The following is a homily that YP wrote and delivered to All Souls Interfaith Community on Palm Sunday.
 
Music Interlude:
Kol Ha'Olam Kulo
Kol ha'olam kulo
Gesher tzar me'od
Veha'ikar lo lifached k'lal.
The Whole wide world is a very narrow Bridge
The Main thing to recall is to have no fear at all
Lyrics from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov; Melody from various influences
 
Music Introduction:
Nishmat
Nishmat kol chai tevarech et shmeich shekhinah eloteinu eloteinu
The essence of our lives is praising you Yah; The breathing of All Life is blessing you Yah
Taya Shere, Hebrew & English Set to Blackfeet Melody
 
Uncovering Freedom
Thank you for being present here today on Palm Sunday as we begin a holy week, spring emerges from underneath the snow, sap rises through tree roots up trunks to awaken buds, the moon waxes, and the sun heads towards the horizon. The First Nation people of this land, the Abenaki’ call this moon Mozokas “Moon of Moose Hunting” and it is in honor of them and all peoples still seeking sovereignty and freedom from oppression that I dedicate this offering.
 
This week Jewish people throughout the world are cleaning our homes of any last vestiges of ‘Chametz’’leavened products’ that represent any aspects of our lives in which we are ‘puffed up’ to prepare for a festival of freedom. This spring festival celebrates the historic event of the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt, can be understood and experienced as a universal opportunity for the human species since so many different peoples have and currently are being liberated from oppressors and yet several have not yet discovered a path to freedom, including part of each and every one of us in this room.
 
 We are told that in each and every generation we are to see ourselves as if we had been liberated from Egypt which means that while in some areas we may be free, in other areas we are still enslaved. In this sense this time allows us to strengthen our focus, our resolve, our vigilance to guard freedom, to notice where it is absent in our lives and the lives of those around us, and to thus embark upon a cyclical process of ongoing liberation discovery. We are told in the Torah that every day we must personally “go out from Egypt” we must escape from the limits, temptations, obstructions, and distraction that exist on the physical plane to our spiritual realities.
 
Let us all take four deep breaths together.
 
According to how the kabbalists interpret Genesis, there were four phases through which creation took place and consequently our mystics teach that these four levels or worlds are occurring simultaneously at all times. Each world is represented by a letter in the tetragram you may know as YAWH which we call (YHVH) Adonai. You can imagine a spiral ladder going from the upper to lower levels;  this model is by no means linear since various levels can occur at once or in various orders. They are as follows from upper to lower:

• Yud (known as Atzilut) represents initial inspiration; this world emanates in the realm of wisdom. This is akin to Divine revelation, before thought when cosmic awareness is flowing through.
• Hey (known as Beriah) represents the broadening of concept; this world creates understanding. This is when the intellect and cognitive faculties get on board and help the rest of the being integrate the message.
• Vav (known as Yetzirah) represents emotional involvement in plans; this world of formation occurs through the foundation of kindness. This is when the message begins to enter the cellular structures of matter.
• And finally Hei (known as Assiyah) is where action happens through manifestation of whatever project occurs. This is the physical plane of doing where most of us experience much of daily existence.

How is this framework relevant to uncovering freedom? It provides a scaffolding through which to peer at the many layers within and between these worlds of existence happening simultaneously in our lives which we can investigate to discern where we may be trapped in a limited dimension or as we call it Mitrazyim (narrow confines) in order to observe how this then manifests in the material plane of our lives.
 
In this light through inquiring within, the inner architecture of our beings, our consciousness, where our hearts and minds unite becomes more clear.  A keystone prayer in Judaism known as the SHMAA calls on us to listen deeply how all is one. In knowing this and peering into the inner architecture where dichotomies, polarities, separations appear, we can reorient and adjust these potentially misaligned areas. When we do so consciously, we experience remarkable ripple effects through other areas of our lives and consequently how we contribute to the world. Similarly underneath this architecture we have the opportunity to connect to the source spring well where the so called building materials (if we follow this analogy through) arise from and where an underlining unity of harmony actually exists. The SHMAA refers to this underlining humming that pervades our breath, ocean tides, wind ripples, sun sets, seasons arising...
 
Many rituals within the Passover seder that will occur next friday and saturday eve, recounting the journey from slavery to freedom, involve activities repeated four times as they transition from enslaved into free actions; this process is gradual & multidimensional.
 
Recently I was listening to a podcast called ‘On Being’ in which the Krista Tippett interviewed oceanographer Sylvia Earle known as ‘Her Deepness’ in which she described the first walk alone on the ocean floor without a tether at 1250 feet which is under a quarter mile of water and asked the nearby submarine to turn off the lights so that she could see the soft glow of the sky, surrounding deep darkness and brilliant bioluminescent creatures that lived there.
 
