Intention: To Save a Life

In Hebrew Wisdom we are taught the importance of the intention to save one life. In fact the poster on the wall in my friends' home quotes the Talmud; who ever destroys a single life destroys the entire world and who ever saves a single life saves the the world entire.

I believe that I have always wanted to make the world a better place. When I was a young mother in Peabody I donated many times to the Red Cross as I thought that my blood was the only thing I had to give.

Yesterday I worked with a woman who felt caught in the fortress around her heart. The next day after our session she was beaming no longer captured by the past. She wrote me short note saying that 'you not only saved a life you did a mitzvah.' A mitzvah is a way of connecting my soul with the Divine and being directly on one's mission path.

When I wonder about my work as a rabbi and what impact I have on people as a healer of hearts I will remember this moment. I remember the erev Shavuot when many Jews stay up all night studying when a group of women got together to study and told their stories of their relationship with Judaism. It was a lovely evening, gentle, kind, open and when everyone was heading home each said let us do it again as they felt connected in a new way to their roots and that made them happy.

Today a healer asked me if I had been working with people who have so many gifts they were confused as to which path to follow. In getting caught in my linear, all or nothing, good or bad thinking I can limit my choices to how I will love myself and my life! We spoke of embracing and integrating our passions and living one life that is layered with passions over a life time; each passion feeding the other like the ob-gyn doc who loves to paint.

How can I save my life? I tell my clients that a good coach listens deeply to their voice and to my inner voice and then we collaborate to help them get what they want and need. I must do that for myself , too.

Writing helps me accept myself and to be confident as I am embracing all of me as I create and save one life.

Blessings of the Vav; if the vav can save the world then the and can save my life through including all of me, loving all of me despite the rough spots I am saving my life for Who knows what will come next.

I Know Nothing Or At Least I Need to Pretend I Do

On Friday I received a message from a healer friend in Israel that she needed some hands on help with some distance work she was doing with a woman in Brooklyn. Sunday I was able to connect with the family. Not knowing what I am capable of and how I can help I moved in slowly; speaking directly of my limited experience for their needs and offering to do what I could to find someone locally for them. When I got off the phone I tried very hard to sit in a place of not knowing asking for information that might lead to know what my part in this process was. I was aware of how the ego was playing and teasing me to be more involved, judging me for not jumping in to play. When a persistent idea kept coming into my consciousness I called and offered that information to the family and as we talked more thoughts arose that I offered that was helpful and mind expanding for the family member I was speaking with. In the humble place of not knowing there was space for information that is needed to arise. I am in awe.

Blessings of the Vav: even when I think that I know what belongs after the next 'and' I must breathe deeply and allow what needs to fit the space to arise without the arrogant nature and desperate mind's need to fill space taking over. I must impose impulse control and tzitzim, make space for the other. I am not alone! Another moment to act in the image of G!D.

An Artist's Prayer

As I move through the place I am leaving seeing the details I cannot avoid I found this prayer I had stuck up on the transom of my office/creativity room. I have had it for quite a while and could not throw it away and yet in its present condition I could not take it with me. So I sat at the computer to copy it and as I read it I knew I needed to create a new poem based on the one that an anonymous person had written adding my touch and hopefully new energy for my new home. I think we are are all artist's in our own way; not quite like Betzelel and yet who is judging? If we are all created in the image of the Divine and in Her likeness then we are capable of being creative doing our part to enhance the beauty of what we have.

An Artist’s Prayer

O Great Creator of All Life, Breath of our Breath
We gather Here in Your name
That we may be of service to You
And to our sisters and brothers
We offer ourselves to you as instruments
We open ourselves to your creativity in our lives
We surrender to you our old ideas
We welcome your new and more expansive thoughts
We trust that you will lead
We trust that it is safe to follow
We know you created us and that creativity
Is Your nature and our own
We ask you to unfold our lives
According to Your plan and let us see what we have deemed impossible
Help us to believe that it is never too late
And we are can be healed and feel the connectedness with all things
Help us to love one another
To nurture each other’s unfolding
To encourage each other’s growth
And understand each other’s fears
Help us to know that we are never alone
That we are made in Your Image and loved and lovable
Help us to create as an act of worship to You.
adapted from Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way

Blessings of the Vav: In adding our touch we are creating something new and putting our mark on the world; then 'everything changes' is not a burden when we live with the possibility that with each breath we are loving our Self.

Addictions

Addictions seems to be the theme for this week. Addicted to feelings, thoughts, patterns of behaviors. Addictions that cause pain and suffering and unhealthy ways of coping with both.

I am moving to a new home that I just bought; an old pattern was broken...that of avoiding a permanent home. And while getting ready for the move I have not asked one person to help me; stuck in an old pattern that I can do it myself, thank you very much. Although some have offered I am no where ready to direct them is my thought.

So I became addicted to my thoughts that were running at least two hundred miles an hour as I ran from one part of my condo to the other never completing a task. I started to pack a shelf of books and came across a book that needed to be in another box in the office so I took it there and got involved in checking my e-mail and responding to the latest memo then realizing I was thirsty and walked toward the kitchen and stopped to relieve myself and found something on the bathroom counter that needed to be thrown out in the kitchen and picked it up walked into the kitchen to grab a snack and seeing an empty box into kitchen that could be filled.

Now that I look back it was like I used to do when I was out of control and needed to be on lithium. I did not think there was another way of doing this preparation until this morning while I waited for the plumber to repair the flapper in the toilet tank. I could not leave as I did yesterday. Perhaps I was a bit exhausted by the running and moving all week so I stayed in the house looking at my to-do list to complete tasks I had started. I looked on list and started to complete items left over from other days.

