Return: a poem for the ending of Elul

Return.
Again.
I have returned again
to this place of fullness,
this place of everythingness;
and I feel empty.
Hollow.
Again.

I fling my sins,
all bright copper
and colored feathers,
out into the heavens -
Which is separate from the earth,
Which is separate from the waters,
and they fly like birds,
and dance and dazzle.

They are beautiful,
these sins of mine,
as they catch the light.
I am caught in their beauty,
racing after them.
They drift and fall
like so many crooked arrows,
and I collect them,
to turn them back to me
before moving on
to the next gate.

And I am filled: a poem for Shabbat

She comes, my bride;
She comes in all her glory,
and I stop, breathless
drawn in as I always am
into her eternity.
to rest in her palace
forever, for a day,
for the sweetness
of a moment
that stretches into
endlessness and grace,
and I rest, whole.
She comes, my Shabbos bride,
and I am filled.





























..

#BlogElul, Day 17: Awaken

I don't think I'm always awake for my own life. I'm way too distracted. At times, my focus is totally inwards, so that I miss much of what goes on around me. At others, I'm all external, which means I skip over the me in those experiences-- how I fit, what I feel, what I bring, and what I take away.

It is not a very present life. It is not a very intentional life. It's a life lived later, or next week, or not at all.

A handful or so of years ago, I was at OSRUI for Shabbat Shira-- a retreat that combines song and prayer and community and holiness in a profoundly rich and wondrous almost-week of days. On Friday morning, for shachrit, we participated in a movable feast-- a service that literally moved us from one place to the next, had us praying and eating and singing that bent the light, so to speak. In each place in the service-- physically, spiritually, mentally, we were asked to notice differently, challenged to engage differently, so that every one of our senses was awake and aware.

It was a sacred, holy thing. I think I caught fire-- or at least my head and my heart did. We walked together to the lake, and I could think-- be aware of, awake for-- how the cold hit my body, how the path lay dappled in gentle light, the sweet scent of a distant fire. I heard the crackle of stiff leaves fighting with the song of birds and tasted the first hint of winter.

While we all stood at the lake, water lapping at the shore and the sun filling a cloudless sky, we prayed, we were awakened to the miracle of a new day. I am infinitely grateful that I am awake and alive and part of the wonders that fill every moment and make every moment holy. 

This is what I wrote that day. This is what I took away:
(https://staceyzrobinson.blogspot.com/2012/10/modah-ani.html?m=1)

We walked

From one place to another

In quiet wonder at the rising of the morning.

Light filled us

And color.

Under canopies of gold

Shot through with green

And strong branches

Flecked with a suddenness of blue

Stretching halfway to forever.

Geese and crows

Sang their psalms

To the One

Of Creation and

Becoming

A murmurous mix of

The shuffles of leaves

A muffled crunch

Signaling summer's slow end

Soft-voiced under canopies of gold.

Chill air coiled around my fingers

My bare-skinned fingers

And the rough bark of

Bare trees

Suddenly bared

Gently, sweetly bared

Yet rough

Edged in hardness

And sudden sweet chill.

They began

They ended

Distinct and edged

In beginning to end

What I saw

What I heard

What I felt

On that wondrous

That glorious

That holy walk we took

To greet the rising of the day.

That scent of morning

On that shared path

That leaf-edged path--

The morning scents were

Almost

Were not quite

And in-between.

They urged me on

Brought me here to this edge

Quickening me to this light-filled edge

This beginning

this ending

Of earth and sky

With such fullness

A richness of sound and light and still,

With an ever-present

Becoming.

Amen.

(From my blog, titled Modah Ani, posted October 2012)

Not Evening, Not Day: for the beginning of Elul

It was not evening,
nor night,
not quite -
although the sickle moon,
dusted in orange,
kissed the passing clouds

It was not morning,
tho the sun
stained the sky
scarlet,
and shivered there,
on the horizon
that was sea and sky together,
and neither sea
nor sky
alone.

And so we prayed,
gathered at the water's edge,
in the not-evening-
Almost morning.
We opened our lips
on the border
of land that moved
with fluid grace,
next to the dark glass
of an obsidian sea
that rippled with
the laughter of the stars
that skated its smooth surface.

And all the Hosts of Heaven
waited in expectant
and shimmering
Glory,
in that not-quite moment,
that sacred place
of not you
and not me;
That place where God lives -
at the very edge
of Heaven
and Earth,
That is the center
And calls to us
With bird song and wind
and the rippling
lightening
obsidian sea.

And there the shofar called
A single note,
Stretching out unto
eternity.

There was evening.
There was morning.
One day.

Jacob's Ladder

David's harp urges me
and the horns of Abraham's
dilemma push me,
and Jacob's ladder is crowded
with angels. They move aside,
not without some attitude,
so I may stumble up those
narrow rungs; still -
elevated though I am,
there is only dust
and a blaze of Glory
in the far distance.