When she later discussed this with her astronaut friend, Buzz Aldrin, he recounts that he and Neil Armstrong had the same amount of time she had for her solo walk on the ocean floor about 2.5 hours to walk on the moon for the first time. It is interesting to note that most of our society knows about that moon stroll but not as many people know about this first deep ocean stroll. While both walks required tremendous technological achievement and bravery one occurred in a place devoid of life as we know it while the other was amidst teeming diversity far beyond most places on the planet and potentially the solar system.  Why is it that much of our species are so intrigued with going outside of ourselves to outer space more so than deep within to the inner space which actually sustains our life and may be from where all of our lives and patterns on this planet emerged?
 
Sylvia Earle recounts that we have only seen, let alone explored, 5% of the ocean and therefore it certainly is a frontier. Similarly how familiar are we with the inner landscapes of our lives? What kind of frontier lies within? It is in this question that I invite us to venture as we recognize the mysterious force of gravity which keeps our bodies tethered here on earth. As we study what is happening on earth today in 2018 we see a planet undergoing the 6th Great extinction where nonhuman species are disappearing at a rate 1-10,000x more quickly than previous extinction rates at around a dozen species a day, where climate change has caused millions of humans refugees seeking safe new homes to begin again, where gun violence continues to threaten the lives of the most vulnerable populations of our species who are rising up to inform a government who are charged with protecting lives, where ancient libraries of fossil fuels and old growth forests are being extracted at rates far faster than we can possibly return carbon stores to support future life, where First Nation people and ancestors of slaves are rising up to reclaim their rightful sovereignty, where underneath the Dow Jones numbers our extraction civilization previously run by a patriarchal, white supremacist capitalist framework is crumbling and its lack of resilience and planetary accountability is becoming transparent; we are living in a time of great opportunity. The opportunity is so raw that each of us is called to identify our role in how we are shaping life on earth.
 
While it took us quite awhile to get out of Egypt as the Pharoah kept changing his mind and then once in the desert, had to go through many more gates of purification before we were to receive original instructions from our maker, the actual leaving of comfort that we had gotten accustomed to in slavery over 210 years and exit from our oppressors is the main focus of this holiday. We left a brutal & relatively settled life dependent upon agriculture and commerce for a unpredictable, itinerant lifestyle in the desert relying only on what the Creator provided. This opportunity of surrender and revealed release allowed us to realize the inner architecture of our existence and how fooled we had become in mistaking the conditions of our existence. Similarly for any of you who have experienced deep silence on a retreat, for a day, on your meditation cushion, in prayer, you know that underneath all the scurrying, striving, trying, doing, accomplishing..there is a vast ocean of presence..of life...of layers of awareness and consciousness far beyond the control, influence, noise, or power of our tiny beings. It is into this vast pool of existence that we can return to at this time and in purifying the material plane of our lives we can be more clear travellers to and from this realm of sourcespring well.
 
Just as there are several worlds or dimensions to our lives that may be occurring simultaneously, so too are there several dimensions through which we can experience and share this liberating process: as individuals in our internal consciousness and homes, in our relationships with our loved ones and family, in our neighborhoods and communities, in whatever groups we may identify with be they class, gender, race, interests...or that society arranges us in; we are invited to break through the walls of these divisions, to discern the values promoted through the society we live in, to identify the ethical framework to which we adhere which transcends the material flesh and from here we reengage with our daily material fleshy lives with carlifying tools.. Each effort of freedom we make whether it is on the internal level of rewiring thoughts, or adding more time for prayer and meditation, or setting aside more time and money for others, or sharing more space with our family, or reaching out to a group of people very unlike ourselves with kindness, or taking extra care of the ecological community around us….  I bless us all however you experience this time of year to have the space, the clearing, the fresh opening to discover new levels of freedom, to engage with raw opportunities to rewire old patterns, to join with others in opening the gates so that more beings and the planet earth herself can be free from the shackles of the limits of our human species. Thank you. Amen and Shalom.
 
Every effort we make towards freedom even if invisible to tangible planes, is perceived and make a difference in creation more liberation for all. As the Israelites escaped their oppressors, the ocean allowed them through. Thanks to all of you brave souls who go in without knowing if the waters will part.
 
Music Conclusion:
The Ocean Refuses No River (x2)
Hallelu Hallelu Hallelu (x2)
Lyrics and melody from Rainbow family

During this month of Cheshvan, sometimes referred to as the month of inner work into personal transformation*, we are between holidays. We have the opportunity to integrate the raw work of the high holidays, the joy of Sukkoth harvest, the humility of sukkah reality with the Hoshanna Rabba portal for last minute redemption and the blueprint reminder of Simchas Torah during a time of waning daylight and cooling air. As we go within, knowing a festival of light is on the other side, I invite us all to engage with our shadows and the characters in our tradition who may have seen to be considered 'bad, evil.'

