Category Archives: Feelings

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Travel

In them thar hills

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Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

Friday gratefuls: Hills. Bernal Hill. Diane’s jogging path. Wise Son’s. Since 5771. 12 Lucky Street. Earthquake shacks. Mission. Valencia. 24th Street. Community Music Center. Maru Sushi. Chancellor. Unafraid to have a 13th floor. Bell guy. Laundry. Cool nights. Mild days. 6 sunny days.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Neighborhoods

One brief shining: Drove in to Diane’s well organized garage, got out, and waited for her, taking pictures of the murals across from 12 Lucky, when she came back we walked one lane Lucky, with cars parked on both sides to 24th, where we turned left into a low scale neighborhood with $8 haircuts, a street sign: Latino Cultural District, and a ways down Wise Son’s Deli where we ate breakfast, lox and bagel for Diane, latke smash-up for me.

 

Last day on Powell Street. Back on Amtrak tomorrow morning at 8:25 am. Powell, California, and one other street have working cable cars. Diane pointed out an interesting aspect of other street cars used here. Some of them are faithfully restored models from the past or, in other cases, from other countries. Very cool.

Yesterday was San Francisco daily life immersion with a visit to Diane’s antique filled home on 12 Lucky Street. Many of the pieces of furniture I recognized from Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia’s house on the farm. 12 Lucky is a peaceful, calm spot with various salvaged items from Diane’s jogging up Bernal Hill, finds of furniture and plants that others have thrown out. Lucky Street is off the main street of her neighborhood but parallel to it. A quieter environment. She’s been there 14 years.

Her neighborhood has a definite small town feel to it, lots of Latinos, some Samoans, Jews, African Americans, remnants of the halcyon days of the late 60’s. A spot where a person can live a normal life in a city, especially with Bernal Hill so close by.

Diane has taken me by the hand this week. Showed me her town. Commiserated with my aching back. Been understanding when I bail out on a day early. Thanks, Diane. Much appreciated.

Yesterday, too, we saw earthquake shacks. These tiny homes built of redwood, most under 900 square feet, were built to house victims of the 1907 earthquake. Most are gone but a few remain scattered around the city, several in Bernal Hill.

To do that we drove up and down steeply inclined streets with cars parked on both sides and only one available lane for two way traffic. It was Diane’s milieu and that was obvious from the way she navigated. Yet. For an outsider? Would have been nerve jangling to drive here. Especially with a manual transmission as Diane has.

We returned to the Chancellor via Mission Street and Valencia, Mission still with nefarious activity, Diane’s words, yet apparently less than before. Valencia more a young urbanite location with restaurants and bike lanes.

 

My back is worse than I imagined. Very limiting. I have about a half day or less of energy. Makes future travel plans much different from what I might otherwise choose.

 

Art and Culture, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Travel

Tea and Art

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Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Sam Wo’s Wonton soup. Chinese donuts. See’s candy. The Japanese Tea Garden. The De Young. Its early Rothko. Golden Gate Park. Taking a rest. Jazz floating in my hotel room window. Sunny weather. San Francisco. China Town.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chocolate

One brief shining: Walked down a sidewalk, a side street of Chinatown, past the mural with a meditating Buddha rendered in psychedelic colors, wearing sunglasses, past a Buddhist temple, recalled the Golden Sagely Monastery from further up on Grant, past afternoon closed restaurants to the Sam Wo, a restaurant Diane remembered because of its famously rude waiter, Edsel Ford Fung, ate a delicious bowl of Wonton soup, and for desert we left Sam Wo’s and found our way to a one-pound box each of See’s chocolates.

 

Oh. Could be misunderstood. We only bought one pound of chocolate. Didn’t eat it. Though we did get the best butter peanut candy as a gift. Which we did eat. And it was good.

 

Started yesterday morning at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. What a beautiful place. Irises in bloom, purple daggers thrown up toward any pollinator happening by. Wooden bridges. Metal Moon bridges. Granite bridges. Koi in the delicately designed pond with small flared stone lamps and Lilies floating upon it. A few Coastal Redwoods at its perimeter. Stones and Rocks honored for their presence and rough prominence. Some rounded topiary.

A tea shop with a bench overlooking the pond where Diane and I sat. Heard a man with a Stanford Engineering sweat shirt explain that he and his wife came there every year on their anniversary. The Koi swam below him.

 

From the Japanese Tea Garden we walked over to the De Young, passing by a wonderful band shell, and the Academy of Sciences. Magnolias in bloom.