I am meant to follow,
with open hands
and open heart,
to feel the quickening
of my blood
that moves in equal time
with my shame
and my joy, my fear and
love, my grief and my ecstasy,
So that I may claim them all,
as they have claimed me -
and once claimed,
I may again stand at the gates
and ask to enter.

Elul, Day 1 - Nothing Hidden

I have several friends who blog Elul. There are lists of prompts. The prompts are awesome. For today, I have seen the prompt "act" and "repent" on this, the first day of Elul. Two completely different lists, two completely different people. I could have a field day spinning a tale of connection between those two verbs.

I love spinning tales between seemingly disparate things. One of these days, I swear I will do a study of what I meant to type on my phone vs. what the gods of typing think I meant.

Of course there's no small god living in my phone, playing a game of mystical tomfoolery and revelation.  So what if I type (or mean to type) "easy" and "Esau" shows up. That may not be the best example, but its the one that springs to mind (perhaps because it happened just a few hours ago). Every so often, i am riveted by what shows up on my screen; I know,absolutely, that any supposed connection that I see is circumstantial, but I am so caught by that circumstance, and I start wondering and spinning tales. They are my private flights of fancy. There's no deeper meaning to be ferreted out of pure chance.

There's nothing hidden.

Now there's a word fraught with meaning. Potentially fraught. Potential meaning. Hidden. The cascade begins.

It starts with God. What doesn't start with God? They say (some of Them, those mystical Them mostly; still, it is said) they say that God hides from us. A theological game of hide-and-seek? But God is everywhere, in everything - there can be no place that God is not, so how is it that God can hide? What does God hide, anyway? What secrets does She savor? I can't get my head aroound it.

And even as I think about God and hiding and what lies hidden, my thoughts start sliding, skittering this way and that, knowing (oh God, knowing!) the important stuff I want to avoid, the things I'd really rather stay hidden, from God, from you. From me.

And I think maybe, during this holy month of Elul, where we are called on to dive a little deeper, bend the light a little more, search some and reflect some and reveal some - this year, rather than jump on the amazing lists of prompts that dear friends have created so lovingly and mindfully, I will instead blog Elul a bit differently this year. This year I will try to find what is hidden within me.

I don't believe that God hides. I believe, with all my heart, that God is present always, in the everwhere. God needs no gates. No doors. No secret codes. Perhaps we humans do. God does not. God wants (and demands) love. with everything we have: heart and soul and "m'odecha," which I translate as our everythingness, our veryness. I have no idea what that means, but I try to comply anyway. Most days.

So. Nothing hidden. I will dive as deeply as I can, to find all the hidden places - fear and anger and beauty and love - gifts unimaginable, to be sure. I am afraid of what I will find. I think I am more afraid of finding the gifts and the grace. The other stuff is old home week for me. It's always the good stuff that floors me just a bit.

So welcome to this year's adventure. I invite you to share it with me. What do you hide? What do you reveal? If you're brave - share it. Leave a comment or two in the space you'll find below. My goal is to post some every day. Like I said - I have no idea what all will find light this month. Still, it's an adventure, right?

To quote a purely fictional character (and who doesn't feel a bit fictional every now and then?) -

"Oh! What larks!"

BlogElul - Hope

I find, much to my surprise, that I am, once again, stumped by hope. That is, I'm having a hard time daring to do it. Life is so very fragile, and the world can be so dark. One false move - or, perhaps, any move at all - will upset that delicate balance, which feels too much like the whole of existence dancing on the head of a pin. Hope requires that I move somewhere, anywhere, even a hair's breadth from the spot I am in, but I see that empty, endless expanse laid out all around, and I am afraid I will fall into forever.

That's hope for you: dangerous, and wrapped up into way too many metaphors to do anybody any good. Least of all, me. Here's a secret though, my secret: I so want to hope - fearlessly, courageously, defiantly, in the face of every fear or foe.

But perhaps. Maybe. Just maybe, I got it wrong. That vision, I think, is for the fantasy novel hero, the shield maiden, donning her armor and wielding her sword, stalwart and sure. That's not hope. Not really. That's a fantasy, nothing more. Neither is hope is not a wish, or empty words of hearts filled with thoughts and prayers. Lovely sentiments, to be sure - but these are not hope.

Hope is feeling the dread - that icy lick of fear you get just microseconds after the news of (choose all that apply): the death of a loved one; a difficult (scary) diagnosis; some disaster that is big and huge and all-encompassing. And in spite of all that ice and dread and fear - you move anyway. You hold a hand, comfort an anguished heart, breathe, stand with, witness, give strength, cook a meal, drive a carpool, smile, sing, laugh, talk, listen. And even (I hate to admit this) pray. Because sometimes, that's all that's left, the only thread you have to hold onto: prayer - a conversation with God, even one filled with every swear word you can think of, even one with no words at all.