In the book Ecology & the Jewish Spirit' edited by Ellen Bernstein, Shamu Fenyvesi invites us to reconsider the gifts of Esau in his essay 'Restoring a Blessing.' Here he describes Esau as one who was in touch with the wilderness and perhaps practiced a more integrated lifestyle with the beyond human world than did Jacob who remained near the tents and learned mostly through books. Their reconciliation is described as an incredible exchange of world's in which each brother's realm became a learning space for the other and thereby they each emerged more whole. 

Who in our tradition have you eskewed? Do we have a false understanding of their true role? Do we in judging them hide from a part of ourselves that in encountering, we may discover a gift of healing medicine to bring back to the tribe? Do we feel estranged from or connected to Hagar for her paradoxical role, Ishmael for his particular mission, Jonah for his procrastination, Tamar for her chutzbah, Noa for his descent, Lots' wife for looking back, Avraham's father for his idolatry, Pharaoh for his injustice, Delilah for her betrayal, Eve for her curiosity...

And who in our modern world to we dislike, fear, avoid...? In politics? In our communities? In our families? In our communities? In ourselves? Each of these is a separate level; a different dimension of encountering.

As I ponder these questions, I give thanks to the soft guide of falling leaves, naked trees, and imminent need for increased and sharpened night vision as there is much here to explore carefully, gently, with tenderness, compassion, honesty, and open trust. May we all release into this time to allow for what emerges to reveal vision and understanding.
​
* According to Kabbalah Month by Month; A Year of Spiritual Practice and Personal Transformation; Melinda Ribner

As the ripe opportunity to refine how we navigate in the world via counting the Omer wanes and Shavuous approaches, I feel the potency of this crossroads between purification preparation and revelation reception. 
It is worth noting that this time period was originally based on the Jewish agricultural cycle of offering the first early spring crop: barley, from the field to the Priests(esses) and continuing to do so each day as the wheat crop ripened; with the intention of gratitude, knowing that all sustenance was due to and ultimately dedicated to our Creator.  Just as the sheaf of barley, the Omer, was waved in all 6 directions like the lulav is during Sukkot, now we wave our active honing in all directions through this mindfulness process where prayer has replaced physical offerings.

At this time when so many of us are ‘landless’ and even those who ‘own’ land are often settlers on stolen land of people who may still be here but whose ancestors were eradicated through genocide and other atrocious acts of colonization and corresponding imperialism, I wonder as we are working to liberate ourselves and this planet from the shackles of a civilization gone awry, if our offerings via this process are enough?

As I prepare to climb a mountain with community tomorrow, a mountain that the First Nation Abenaki people of this land found too sacred to climb, I ask myself have I swept my sefirot in this living temple empty enough?  What can I do to clear out this space even more and maintain the space for Divine emanation to fill, echo through, infuse, and crack open for planetary healing?
In solidarity with Rabbi Seidenberg’s effort in his scholarly Kabbalah & Ecology to “enable Jewish theology to sustain a more biocentric reading of Torah & the Jewish tradition,” (p. xvii) I invite us to ask what is that we can do in addition to Counting the Omer to offer to Divinity?

The ecological boundaries of our planet and of our species’ limited power are becoming more prevalent today as the 6th Extinction ensues. The Kabbalah teaches that “the Jewish covenant and human action serve to bring blessings to all of Creation, not just to the Jewish people and not just to humanity.” (DS, Kabbalah & Ecology, p. 37) Knowing instinctively that humans are just a step in this planet’s evolution, it is possible that our time here is waning, considering the earth’s carrying capacity and our overall choices of planetary citizenship offering.  I suggest that our frequent lack of offering physical harvest before partaking may contribute to the excessive plundering  from which our civilization has grown.

As portals in our society evolve to overcome falsely constructed dualities such as gender polarity, attempt to unshackle imperialist power based on white privilege, transform perverse power dynamics such as racism & patriarchy, and redistribute ancient inequality dynamics of economic disparity, the question remains how do we put the microphone to the voices of all the ancestral bones beneath our feet? How is that the scariest parts of ourselves are currently plastering mainstream news? How do we decolonize our civilization? How do we keep carbon in solid form? How can we become biota that capture carbon and sequester it for life supporting habitat rather than life negating coffins?
​
According to rabbinic literature our species bridges ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ realms. Regardless of whether or not you believe in a cosmic hierarchy, it behooves us to continually seek to understand our niche and role in the ecological community within which we are nested. As an Ashkenazi woman, I have encountered the limits of  racial prejuidice within this group I am apart of and fiercely try to grow beyond these barriers to connect with the rest of our people. Beyond that I stretch outside of the limits of ‘our people’ to transcend this tribal framework to connect with all of humanity.  In this time in which people of the earth and First Nation people in particular are reclaiming their birthright sovereignty, I witness the calling for us to heal the fragments within ourselves, our identities, our multiple identities, and our beyond identities. This is not easy work and likely will take more than 49 days & even 49 years. According to my ancestors’ creation story we all had dark skin and came from a garden where we technically still live today; perhaps the physical offering I suggest we could add to this inner work would be to declutter our current internal and external landscapes. This is likely defined differently for each of us, according to our individual purposes and yet there is likely a thread that unites our individual callings that as a collective we can discover and offer effectively together.  So may it be that we all are able to know & do our piece of the work to open to the everpresent revelation that allows us to be in liberating service for and with all.

