New Moon; An Opportunity for a Renewal Life

The intention of the month of Tammuz is to look at things as they are. As I prepare to step into the Mikveh, ritual bath, and cleanse myself of the past months experiences I begin to think and feel what I want to cleanse myself from and what new intentions I want to set.

This month my coaching focused on what I was feeling I was missing and what in actuality I have….lots! I am Maayan Raz, an eternal spring. Not that I am special in any way; this eternal spring is within everyone and we, I, just have to remember this truth.

Eternal Spring means to me that I am connected to the Divine, I am never alone; whether or not my heart is innocent, uncovered, unclouded by the emotions that can constrict the natural rhythmic flow, living in the present moment and imagining possibilities.

So what do I do to remember this truth since I do forget? I teach what I have to learn; I put me at the top of my list, I welcome and surround myself with people who are sometimes wild and crazy and do not limit their thinking and those who do I try to learn from them. I take good care of myself, most times, through eating what I need to keep me healthy, exercising, resting and having objects around me that remind me of joy, love and possibilities. I acknowledge what I know and how much more I want and have to learn. I listen to my heart. I ask for forgiveness of myself and others. I admit what I do not know and have forgotten. I listen to what I speak to my clients and learn from what they tell me. I look for fractals, patterns that appear in my life. I am learning that in order for a spring to continue to flow that I need to be replenished and cleansed from all sources.

Blessings of the Vav: Life is an eternal spring if I choose to see it that way; I can see life as if it is chaos and then I can take a deep breath knowing this too shall pass and a new moment, new month, shall arise offering me an opportunity to begin anew.

Hungry Ghosts and the Grasshopper Story.

In the Chinese tradition, I learned while reading Lisa See's novel Peony in Love, when a person dies and does not have completion of their life's mission they are called a hungry ghosts. And their energy hangs around until fed and then completed. In Hebrew Wisdom this is called a dybbuk, an entity that stays around the living whom it is connected to hoping for a resolution that will send it's soul on it's way. It seems it is the emotions that remain unfettered.

While reading Jason Shulman's Kabbalistic Healing I learned about the emotions in the world of Yetzera that need to be integrated in order to be able to hold the paradox of opposite emotions and to be clear in the thinking of the world of Beria.

The emotions that I seem addicted to I am now calling hungry ghosts and I decided that if I fed them, gave them attention, perhaps they would not need to keep hanging around and distracting my energy from getting what I want.

So as I noticed the flickering of an emotion that I would have typically tossed aside I instead started paying attention and drawing the ghosts and naming each one for instance: 'the need to look good hungry ghost', 'the never enuff hungry ghost', 'the fear of failure HG', or 'I want to be special HG'. Instead of keep tripping over them I have decided to stop denying their presence and just 'feed them'. Once day I even made a plate of food and put it outjust as the people in See's book do.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is what I call the grasshopper story when ten of the 12 spies Moses sent to check out the holy land return saying that there were giants over the Jordan and the giants would see the Hebrews as grasshoppers and the Hebrews would also see themselves as grasshoppers. When G!D heard this an immediate decision was made, no one with those thoughts could go into the holy land and the years of wandering began.

So with the strength of a giant I am facing my hungry ghosts, feeding them and sending them on their way so I can get into the holy land sooner rather than latter. Why not? Only G!D knows how much time I have on this earth and I have too much to do to get hung up on any of these grasshopper moments.

Blessings of the Vav: to be clear of heart and mind a whole picture must be viewed and including all emotions: I am sad and happy about leaving and going all in one breath.