Almost breathlessly, 
I read these words over and over,
In awe.

The dance between beauty and sadness,
Between wonder and grief—
We don’t get one without the other.

As I attempt to mask my sadness,
(which doesn’t, by the way, work),

As I attempt to
Run from my anxiety,
(good luck with that),

I miss the beauty,
The grace that 
Surrounds me.
We get all of it.

Allowing the sadness,
The heartbreak
The loss
To land,
To be felt,

Opens the doors
To everything.

To all of it.
~~~
The Jewish High Holidays came and went.
I am a full and active participant in Couch-Temple.
Through the magic of streaming, I am a whole-heartedly present congregant in Central Synagogue, New York City’s remarkable Reform Jewish Community.
Maybe my participation is more whole-heartedly than in my actual Temple-Temple days.

In Couch-Temple,
You see,
Dogs participate.
Sweatpants are mandatory attire.
Pajamas are optional.
Bathrooming encouraged
At any moment in the proceedings.

Foot rubs might happen.
Notes can be taken
Points, discussed.

Blankies for all!

No offense taken by God
Who only wants
Our full and comfortable
Hearts.

It’s all good
In the Land of Couch-Temple.
~~~
As always, the themes of the holidays Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur deeply touch me.
Forgiveness and redemption,
Being rewritten in the Book of Life.

Through “redemption, prayer, and charity”, we are inscribed again in the Book of Life.

It’s a good deal, folks.
It’s a deal.
~~~
Check out these definitions:

Redemption
an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake

Prayer
Am earnest hope, wish or request; asking for help, or expressing thanks

Charity
Voluntarily giving of help to where it is needed
(I think of seva, selfless service)

And as we lean in the direction of redemption, of prayer, of charity, we are rewritten in the Book of Life, we are forgiven, our blunders from the past year are erased.

We return.
We try again.
We practice
Being
Human.

It’s a good deal.
~~~
Yom Kippur always reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s remarkable song, “Who by Fire?”
It’s his version of the Hebrew prayer “Unetanneh Tokef”, chanted on Yom Kippur.

---

This ancient prayer describes God reviewing the Book of Life and deciding the fate of every soul for the year to come – who will live, who will die and how. 

Leonard’s line: “And who shall I say is calling?” lands for me as his wondering, his questioning, his puzzling about the Bigger Picture.  I am inspired that such a spiritual character as Cohen was so able to share, not just the sanctity he felt for life, but his doubts and his fears, too.

Here is an exquisite version from Leonard’s Live in London tour, from 2008:

Who By Fire?

Ah.

The morning light
So stunningly
Softens 
The trees.

Peaking over the mountain,
Blessing us
With 
Gentle
Possibilities
For this new day.

I walk,
I breathe,
I ponder.

This question races through me:

How to embrace
All of it?

How to accept
All
Of
It?

How to relax
Into
All
Of 
It?

ALL OF IT.
~~~
Not just the parts of me that I can abide—

Not just the  parts of me that I can almost-respect—

My resilience.

My humor.

My hope.

How about the other parts?

My anxiety,
My galloping-onward-anxiety.

My hungry ghosts,
Still hungry when I’m full.

Wanting 
Something Else,
When nothing,
Absolutely nothing
Is needed.

How to relax into the
Whole that I am?

How to soften into
My brokenness,
My emptiness,

That place still untouched
By decades
Of 
Evidence-based
Data,
That assures me:

IT IS OKAY AS IT IS.
~~~

Driving home, 
Soft light,
Half-listening to public radio.
Half-hearing the realities
Of this upcoming election season.
Half-believing the possibilities
Of disaster.

Soft light.
Half-listening.
Half-hearing.
Half-believing.

How to be present
For all of it?

The beautiful morning light
And
The hideous political news.

The mornings of energy 
And possibility,

The nights of exhaustion,
Drained and emptied
By a perfectly
Fine
Day.