In honor of: Rabbi Dov-Ber, the Maggid of Mezertich[4], today’s birthday of Chassidism[5], the waning light soon to return, and the upcoming hag of Chanukah, I offer this trans - dimensional invocation.
 
First though I offer some current & historical context in my ancestral line; yes the latter is historical, not herstorical. Perhaps next year, I can dig that up for you.
 
Current context:
During this month in the Hebrew calendar called Kislev, which can translate loosely as the pocket of the heart, is a dark time and for many of us on the planet it feels particularly difficult this year. It occurred to me today that many of our light laden experiences, interactions, relationships have pockets of dark in them. These spaces require careful attention, meditation, and reverence for herein may be portals to mend the broken vessel of our creation story; i.e. heal the footprint of our birth.
 
Historical context:
Today is a noteworthy day in the Chassidic world as it marks when the Maggid of Mezritch left the world and said to his disciple, Rabbi Schneur Zalman: “This day is our yom tov (festival).” (according to Chabad, Vt) It was also on this date 26 years later, in the year 1798, that the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), was freed from his imprisonment in czarist Russia. What happened was that the Chassidic movement’s founder Rabbi Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760), revealed to his disciples treasures from the mystical soul of Torah which had previously been the domain of select Kabbalists in each generation. Rabbi Shneur Zalman brought these teaching to a much broader Jewish population in Eastern Europe and founded the ‘Chabad’ approach involving study, meditation, and character refinement that helped ground abstract concepts into practical daily applications. There was much opposition to the popularizing of previously hidden Torah teachings. In the fall of 1798 Rabbi Shneur Zalman was arrested on charges that his teachings and activities threatened the czar’s imperial authority. He was imprisoned on an island fortress in Neva River in Petersburg. After 53 days, including an interrogation where he presented the tenets of Judaism and Chassidic philosophy and thought, he was exonerated of charges and released. He saw these events reflecting what was occurring above and once liberated redoubled his efforts to disseminate his teachings on a broader scale with a more ‘down to earth’ explanation. The 19th of Kislev is thus seen as the ‘birth’ of Chassidism; when Chassidic teachings emerged from the womb of ‘mysticism’ to grow and guide Torah aligned daily living.[6]
 
Transdimensional invocation:
Oh H-shem, Shekhinah, Tzimtzemai, El Shaddai,
She who makes space, with who we struggle to know, to who we listen:
 
Are you tending to those unjustly behind bars like Red Fawn of Standing Rock,
Leonard Peltier of the AIM, Mumia Abu-Jamal of the Black Panther party?
Where are you present in the cells of so many African American men waiting for a fair trial; where are you in the sidewalks where so much innocent blood has been shed?
How is it that you ask for praise when you allow the economy of slavery to continue in corporatized mass incarceration where freedom for all is not granted?
 
Oh Prophetess Miriam, tender of the well that sustained our people in the desert,
Can you guide us please in how we can protect our imma adama’s  mayim, water
From those who have gone astray, insisting on continuing to extract our plant ancestors’ bones while disregarding original people’s burial grounds & promises?
How is that we can sing, dance, and transform earth’s polluted waters when our very structures, presence, and systems are based on colonial genocide of millions of people?
 
Ah Prophet Elijah who ushers out our holy rest day and in our work week, as you bridge the now with messianic times, tending the shield of David bridging the upper worlds of Atzilut and Beriyah with the lower of Yetzirah and Asiyah can you help us to
Navigate through this modern conundrum of participating in exploitation paradigms just to perform simple mitzvahs, thereby catalyzing the 6th Great Extinction?
 
Oh Moses, when you struck the rock, what precedent was set instead of listening and speaking to the rock? How can this trail of violence on the earth committed by humans
Be rewired as anthro domination has continued exponentially throughout the earth?
You were not allowed into the promised land supposedly because of this irreverent act and therefore I ask you how can we repair this precedent so all can reach home free?
 
As we approach a festival commemorating a resanctification of a defiled place, can we
Purify the fragmented parts of our inner sanctuaries and the outer spaces we tend?
How is it that who we once worshipped via Asherah the Living Tree of Life, can allow dangerous beings so much power and old patterns of ignorance to resurface?
Oh Kabbalists who guide us towards equanimity involving total indifference to outside good and bad influences; believing that from this place of stoicism spiritual radiance emerges: how is it that this can be? Are we not required to protest, to redirect, as Cocreators we can urge you to reconsider the decrees set forth which reek of evil.
 
Oh Elotainu please hear our please; notice our collective projects in justice reclamation, support our earth guardians, open the hearts of those closed.
As we kindle light soon in humble awareness of our sukkah fragility, we offer gratitude for all we have, we praise the beauty of your creation, and we beg you for a miracle because we need your help to open & link up peace portals throughout the earth community.
 