The entry way to the lobby had a crack in its paving Stone which, I noticed, continued from the pavers through much larger blocks of the same Stone set here and there. Andy Goldworthy, Diane said. Simple. Profound.

On our way to the Modern and Contemporary Art galleries there was a large Ed Ruscha tryptych. Much larger than anything of his I’d seen before. A landscape, probably a desert, with his trademark words written across it. He’s a favorite of mine from my Walker days.

Found several interesting American artists represented including Grant Wood, The Threshers, and a Thomas Hart Benton. Also a few new to me. Many commenting on the struggles of workers in the early part of the 20th century.

An early Rothko from his transition away from representational toward abstraction. This one had more shapes than his later paintings, but also had colors floating on each other creating their own environment like his mature work.

A Taiwanese conceptual artist Lee Mingwei had four installations, all clever and interesting.

 

Well, gotta go. Diane’s picking me up for a deli breakfast at Wise Son’s near her house.

Back more and more problematic. A real limitation. Damn it.

(not edited. will do later)

Art and Culture, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Plants

Magnificent

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Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Cesario’s. Veal Marsala. Muir Woods. The Coastal Redwoods. Filling in the history. Diane and her VW. Scooting around San Francisco like a native. Oh, wait. The Legion of Honor. Ukiyo-e print exhibition. The Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay. Land’s End. Sea Cliff where the rich and famous live. The Presidio. Beautiful.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hokusai, Hiroshige. Redwoods.

One brief shining: We’ll need bigger cameras, I thought as Diane and I strolled along the wooden walkway surrounded by Trees than can reach 380 feet in height, the Coastal Redwoods are slimmer and taller than their close relatives, the Sequoias, rising, rising, rising their Needles far above the Valley Floor, so tall Diane said that they create their own weather.

 

Though I love art and have found both the Asian Art Museum and the Legion of Honor wonderful, the artifice of human hands and hearts cannot compare to the outright majesty and awe occasioned by the natural world outside our homes and cities. To walk along, see in the distance a grove of Trees, and see the bellied human lifting a camera lens toward the sky, how small he is in his gray t-shirt, the Tree standing tall. You could stack in cheerleader mode 50 or more of this man, one on the shoulders of the other and still be below the Tree’s top!

Oddly though I did not feel small beside them, rather I felt lifted up, this Wild Neighbor. Wow. Many signs say stay on the path and folks as far as I could see, obeyed. But when one of the big Trees was right along the walkway I felt a strong pull, walked over and hugged the small portion of the Trunk I could encompass.

These Trees are not only tall and big around, they are also old. Many well over a millennia. The scale of their size lifts them beyond the usual, but the scale of their life’s length, so far, beggars my imagination. The birds that have lit upon them. The ambitious squirrels clambering up their wrinkled bark. The humans who have camped beneath them, been shaded by them, who benefited from soil enriched by them. Generations born and died as these Trees continued their commitment to this place.

My life is better now for having walked among these beings whose life is long. And large.

 

Diane drove us up the Coast, along the Bay to Land’s End where the Legion of Honor museum sits pillared and courtyarded, a final bastion of human life beyond which the Ocean dominates.

We saw the Ukiyo-e print show, one that used the changing nature of wood block printing to illustrate the transition from the Shogunate to the Meiji Restoration. The Edo period Ukiyo-e prints of Utagawa, Hiroshige, Hokusai, Utamoro were my favorite works in the show. The later woodblock prints that had images of soldiers, warships, men and women in formal attire had more historical than aesthetic significance.

The Shunga though. Sexy.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Travel

This test. Going ok.

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Muir Woods. Redwoods. Asian Art Museum. Bonobos. Walking. Back pain. Ellis Avenue. The Tenderloin. The Chancellor. Boutique hotels. Amtrak. Travel. The Cable Cars. Powell. Sears Fine Foods. Hokusai. Ukiyo-e prints.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Challenging myself

One brief shining: About eight blocks from Bonobos, around Mason and Geary, my back complained, why it asked are you doing this to me, and I replied we are together finding out just how much trouble you are, both so I can take care of you and so I can not limit us unnecessarily, oh it said, that makes sense and I don’t want to be more of a problem than I need to be.

 

There are two facets to the back pain that are problematic. In the moment the pain can make me stop, sit down, wait for the nerves to calm. That’s the acute issue. The second facet is the price in fatigue. That is, after a bout of walking or standing which has any length at all, dealing with the back takes a toll, whether pain becomes acute or not, just from my bodies positioning and repositioning of itself .

