Update

I've been away from my blog for a year. I had surgeries in March, April, and November 2018. My long recovery continues.

The tayelet in May 2018 with Yakira and John

July 4th at WIZO with Arlan and the Anglim

Botanical Gardens in October with Arlan and Alessandra

November with Tan, Mocha, and Alessandra

Sigd 5780/2018:

Pesach 5781/2019 - visited Jessica and her family in Oregon for Pesach, was hospitalized briefly. Got to talk to Rabbi Berg several times. (Also visited the town of St. Paul.)

Early July 2019 - The Shamanic Global Summit; Daniel Foor was sensitive and intelligent. Laura Perin has had some interesting life experiences. Christine Stevens lead a journey and I asked to meet with the bird that sang for me on the Sigd hike.

Recently, while working on a representation of The High Priestess, I realized there is a canoe in the water behind the tarot figure. I recalled my journeys and pulled a card to ask why an empty canoe often appears.

The card was The Magician. It seemed an empowering card. My empty canoe is a magical tool that does not need a paddle. In the Robin Wood deck, the background is yellow, like the canoe in my representation of the HP, and it has a texture like a woven reed boat.

   

I've found a new drumming track for future journeys. I've been drawing and thinking and today, I re-read the posts about earlier journeys, discovering many things I hadn't recalled.

Choose Life

"I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. 

Choose life – if you and your offspring would live..."  

(Deuteronomy 30:19).

When I returned to the States, I watched myself gradually change from a living person into a dead one, from a person who reached out to others into one who might just as often curl up and hide from them. I recognized that I was in the wrong place, but still, the uncertainty of moving permanently to another country frightened me. 

After finally committing myself to making aliyah, and after out-waiting (I wish I could say "battling") the agencies that are supposed to help Jews make aliyah, I find that I may be terminally ill.

Part of me welcomes that news. Part of me wants to embrace life, jump on a plane, and go home now. I have not found a home for my cat. So I've decided to “import” her, after I obtain the results of her titer test, which will take another two months.

There are certainly worthwhile things I could do during the next two months, but I’m so tired...

July 28 update: Nutmeg passed her titer test, but is too old to travel. A very nice couple is going to adopt her after they move into their first house. Nutmeg likes them. Unfortunately, the closing has been delayed and they won't have the keys until some time in September! More waiting. This is best for Nutmeg but I'm frustrated, tired, and demoralized.

Some of us always look for love in places it cannot be found, and it would be "too cruel" if we said these same words some day.

Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife, Season 1, Episode 6

“I miss my mother. I never thought I would when old age came to claim me... for she tried me very sorely in my youth. I think it’s cruel that I should miss her now.”

New Blog Address

from WildApricot.com

It has been a year since I sold my house. After that, things stalled in a big way. Perhaps they needed to.

Finally, though, I can feel good changes coming. If I'm right, I'll be posting about all of it here, at my new blog.

Good News

At the risk of jinxing myself, I will say that I am healthy again. I made a nice Shabbos dinner for myself last night and finally went to Saturday morning Torah Study at the big, Reform shul today.

After Torah study, I asked a woman who's obviously an inveterate student if she would study Leviticus with me. Yes! We exchanged numbers. We'll start Tuesday the 26th and maybe I'll join her for a Biblical Hebrew class this Wednesday night, even though they started ten weeks ago and even though I'll have to go out after dark.

A chevruta! I've been looking for someone to study Leviticus with me forever and I finally found someone! 

It was a wonderful/horrible morning.

So nice to be at a Reform Torah study. Sure there are fewer comments citing specifically Jewish knowledge, but there is a love of Torah and a respect for other human beings that is uniquely Reform. In a Reform setting, the exploration of text is also an exploration of life and values.

Near the end of class, I had a flashback. For the first time, I recognized it for what it was. Instead of the shame of the experience and the shame of having a mind that would return to it, I could hold the memory and look at it-- and, knowing it was only CPTSD, set it to one side (where it kept poking at me like my cat does when she wants a snack at 3 in the morning).

After Torah study and talking with Kilian (while pushing away the flashback), I found comfort in basar v'chalav and a potent beer at Tucson Tamale. And I realized why I'm having some trouble starting to keep kosher again; traif is my defense mechanism against pain.

When I got home, I dragged Nutmeg's new piece of cat furniture outside so we could both bask in the sun. She prefers my lap.

So sweet!