 
 
 


[4] Rabbi Dov Ber passed away on Kislev 19. He was the successor of the Baal Shem Tov.

[5] Known as the “Rosh Hashanah” of Chassidism.

[6] According to Chabad, VT.  http://www.chabadvt.org/library/article_cdo/aid/335659

As we approach the holiday of Shavuous, a time of offering 1st fruits  and honoring the transmission of the 10 commandments, I hover over this moment rich for cross pollination. Relevant questions arise such as: What does it mean to be a settler on stolen land? What does it mean to be a part of a tribe whose ‘homeland’ is stolen from others who have been displaced? What does it mean to live on earth in a time when the ecosystems are changing so rapidly that opportunist disperser plants carrying bioremediation medicine are being called invasive?
 
These questions come up for me as I prepare to co-facilitate a mini Shabbaton for Jewish preteens in Vermont. Currently we are in the 6th week of the Omer; the week of sefirot Yesod: exploring the parts of our soul meridians involving connection, intimacy, & foundation.  As a land based people, much of our spiritual practice is rooted in our being physically present on a piece of land. Granted we have been practicing through 2749 years of exiles and resulting diaspora, somehow adapting to stay aligned amidst our changing circumstances.  Like any species on the planet trying to survive and evolve and like so many original peoples of this planet, we are continually in responsive dialogue with the past and future through how we practice in the present.
 
Lately disturbing circumstances and disappointing group dynamics in small circles where I serve have led me to remember what one of my dear permaculture teachers, Dave Jacke once taught which was that no matter how many amazing guilds and polycultures you plant, no matter how many deep healing practices are offered, regardless of how tight a bioremediating project is, the limiting factor will always be the humans involved. Wow!!!
 
 Recently I spent four days pecking and grinding stone to make a celt and felt the sheer power required to communicate with the rock cycle. While I listened a lot, it was quite different than listening to a plant or tree. It required a different type of listening that I believe may take many years of deep canyon time for me to really develop to the degree where I could hear and perhaps understand a snippet of stone wisdom. As I pondered how the commandments were etched into rock, I could not help but think about all the ways in which we humans currently use force to effectively break  into rock cycle language and thereby create a lifestyle based on this ‘interference.’ Thousands to millions of years of sedimentation, heat and pressure, rifting open and releasing, cooling and hardening involve a language far beyond any linguistics we have learned in school.  While I remember on long fasts in the wilderness being able to receive a lot of energy from laying on, holding, and hugging rocks I also know that through fracking, drilling…we are able to extract tremendous amounts of energy. This is a complex relationship and what we do with the energy and how it reenters the web is the issue at hand as well as our means of obtaining it. What are we giving back to our mantle which I see as the earth’s altar?
 
When I expand into geologic time and explore with high school biology studentsI the trails of our predecessors (according to Western science though some would say there are metamorphic hints and corresponding allusions in Genesis), it is humbling to feel out to those first microbes, the blue green algaes, the stromatolites, the lichen, and the billions of beings in the phylogenetic tree which issued forth and upon whose backs we Homo sapiens entered the scene.
 
A bright spot in recent journeys was davenning mincha before Shabbas when paddling with other kin across the Hudson river to protest the bomb trains and then Shacharit the next morning while marching with a thousand other folks in solidarity with the Break Free From Fossil Fuel Movement. While singing and walking through the Ezra Prentice low-income housing neighborhood, whose playground is a stone’s throw from the tracks and whose walls shake at night as the trains barrel through., it felt good to walk my prayer for peace, for unity, for an end to unjust practices. What was so inspiring about joining others at this Break Free event (while communities all around the world hosted similar protests) was how this local inner city community guided the rally in their streets, even beckoning some of their neighbors to join. For years in the environmental movement, even most recently this summer at the Earth First Rendezvous, I have witnessed how the somewhat elitist, classist boundaries of privilege prevented folks uniting against the same forces that are threatening the planet’s equilibrium. Environmental racism was called out that day in a way I have yet to witness as it was dovetailed with words from Martin Luther King and a spiritual from people’s whose ancestors wrote it. I bring this up because more than ever I am honing on where people unite and where are those mysterious gaps in communication, in partnership, in alliances, in collaboration with curiosity and a hand lens. This was a neat moment led by those on the front lines, supported by those who benefit from the exploitation.
 
So in weaving these seemingly disparate strands together I return to the birds’ companion calls which are trails of creatures checking in with each other continually. As mentor Jon Young anthropomorphosizes ‘Hey how are you, are you ok?,’ he is onto something in that these touch-ins are lifelines; beings checking in on each other. How much we can learn from them and their communication!!!
 
May you and all be blessed on your journey to receive original instructions whether it be from a beech tree with new leaves, still soft from their recent emerging or the from Aitz Chaim, a root of our holy tree of life etched in stone or written in scrolls via the ten commandments. May all parts of your soul be purified so your experience of transmission, your reception, and your vesselhood is lucid.
 
