Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow
Monday gratefuls: Old friends. Ancient friends. The Sky. Roads and their romance. Saudi Arabia. Singapore. San Francisco. The Rocky Mountains. The Clan. Newspapers. Headlines. Journalists. Freedom of the Press. Freedom of Assembly. Freedom. Both from and for. July 4. Seoah’s birthday. Lululemon. Seoah’s favorite store. The fans here in the loft.
Spent most of yesterday working on my presentation for the kabbalah class. Wednesday morning. Hard time. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find a way in to it. Several false starts. One with double spading forks. One with the dark world I entered after Mom’s death. One with Becoming Native to This Place. Couldn’t get purchase. Kept slipping off with interesting but beside the point narratives. Decided to go right at it. No metaphors. No build up. No explanation. Claims. How I see the world. This is the first draft. It won’t change a lot. Some though. I’ll post the second draft
The Grammar of Holiness
All right. This Land is holy Land. That Land is holy Land. All Land is holy Land. The world Ocean is a holy Ocean in a vessel made of continents of holy Land. The Atmosphere is holy. All of it, not just the oxygen we need to breathe, all of it.
We spin and dash around the holy Sun, pushing our way further and further away from the holy Milky Way, traveling though holy Space.
We came from this holy World, are made of this holy World, and return to It the very elements It loaned us.
We are of this wide, large, Universe. And our World will return to It the elements loaned to it at the beginning.
This then is Israel.
When I put my hands in the Soil, the living Land that sustains us, I touch the holy. The sacred gets under my fingernails. When I drink water from the aquifer on Shadow Mountain, I bring holiness into my body, my sacred body.
That Tomato is a holy Tomato. That Cow is a sacred Cow. The Moose a sacred Moose. The sacred Elk Bucks who jumped our fence, ate holy Dandelions and holy Aspen leaves, and lounged among the holy Lodgepole Pines. Angels. Messengers of the holy Mountains.
Holiness means a necessary, unique part of the whole. Sacred means the same.
The One spans this holy Reality, is this sacred Reality, contains that Land and this Land, that Ocean, this Atmosphere, this World, that Galaxy. Whenever we move through the Atmosphere, on the Land, or on the Ocean, we are on pilgrimage to a holy place.
The same for the Blue Whale, the Krill, the Pine Marten, the Mosquito, the Mountain Lion, and the Mule Deer. The same for the Brook Trout, the Staghorn Beetle, or the pollen of the Ponderosa Pine. All on pilgrimage to a holy place.
My faith is this simple. It has neither God nor Bible, neither Savior nor Torah though it can be found through them.
What is faith? Confidence. Acknowledgment. Attention. Focus. Seeing what you are looking at. Touching what is in front of you. Hearing the sacred music of the Land, the Sky, the Waters. Smelling the odor of sanctity in a flower bed or a landfill. Tasting the food that sustains you. And knowing you belong.
Make your puja. Offer yourself. Offer your life. Light incense. Daven. Bow your head. Throw your hands above your head. Shout hallelujah. Prostrate yourself on the holy Land. Say yes. Say no. Dance, twirl, leap.
May as well. This holy World’s for you and you are for this holy World.
