just Being Frank Article in the Arcata Eye, May of 2005

M.A.P.S.–Massage Acupuncture Pedicure Spiritual practice

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Radiant Healthy Flowers on the Bima from Redwood Roots Farm in honor of the Jewish New Year
Radiant Healthy Flowers on the Bima from Redwood Roots Farm in honor of the Jewish New Year

A Quick Guide to the Alpha Female Jewish Mother M.A.P. + BIG S or a really good Recipe for Saving the World and Yourself

I generally am the person that everyone finds, asks or expects to be helpful, in charge, or doing the work; the Alpha, Alpha female in most situations. This recipe does apply for all people and genders, but I am definitely an Alpha Female, so I have to address this from where I am.

I am part of a large wolf-pack of sisters of amazing women who give huge amounts to their communities, their children, their spouses, their religious organizations. We all recognize each other, upon sight, and there is a sheer delight for me when I get to work with other power-house women. I know I can relax or flow in a completely different way than how I tend to operate when the only Alpha female in the space is me. If no one is in charge in a situation that I think needs some taking charge of, a flip gets switched in me. It’s a reflex, I just start moving into action.

Thirty-five years of Alpha female behavior wears on a woman (I started in my early teens). I will turn fifty in September of 2014, very, very soon. In order to maintain myself and navigate all that I do and am, I have a map I follow. Massage, Acupuncture, Pedicure and Shabbat/Sleep and Spiritual Practice. You don’t have to be wealthy to use this recipe or M.A.P. (S). You do have to have sisters or friends who will trade with you one or more of these activities. I don’t recommend seeing anyone other than a licensed professional acupuncturist though, (you will need to save money or work out a trade for this activity).

I have a monthly massage with a person I trust and who is a professional. I budget for this. When my budget won’t allow for this, I have a friend whose touch is lovely and we trade. I massage her, she me. I see my acupuncturist regularly two to four times a month. This is a maintenance issue for me now as I navigate menopause, a thyroid condition and as I experience the very real wear and tear on my body of a life spent doing and caring about and for lots of folks and the planet. I also get a pedicure once a month, either with a friend or at a local spa. So, I am covered top to bottom with this MAP.

The most important ingredient in all of this is my Spiritual Practice. It is really beyond this simple list, but since it conveniently starts with an S as do the words Shabbat and Sleep, it fits really well here. Sleep is not something I always manage to get fully, but I almost always have a day of rest. On Shabbat, I endeavor not to get out of my pajamas and to spend the majority of the day quiet in bed, on my deck or on the sofa. I study Torah, read a good book (when I’m not reading THE GOOD BOOK), nap, eat left-overs and visit with whomever shows up. I don’t check my email, or pay bills and I also try not to answer the phone, be on the computer, or deal with anything I don’t want to be doing. I have worked hard six days a week, most of my life, in various jobs (some that paid, others that didn’t). I don’t define work by the money I have been paid for what I do. If care-givers were paid wages based on what we do, we’d be millionaires, all of us.

You don’t have to be Jewish or wealthy to take care of yourself or observe a day of rest. You can make your own map. Acupuncture may not be something you can imagine wanting or needing, likewise a full body massage may not be something you want. They are incredibly important and useful to me. My particular MAP makes a good acronym, but yours may not, it still needs to be explored.

Yoga, gardening, Qi Gong, meditation, hot-tubs, swimming, hiking, biking, running, anything that gets your blood circulating and helps you feel nourished counts. It has to be helpful to your full being though, not just punishing and aerobic. I think the aerobic stuff is very important but it is very different than the self-care, relaxation and deep nourishment that I am talking about here. Also, if one of these activities is your paid work, then it doesn’t necessarily count as self-nourishment. If what you are doing has a purpose, like losing weight or “being good for you” while making you unhappy it is not part of my recipe. I’m not advocating against exercise, but what I am talking about here is really different. I want to be very clear about this.