Amen.

This month Adar Sheni is the yarzheit of bubby Chana Elka whose momma loshen (mother tongue) was yiddish. Her mother Celia, as a little girl came on a boat from the old country, and was unsure if she could accept a tomato offered from an emigrating Italian family because it was unclear to her if this novel fruit was kosher. Chana Elka lived to be 101 and worked until she was 90. She left all of her grandchildren a little nest egg which after investing for several years and adding life savings to, has allowed me to purchase and rebuild a yurt sanctuary home & Roots & Trails office. To her I dedicate this exploration.
 
As kitten Tzimtzmai purrs in a curled circle in my lap (where do cats learn how to be the cutest ever, most adorable, lovable beings no matter what position they choose?), rain drops pitter, the wood stove fire swishes, gratitude and humility fill me during this month of increasing joy. The past few weeks H-shemess (name of Divine mother father merging I have been playing with) has schooled me far beyond horizons I have been to in years. It was not since I lived deep in the wilderness in 2000 in the Gila that I have encountered the unforgiving reality of aboriginal skills. Hoping the solar cell and battery will allow me to elaborate…. You see in the Torah there are no vowels. It has been suggested that this lack actually invites us into a deep participation, to find them in order to insert them properly. David Abram in Spell of the Sensuous, articulately relates the gradual transition in human consciousness that accompanies our movement from oral to written tradition as being akin to a gradual descent in our ecological, interactive responsiveness to a more static anthro-centered encounter. Hence from here the resulting interactions are on this more myopic level. Similarly when I moved from an open screened tent into a windowless yurt, I felt incredibly shut off and blocked from the canopy birdsong, litter insect murmurings, wind branch caresses that shaped my previous sleeping and waking moments. So too last week’s  hours carving an osage bow, flinknapping obsidian and flint, straightening viburnum stalks, grinding bone have opened my consciousness, muscles, heart, and primordial ambitions to be a worthy contributor to human tribe through a raw medium. As Marshall McLuhan said ‘the medium is the message.’
 
The feedback in practicing these ancient skills is relentless. You either do it ok, sloppy, well, in high form; there is not fudging it, no googling it, no intellectualizing it, no smoothing it over with peripheral knowledge nor buffering connections -  this is real time, deep time, feedback without the soft grace of coyote mentors. Instead this is the visceral crack of a bow strung backwards, 50 hours gone up as an offering, shards of stone that had formed in the rock cycle over millions of years now on the ground as detritus, a handrill stalk split which cannot be fixed because that goldenrod plant is no longer alive.
 
So how can I apply this to the upcoming spring equinox, the jovial Purim festival of disguises and revelation, the parshas of Vayikra and Tvav? The following recounts a few recent realizations which hopefully resonate.
 
The first place is to crack through the veil of illusion, the curtain of hidden costs this modern lifestyle relies on: the habitat lost, the displaced people, the elements rearranged in biogeochemical cycles, the equilibrium challenged. Yes I stand a culprit, not guilty but rather responsible, accountable, and humbled to do as bubby said ‘Mach gut,’ do the right thing, and 'zie a mensch' take the high trail.
 
Ok, so maybe I don’t use 176 gallons of water a day like the average working or middle class American because my funky homemade gravity-fed water systems helps limit my usage and I only have 6 buckets currently to catch rainwater.  Some figures say that in the vast continent of Africa, the average family uses only 5 gallons a day. I use @ 4 but the family I tend at this point is quite small. So lesson #1: Humility beyond humility. I stand in my ancient self at the crossroads of modernity questioning my participation.
 
Second, as Gabriel Cousens shares in ‘Torah as a Guide to Enlightenment,’ Vayikra is about devotion to the Divine. He writes about cultivating a relationship with angels through chanting, mitzvahs, prayer…. What does it mean to sacrifice when we no longer offer up an animal? This past week I have realized how many distractions I normally allow into my field which dilute and dissipate my service. To sacrifice my ego means I have to let go a lot of this candy connecting for more core linking which is less gratifying to my ego yet breeds a fierceness in my chesed orientation; a discipline in my openness, a boundary in my invitation. This is part of the task to hold and maintain sanctuary space. What does it mean to tend this? Tikkun Olam. We each have role in repairing the world  To be intelligent, Krista Tippett of ‘On Being’ podcast states that to be intelligent is to know your gifts, polish them, and offer them to the web. So lesson #2: Hone, refine, allow gentle thorns to protect the unfolding rose; just as the hawthorn spike armor allows the heart fruit to ripen.
 