Hope is an action.

As I said, I've not been practicing much hope these days. Instead, I've been staying a little bit stuck in the icy dread. I don't like it much (although I am quite comfortable staying so stuck; I've had way too much practise here), this precarious perch upon which I've climbed. Frankly, my balance isn't too good these days, and my arms are getting really tired. I need to let go.

An old story keeps running through my head: 

Rabbi, what if I don't feel like praying?

Pray until you do...

Perhaps it is the same with hope. What if I am afraid to hope? What if I'm too stuck? What if I don't feel like I can hope?

Hope until I do.

Until then, I will dance as gracefully as I know how, high up on this pin, and try - with all my might - to fall, to let go - to hope that one day, I will.

#blogelul

Elul Day 29 - Return

Return.
Again.
I have returned again
to this place of
Fullness,
this place of everythingness;
and I feel empty.
Hollow.
Again.
I fling my sins,
all bright copper
and colored feathers,
out into the heavens -
Which is separate from the earth,
Which is separate from the waters,
and they fly
like birds,
and dance
and dazzle.
They are beautiful,
these sins of mine,
as they catch the light.
I am caught in their beauty,
racing after them.
They drift and fall
like so many crooked arrows,
and I collect them,
to turn them
back to me
before I move on
to the next

Gate.

Seven Blessings

On this day,
this holy day,
there is sweetness,
and blessing,
and love
Beyond measure,
Without end.

On this day,
this holy day,
there is created
a canopy of heaven
and sweet grass
upon which we stand -
You, who carries
the breath of God,
And I, to stand
beside you.

On this day,
this holy day,
I will bind me to you
And you to me.
Seven times bound,
to sanctify,
to celebrate
the becoming of one.

This day,
this holy day,
I bind my hands to yours.
And I will know light,
even in darkness,
In your touch,
gentle
and liquid,
like fire
or silk,
Bound together
in the ever
for always.

This day,
This holy day,
I bind my heart to yours,
To beat out
the rhythms of our lives.
This simple rhythm,
now synchopated;
Textured,
Cadenced by joy
that lives in
each beat and
Breath.

This day,
this holy day,
I bind my love to yours.
I feel the weight of it
settle, like cloth of gold.
And I am lifted,
and I find
Ease
and rest
and I am whole.

I bind my days to yours,
To the endlessness of
Time, and
Need, and
Tender
Aching
Want.
I bind my life
Within the bounds of yours
And there will I dwell
And know love.

Elul Day Thirteen: Remember

There are times
I am caught by memory,
like a blanket.
warmed and wrapped
and sinking,
so that I long to stay
in its embrace.

There are times
memory catches at me,
at the sharp edges
and rusty corners.
It is not a liquid moment,
not fluid, or surging
in a noisy back and forth
and in and out
like the sea,
but ragged,
often drawing
blood.

There are times
I have no memory,
no remembrance
at all - there is
not a blank wall
upon which to draw
lines that dip and dance
and pirouette
as my fancy and
logic dictate,
but an absence,
a nothingness of
silence and cold
that swallows
light
and pain
and joy.

Or so I think,
I think.
So I believe,
I hope, that
perhaps the Gates
stand guard over all
that absence
that guards my pain,
my light
and joy.

Perhaps I need only
to step through.


#blogelul

Elul Day Four - Understand

I have a dear friend who once said to me, "Stacey, you know a lot of words. There is no reason to use them all at the same time." It has become one of my favorite pokes at myself, gentle self-deprecation to let others know that I know that, perhaps, I have used a few too many words. Spoken or written, it doesn't matter. My personal motto continues to be "why use ten words when a hundred will do?"

You see, I am intent on helping everyone around me understand. I start with the short explanation. Stop midstream, paint the picture from a different angle. Then layer that with more commentary, circle back in some circuitous fashion to subtext A, meander along a twisty path to sub-subtext Q, offer up an alternative viewpoint that has since been laughingly disproved by all thinking peoples of the world, interrupt myself with a tangential aside, more to give depth to the explanation than to change the subject, though at this point, it really doesn't matter much, does it?

I used to laugh at my mother - lovingly, of course - when she gave directions: "You know that road we used to take, when we went to the mall?" "Yes." "Ok, go past that, and then go past the next street, the one with the Dairy Queen on the corner, remember, where you used to always get your cone dipped in that chocolate stuff, remember, like that topping we had that would harden as soon as it hit the ice cream? And then - wait - when are you going? At rush hour? Oh no - don't go that way. The traffic is horrible. Here's what you should  do..."

She wanted to give me landmarks. She wanted to make sure I didn't get lost. She was trying to be helpful. I just wanted her to tell me when to take a left; apparently, I could only take a left after I'd traveled down memory lane for a mile or two and could label every nook and cranny and crack in the sidewalk along the way.