Finding that I only have a morning and afternoons worth of energy. Or, I imagine, one of those and an evenings worth. Like yesterday.

Walking down Powell and across a Union Square bedecked in flowers-it’s Union Square in Bloom!- I wandered according to Google, found Grant Street while being assaulted with the noise of urban life, including a loud exhaust fan aiding a worker below street level, located the building, went up in the elevator to the second floor, found Bonobos and met Ish, short for Ishmael. He walked me through a fitting. Helping me find pants and shirts that actually fit.

The pants we got in one go. Shirt size took four different versions. But now we know. Ordered some chinos and three shirts, all but one shirt being mailed back to Colorado. The last shirt comes to the Chancellor tomorrow for Comedy Night.

Back down at street level I decided to walk to the Museum. I need the exercise and I love walking. In cities. In the Mountains. Slow, flaneur style walking. Noticing the hat store now closed directing customers to a new location. The woman wrasslin her thick male pit bull, muzzle on. A man sitting in a wheelchair along Ellis Street as if he were on the beach at an all inclusive resort. That guy with the pressure washer cleaning the sidewalk. The Tenderloin Police precinct.

By the time I found the Asian Museum I needed to sit. So I went to the Asian Box cafe and had lunch while waiting on Diane.

When we finished another few hours seeing the collection of Avery Brundage, proud racist and anti-semite, yet collector of Buddhist and Hindu artifacts, Diane left for her music with kiddos and yoga. I didn’t stay long. The day was done. I went back to the Chancellor a bit after 4 pm and rested until bedtime. Tired out and happy.

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Travel

ah. Art

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Asian Art Museum. Diane. Uber. Street cars clanging on Powell. Good night’s sleep. Sears Fine Foods. Chancellor Hotel. Its lobby with popcorn, coffee, water, apples, cookies. Learning my limits. Travel. Union Square. Fitting at Bonobo’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Song dynasty ceramics

One brief shining: Lunch at the Asian Box in the Asian Art Museum, the old main library transformed into a temple of the arts of Asia, riding its elevator to the second floor, finding the gallery with Chinese ceramics, locating the Song dynasty pieces, falling in love again with the skill and simplicity of that era’s potters, the delicate beauty of their work.

 

My first destination after the hotel. The Asian Art Museum. Why? I’ve missed wandering from vitrine to case to special exhibits, seeing the mark and choices of ancient hands. Especially the work of the Song Dynasty potters whose work is not only beautiful in its own right but had a lasting influence on Japan, teaware in particular. Temmoku especially.

Korean Moon Jar

These Korean Moon Jars represent the same aesthetic, simple, not perfect and in their case not even necessarily utilitarian. Just objects of clay, built on a wheel in two halves then joined. Coated with a white glaze, fired and finished.

The Song dynasty ceramicist’s influenced artists in Japan and Korea and now influence a new generation looking back at the choices made by these skilled potters. In my own preferences for ceramics the careful glazing, uncluttered designs, and muted colors say well made, well made.

 

I’m in the fourth day of my trip already. Second full day in San Francisco. The back limited me yesterday. After my morning session with the Ancient Brothers on what does your soul hunger for, I felt sleepy. Emailed Diane that I was going to take a nap. Thought it would be an hour. Nope. Two and a half.

Compressed our day which had originally included breakfast at Wise and Son’s deli, a visit to Diane’s home and her jogging hill. Instead she came here and I called an Uber.

After a tasty lunch at the Asian Box cafe at the museum, Diane had glazed salmon and I had pork with noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts, and tiny shrimp, we wandered the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean collections for three hours or so.

So happy to be there. My soul also hungers for art, needs it. My joy at being in a museum proved that.

The other hungers I identified were, like the one for art, mostly met on this trip. The others were travel, being in that place I do not know, seeing and experiencing things different from home, and seeing family. Aside from my brother and sister, Diane is my longest continuous relationship. She’s a first cousin on my mother’s side.

My family is far flung. Diane here in S.F. Mary in Malaysia. Mark now once again headed for Southeast Asia. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch in Korea. Interesting, to be sure, but the logistics of love and caring… Made difficult.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Travel

My revels are not yet ended

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Taking out the trash. Pine Martens. Otters. Sea Lions. Platypuses. Echidna. Cassowaries. Emus. Ostriches. Dinosaurs. Velociraptors. T-Rex. Brontosaurus. Mitochondria. Organelles. Life. Its emergence. Our participation in it. A true and undoubtable miracle. Consciousness. Life observes itself. The Universe observes itself. And celebrates itself.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life

One brief shining: A morning thing gripping the plastic bar across the back of the trash bin, giving its plastic tire a kick so the bin shifts back onto the tires, then dragging it, making the sound of Thunder across the asphalt cracks headed toward not a curb, no not here, but the edge of Black Mountain Drive where it will wait for the truck to come, embrace it, lift it, shake it, and return it to the ground, goodbye trash, goodnight recycling.