Exercise and body engagement are extremely important, but the worship of the body that our culture thrives on is not healthy. Our bodies are vessels, temples of Holiness and the homes of our souls. They have very short life-spans, even if you live to be 120, that is a nanosecond of time on a universal time-scale. Some folks are born with different abilities and bodies than others, some folks are in accidents or have compromised immune systems and they will NEVER look like or feel like the culture tells them is healthy. This is FLAWED. Health cannot just be the provenance of the few lucky folks who don’t have any medical issues or who have been born with amazing genetics or who happen to look like the airbrushed models or stars onscreen and in the media.

Real health is a much GREATER thing. When you relax your body and you actually feel it, the blood flowing through it, the magnificent feeling of BEING in a body, there should be a strong sense of gratitude and a quality of Presence beyond Self that accompanies that. This is HEALTHY. The grace of having a body and being free to breathe or taste or love or sing is a gift and just using our bodies without giving thanks for them is wrong. Likewise taking for granted the bodies we have, regardless of their issues, “flaws,” sizes and shapes is not advised by this Jewish Mama.

You cannot navigate the terrain (of being an awake and caring person on this planet) without some kind of self-love and gratitude map. Folks often wonder how I do so much. There is no quick answer for this. I generally have more energy and chutzpah than most folks, but part of how I walk on this path and and why I do what I do is because I am not just doing for others. I also DO for myself and I take it seriously, not once a year or if I get a break, but regularly, weekly and monthly. I am also constantly, really all the time, in a state of gratitude. When I’m not, I know something is off and I have to re-align or get a Massage, Acupuncture or a Pedicure or I have to wait for Shabbat and remember to actually observe it.

Spiritual practice, which runs through everything I do, whether it is “Praying in the Lap Lane,”  cooking, riding my bike, or attending religious services is what keeps me not just in my body, but ALIVE in my body. My engaged practice with the Divine informs and inspires all of what I do and who I am and how I am. There are as many ways to connect to something larger than self as there are selves on the planet. It doesn’t make any difference to me how you define Holiness, but it does make a difference to serve a greater or higher purpose that is meaningful and real for you.

The inspiration to continue or to move past fatigue or to engage once again with pursuing justice or getting back up off the ground when we fall, needs to be linked to something bigger than our finite sense of self and whatever energy we have to spare. If it is related to a real relationship with beauty, excellence, grace, mystery and delight it will sustain us, inform us, guide us and prepare us while it also will continually bathe and soothe us as we work to mend what is broken in our world or in ourselves.

So, the Alpha Female Jewish Mother MAP/Recipe for the whole world looks something like this: Start to look into or further cultivate your relationship to something greater than yourself and don’t forget to give yourself a lot of juice and love along the way and while your at it, endeavor to find your gratitude and to cultivate it and be generous with who you are and what you have been given.

If you do all this, well, the world really will be a better place and you’ll be happier to be in it and on it for the eye-blink of time you’ve been granted to be in the body you are inhabiting at this moment. ENJOY!

 

 

More than One, Fifty years since my sister Paula’s Death, I remember….

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Me, at the age, my sister Paula, died next to her grave in Boulder Colorado
Me, around the same age as my sister Paula when she died. I am sitting next to her grave (called the Lollipop grave) in Boulder, Colorado. This gravestone was commissioned by my parents, because while holding Paula they saw her interest in one of  DeWain Valentine’s watercolors, a heart shaped abstraction hanging in his studio. “Paula pointed to it with great animation and when we recalled that, after her death, we decided to commission DeWain to make it into a sculpture to mark her grave.”

 

Today, May 16, 2014 marks 50 years since my sister Paula died. I was inside my mother’s womb three and a half months from being born on that day. In this picture I am somewhere between two and three. My sister died three months short of her second birthday. Her death has marked my life as well as the lives of all our family. Death is a certainty for all of us, but no one wants a child to die or expects it.