Third, this eve as I approached the shul to assemble our new compost bin, I saw the glow of the ner tamid, eternal light. How kind it was to have a tangible reminder in the dark eve, a visceral image during what some call dark times on the planet of the everpresent, though sometimes hard to perceive, abundant love. The abundant love allows a release from clinging, grasping, trying to achieve, to be worthy, to give enough, to hold enough. ‘Tzvav’ means to instruct or command. Well what then of this personal agenda? I thought this was the trail to serve, to help humanity, to support wild kin. And yet now it is not appearing open to me. So inside inner sanctuary I go to breathe, brew, wait until it feels safe to emerge and bring the inner to the outer. I cannot really bring the outer to the inner. When I leave this garden in the morning, I must be careful of entering Babylon – why, what purpose? Don’t eat or touch too much of the riches – remember. I go to uncover the diamonds buried deep under amidst the heat and pressure but not to stay too long – the recharge is in the garden for me. So lesson # 3: Consciously navigate between realms.
 
Fourth, allow the serving part to burn in the bridging and the consciousness to carry the message. Lesson #4:  Surrender the medium of yourself so the message can come through with lucidity. As bubby would say at the end of each phone conversation, ‘a gesundeit and frelicha vok; a healthy, happy week to you. After Shabbas when approaching the mode of ‘doing’ over ‘being’ again, I think back to the last few decades still called BCE.  At this time way back in his/herstory when Roman oppression was overwhelming the Jewish people, they split into four groups: Zealots (revolutionaries aimed at expelling Romans to restore independence using terrorist practices), Essenes (dropouts who sought radical change through internal work by withdrawing from society and following a strict pattern of prayer, work and purification, Sadducees (privileged priests who were conservative in political and religious affairs insisting on relying on old priestly traditions), and Pharisees (moderates including rich, poor farmers, laborers, priests, and commoners who creative updated practices and reinterpreted laws for current contexts). It is interesting to ponder these models today when the global, corporate, fossil fuel, military, industrial complex oppresses so many peoples and habitats. While personally I feel most drawn to the Essene path, in many ways it seems the Pharisee techniques allow effective remediation between the garden and Babylon. I wonder about the fine line between participating and remaining true to how one believes we are meant to live on this planet. Where are you in this spectrum?
 
Thanks for reading and allowing me to share these musings. Curious about your reflections..please share. Blessings to you and all you link with as the moon waxes and the light increases.

This past weekend two opportunities arose to say the Shekyiyanu blessing: a baby naming ceremony (her name is Oriya which means light) and this season's first snow at this altitude. (בָּרוּךְ אַתה יְיָאֱלֹתינוּ מֶלֶךְ הַעוֹלָםשֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּוְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה) Ba-ruch A-tah A-do-noi E-loi-hei-nu Malcha ha-o-lam she-he-chee-ya-nu v'ki-yi-ma-nu vi-hi-gi-ya-nu liz-man ha-zeh. I translate it as Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, Queen of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion) At this month of Chesvan we experience no holidays (Haggim) as we enter the season of impending darkness.

We just landed from a wild ride of mourning the destruction of sanctuary space in the hot month of Av, of repenting/reflecting/purifying in the cooling month of Elul during the High Holy days, and then gratefully & joyously celebrating the bountiful harvest during Sukkot remembering that regardless of our seeming material abundance, we still just live in a fragile shack in the wilderness as we enter the rainy season. I pause now in this moment of deep spacious emptiness and honor this darkness as an important phase before our upcoming Festival of Lights.

As I feel this increasing darkness on a visceral level of my tiny solar system battery running low (this rough draft is written by LED lantern) and a corresponding time of solitude due to inexplicable circumstances, I have decided the best thing I can do is to befriend this (albeit unwelcome) companion. As beloved teacher Shoshana Cooper once taught me to welcome in all difficult experiences, emotions, feelings, energies to my table. So in the spirit of hospitality, I offer this dark loneliness the best nervine tea I have (from summer garden's calendula, oatstraw, skullcap, lemon balm, and heal all), I feel into its presence. What messages does it bring? What do I bring it? What does it need? What do I need? How can we relate? What exchange can occur between us that benefits all?

This week's Parsha 'Noach,' is about an interesting time on earth his/herstory. As I have learned to look at time as described in scriptures according to geologic time, this particular flood matches up pretty well with when the most recent ice age was in mid recession (@5-7,000yrs ago).. All life that could not retreat south in time or find an 'arc to be on was washed away in the rising ocean water of melting glaciers. The storytellers claim that this flood was due to the vast amount of wicked humans that resided on Earth at this time. I cannot help but think to this interglacial period we are in now as sea levels rise from anthropogenically accelerated melting glaciers and wonder about the pattern here. For over a century geologists have wondered what is the relationship between humans and the earth's geology? In the scientific community there has been much discussion of what to name this time period in accordance with previous titles such as: Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic eras. It has been proposed that we humans could potentially consciously choose to prescribe a life enhancing, regenerative future for life on earth, thereby naming it the Ecozoic era. We know humans have been an anthropogenic geologic force for at least six millennia. We have already as a species permanently altered organic geology through quarries, mines, wells, diversions, canals, dams, tunnels, roads, excavations, sedimentation, dredging, landfills, junk yards, bombs, nuclear waste.. (http://ecozoictimes.com/groping-our-way-toward-a-new-geologic-era-2/) Thomas Berry, cultural historian and ecotheologian, suggests that we can cocreate this ecozoic era through seeing Earth as primary, celebrating the progress of all life on Earth in harmony, reducing domestication and increasing assistance of Earth's wild intelligence, caring about the eco-nomic health of the planet (the Gross earth product), realizing that killing the planet via geocide is a crime, and seeing the earth as living scripture. (http://www.lightparty.com/Visionary/EcozoicEra.html)