Thank G!D it is Shabbat and that I choose to rest.

Blessings of the Vav: sometimes there are too many 'ands' to manage. Slowing down helps me move outside of the old patterns I am addicted to and think, discern and be kind to myself.

Find Yourself a Teacher, Friends

When I first met Stephen Levine I wanted to speak with him during a break in his workshop. The line I waited in was slow as he gave personal attention to each participant. As I came within about five feet from him I started crying uncontrollably and had to leave the room and never got to talk with him personally. After I went home from the workshop I wrote him a letter about my experience and asked the questions I had not been able to ask earlier. He wrote back, answered the questions and wrote ‘you are your own teacher, trust yourself, treasure yourself and trust the process.’ Every once in while when I am starving for a mentor or one person who I can go to I soothe myself with these words. And then I remember that in Hebrew Wisdom my teacher, myself is always there in the Indwelling Presence of G!D, Shekhinah.

Then I start thinking about all the people who teach me what I need to know and the mentors who lead me through the labyrinth of my life because they have been there first. And I smile at another moment when I chose to be kind to myself.

Blessing of the Vav: the fullness of one's life is in the acknowledging of the souls within it and the variation of choices we make. Life is not flat.

A Core Value: Kindness

Today I spoke with my landlord who will soon be my neighbor. She lives in New York and was so appreciative of my help in caring for her condo. I began to respond with lots of words and then I stopped and said, ‘it is just basic kindness, Anne Marie’ and tears started to come to my eyes.

My thesaurus states that kindness is also caring, sympathetic, nice, gentle, thoughtful, compassionate, benevolent, humane, considerate, benign, humanitarian.

I remembered the day we buried my Father of blessed memory how sharp cornered everything felt and when the funeral director softened those corners for me I felt embraced and tenderly held and was able to take a deep breath. When I thanked him he said ‘it is just basic kindness’ and I thought yes it is and why is it not like breath to me?

I went to Club Med recently and was blown away by their hospitality. My heart waited for the ball to drop, the welcome to end, the warmth to cool, the generosity to shrink up until it didn’t and I was able to soak up their caring, generous, authentic spirit and by the time I left my heart had so enjoyed mirroring their welcome that I felt as if I owned the place. I was at home in their home.

At my 45th High School reunion I was on an emotional high having set myself up for the pleasure of being with the people who I so enjoyed being with in 1959-1961. Nothing could nor did douse my spirit. During the evening one of my classmates came over to me and said you were kind then and you are still so kind. To my memory no one had ever said that about me to me. Today I am beginning to see a pattern of one of my core values, kindness.

Blessings of the Vav: going up and down the ladder of the Vav allows me to be like Jacob's angels who went up and then down. Each time I go up to an experience I bring back with me an awareness of the Divine moment and weave a distinct unique me.

Coming Out is Getting Easier To Do

I asked a client once to monitor when he noticed that he was editing or withholding any information. He used the word ‘appalling’ to describe the amount of information he chose not to disclose. He and I are very much alike. If I got paid for how much I edit in my conversations I would be a millionaire. I do not think he and I were always like this; we learned this skill.

At 65 I seem to be noticing that I am blessed with an ease of speaking out information that once was too difficult to let go of and maybe I am returning to a state where I feel safe enough to handle the effects of my words. A long time ago a wise friend once told me that there are three reasons one comes out or speaks freely from the heart: to push people away, to bring people closer and to just be oneself. My intention and deepest desire is to heal the world one heart at a time by going deeper with my conversations and relationships with myself as well as with others. Recently I heard from a friend older than I that as you age you edit less as ‘what have you got to lose?’ Hebrew Wisdom might say this 'de-editing' is a process of circumcising the heart, of removing the layers that hide the purity of the soul and redeeming the spark that is you.

Usually the phrase ‘coming out’ is linked with the gay community. As an advocate and trainer for making the environment at work ‘gay friendly’ it is a term I am comfortable with as being one’s self is energizing. It takes a lot of work to withhold information. As the country western song goes ‘you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and know what to keep.’ A core teaching of Hebrew Wisdom is to know oneself so you can love your neighbor. My self-awareness comes through trial and lots of tripping, deep contemplation and writing and living in community with family, friends, colleagues and angels who gift me with a mirror of my behavior when I dared to look.

I learned a very long time ago that if I edit my thoughts and emotions then I could be a chameleon and invisible and safe and not rock the boat. Of course this is a conundrum since I want to be known, appreciated, included and love to have fun.

Coming out comes in various flavors and patterns. Yesterday I self disclosed to a client what we both knew was true and yet could have been left unspoken. My client is a Southern Baptist and she was listening and beginning to trust me someone who would never believe that Jesus Christ is her savior and therefore by traditional teachings was going to hell. I wanted us to live in that awkward place and to see if we could raise each of us up to our highest good to explore this paradox. We continue to be committed to our growth.

I've noticed that in the last six months I have started freeing my ideas. First came exposing a dream that seemed to have no roots other than in my head: starting the Society of the Vav blog. Then I wrote about completing the Miami Marathon while walking for all the lonely people who give up on their dreams like I have done in the past. Inserting Hebrew Wisdom, honoring my Jewish roots, was also a step in coming out. Then I decided to write to each old and present client that I am building my practice. I can still hear the voices saying 'why do you have to tell them that?' And I feel the earth under my feet shaking while knowing that the Earth is my G!D and She has got me covered.

And the internal judger still sits guarding the gate of my tongue testing my intention to free my soul.

Blessings of the Vav: there is always space to add what was left out intentionally or unintentionally when I remember it is my life I am saving.