Our Wedding Cake created by Joanie & Leigh’s Cakes

Needless to say, I have been quite occupied in the past year!

I met Marsha Epstein on J-Date (Jewish Dating) back in January, 2013.  We met face to face on February 22, 2013 and my life hasn’t been the same.
We wed just one month ago on March 16, 2014.
I can honestly say, that I have never been happier in my entire life.
 
Now that the wedding planning is over, I will have time to write and continue to share my heart and thoughts with whomever happens upon this blog.

Profound and Sacred


May our intimacies always be
    profound and sacred.

Profound and sacred sharing of our
Past
Pain
Joy
Fear

Present
Concerns
Hurts
Neglect

Present 
Touch Touch Touch
Lips
Skin
Fingers
Hands

Present 
Laughter
More Laughter
Joy
Tears
Awe

Sacred Calling In The Divine
as witness to what we share
what we Create.

Sacred Sharing
Touching
Lips
Skin
Fingers
Hands

Sacred Praise and Blessing for
         This Gift of You.

JOY Available, Despite Tragedy

I turn to Martin Buber when I want inspiration, a kick in my brain which causes deep reflection.  Such is today, a day requiring inspiration.  My flaming sore throat of two days ago finally settled into my upper chest with a cough and a soggy nose leaking thin mucous.  The saving grace is that nothing coming out is green, or even the faintest yellow, thus whatever this “cold”, upper respiratory  event is, it is not and hopefully will not become severe.

But cause enough for a disruption of the end of year gaiety and plans.  Not to mention, dare I mention, the horror, the tragedy of the pre-holiday killing of 26 in Newtown, Connecticut, and the latest news of the ambush set to kill two firefighters in Webster, New York.  The destruction wrought by two crazed men.

So I turn to Martin Buber, who always lifts my spirit, causes me to reflect deeply, stirs my soul to tears, and affords me simple joy and peace.

His essays on Hasidim, especially touch me.  In these essays, attempting to explain the transcendent joy that faith can produce, Buber seems to be channeling the Baal Shem Tov.

Here are a few short quotes of Buber’s which brought me JOY on this three very wet handkerchief morning:

      “Hasidism sets the simple truth that the wretchedness of our world is grounded in its resistance to the entrance of the holy into lived life.”  
       “…our relations to things and beings form the marrow of our existence….”  
       “The Hasidic teaching of the holy engagement with all existing beings opposes this corrosion [this wretchedness]….”


Clearly, the madmen in our world do not seek to engage with the Holy, the Divine.  Their lack of engagement causes pain for the rest of us.

I continue to seek the Holy in everyday, simple, repetitive acts, even this non-stop blowing my nose.


     







      

I Am Again Invincible

I am well enough, better than well enough, to return to this forum for my thoughts.

When I could not walk, needing crutches or a God sent scooter to get around [my good left leg pushed while I rested my right knee on the scooter’s seat]; when I suffered such severe pain that I could only play music through headphones to comfort me, or sleep; then I had no desire to write. I barely had desire to live.

Now the pain is not constant, just a nagging reminder when I walk. I yearn to walk again without pain; and am hopeful that one day I will. Now my mind is clear and filled with things to write, things which I believe are worth reading.

Let me begin with this:

I too once seemed invincible,
nothing could touch me. I was innocent.
I worked, loved my work of teaching
helping people change their lives;
I gardened everyday, after work;
I was strong in all the ways
that humans need strength – body, mind, soul.

I was greatly loved and I mightily returned
her love.
I thought we would process our cares and thoughts,
process our way to bliss, forever.
My life seemed set and secure.

She died unexpectedly
and I was left heartbroken and mute
my breath knocked out of my being.

Now, pain and years later, I am again invincible.
Not in the ways of the innocent,
those who haven’t yet lost their hearts, their souls;
those who haven’t faced death.

No, now in the way of the wise am I invincible.
In the way of ones who have felt the deepest pain
the deepest hurt the deepest loss…
and decide to laugh and sing and give Praise
despite, in spite of it all.

I am again strong and secure and know
that I can bear and accept with grace
what comes in my life unknown.
And joyously sing: Thank You for another day
another opportunity to love your Creation.

I already love 2012

I already love 2012. It is already filled with newness, aliveness, new beauty and possibilities. A new woman has entered my life who I have begun to learn from.

She is teaching me.

And I’ve had very little contact with her really. But she has occupied my brain
with questions, thoughts, wonder.

2012 and I already like her. I like how she looks and sounds and feels, already.

