11 things (spread over us a shelter)
like time we don't have
1. Cycles and changes – noticing the reflex to recoil, go to fear, rather than to soften into the space this frees up for new things to come into being.
2. I have led hundreds of groups in the past nine years. A few membership-type spaces in the mix. A dozen or so retreats. So many inflection points, decisions, almost all of them intuitive, leaving no clear "right," "wrong," or "now what?"
3. So many people's stories have flowed in and out of my consciousness. Some came and went and others stayed, deepened, evolved. None of it is static.
4. Nothing is static. Not even the things that seem to be unmoving – a mug on the edge of the coffee table, the trunks of trees.
5. Adolescence can be harrowing, for the adolescent and for their caregiver(s). If you see yourself here, I see you, too.
6. The word "harrowing," of course, is so relative.
7. Feeling so mindful of not adding to the social media noise. And also not wanting to mute myself. Suspended between these intentions.
8. This week is the first retreat with my Jewish Studio Project Creative Facilitation Training cohort – we began yesterday. I am in the right place. Yesterday, the moment the music came on and I started putting marks on a page, small black lines, followed by aggressive red ones, the tears finally came. I sobbed over the pastels.
Often, synagogue, when certain songs begin, is where this kind of release happens. I shared in our closing reflections of Day One that it affirmed for me that this space, too, is holy. Spaces where we find release, connection, co-being, are holy. And rare. The word "sheltering" came as an offering. And in my dream last night, this prayer: Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha – ופרש עלינו סכת שלומך. Spread over us a shelter of your peace.
9. So I trust the cycles and the changes. Make room for the sorrow and fear. Pray for the safe return of the hostages, pray for the babies, the babies, the babies, the grandmothers, pray for something other than obliteration and more suffering. And the angels wept.
10. And don't forget the light coming up over the fields. And don't forget to roll the trash to the edge of the driveway.
11. And don't forget to slow down long enough to glean each other's humanity. Which could take a lifetime, which feels like time we don't have. But we must. We must. I must.
Layers of earth, roots, land,
water, sky – where does one
layer begin & another end –
where does one prayer end &
another begin – where does one people
end & another begin – where does
one terror end & another begin?