I am truly a child of death, born into the grieving arms of my amazing and brave parents, who had to find love and presence to give me while being devastated about the loss of their firstborn beautiful child.

Every year at this time I light a Yahrzeit candle for her and remember her physical presence on this earth. This Jewish practice is so important to me and gives me a comfort that is beyond words. I feel connected to my sister across time and space and I remember her and honor her and recognize that her short time on this earth was real and deserves honoring.

Yahrzeit Candle and memory altar for Paula on anniversary of her death.
Yahrzeit Candle and memory altar for Paula on anniversary of her death.

My parents have gone through various different ways of mourning her over the last fifty years. There is no way to navigate the territory of the death of a child right or wrong. It is all wrong.

Everything about a child dying feels wrong and those who have to cross that territory know this in a way that others who have not cannot really speak to. I have not lost a child to death and I pray I never do, but that is not within my control. Death is a certainty, there is no way out of it.

The mainstream culture runs kicking and screaming from this reality, racing as fast as they can from the idea that we all have a date stamp on us, one that we don’t know and cannot see.

If you are a practicing Buddhist, you spend a very long time imagining and looking at your own death in all kinds of different scenarios. If you are a Tribally aligned person, from anywhere around the globe, you recognize that the spirits of those who have died are here on this earth either to help or teach or hinder us based on many different factors. If you are an African Dagara Shaman like Malidoma Patrice Somé , you have a frame-work of belief that holds you, as the progeny of an ancestor, responsible for their wrong actions and the beneficiary of their good actions. If you are Hindu, you are engaged in a circle and chain of lives lived across space and time over and over in various forms. If you are Mexican you will make a feast and an altar of memories and offerings for your dead once a year and recognize and remember them together. Here, we just foolishly hope death will go away and try to avoid the topic. I’m summarizing very deep and profound beliefs here and could write many long essays on each of these, and perhaps I will, or as we say in my tradition, “go and study.” If something here stimulates you to learn more or go deeper, maybe even into the burial root ground of your soul.

I have studied and do study death more than most folks in our society. I am a co-founder of our community’s burial society called a Hevra Kadisha. I prepare folks for burial according to Jewish tradition. I have been called by death from within the womb-safe belly of my mother. I met my sister in that liminal space between, before my birth and after her death.

She was my angel in all the dark nights of my childhood, a sweet presence that helped me find hope, or pointed out the right direction.

I visited her grave as a child and have always held a place for her in my heart.

Memoriam Collage by Helen Redman 1995
Memoriam Collage by Helen Redman 1995

When I was a teenager I would visit the graveyard with my friend Gretchen Reinhardt and we would attempt to rescue or put back together gravestones that had been vandalized.

I was never afraid in that graveyard. All those dead were my friends. It was a quiet, calm place where I didn’t have to feel all the pain of those around me. No one was teasing me or hurting me and I never felt like an alien in the cemetery. I was at home there, I still am. Death and I have always been in relationship.

Which is why everyday of my life feels like an amazing gift that I need to live fully and well. I am not running away from the knowledge that I will die, that all those I love and cherish will die. I am acutely aware of this and I know it in my cells and in my blood. My umbilical cord blood was saturated with the pain of my sister’s passing, my very core has been colored by her passing. This is not a sad story though, while at the same time being the saddest story.

I am more than okay now as I round the corner towards fifty and I pass this spot on the calendar and I touch her once again in the cycle of remembering. I know that there is more to death than an end. I know this in my body, heart and mind, in my Lev (Hebrew for Heart/Mind)  and in my soul and it is not just a comfort to me, it is a lifeline and a guiding force in my life.

I know this post will make my mother cry, but she and I have a long and deep understanding about honesty and truth-telling and being real with each other. We both have made and will make mistakes, but we are linked so very deeply in our connection to dealing with death honestly and with whatever we have to bring to the table around it. Others in my family do not often want to talk about Paula, but perhaps they will read this or maybe they won’t. My father used to take me to her grave as a child, this was not something I did with my mother. As an adult when I am in Boulder I visit her grave and place a stone on it.