I will grudgingly admit that my apple hasn't fallen far from her tree. While I used to wail that I wanted to be in a whole new orchard, I'm (mostly) ok laying in the soft grass of those tangled roots. And any other time of the year, I would be content, having fallen there, to rest in the drowsy air amid the lazy drone of bees. 

But this is Elul. No rest for the drowsy.

Of course I want to help you to understand. I want to help. I don't want you to get lost, literally or metaphorically. Thing is, there is a silent, invisible ending to the statement "I just want you to understand." 

Me. Understand me. 

I spend so much effort, use so many words, all in an effort to get you to understand me. I am so intent on making myself understood, I will barely hear you, as I busily plan and perfect my response to whatever it is that I think you are going to say. Listen, listen, listen, I demand. Hear me. Understand me. Do it like me.

I am Oz, the Great and Powerful. My ego - my helpful, eager-to-please, bigger than all outdoors ego - demands its just due. And like Oz, please, pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain. 

And in this moment, understanding comes at last. One of the truest things I've ever heard: "It is better to understand than to be understood." 

Talk less, listen more, see with my heart. Understanding will come, even to me.

#blogelul

Elul Day Three - Search

I write a seder for Passover every year. It is one of my most favorite things to do. Of course, I time it all wrong. I don't pay attention, and wham! There it is, staring me in the face, again. Daring me to cook and clean and write and cook some more, all in record time. And it's not like Pesach is a surprise. It comes, every year, at the exact same time. I know, I know - it  seems to float around the calendar, but really, the date never changes. I just live on one calendar, and Pesach lives on another. Maybe that's what lulls me into a false sense of time, and having enough of it.

Maybe it's just a matter of paying attention.

I don't do that nearly as well as I'd like to. Sometimes, I fear I don't do that nearly at all. I seem to pass through my life (no pun intended), barely touching the surfaces. Any depth only comes through hindsight. Oh! That's what was going on! I say, days or weeks or months later, when something else entirely jogs my memory (tapping me on the metaphorical shoulder, or kicking me in the slightly less metaphorical gut) and transports me back. I get it now. 

And the engines of time start up again, whisking me away to traipse through my days once more.

So I write a seder every year, and I write it for my son. I write it because I am required to tell the story to the one who is too young to even know how to ask what the heck is going on (a paraphrase, I'm sure). The seder has changed year by tear. The story is the same; the way we tell it isn't. One year was sock puppets. One year was a tale of magic and suspense, told by talking birds, and I think a butterfly. There was "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" Seder, and of course, the ever popular write-your-own-adventure seder, where we broke up the story into segments and teams were encourage to act out their section as creatively as possible.

One year, I was inspired. I wrote Game Day Seder - a series of games and quizzes and challenges to tell the story from beginning to end. There were a lot of kids that year, so it was great, good fun. That year, I started with a treasure hunt for chametz. Now, you should know: I don't get rid of chametz - bread and other rising stuff, and stuff that doesn't actually rise but gives the appearance of doing so, and rising stuff you can't even see but someone will know it's there, even if it's only you and God. I don't use it or eat it during Passover, but I also don't scour my house of it. This year I didn't, next year? Maybe.

Even so, we had a treasure hunt. I hid eighteen large croutons around the house, divided the kids into two teams, and armed each team with a feather and a flashlight. I considered a candle, but then, I knew the kids and their clumsy intentions and willingness to throw themselves into the fun. Flashlights were a good choice.

On your marks. Get set. Go.

And they midfully and intentionally went about their way, searching for hidden chametz. Piece by piece, they found all that was hidden, with enthusiasm and frustration and triumph. Every piece accounted for, eventually. All that was hidden, brought to light, then offered, all together, a flaming, smoking pyre atop my grill, sending up a pleasing odor as dusk gathered in the light from the corners of the sky and the first few stars trembled in the heavens.

I love that we are required to search for all that is hidden. I love that we are given so many hints and reminders throughout the year to do so, so that even people like me, who rip and run and race and stumble and fall through the days can still be reminded to pause, long enough to search all those hidden places, to find - with triumph and trepidation and joy - all of the stuff that was hidden.

I think of Elul as another one of those blue threads that reminds us to pay attention, a gift to allow us to bend and dive and search and find all of the things we hid away, to shine a light in the dark and murky corners and sweep it all together with a feather touch, ready to offer it all up and so be made free. And so be made whole.

#blogelul

Act - Elul Day Two

I do not particularly like to admit that, for this past year, I have been curiously passive. I have responded and reacted far more than I have acted. I have allowed the forces of Chance and Capriciousness to make their marks upon me more often than not. More often than was good for me.

To be honest, they've left me rather bruised and somewhat battered.