I wonder what percentage of people on Earth know about the seriousness of this 6th Great Extinction that we are currently experiencing. According to a study published in Science Advances, the current extinction rate cold be more than 100 times higher than normal and that’s only taking into account the species we know the most about.(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150623-sixth-extinction-kolbert-animals-conservation-science-world/) I understand the metaphor of Noa as the tribe of two-leggeds who are conscious of the situation and hear the call to create an Arc with our lives. This Arc must have enough room for all the other creatures to be able to survive and procreate. Nehemiah (by the way) Noa's wife was in the boat basement lined with side windows, tending a plant nursery of all flora and fauna on earth. I ask myself on a daily basis as I feel into the increasing darkness and solitude, how am I making my life an arc; a home for all the other species beyond two-leggeds? And it is part of my responsibility to also tend to my fellow two-leggeds; so I ask how do I hold space for the mentally unstable, physically unsteady, the infirmed, the elderly, those of minority sexual orientation, those whose skin color does not match the dominant (though rapidly shrinking) white hue of bubbled privilege.. I feel out to all the refugees and look around this 22ft diameter yurt occupied only by a feline (Queen Tzimtmai), a few spiders, and I wondering what is home; Home to my physical, emotional, spiritual, tribal being? How can all these parts be met to then provide for others?

I read ancestral stories, knowing that so much is missing and wonder about the details of the dove, the olive branch, and the rainbow. Since girlhood with unicorns and silk mobiles (go 80's!), then adolescence at rainbow gatherings and young adulthood at queer gatherings, rainbows have symbolized equality to me. In the science of optics when the visible light section of the electromagnetic spectrum hits something more dense in its path, it bends, thereby breaking its unified form into individual segments i.e. colors of the rainbow. What does it mean to bend like that; like the willows we hit on the ground under the Sukkah on Hoshanah Rabbah asking for any part our beings that were not purified during Teshuvah time to be cleansed so we may be worthy of the rain? What is it like to bend to allow whatever we come into contact with to shape how we emanate light in the world? I look and feel into the spaces between the letters, moments, relationships, gatherings, festivals, seasons, the death of our ancestors and birth of our offspring, the native people who once occupied this land and settlers who dominate the land now, the generation dying and being born now, between us & those who will be born in seven generations.

I breathe into this space. I plant flower and garlic bulbs here, rake leaves from this space and surround my nest with them. Later in this parsha the Tower of Babel is mentioned in which people are speaking 70 different languages, each understanding what it means to be human on earth in a different way. I wonder if this tower is akin to the skyscraper empire built on the backs of ecosystems and people often unable to live on their ancestral homeland. Perhaps this time is similar to the one described in Noach in which the earth is in need of a great cleanse? One may ask how have we as a species become so 'wicked?' How is that we two-leggeds created such a mess that our tweaked living systems which support our lifestyles, damage the habitat & lives of other earth community members (I.e our waste goes into drinking water, we release carbon dioxide on a daily basis, fragment corridor....)

As I watch the Chesvan moon grow, listen to the geese migrating, and feel the bumpy roots of burdock as they emerge from soil, I know that I need to remain on the edge of humanity in order to not succumb to its wicked ways. Noa may not have been righteous but only seemed so in comparison to what was going on around him. What does it look like to build an arc with one's life, to listen to the original instructions beyond the need to payback graduate school loans or save money for future generations? Perhaps a start is to save the living library of this geological corridor where frack lines cannot enter, to grow soil, remain firm in saying 'no' our lifestyle does not require more oil so it is not ok to drill in the arctic, speak out against escalating violence habit patterns due to generations of institutionalized racism. I wonder since we as a species came from the African continent, is not racism a vestige of self hatred; a rejection of part of our original selves we have not truly encountered, honored and reclaimed?. To avoid the overwhelmingness of this task I break it down into simple steps like learning to tend my altar. I remember my ancestors need a foothold in this world and even if I don't follow all of their wisdom, I can help hold space for them. I choose to hold hands with redbreasted nuthatch, the milkweed, the mountain ash, the soil microbes as much as with the few humans who recognize each other in our hearts' eyes and acknowledging, 'yes we are a tribe to nurture this ecotopia'. And to those I feel so separate from, I lean in and feel that space between us with curiosity and an open heart listening, offering tea and a bowl of wild applesauce.