Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Including me on the Daily To-do List


I read a book recently and many others are also laughing and learning their way through it, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, a woman’s guide to everything.

The other day while working with a client I recommended the book to her. As I said the title I began to think of the words as a mantra and offered this idea to her. Now I put Eat-Pray-Love on the top of my daily list as a ‘must do’. I see this as a way of including Me in my day.

Eat by filling myself during the day with delicious, nutritious, fulfilling experiences so that I am satisfied in all four worlds even when I watch the news I am living in this world not avoiding the pain of others and
Pray by being grateful for each breath and for the others who may be in a narrow place, taking time to meditate on the thirteen attributes of G!D and remembering to bless each morsel I place in my mouth and for the ability to walk, talk, think and release from my body, mind and heart everything that I do not need to carry with me and
Love which brings a smile to my face surrounding myself by love inside and out only can relax me into the moment instead of leaning forward into the next second. My mother was watching me read at her table the other day and commented how happy it made her to see me sitting so upright. So all this practice maybe working. Halleluyah! And may everyone be so blessed!
Blessing of the Vav: including you in your life is being soul-full.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Being One, Devekute


Being one means we are never separate
My yearning is about joy not pain
Being one means physical distance is an illusion
So why let the mind win?
Being one means today is yesterday was tomorrow
Being one means I am you and you are I
How can I ever doubt Your love for me or mine for you?
Being one means space allows us to be
Forever young, old, born again into me
Being one means treating me as I treat You
With patience, love, curiosity and as not the enemy

Gates of Tears and Teshuvah


Life, birth and death and everything in between, is dynamic and continuous.

Hebrew Wisdom teaches that the Gates of Tears are always open as is our opportunity to do teshuvah return to our true self and G!D.

Are the gates of tears only for tears of sadness, hopelessness?

Can the tears be of joy of coming home? Can they be both? Remembering Hagar in the desert I ask ‘Does one bring us to another? ‘

Perhaps we cry out of fear, loneliness and sorrow and the result is teshuvah, of returning to the Path and a coming home to emet, the truth, and realizing we are at One-ment with our G!D all the time.

Perhaps that is experiencing a zivug, a holy relationship, as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes of in Lonely Man Of faith; G!D was lonely for us as we were experiencing our loneliness.

So I will cry, whine and emote all my feelings GW they are the path to the open Gates of Tears, to joy in my heart and Home.

Society of the Vav
20 Tishrei 5768
Hol Hamoed Succot