I do not like to admit that, sometimes, over this past year, it was so much easier to rack up those bruises than to decide. To pick or choose or move or act. I hate to admit that, for this past year, sometimes staying in bed sang a siren call so sweetly, lulling me into just one more Pajama Day, just one more time. What could it hurt?

Well, um, actually - me. All that battering and bruising - all the doubt and panic and passivity, all the stuckness and immobility damaged me. Every time I waited, every time I watched and let life role over and through, come what may, it became easier to let it. Most times, it didn't matter - six of one, half dozen of the other. Or, at least, close enough not to matter.

It became so easy, that when it mattered, when I really needed to act, I couldn't. Didn't.

It's one thing to do this to myself. It's quite another when my inaction - as it so inevitably did - singed so many others around me. Letters didn't get mailed, forms didn't get signed. Calls weren't returned on time.  I showed up in body, my spirit stayed somewhere locked away, passively waiting for the other shoe to drop, yet always surprised when it did. I fooled myself into believing I was showing up enough for the people I love.

Mostly, I was just hollow.

I have a lot of clean up to do. How apropos, to realize all of this now, as we enter this season of separating what I would like to believe of myself from who I really am. I don't have to dive too deep in this one. When I abdicate the need or ability to act, I don't just give up control, it is not just me who gets tossed about on the rocks. It is everyone around me, and the closer they spin to my orbit, the more scraped and skinned their knees become.

The good news - I haven't passively waited for this season to change, to realize that all the bruising and battering was not the fault of cruel and capricious chance - much as I would like to lay blame at that particular altar. No, my wounds, and the wounds I placed on the people I love and hold dear were all due to me not acting, to me merely drifting through my life.

The beauty of Elul is the freedom to say "I am weary and afraid and I have no clue at all - but still, I will act. I will err and possibly flail about, but I will act, put one foot in front of the other and show up, even imperfectly." I think, perhaps, this is the only way to heal: act. Show up, again and again, imperfections and mistakes and weary, grudging doubt.

The Gates are open, but I gotta get there to walk through.

#blogelul

Prepare - Day One Elul

I have to say, I got the list early. At least a month ago. More than enough time to write a few essays, draft a poem or two. More than enough time to, you know, prepare.

Don't get me wrong - I've written some in my head. I would love to say, I've really thought about a few, laid out some mental framework for a bunch. I'd love to, but it's really kinda snarky to lie now, of all times, it being Elul and all. I've thought about this essay, this prompt, none of the others.

At first, all I could think of was Boy Scouts. Obviously, I've never been one. I was a Brownie for a bit of a year, until my mother backed out of being co-leader when she realized that volunteering meant more than offer and want, that showing up was a part of it. I may have no idea what the Brownie or Girl Scott (or Campfire Girls or even Indian Princesses) motto might be, but I know the one for the Boy Scouts: Be Prepared.

Interesting that it's in the passive voice. While I'm sure the message of the motto is fraught with activity, on its face, it is, nevertheless, passive, to be acted upon rather than to be a mover of worlds.

From there, I skipped easily over to Godspell. Of course I skipped there. I can't not hear those opening notes, so pure and unadorned - "Prepare ye, the way of the Lord..." Yes, yes: I know. It is, perhaps, slightly odd to reference that particular musical in this particular context, but it is, to me, perfectly in tune with Elul. Get ready, says the song, there's a God thing about to happen! There is so much quiet joy in this song, that starts with a single voice and build and grows to many. Let's all get get ready, get moving, get mindful, because the time is now, today and then the car broke. Again. And the car needed to be towed. Again. And I had to get the loaner. And then groceries and dishes and sweeping and mopping and I had a date.and the cat needed to play, every time my fingers hit the keyboard and the boy, my beloved boy, he needed dinner and attention and time. And there was something skittering around in my head, about packing and getting ready for a trip and how that was less preparation and more taking a little bit of everything I own, just in case, and there are a few people I need to get back to dammit I forgot to pick up the prescription and

Who the hell has time to prepare?

And so I'm late. As usual. All the prep time in the world, and I come in late. Unfinished, or just barely not. A thousand thoughts swirling in my head, some of them even about Elul and Prepare and this blessed need to stop and breathe and dive in, headlong, prepared or not.

And that's it, really: ready or not, prepared or just barely, this is it. Even in those rare moments when I feel totally prepared, life can so throw me for a loop and send me spinning. This is the prep work, this month, this mindful time, being in it, living and diving and bending the light just so, allowing me to examine the year I have lived, and how I showed up for it (or didn't).

Stop. Breathe. Dive.

Rosh Chodesh Elul sameach.
(grateful for a two day rosh chodesh)
(and now onto Day Two: Act)

#blogelul

#BlogElul 29 (#Tishrei 9-10) - Return

I like the symmetry of return.

I like the idea that, no matter how linear we think we are, or time is, or God is, we tend to find a way back. As I've written before, even God recognizes this: why else create t'shuvah before ever creating the Heavens and the Earth?

