A New Year

A new year is an invitation from The Great Choreagrapher to begin a new and do things with correct intention.

What do you need to take that big first step forward so that you can reach the finish line with your dream?

If it is tangible, find it, get it, use it.

If it is more time, carve it out of your days.

If it is sacred time, seal it in your vision.

If it is family time, discuss it and find a way.

If it is financial, plan, save and sell to get it.

If it is community acceptance, ask the best and brightest for their advice and assistance. 

If it is being in better shape, just do it.

If it is a new project. Map it out.

Whatever you want or need now is the time to ask. G-d wants that we should ask. Shmuel's mother Chana taught us this when she went to pray and the High Priest, accused her of being intoxicated. 

She was intoxicated because her soul was pleading desperately for her son, Shmuel, whom she was bestowed in return for her prayer that day, to give birth to and take care of until he was weaned. Then she promised in return to bring him back to the High Temple to serve G-d.

She was willing to make that "deal" for the privilege of bringing his Neshama forward into the world.

How interesting that you are both Shmuel's. and I can say at one time or another I have pleaded with G-d to that same degree asking that G-d will bless you both.

And you both are blessed. I am too.

It is for this reason that I decided to write and suggest you both to consider a daily perspective to strive to live each moment as it comes.

And perhaps you already live like this.  In a life of simplicity and goodness we merit making the best of what life presents to us.

Sometimes we are presented and we miss it. Sometimes we are presented and we look and do not choose it for ourselves. Sometimes we are presented and we grab it. 

What are you going to do with a clean slate? Paint beautiful art? Write a mathematical equation? Leave it blank? 

Complain that it is blank?

This is what Rosh HaShanah is really all about.

The opportunity to wipe the slate clean, implement everything you want sifted with lessons learned in order that you will achieve the fulfillment of bringing your dreams to reality. 

Ok. Dreams come true.

May you be blessed, inscribed and sealed for the best year of your life.

Each of you.

Both of you.

Me too.

Starting now.

Rav & Me~Yin & Yang

Once I went to see the Rav.

I took a picture of the DNA Helix.

I took a image of the Sefirot.

I said to him, "Perhaps Jacobs ladder in the story was a metaphor for our
DNA Helix. And not only were the angels going up and down the ladder, but we can also traverse
our own DNA. How? Through Frequency, Vibration and Voltage.

The change allows us to navigate the ladder, as the angels showed us. So that we can come and go along the helix and "get-off" and explore the Sefirot.

He looked at me, half considering what he probably thought as nonsense, but he did not say that.
Instead he said, " This is just a finite spec within the entire realm of Torah."

"I love studying Halacha because it is everywhere," he added.

"True," I thought, but what some people need to access that specific finite possibility in order to gain beauty. It does not take away from the entire Torah, or halacha or Worlds within Worlds.

What it does is salve the soul, butter the neshama, fuel the fire of passion and our deepest belief which are our charcter attributes of being human.

Halacha is the Fence. Seferot is the canvas, paint and personality of that which learns Halacha.

In a sense the Rav and I are the Yin/Yang of Torah in human form.  He lives very wide. I live very narrow.

This conversation was at least 7 years before I am writing today.

Focus and Movement

What you can accomplish in a week in astounding.

Believe in the best of yourself

No one can tell you what you can't do, so don't let anyone burst your balloon.

I had PMS, ADD, IBS and lots of other letter combinations you can imagine.

Brilliant
Pure
Beautiful
Magnificent
Original
Holy
Brave
Visionary
Wise
Highly intuitive
Gifted
Healer
Lover
Friend
Motherboard
Chassid
Our name is our Virtue

The Reply

The explosive torrent of resistance to the thing that just happened in front of my very eyes that couldn't have actually happened, could it? That isn't what I saw, is it?

The over whelming undercurrent facade of self protection taking over implicitly so you can survive the next ten minutes long enough to catch your breath and maybe be able to think after that - long enough - to make the next move or return a phone call or make a decision.

Your vision is blurry and the world is moving past you like a bullet train and you can not find your ground. If I could only plug in long enough to find my coordinates, I could make it to the next step.

And you can not breathe or find discernment.

You are un-find-able. There are no GPS coordinates that give you a sense of where you are or where you belong or who will meet you, because without coordinates nobody else knows where to find you either.

And suddenly the silence is deafening. You are alone and there is nothing from the past that gives you an anchor or a handle to hold on to until your vision improves and you can breath again.