Jewish folks bring stones to a grave, stones to mark that our memory for those who have left this earth is as long and durable and tangible as that of a stone or a rock. A rock has been around for millenniums and this symbolic act is our way of saying, “YOU are present for us still today.” It reminds us to do good and enact justice for those who are living. It reminds us to not throw stones, but to remember that everyone is precious and will be mourned by someone, so we shouldn’t go around killing folks EVER!

A rock says, I silently mark this territory and bear witness for you, even when you are in the ground yourself, I will still be here as a reminder of your presence on this planet, at this place.

Visiting my sister's grave October 2014, leaving stones and saying prayers and remembering.
Visiting my sister’s grave October 2014, leaving stones and saying prayers and remembering.

I have a mother who is an artist and who has been marking my presence and journey on this earth since before I was born into it. She has marked me with paint and pastel, with pencil and with cloth. Reminding me and anyone brave enough to visit this place of pain, death and life that we are always MORE THAN ONE.

We are all connected one to the other, now and forever and always and always.

I love you mommy and I love you Papa. I grieve for your loss, even still and especially, today fifty years later.

Thank you for loving me so deeply and magnificently!

Here I am, inside my mommy, right before I was born, more than one always!

More than One by Helen Redman, 1964
More than One, by Helen Redman, 1964

 

 

 

Marathon Mama, sitting by the River in my Heart

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http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/images/Elwha-River-log-Scott-Church-copy.jpg
http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/images/Elwha-River-log-Scott-Church-copy.jpg

Well, here I am again at 4:33 a.m. in the morning, sometimes I just have to get out of bed and start sharing. I had to drag myself out of the kitchen, after the tea water was ready. “I am not putting away dishes now, this is time to write and be creative in.” This is what I was saying to myself, as I walked out of the kitchen, then I saw the cat vomit on the floor, cleaned that up, and now I’m sitting at the computer.

 

My tea is next to me. I don’t really know where to begin, at least not without crying. For the past few days, I’ve been mostly in the body of a little boy who was in a head-on collision with his dad. His name is Chase Jesiah and he has a gorgeous smile and beautiful eyes. Jesiah comes with his grandmother to services I lead at our congregation. My services are always open to children, but most kids don’t feel too inclined to do that kind of thing. He always gives me hugs and thanks me and enriches anything I am doing. He will be okay, I believe this with all my heart. He’s been in Oakland at the children’s hospital there and has had lots of surgeries and doctors and nurses and family around him. He’s also surrounded by the prayers of our community and all the angels I can send his way.

 

His father, Wade, is in critical condition and at another hospital in Santa Rosa and will need a solid year most likely of recovery from his injuries. His father has not been surrounded just by loving kindness, but by judgments and difficulty. He is suffering also. I have only ever known Wade as a kind presence at his mother’s side at the funeral of his grandmother, Jesiah’s great grandmother, or when he has come to a service to pick up his son. I know the grandmother Hadasah best, because she has been a member of our congregation for years and years. Anyone reading this can just imagine the horror of all of this for the entire family and community. Everything else pales in comparison. I also do not know the outcomes for any of the other folks injured in this collision. I have been completely focused on praying for Wade and Jesiah and their family.

 

I’ve also been tending to my husband post his minor surgery and dealing with my own body’s exhaustion, post traveling to DC and helping my daughter recover from her third surgery which happened right before Passover. Then there was making Passover happen, then before that going back eleven months there has been a steady stream of accidents, deaths, financial challenges, friends and family in tremendous pain, illness, confusion and suffering, folks getting divorces, cancer, losing homes and hope. It’s been a really long and hard period of time, a marathon really of epic proportions.

 

I keep asking the Holy One, when will this stop, when will there be a break?

 

Apparently the answer to that question is: There won’t be.