Those rabbis, diving into text that is written in and between all the magnificent letters of the Torah! At least, that's how I see midrash. Today. Tomorrow? Perhaps they are just stories, made up to fill in the holes, or the blanks that God left. Or maybe Moshe left blank spots - too weary having to carve a second set after that little incident with the Golden Calf, carving in one night what God had taken 40 days to do the first time around. Or just maybe, it's all Torah.

Torah. Even that isn't linear - we begin at the beginning, but there is no end. Again and again, just when we think it's over - the story is played out, the cast has all gone home - we begin again. I love when we unroll the whole thing - we see the whole of the story, from end to end to end: parchment and ink. All the words. All the mitzvot. All the awe and fear and trembling and demands that we be holy, that we care for one another, that we love, in between the anger and pettiness and war.

Unrolled, we wrap it, this sacred, holy, ancient, living thing - we wrap it around our children, we hold it up, to study, to read, to chant, to learn and teach.

We return, again and again to this, the beginning, the middle, the end. It encircles us all, draws us in, holds us dearly.

I stand here today, returned to this place, and offer this poem, that I wrote last year, to begin the journey to return. As I said, I like symmetry. I offer this, as my prayer, that we make this journey together, and that we return, again and again, to find wonder and love and God and each other.

The Edge of Everything

We gathered,

all of us,

having walked this long road

Before.

There is so much I don't

remember of it:

Cold

and dust

and heat-cracked pavement.

And noise!

God, the noise--

It could tear you apart

and get inside your head

and all you want

is just a little piece of

Quiet,

A chance to

Breathe

without feeling like

Everything--

your hope

your fear

your love

and

doubt--

All of it,

All of you

was caught

somewhere in your chest,

or maybe your throat,

And all you want is just one small

Breath

to be easy

and quiet.

So we gathered

there,

Here

at the edge,

the very edge of

Everything;

Stopped in our noise

and our doubt

and fear.

Stopped

at the edge

of love

and hunger:

At the edge of want,

to catch the light

of a thousand suns

and ten thousand moons

and absolute

Stillness.

Glinting of silver

and an infinity of

Blue,

Subtle variations

of color

and depth,

Caught

in the  reflection of

Sky.

Caught,

all along the edges,

with light.

We gathered here,

Together,

at the edge,

bathed in

silence

and bending light,

weary and

ready, 

to leap. 

To dive into that pool

filled to overflowing

with love

and doubt

and hunger 

and hope,

that waiting pool of 

Self.

There, 

And filled now with sudden, shivery

Stillness,

and stars that reel

in mirrored waters.

And so I leap

With the light of

Heaven,

Of earth and sky,

Reflecting

all my doubt

my love

and longing.

And I remember

A road of dust and

Heat-cracked pavement

And I gather in the noise

And light

And breath-stopping fear,

Gather them in, to

Release them

In a single

Graceful sweep:

There is beauty in my pain.

There is more in

Letting go.

And so I breathe:

I am returned

To the edge of my

Beginning.

May your new year be sweet, and may you be sealed in the Book of Life for a year of joy.

#BlogElul 28 - Give

A prayer for the new year, 5775
(A prayer for the Month. The day. The hour.)
(A prayer for my next breath)

God of infinite compassion,
Creator of Light
and Breath:

Grant me Give.

Teach me to bend
before I break,
And find the
softness
hidden in the hard lines
and straight edges
that cut
and draw blood:
Sometimes mine.
Often yours.
Messy either way.

There is kindness
I think,
And grace,
that can gentle
the right angles
that guard my heart
and my fear,
And there,
in that linear
bisection
of slopes and slants,
I might remember
that we all fight
fierce dragons,
On a narrow,
rock-strewn,
unbending
road.

Grant me give, God,
and in that gentle giving
I can breathe

and let go

#BlogElul 27 - Intend

It would be so much easier if this prompt (as I read it, by my rules) were about all of my well-intended actions - to write, to call, to make, to do - all of those things that I mean to do, but can't get myself together enough to actually, you know, do.

There are squirrels. Many, many squir--

Butterfly!

But as I sit before my keyboard, three days behind the writing of this, with the brisket in the oven and the actual date that we will all consume the brisket still up in the air, and the invite list still as nailed down as cotton candy on a stick, and all of my music spread out on the dining room table, waiting for me to trace out the words in darker ink so that I can see them while singing in the choir in four ohmygodfour hours, and this is it - Elul is almost over and I am so not ready...

I think intendis a much harder, much richer thing than all of my squirrels put together.

Intend is all about my heart, and if I have learned only one thing in my life, it is this: the longest journey I've ever taken is the one that goes from my head to my heart.

All that other stuff, all that distracted, ADHD forgetfulness, all of that may be symptomatic of this, but it is only a pale echo of the spiritual principle of intend.