 

In at least two different places at once. An improvement over times past when my self lay fragmented over my calendar and its scribbled appointments, its crossed out engagements and the repercussions of both filtering out like tiny fingers, tearing open the envelope of the next day and the day after, contaminating them with worry.

Today I’m pushing myself, challenging myself. Do the trip. Discover new limits. Or, discover that the worry, this not so tiny finger has no business in my heart. Yes. The trip.

Second place. The new Jew. Still learning Torah portion. Perhaps needing to learn some more for the service. Reading to finish the last session of Jamie’s ten lessons for conversion. Finding myself oversaturated, filled past the brim with so much new information, behavior, language, worldview that I feel weary. Not weary as in on my Eloheinu this was a mistake. Not at all. Weary as in enough for now. Like nearing the end of a period of study. Bachelors. Master of Divinity. Doctor of Ministry. Enough for now. Don’t tell me what to read. Don’t put me on display. There is though, as there were with each of these degrees, still a bit more to do. Have the bar mitzvah ceremony. Read my Torah portion. Have my last class with Jamie. Then. Ahhhh.

So travel as personal litmus test and pushing through the last days of my year of living Jewishly. Working to continue life with eagerness and depth. That’s what these represent for me. Both of them.

Reshaping my days and my commitments to a new, 77 year old form.

Want to be clear. It delights me to have these two places to become. A trip and a new identity. My life is not over and I’m living it full out or at least as full out as my 77 year old body and energy level will allow. I talk to Kate most days, know she walks this part of my ancientrail with me. A joy.

From the calendar, the Zen calender: Joy is being willing for things to be as they are. Charlotte Joko Beck.

And, just because Tom (who sends me the Zen calendar each year) put this out yesterday on Shakespeare’s 400th birthday:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, Politics

Dissonance and its troubles

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Spring and the Passover Moon

Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Steve, Cyndi, Hoosier woman. Heidi. Salaam. Kathy. Patrick. Gil. Seder at  the Saltzman’s. My permanent seat at Tara’s seder. And, Marilyn said, hers as well. Belonging, not believing. Judaism. An Ancientrail of debate, song, justice. The Passover Moon last night. Mountains. Forests. Wild Neighbors. Good food.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Palestinians. Israelis.

One brief shining: When the chatter grows loud and the hearing aid fails, the world recedes and I sit there, an observer wishing I was elsewhere, sort of engaged, hearing the headline words, wanting to add something, get in there, talk, yet both functionally unable, too little signal, and emotionally unable, I need to get away from here, from these people.

 

Passover last night at Marilyn and Irv’s. Wonderful. Frustrating. My first passover as a Jew. Now my story in a different way than metaphor, though it is too metaphor. My ancestors who stood up to Pharaoh. My ancestors fled into the Sinai, wandered there for forty years eating manna, grumbling, receiving the torah, making a golden calf. That’s the difference. The lineage. Whether Hebrews were slaves in Egypt or not, this origin story conveys how and who we are even now, thousands of years later. The we there is the difference.

No longer do I sit at a seder table as an interested observer, rather now as one whose attention and person has direct links with the maror, the haroset, with the seder plate. Profound for me. And, oddly dissonant.

As I sat through my first seder as a Jew, I was with people who waved “organized” religion away with a Buddhist shrug or a spirituality makes more sense wave from the back of a parade convertible. I wanted to say, well, ok, but for me I find wonder in the torah. In the blessings. In the community of Beth Evergreen. But my hearing issues and my sense of the chasm between me and religion’s cultured despisers kept me quiet. And in that quietness I judged. Judged.

Shallow. Timid. Fearful. Seeking the pablum of the inner life. Baby food. The reason our politics are so screwed up. Bright but so caught up in their white privilege they can’t see the world as it is.

Oh, I was superior. Better than them. And in that very feeling of course reduced myself and my own observations to a sideshow. I felt defensive, but not willing to talk about it. To challenge, to step in the water. I stewed. Wondering how I could extricate myself. I couldn’t.