How to be available
To each moment,
No matter
The
Content 
Of that moment,

Both internally and
Externally.
~~~
Sorry folks.
No answers live in this blog,

No answers.

Just the practice.

To remember.
And
To honor the forgetting.

To allow the forgetting.
The “lapse”
Into
The fear
The aloneness.

And know that each
Is as sacred as the other.

All is Grace
Showing up
As me.
~~~

Dear Friends, I have one thing to say about this following link from Playing for Change:

DANCING IS MANDATORY.

Let’s dance together and alone!

Let’s dance to celebrate the whole of us

As well as the fragment.

To the healed and holy, and to the constricted and denied.

DANCING IS MANDATORY.

 

How much do we want the answers?
What would we give to know them?
Do we even know the questions that drive us?

For me—the questions
At this moment 
In my world
Would sound like:

What’s the cost of striving toward answers?
What do we compromise in that striving?
What would we trade for knowing?

Wait one moment.

Maybe it’s not full answers we yearn for…
Maybe it’s just…
A tad
More
Information?

Wouldn’t having more information be helpful?
Wouldn’t it make us “safer”?

Safer?
WTF.
What does safer even mean?

The illusion
Of safer?

What if—there is—no knowing.
What if—there is—no information needed.
What if—working so hard—trying to figure IT out
Heads us in the wrong direction?

      Figuring it out!

There it is again,
That suspect,
That bogus 
Spiritual practice.

The bottom line?

We avoid the Mystery.

The bottom line?

We avoid
The Great and Glorious.

We avoid the Mystery,

The very place 
Where 
Condensed
Grace
Lives.
~~~

Let’s remember, dear friends, that Living Yoga is the balancing, the yoking, the unity and harmony 
between the body, the mind, and the spirit.  
Clearly, we are born with that balance, that yoke, that unity, that harmony in place.

Perhaps this is a simplistic comment, but/and, the “over-development” of our minds seems to be the driver of wanting, needing, information, answers, solutions.

It is our hearts, our precious, precious hearts that long to live in the Mystery.  To shake its hand.  To relax into.  To welcome in.  To snuggle in its arms.

Our

Precious

Hearts.
~~~

Promise me you will watch this.  This six-minute interview between our beloved Mary Oliver and Coleman Barks, poet and master-translator of Rumi, is powerful, profound, and insightful.  Listen, please, to their hearts:

So many lessons learned.
So many, being learned.
Clearly, it has just begun,
The integrating
Of
This
Magical
Trip.

As I look through the gunhole, 
onto the profound moments
I was given—

Of walking the streets,
Of sitting in the churches,

Opening
One
Step
At a time,
To 
The 
Demonstrations
Of Grace
All 
Around
Me.
~~~
Here’s one:

I found it such a pleasure, such a blessing not knowing what people were saying!  There was such freedom alive in that for me, not having to do anything, not understanding what was unfolding.  

Not knowing somehow offered me profound intimacy.  

On Sunday, we wandered into my favorite church, a tiny chapel resplendent with cherubim.  This church is from Roman times, with Roman pillars, initially the Temple of Minerva, Roman goddess of strategy, of wisdom, of justice.  The Christians took the church and dedicated it to St. Maria.  Its official name is 
St. Maria sopra Minerva.  (Minerva under Maria).  I love that.

Layer upon layer.
We wandered into Sunday mass.  
The service was stunning, simple and deep.  There must have been not more than 7 of us in the pews.

Four congregants sang magnificently, the women read liturgy.  Out came four men wearing clergy robes, white with green strips.  One had a solid green robe, obviously a superior.  

My human, Western, judgmental mind leaped right to, “Here come the old white men.”

The women choir members did most of the readings, to my relief.  

Then the green-robed older man (yes, still white, still older), came to the speaking platform.  I kind of shivered with potential dread.

He began to speak to the 7 of us.  

I understood not one word.

Nevertheless,

His passion,
His commitment,
His presence, 
His love,
Radiated
Upon 
Us.

It was staggeringly beautiful.

I started to weep.  I looked at Ras, who looked at me, both of us, weeping, awed by the energy and the being of this man.

So much for my mind’s interpretation of the moment.
So much for my commitment to understanding.

No language could contain the power
Of
His
Words.

His energy
Was deeper
Than
All
Of 
That.

Demonstrations 
Of Grace
Are
Everywhere.
~~~