 

So, how does one run a marathon? At full speed all the time, nope I know that doesn’t work. Slow and steady the whole time, well life isn’t like that, sometimes you have to really extend and work super hard to help folks or deal with something and you can’t be slow and steady. Stopping and starting, will that work? No, that doesn’t work either, at least not when it is a race, but I think some combination of all of these are how I am navigating this. And, I’m not running this particular marathon by myself. Everywhere around me is a throng of bodies in motion. We are all running, aiming towards the finish line, hoping it is coming soon, but the rules of this particular jaunt dictate that the finish line keeps being moved.

 

I really just want to curl up under a tree next to a river and not encounter another human being for a VERY long time. I want to cry and sleep and read and swim and watch the fish meander about. I want to listen to the sound of the water as it rushes past the rocks and the wind as it moves gently through the trees. I want to make stick and stone sculptures with whatever is at hand. I want to pray and never stop and not be interrupted. I want to feel the angels that are near me and just be with them in light and praise of the incredible gorgeous beauty of the Holy One and the Creation.

 

At least for this moment I can do that in my mind. I also just want EVERYONE I know and love and encounter everywhere to get it that they are loved and held by the Holy One. I don’t care if they are atheists or scientists or even if they actually belong to a religious community. I just feel that if people could actually see and feel the presence of wonder and holiness everything would be so much better for them. Duh!, but for some reason folks don’t see or feel the Grace and Beauty and Wonder that I do. And I cannot make them feel that, no matter how hard I try. I want to so bad, I want to just be like a magic fairy that waves her wand and makes everything appear golden and laced with mist and jewels and dew so that folks stop their angry responses and their despondency and their criticisms of self and others melts like butter in the sun.

 

I feel like I am the luckiest woman in the world. I have so much goodness and love in my life and even though I am tired and I want a break from all the beautiful people I love and who love me, I still am grateful for them and for all their unfoldings. So, tonight I will lead a healing circle for Jesiah and Wade, for all the folks in our community who have people to pray for, not just these two folks, but lots of others as well. We will imagine all those we love filled with light and being held by our love and prayers and by the angel of healing Raphael.

 

Then I will lay all of my wishing and wanting down and I will light Shabbat candles and usher in 27 hours of PURE MAGIC. It’s my time of prayer and sitting by the river in my heart and just not asking for anything, of trusting and reconnecting with all that is good and right in the world, because along with all the hard stuff, there is soooooooooooooo much that is good and right in the world.

 

Between now and then, I need to get some sleep, cook some food for the potluck meal at the Temple tonight, deal with my desk, plan the service I am leading, try and get a swim in and if I’m lucky have a few moments to just sit on my deck and enjoy the flowers. If I don’t get to that part today, for sure I will tomorrow, since this marathon mama does no running on Shabbat!

Here is the basket of goodies that includes the chain of beads we prayed over and made to send to Jesiah and Wade.
Here is the basket of goodies and cards that includes the chain of beads we prayed over and made to send to Jesiah and Wade.

Preparing for Passover and setting a place at the table for the Holiest Guest

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Pesach Table Setting with Seder Plate by Paul Barchilon at my home last year.
Pesach Table Setting with Seder Plate by Paul Barchilon at my home last year.

I went looking for something to share that wouldn’t take me too much time, something I’d already written that I could upload here and then get back to the work of preparing for Passover. I was sure I had written about Passover/Pesach many times, it turns out, this was all in my mind.

 

Of course, what I have done is prepare for and celebrate Pesach, which, if you’ve ever prepared for Pesach you know, means you don’t have three seconds to write about what you are doing. I haven’t had a relationship with Pesach my whole life. My first Seder happened in the home of my boyfriend when I was fourteen and it was sooooooooooo wonderful and wild and incredible that I have been hooked ever since. It was all in English and mostly a bacchanalian experience with everyone in a toga and lots of food and drinking, what teenager wouldn’t love that? Nothing like it had ever happened in my home and I was in love both with my boyfriend Matthue and with the ritual meal, foods and experience.