It was my first passover as a Jew. I wanted to be there. To hear the four questions, to sing Dayenu, to taste the bitter herb and the haroset. To listen to and participate in my story.

Later, this morning, I found myself. Collected the Charlie from the table last night. Sat him down and said, “Look. These are people trying their best. Wanting to live well. To be loving and kind. As are you.” They don’t share your radical politics, very few do. They don’t share your fascination with the ancient ways of a desert people. And why should they? You are the one being judged when you judge. Lighten up and enjoy these folks.

And here’s the thing. Outside celebration of a holiday focused on liberation I could have found each of these people to be interesting interlocutors. Good for a breakfast or lunch time heart to heart. Passover, and my first as a Jew, revved up my political and religious engines. I ran too hot for the evening.

That is the other thing. I’m a man of religion and of politics. What are the two things folks agree not to discuss at Thanksgiving? Yep.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism

Passed Over

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Passover. The Saltzmans. Tara. Arjean. My permanent seat at their seder. Their willingness to sign so I can have a dog. Yesterday’s Snow melting off my Lodgepole Companion. Dripping toward the Aquifer that fills my well. Great Sol brimming over, gently warming the Needles, the clumps of Snow, an eternal cycle of Sun and Water, Plant Life and Soil. Observing it.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gravity and Water

One brief shining: Sat down this am to write three morning pages, picked up the yellow legal pad, the black pen, and feeling overwhelmed, too much to do, wrote myself into a calmer place, write now I wrote, hah, I liked that writing write now, then slowly penning my way toward blessings, the hundreds of blessings I’ve experienced just since getting up and the joy of them, oh, not so bad now, eh?

 

Snow melted off my Lodgepole Companion. A lot of it still there at 7:30 am. Now three hours later. Great Sol convincing a man to take off his coat. A blue Sky. Ancient Brothers on favorite places finished. Morning pages written. Breakfast made and eaten.

 

Ancientrails, then a shower and a nap. Passover seders take a while and it’s often quite a while until the food. So, a nap. And a snack before hand. This is the day before the actual day because Salaam may have a track meet tomorrow.

The Moon of Liberation carries us into this ancient story of slavery, plagues, a recalcitrant Pharaoh, and a stuttering advocate. The journey which leads me to the Saltzman’s began on the day in the far past when Azrael, the angel of death, passed over the homes of Hebrew slaves if they had lamb’s blood smeared on their lintel.

The passover liberation of Hebrew slaves underlies de minimus this holiday, but also that Egyptian night of deliverance underlies all of Jewish history since then. The story told and retold among diaspora Jews in Babylon, in Russia, in Poland, in Hungary and Austria and yes Germany. Later in many places in U.S. cities. And in any other spot where enough Jews have immigrated.

When we dip the parsely in the salt water, and the haroset in the bitter herb, we show the paradoxical nature of this holy day. It is of spring and growth, yet also tainted by the waters of the Reed Sea. The mortar of the former slave’s work has transformed to haroset: apples, walnuts, cinnamon, honey, and sweet wine, yet we dip the matzah covered with haroset into the bitter herb, often horseradish, to remind us that wandering the Sinai was also a time of affliction, affliction in spite or or as a direct result of liberation.

We embrace our history, knowing we all have our own Egypt’s, our own shackles. Knowing, too, that the shackles of others, as long as racism and sexism and homophobia create contemporary ghettos, are our shackles as well. This is not just a holiday, it’s a promise to ourselves, to each other, and to the world that we will share the burden of the other.

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Judaism, Mountains, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

A person of…

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat gratefuls: The Morning Service. Bar Mitzvah. Snow. Cold. Moisture. Water. Air. Fire. Earth. Old physics. Physics. String theory. Twine theory. Thread theory. Quilts and quilting. Sewing. Matilda, Kate’s dress dummy. Kate in my dreams. Ancientrails. Diane. Art. In person. Judaism. My year of living Jewishlly. Outside my comfort zone. A lot.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trains

One brief shining: I looked out my window today, oh my, and there on the ground lay Snow, on the Branches of the Lodgepoles Snow, on the driveway Snow, and my Snow and Cold loving self looked at it and sighed, the calendar showing in less than two weeks, the fire holiday of Beltane, start of the growing season.

 

Looking at myself. Some people. A man of money. Of power. Of racing. A woman of medicine. Of writing. Of the 100 meter dash. Of acting. Of music. Of whatever occupies prime location in an individual’s life story. I have to look at my story and be honest. I am a man of religion. Both small r and Big R. Individual and institutional. Can’t say I would have predicted this for me. Nor much of the time been aware of it.