There is a psalm, a really horrible psalm, all smitey and teeth-gnashy and eat the babies of the enemies kind of psalm. I would not set it to music and sing it as a lullaby. But within it, there is a verse, hidden in its simple glory and profound grace: Ani tefillah. It is often translated as "I am a prayerful person."

No. Okay - maybe. Who am I to judge anyone's translation of Hebrew. But here's how I would do it (how I actually hear it): I am prayer.

I am prayer. I am a prayer. Either way - it is the intention, the mindful action, that I live my life as a prayer to God. That I enter the world raw and vulnerable and open, cracked wide. All my borders, every boundary, open.

Even in my doubt. Even in my struggle. My anger and pain - I am a prayer. My joy is a dance in the palm of God's hand. My anger a song of praise. Whatever the words - the keva of my siddur, the stilted, flowery English of the machzor - they are not the prayer. I am. The words of my heart, the ones that I whisper in the dark or sing out under a sky of scarlet and gold, the ones I am too afraid to voice - but find a way even so, this is my prayer, this my intent.

As I walk these last steps towards the new year, towards the gate and the hope of redemption, may I never forget that every breath is a blessing, every word that I speak is a prayer. Ani tefillah. 

#BlogElul 25 - Begin

Breathe.

Just breathe. Stand poised at some achingly high pinnacle, where the air hurts, and your arms are lifted over your head in an arc of fluid grace, and just

Breathe.

Until your arms shake from the strain of your posed poise

and the air - God! the air is so thin and cold,

and you want to gasp, but you can't,

because every time you do -

every damned time you gather in your body to catch your breath,

the ground under your feet isn't as solid as you thought,

and it shifts and crumbles, just a little -

just enough to let you know that one good breath will send you
tumbling into some impossibly deep, endless chasm

that will swallow you whole, and you will fall
forever.

So you just stand in some poised pose, ready and strained past breaking,

And you tremble and try not to stagger under the weight of your fear.

And then you look up

At a sky that takes what little breath you have away

That is a dome of azure and stars and heaven

And it falls up into forever.

And you do gasp then, at the beauty of it
At the wonder and the glory of that expanse of light and dark
That is soft and hard at once, that is silent and still and waiting
And you realize then, in that instant
That you are the altar; your fear,the offering
and you will bleed out your despair as you are drawn near,
and nearer still.
Leap! Leap out and let your arms fall in a graceful arc
That, too, is your offering, your sacrifice:
All that poise, all that pain, laid on the altar of your body
to be caught, to be ever caught by God, by hope.

Breathe. And again - breathe.
And again
Begin.

#BlogElul 24 - End

I just finished an essay for the prompt "End." Literally just entered the last period, formatted the text, did the spell check. Every word of it was true. Every word was insanely false, a discordant klaxon of wrongness that made my teeth and my fingers clench. I have enough tension happening these days; I really don't need another source. 

Remember, this is Elul. I am sadly late with a handful of essays that no one has been begging me - or even asking me - to write. But I promised me, and I don't do that often. And during this month, this fearful and glorious and difficult month, I try to honor what I have been taught - to dive deep, to bend the light differently, to explore just who the hell I am, so that when I stand, at last, before that last gate, in that last minute, asking for forgiveness, hoping for redemption, I will stand there clean, having done the work as honestly, as thoughtfully and mindfully as I could.

So. I'm scrapping that first essay, that was true, but that rang false.

End.

Here's the honest and true thing about End to me, during this month of Elul. Nothing ends. At least, nothing in my life does. Mainly because I won't let it.

I live in a land of never-ending forever. I don't let things end - not relationships, not friendships, not bad situations. And the good stuff - the happy, the fine, the soft and gentle and kind stuff? I cling to that with a death grip. I hold on so tightly that my nails dig into my palms a little too deep, and I break the thing I was trying to hold

Sad will never end.

Pain will never end.

Happy will never end - as long as I can control it, make it stay, make it last.

Because, when things end, when you (I) let them go, wherever it is that they go to when they do go, when you (I) let them, then all you are (I am) is alone. And that really, really never ends.

Every word here rings true. Sings it, in some minor key that is so fragile and tragic and makes my heart hurt. Every word rings true, and it is all false. Every word.

Because this is Elul, and I cannot allow myself to stop at the first turn, the first tug of resistance, to end before I really dig deep. Because the second and the third and the fifteenth - every turn after this first one has shown me that things end - marriages, friendships, happily-ever-after, and dark and stormy nights - they all end, and sometimes I'm alone, and sometimes I'm not. But even the aloneness ends.

Keep the gates open, God! Please - open the gates so that I may step through, to find You, and redemption. We say this, again and again. Keep the gates open. I forget that I have my own gates. I forget that, in my fear, in my joy, how easily I close them, lock them up tight. I close myself off to everyone and everything, and I am, indeed, alone. Perhaps physically, although, let's be honest - so what? That's just a momentary thing.