You are completely alone, ill-equipped and fundamentally terrified that this is the way it is going to be.

Of course it isn't but it feels real - like a destiny that you agree to sometime but don't remember and is somehow irreversible. Adn you know you simply must accept that.

The gift.

When I get dressed each day.
I realize, as I pull the camisole over my head,
pushing one arm at a time through each hole,
stretching the tight fabric around my head, over my breast and down my abdomen,
how very lucky and fortunate I really am.
To be able to dress myself.
All by myself.
For I have use of both my arms.
Thank G-d!

How does it feel?

I'll tell you.

Shock.....
When it goes through your system it can be hot and cold at the same time.
Like the inside of you is chilled to the bone and the outside is sweating to get out.

You can feel the outline of every nerve in your neck, lungs and stomach
without the ability to control the intensity.

You feel like you are on the precipice of insanity, flying, falling, panic and liberation all at the same time.

Each direction you look is beyond decision, beyond understanding, beyond  knowing
and beyond choosing.

The tears flow in an inconsistent wave of anger, misunderstanding, desperation,
frailty, pain and confusion.
The memory unlocks.
It tries to repeat itself....so it can stay.
Don't let it.

You desperately need to reach out but are locked in the inability to do so.
The experience is beyond words.
The brain tries to understand what is happening to the soul and body.
The body tries to understand what is happening to the soul and the mind.
The soul tries to listen for G-d to speak in metaphors of wisdom and clues.
Giving direction.
And silence is the only sound.
Silence.
Silence of the experience.
Silence, trying to recall the memory that is buried deep in the unconscious.
Buried so deep.
Yet, surfacing to speak.
Rising to be released.
Without grace.
And why is there no grace in the release? Why is the release so violent?
So dramatic?
Why can't the human psyche bear to see and accept, bear to surface and release,
bear to beg for mercy, bear to thank for grace?
Bear to merge with infinity?

We are separate, from the moment we emerge.
Always trying to return to that feeling of wholeness within the connection.
From which we are ripped apart as we travel through the valley.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The Valley that brings us to Life.

Every muscle, nerve and sinew knows.
Every atom, electron and proton knows.
Every particle and fiber of our being knows.
Why then, it is so hard for us to know, to understand and accept, what we have experienced?
What we endured?

Shock is our bodies way of accepting more than we can process at the time.
What we have experienced, what we have learned and what we are allowing to bid farewell.
It holds itself within.
Until the time we invite it to depart.

Or stay buried until a memory or sound unlocks its ravages.
Some leave with kindness.
The one I describe today must have really enjoyed the home I shared within every particle of myself.

I cannot thank you because you caused me discomfort, struggle and pain.
You arrived by mistake.
You leave by my strength.
Light cannot exist where darkness hides.

How do I feel?
Ask me when I get to the other side.
For today, I am only the vessel of the experience.

4 U

Do you have glass in your heart?

Glass cuts.
It is invisible.
It allows you to guard against everyone
    and everything from getting in.

See through it.

A glass window is perfect for a house.
Not for a heart.

In a heart,
Glass cuts and
You Bleed.

Take the glass out.
Remove it from your heart.
And replace the glass,
With trust.

Trust your actions.
Remain true to your self.
Trust in that and that alone.

Trust is....
A Crown of Honor....

4 U 2 wear.
Not
4 U 2 tear anyone or anything up any longer.

Now
And
Forever.........

What are you protecting in your heart?
Because whatever you are protecting, prevents you from moving forward.
From moving on......to the next place.
The next space.
Your Next.
My Next.

I get so disappointed in myself sometimes.
And in the limits of others.
It affects my ability to connect.
Which in turn limits building something real and eternal.

Glass is invisible,
It protects me.
Glass is my safety net.

When I am disappointed in others, glass protects me.
And keeps me from being cut to pieces, bleeding to death.


But it also prevents me from ever getting too close,
from seeing eye to eye.

So how do I protect and prevent myself against this
inevitability while remaining vulnerable to life and love?

How do I protect against being disappointed,
In the limits and failure of others?

How do I allow myself to be vulnerable and remain wise at the same time?

Reframe it.

Instead of looking through the glass.
Look within yourself.

What limits me/you from feeling safe and trusting.
Is the same thing that limits others from getting too close.
And the only real trust there is, is the trust that you have in yourself.
The trust to make the right choices.
To remain true to yourself.

At all costs.
In all choices.
All the time.

-The End-