Yet. The deep questions of our species. Our search for meaning. For how to position ourselves in this, this whatever all this is. The folks and traditions who have explored these questions. My turf. Where I’ve lived much of my life. Oh, yes, their have been other enthusiasms: politics, art, writing, gardening, But somehow I always bounce back to the prayers, the songs, the sacred books. Not as a supplicant but always as a lover, one who presses his hand to the heart of it. Leans his head in and enjoys a quiet afternoon learning of the Greek Orthodox theological framework of reception. The Taoist wu wei. The Jewish Morning Service. Why Jesus prayed at Gethsemane. The Potawatomi writing habit of capitalizing the names of living things.

One who rides through the Mountains looking for signs. Who walks down Mountain Valleys hearing the voices of the Creek, the Magpies, the wild Strawberries. Seeing in the gentle run of a Mountain Stream swollen by Spring Snows the path of all living things carried by this mystery, vitality. A man who cannot absent himself from the quest for what and why and where.

Perhaps you, too? Do you read the sacred books and know their definite humanity, yet find within them the human desire to grasp the interconnectedness of things? Feel inspired to have your own moments of revelation? Perhaps, eh? That splash of color. That child’s laugh. The sudden sense that an injustice needs redress. The kisses of a small furry puppy or a three-year old child. A wondering about Buddha nature? About chi? About teshuvah? About Ramadan?

You see my conviction is this. We are all people of religion. All born with wonder, imbued with awe, fascinated with the mysterious. Sure, some of us make a life of it, but all of us question. All of us see values and linkages. See them and need them. Yes, your path may be all of your own making, yet it can be informed by those who have chosen to retain the paths of their ancestors. As your path, your ancientrail, can inform theirs.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism

The pit

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Gabe, turning 16 soon. Ruth, already 18. Art. The Artist’s Way. Morning pages. Rabbi Jamie. Vulnerability. The Morning Service. It’s depth. Alan. Lunch today. My Lodgepole Companion. Friend of Great Sol. The Eternal Moment in which I write this. My breath, each one a new life. The morning of this new life almost finished. The lev.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Cheesecake Factory

One brief shining: Sat there the red covered book with its pages facing left, turning them trying to follow Rabbi Jamie as he chanted prayers, moved from Blessings to the Shema, then on to the often silent prayers of the Amidah, worrying that I could not match his prayer shawled ease, kissing the tzitzit at the appropriate time, building up a wall of anxiety that held the world of this ancient liturgy at bay.

 

Oh my. Went down into the pit of anxiety. One I don’t visit often these days. But I fell into it with a thump, a real downward spiral. Haven’t worked out the inner fragile self that grabbed hold of me and belying its thin arms and legs dragged me into a fog of I can’t, I won’t, I’m not able, I’m not competent. Beside me as Rabbi Jamie guided us through the Morning Service lay the color coded sheet with its yellow slots for Student. That’s me. Those slots needed names, either mine or Lauren’s or Kat’s or Veronica’s. Too many slots with Hebrew or singing attached to them. Too many.

When I fessed up to my anxiety, I felt diminished by it. Less than. Unworthy. Of what I don’t know. But unworthy for sure. If I were not me, I’d want to talk about this. Find out the trigger. Give compensatory ballast by pointing out the stuff he can do. Has already done. And that this is a moment in time. Which will come and go. Yet this is me I’m talking about.

So I find that conversation difficult. Perhaps self serving. Definitely not objective.

Yet here we go. Oh, I’m sorry that happened to you. Must have felt awful.

Yeah, it did. Pretty bad.

What do you think caused it?

Not sure. For sure it was putting myself in Rabbi Jamie’s place, trying to imagine myself doing any of what he was doing. Any of it. Yet facing a situation where I would yes in fact have to do just that.

I get it. Could it be the old clergy in you?

Hmm. Hadn’t considered that. Don’t think so, but…maybe? Some of it. Holding myself to a higher standard? That listens.

Any other possibilities?

Well, my Dad once said to me that knowing how to get along with people mattered more than my grades. True that, but he didn’t mean it in a kind way. He was demeaning my competency by saying well, so what, here’s this other thing that’s more important. I might have learned from that competency is my way of getting along with people. If I’m not competent, no one will like me.

Ooff. That’s convoluted. But I get it.

Could be a generalized fear of being foolish. Wanting to avoid that. I don’t want to foreclose on the Fool’s journey though. What if that’s where I need to be right now? Foolish and brave.