I also wish to memorialize today (still another reason I already love 2012)
by noting that it was tonight, January 7th, that I “got it” that I have what I
was meant to have in relationship to another. The other who occupied my brain body heart and soul for two years. It became crystal clear that I have learned, I have related to, we have had give and take, we have had give and take, and she has said good-bye, and so have I.

2012 has already, in its short infancy, provided me with incredible jaw dropping amazement. Thank you 2012. Thank you Adonai for allowing me the gift of discernment, new opportunity, new possibility of lessons and love.

Posted in Joy

Positive Emotional Shifts

I have always been acutely aware of my emotional state. I feel the shifts which occur, the ups downs extreme joys, the painful painful grief and depression.
I have learned that for me, it is best to listen, to own, to acknowledge what I’m feeling which makes it so very much easier to keep listening to what’s going on inside.
It is not a burden to listen and to hear, to take in deeply the changes going on.

So it was with immense joy of recognition of knowing today that a perceptible shift had occurred.

A buoyancy, a lightness, a warm joy filled my being today. As warm as playing doll house with your favorite niece. And warmer still.

I kept checking in all day to see if it was still there, and in doing so, I’d feel it again and it would tickle me sweetly.

I briefly wanted to give it a reason.
I searched for any obvious changes, the shifting new spring light, my being asked to do some future speaking and work for pay opportunities, having just completed my taxes, playing my saxophone more….oh there must be SOMETHING external to account for the warm tickle, warm glow seeping through my pores. But no, it was something else.

I have concluded that it is all and nothing of these externals. And the nothing part is a something internal piece.

An internal, deeply internal, deeply felt realization that weekly now, for the past 5 plus months, I am experiencing a deep bliss, a deep joy even ectascy when I attend Shabbat services on Saturday mornings.
It is a familiar yet so much deeper feeling from that which I habitually felt when I would attend weekly Surat Shabd Satsangs in Cambridge or Brookline. Then I was in my late 20’s, early 30’s, working too many hours, as well as getting a Masters degree, and of course consumed with an emotional and love life filled with mostly turmoil.
Singing Bhajans with love and devotion with a room full of people sitting cross legged, knowing we were sisters and brothers united by our love for our Guru, for our meditation. I went weekly to soak up this loving energy.

I slept a good deal at those Satsangs.
But when I wasn’t sleeping, I was overcome with an immense gratitude and love for the world and this aspect of my life.

Now at Saturday Shabbat services, I don’t sleep.
It is almost two hours of a surge of joy, bliss, feeling the presence of G-d, being absorbed in love.
Being personally, deeply internally absorbed, tears streaming down my face almost constantly as I read and pray and chant along with…
with a room full of people who are my famiy. Who I like being around, who I am falling in love with. People who talk to me and listen. People who are real. I may be the only one with streaks of salt water making my face glisten, but I hear love sung and voiced. I listen to these strange yet so deeply familiar words and watch my progress of seeing and understanding what comes next in the service.
I love the words and melodies and ritual and hearing and discussing a written piece of Torah. I am appreciating the significance of the Torah. I am loving being taken back to a time and place that is part of a past that is mine. I love thinking about the past, how we lived, what we loved.
I love coming to comprehend that Creation is the Gift which is celebrated;
celebrate the Creation with a day of reflecting on how wonderful it is.

I am feeling blown away by what happens to me to my body to my soul when I sit, stand, bend my knees and bow, again sit on Saturday mornings. I’m watching this happen to me. I’m experiencing it. I’m totally loving it.

Wow.

No kidding.

So, soon after this Saturday’s service, driving home, feeling wonderful, I said to myself: hmmmmm, I get to experiience such a tremendous lift, loft of gratitude and love each week, hmmmmm that’s truly marvelous. Hmmmmm, even if I expericnce my lonliness, my depression, my pining after my new love, my feeling about the loss of one or all of the four wonderful women from my life in five years (my sister, my wife, two extremely dear friends), hmmmmmm, even if I have hours of negativity….

Hell, being able to experience what I feel weekly, in services, is so amazing, so truly thrilling, that I need to focus on this; I need to understand that yes, there are lots of losses and pain that I feel…

But I feel a true shift in how I’m perceiving the state of my life. I am focusing more and more on the dozens of ways I am able to feel the presence of The Divine, of The Creator.
Of course at Shabbat service, but also often in my day.
By feeling The Creator, I feel and honor The Creation and
My life as part and parcel of This Creation.

My life being no more no less than a piece of the Whole.
Feeling Whole at Temple reminds me to feel it daily.
I had forgotten.