When I remember, when I choose, when I do the work, I keep my own gates thrown open, and when I do, all of my aloneness ends.

#BlogElul 23 - Love

"And it kicks so hard

It breaks your bones.

Cuts so deep 

It hits your soul.

Tears your skin

And makes your blood flow.

It's better that you know

That love is hard."

"Love is Hard" 

James Morrison

I want love to be all hearts and flowers and grand romantic gestures. I want it to be noble and patient. I want it - need it - to be selfless even if it's selfish at the same time. And healing. And holy.

God - I need love to be holy.

What I get though, for all my wanting, is hard. Love is hard. And it hurts. It wraps around my heart and squeezes, slowly, so you can't breathe and you just want to stop feeling anything at all. But, you know, it's love, and it doesn't just stop when you want it to. It just keeps... hurting.

I am not in a happy-hearts-and-flower-love place right now.

I may never have been. 

Frankly, I don't get love. I don't think I ever have. Which is a terrible thing to say, I'm sure. But this is Elul, and I am called to be, if nothing else, honest. So this is honest.

I never doubted I was loved as a kid. Mostly. But love came with strings and conditions and secret codes that changed the minute you thought you decrypted them. And love hurt. It broke you into a gazillion pieces - pieces so small and jagged and sharp that your hands came away bloody every time you tried to gather all those gazillion pieces up. 

At some point, you just stop. Or at least, I did. You stop trying to figure it out, stop trying to feel it - or not feel it. You'd give anything to not feel that pain twisted with hope, that thing that makes you feel like hollow fire, that thing that just pounds you and pulls the rug out from under your feet and whispers all your insecurities to you in the dark. Because you know it will be taken away, the minute you give in to it.

You know that nothing you do will ever be enough to be loved for longer than a minute or three at a time.

And the stupid thing is - the stupid, naive, sad thing of it is: for all you know about love; for all you know how tragic and hard and ephemeral it is; for all you know that it will not last, will be taken away, you are a moth drawn to that incandescent arc of light, and you dance along that path and feel its warmth as long as it lets you, as long as you are able, until you are singed and burned and broken.

Again.

At some point, you are scarred enough that, really, you're more like the Sorceress in the fairy tales you love so much - and you love them (love, you're pretty sure, or whatever passes for that, because you just don't know) because the world they inhabit is so pure and clean, and the evil is evil and the good, good and it's all just so easy to get to happily ever after, even if there are horrible quests and adventures in the middle, because you know that Destiny is waiting to deliver that Happy Ending - but that Sorceress, she removed her heart, keeping it locked away in a secret hiding place, so that it would be safe. And if that meant she could never love anyone, not really - at least she could never be hurt again. Fair trade.

Safe. Protected.

And then you have a child. And that child finds all your secret places, without even trying. And that child looks at you as if you could slay dragons and heal plagues and talk with frikkin God, just to say hello - he just expects it. So you do. You do all of those things, and you find the heart you were sure you had buried somewhere long away and far ago, and you hand it over, as if it were nothing. As if it had never been broken.

You start to think that happily-ever-after may be a real thing, which, in your books, is just another way to say redemption. Not that everything with this child is heart-and-flowers all the time. That would be wrong and disturbing. No; this is a real child, who has tantrums and gets angry and snotty and demanding and is kind and giving and selfish and smart and annoying and you wouldn't give up a nanosecond of any of it - in hindsight; in the moment, sometimes you'd give anything to sell him to the highest bidder. But you don't. You just love him. And wonder if what you're feeling really is love, because this is the most singular and glorious thing you've ever experienced, until you stop questioning it and you just do it. You live it. Every day, you're just in it, with him, and it really doesn't matter if you can define it or nail it down or parse it six ways to Sunday. 

And then comes the day when he hurts to the breaking point. Or maybe just beyond that place. This isn't the normal, every day hurt of childhood - or even pending adulthood and the madness of puberty. This is a shattering. This is a hurt that snakes around his soul, and you thought you knew powerless before, when you got sober, and stayed sober for a couple of decades, but this is a whole new kind of powerlessness that brings you to your knees - because there is nothing you can do, at all, to heal that boy. Nothing. All you can do is watch him hurt. 

It's killing you, and you have no idea what to do, how to fix him, how to shield him. And you're sure that you have failed him and broken him. All you can do is love him, and hope that that's enough. 

And while you may not ever have done this for yourself, while you may know, without any doubt, that love is hard, and it huts and it cuts deep and gets taken away - for your child, that boy who is hurting and once looked at you as if you could dance with giants and play tag with the sun - for that boy, you are willing to believe that maybe, please God maybe, that love is, in fact enough.

(c) Stacey Zisook Robinson

2014