Almanah

by Joanna Powell Colbert,
available at gaiansoul.com

There is a poem by Hunter Hall, All Hail the Runners, about the ages of a woman and about regaining one's own voice.


When I was six, I believed that when I was old and gray, I'd be allowed to speak up and no one would slap me down. That's not the case, but even so, I love being old!


So I was disappointed when my friend Aaron recently called me middle-aged. Is that what I am? I did the math and yes, if I assume that I'll live as long as my mother, then I am only middle-aged and won't be old until March 2021.

But there's another set of labels available.


Years ago, when I heard that phases of the moon, the faces of female divinity, and the stages of a woman's life were divided into three: maiden, mother, and crone, it seemed to me that there should be a fourth phase/aspect. Why doesn't the dark moon count? We know it's there even if we can't see it.

Later I read that M. Esther Harding had also thought that the goddess and a woman's life has four phases. More recently, Donna Henes wrote a book in which she declared that the stages of a woman's life should be divided in four: maiden, mother, queen, and crone. (The names could use revising.)

According to that system, I am in the "queen" phase of my life-- the first quarter of it. I'll be in the middle of my queen phase in 793 days. What will I accomplish between now and 12 October 2017? Can I become empowered?

And will I be a wise crone on 23 November 2048?

Why do I love being "old?" Because I no longer berate myself for being too stupid to figure the world out. The world cannot be figured out-- anything that complicated can't be real. So, all I am responsible for is being myself, following my heart, choosing whether to stay safe or to do what’s right, and appreciating my friends.

____________

Even for those who've had their voices stolen,

the true act of love is not to speak on their behalf,

but to help them steal their voices back. 

- Rhyd Wildermuth

____________

Almanah

Medicine for the Soul

A course called Medicine for the Soul has been on my "to do when I can afford it" list for a long time now. I was able to listen in on the first week once and thought it was amazing. 

The founders no longer offer the course, but you can click on this link to sign up for a recording of one of the tele-conferences.

안녕하세요! 감사합니다!

Hello and thank you to my readers in South Korea.

It turns out that my blog has a dashboard. I just discovered that several comments were left over the last year.

The dashboard also keeps track of my blog's "stats." Apparently, my blog has been viewed by quite a few people in South Korea.

As Spock would say, "Fascinating."

Autumn at the Gyeongbokgung Palace in South Korea

No Insomniacs Permitted Near the Laptop

Whoops!  I accidentally published the bare beginnings of a blog post.

My apologies to those of you who are subscribed and received a copy in your inbox.

And thank you so much for subscribing!

You Are Part of This Whole Humanity

As a child in India, Krishnamurti was taken from his father by a group of British Theosophists. They believed he would become a great teacher of their beliefs, so they spent years training him and named him the head of their new organization, the Order of the Star in the East.

Years later, there was excitement all over the world as the Theosophists began preparations to announce that Krishnamurti was an incarnation of "The World Teacher." (Goyische for Moshiach?)

Before they could make the announcement, Krishnamurti renounced his position and returned the money and land that had been donated to the organization. He declared that no organized belief system could lead people to truth or to freedom.

However, during the next sixty-four years, people continued to ask, "Who are you?"

"When they ask you who you are, in that question is implied, 'You are somebody very great, therefore I am going to imitate you.'"

According to Krishnamurti, who we are is the result of imitation. We imitate fashions; the learning we acquire in school is imitation; even our inner lives are a result of imitation. He encouraged each person he met to discover who you are.

It is nearly impossible to step out of the "narrow circle" of our identities and to learn something new about ourselves. Our brains have become "sluggish, slow, dull, because we have conformed, we have obeyed, we have followed." To discover who you are requires a "psychological revolution in which there is-- at depth-- no conformity."

Don't conform, don't compare yourself to others. Inquire, observe yourself, and you will see that you are not "a small entity, struggling in the corner of the earth. You are part of this whole humanity," he reminds us.

I've relied on organized religion for many things, including a sense of belonging. Eventually, I realized that I already belong. I belong to the Earth, to myself, and everywhere is my home.

Although I had recognized that belief systems prevent a true experience of the world, until I listened to Krishnamurti, I did not consider how deeply beliefs penetrate my thinking. As I mulled over his assertion that we are the "result of a lot of imitations," I realized that everything about me is imitation!

His challenge "to step out of that narrow circle" of imitation and of absorption in our imitation-selves, does seem impossible, but he tempts us with a beautiful promise. This complete revolution in our thinking will give us "tremendous responsibility, vitality, beauty, love."