 

Pesach is always a journey and a hard one, when you are actually responsible for the holiday, not just a guest at someone’s table. No matter where I am or what is going on in my life, the month before Passover involves some deep cleaning and mess uncovering. It involves long days and nights of work and being exhausted. It is full of stress and confusion and work and trying really hard to turn all the myriad tasks and the hard work into an offering. In Judaism we have a philosophy or pathway that helps us take all things hard or difficult and turn them towards the use of what is Holy or of Service, it’s called for the sake of Heaven (l’Shmayim).

 

It is not the same as being enslaved to a job or a master with a whip, as the story of Pesach reminds us about every year, but there are elements of those things. I find I am enslaved to the laundry, the groceries, the endless cycles of my life and all I have to do to keep my family healthy and well and myself too. There is a resentment in me that I regularly have to navigate. It’s minor in comparison to what I perceive other people having. I may be fooling myself here. I generally feel choiceful about being a servant to my family and community, friends and the planet. I have actively and regularly chosen and asked to serve the Divine and accept that what unfolds in my life is a combination of that prayer being answered and my dedication to a life of service. I know that my life is amazingly blessed and yet, when it all gets to be too much I feel weighed down and somehow put upon.

 

These feelings are part of the process of preparing for the holiday or liberating ourselves and liberation of those who are oppressed. I am intrinsically bound to a cycle that I find myself both caught in and delighted by. I cannot imagine my life without the Jewish holiday cycles. They are linked to the cycles of harvest and the seasons and also to the narrative of my people across thousands of years. I believe they are central to my cellular make-up, which may sound patently absurd. My relationship to my sense of what is right and true for me is body-centered and always has been.

 

The first time I heard Hebrew singing and praying, it was like having a rushing whooshing sound move through me and also my whole world felt tiny and encapsulated and I was hot and everything shifted inside of me and I felt alive in a completely whole way that was instantaneously familiar and new at the same time. It was miraculous and continues to be. That time was when I was 18 years old and went to my first Shabbat dinner at a Havurah/Group Gathering in Boulder Colorado in 1982.

 

So, my relationship with Pesach is multi-layered. It’s a combination of scrubbing and cleaning and removing all the schmutz/mess/grease, caked on goo from my physical world, but also my internal world. It’s an opportunity to be free and smooth, to be liberated in every way from the gunk of my life. In order to get there, I have to work really hard, and that’s the part that feels not so good a lot of the time, but because this is MY CHOICE and not something forced upon me, it also has a quality of being an offering.

 

Unless you have had to clean up your reality or space and see it as a spiritual practice, I think this may be hard to relate to for many folks. Usually people only clean at this level when they move. I do this once a year, every year and I don’t just do it for my space, but for my heart and the home inside of myself I make for the Holy One to dwell inside of. I am cleaning my space to make room for the miracles of the Pesach story that all culminate in the giving of the Torah. So, as I scrub and rub and crawl around the corners of the house and I get vigorous in my scrubbing, I imagine the space being made really clean for the Holiest guest. Once the space is ready,I then work on preparing a feast that tells the story of my people and I share that story with others and with the special foods. It’s an extraordinary experience.

 

I hope you will find a Seder to go to, if you aren’t Jewish, at least once in your life. If you are Jewish, I hope you have a lovely Seder to go to, and if you don’t, clean your kitchen, sit down with some wine, some apples, honey, matzoh, wine, horseradish, parsley and whatever other foods you need or want that are part of this holiday and set your own table for the Holy One to come join you at. All the work, even if you cannot do it at the micro and macro level I am talking about, is for the sake of Heaven, however you interpret that.

 

I have to get back to it now, so I’ll close by wishing you all good cleaning, cooking, feasting, studying and sharing together as the Spring unfolds and as the Full Moon eclipse and Pesach coincide, may the reminder of how we are all connected and linked be present for you in your bodies, homes and communities.