Reminders, Deferral

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Around in the world...completing graduate school in two months. Which is simultaneously worlds and seconds away from tonight.

And oh doesn't it seem like the Universe is regularly prodding at me with reminders of how very inattentive and otherwise-occupied I've been since I moved to San Diego. Reminders (pinging just a little louder in the depths of the submarine) that among all the changes coming down the pike I really cannot continue functioning at this lowered spiritual level. Won't.

This is not to say my searching's been dormant--I've made many discoveries here, found hopeful new entrances onto branches of my paths I thought inaccessible, found myself surprised by awareness and encounters--so many worth recalling and writing. (Seder '11 &; '12, Burning Man, Kol Eliyahu, contact improv, Athena and Pele, the owl, the ravens, the Pacific frickin' Ocean...)

But all these moments have felt disconnected--strung very tenuously to each other through the overbearing bulk of What I'm Here To Do. Thinking of it now, though, I realize that, tenuous though those strands may be, they're there. And remembering is re-awakening.

My soul is thirsty, I think.
I can feel the press of reminder in the incredible stories of my friends' journeys and discoveries, in half-thought ideas and conversations, in a new-developing relationship with my own body, in my mind and in my heart.

But right now? I have a degree to complete. A show to make. Projects, projects, production...And every reminder is a little bit of a sharp stab in the inbalance. Like--

Well, like a reminder.

And I'm trying to keep it from feeling like guilt. Whispering back,
"Shh. Soon--"
To quiet my soul,
which is very, very thirsty.

(Because sometimes, my dear, the work of the hands both is and is not the work of the heart.)

Everything New is New Again

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I write so little about or in Spring, it sometimes seems. Perhaps, because I am so often so busy with the business of Spring--the growing and changing and thinking and flowering and walking up to the park for italian ice and going on excursions in the sunshine because it's just so damn nice out and why waste the day-ness of it all that I sometimes miss the part where thinking about it is involved.

Thinking, and giving thanks, once more, for where I am now, and from where I have come. And for what is creeping up on the horizon, waiting to surprise me with yet more newness. I keep being asked 'how are you?' as I find myself reconnecting with people I haven't seen in too long. Dear friends, and old acquaintances whose return to my orbit is in itself a gift. And how am I?

I am itchy with excitement, with ideas and projects and so many things to do and so many opportunities I can almost not handle it. Let's talk about that abundance thing for a minute, shall we? La Abundancia, as one of those dear friends new returned to my orbit says. Let's reflect while Mercury finally slips out of retrograde today, and carry that forward.

I'm moving to California this summer, to go and get my MFA, in a program that accepts two people a year. I may even have found housing. I have incredible friends who I will miss like fire and who I know will miss me, and the assured blessing of couches to sleep on when my feet (and airplanes) bring me inevitably back to this incredible city I have suddenly discovered myself calling Home. I have Brooklyn, and on a sunny day filled with people I love? That is more than enough. I have new Tarot cards, and my old Tarot cards, and the gift of words and a fire at Beltane. I have constant discoveries of amazing things to do -- and then doing them. Projects bubbling in the back of my mind in so many media. Poetry trickling back into me in tangible, holdable ways. The work of my heart and the work of my hands.

I have above all things incredible, wonderful people whom I have found, and who have found me, and whom I am helping find one another. I am astonished, clean floored by the unmitigated beauty of the people I know. Just the chance, sometimes, to sit back and watch folk-I-know become folk-who-know-each-other is enough to sit me speechless with a smile. Real hearers and hearteners of the work stuff, it's heady.

I am working, as you see, on writing about it. Returning to writing. On being grateful for it. On knowing that, though I am leaving, I am leaving nothing behind me -- just pulling the strings Westward for a while. Dragged with halting footsteps toward the light, as I wrote recently.

(A story: I had this relationship with Poetry once. And we dated with feverish, mad intensity that came from what seemed like the nowhere-magic-place, and then I wrote it all down--pinned and wriggling on the wall as my old buddy Eliot would say--and Poetry and I were splitsville. She left me on the side of the road in Massachusetts with no idea what my major was going to be Now She'd Gone. We didn't talk, and it hurt like a stubbed toe to think on her, off gallivanting with other folks. And then I met this new kid, called Costumes, and oh, we've been going steady for a while. And he's super cute, and dresses up in so many neat ideas. But you know what? It's good to have a friend back in the picture, especially one you haven't seen for a while. So Poetry and I are talking again; and while it's not as mystical or passionate, I think our connection's a bit more solid, more real this time. And for that, I'm also thankful)

Everything that's stressful, everything that's worrisome, everything that I may bitch about, darlings? It's totally tangential. I am some delirious kind of happy, and giving myself the chance, finally, to breathe, and stretch, and love, and revel in the dizzy new chances I am given in the now. And I'm trying to be patient, and not rush the ones to come.

Some thoughts on it from my new poetry crush, Rebecca Elson:

Evolution

We are survivors of immeasurable events,

Flung upon some reach of land,

Small, wet miracles without instructions,

Only the imperative of change.

Ramble Follows - Simplicity, Art

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I need to buy new matches--I'm not wholly sure why this is significant, except in the way of small things that bring one's mind around to larger ideas--leaps of thought that link back to little things. Like needing new matchbooks, because the striking strip on all the ones I have is worn down enough to be near-unusable.

(It leads to awkward, silly moments starting up a circle--try to call Fire when your matches won't strike?)

There's a post I never finished on here, from Mabon last, and I think I'll put it up after this, just to have at least half the record of what I was thinking then. It ran out (the posting) when I started to consider family, and Rosh Hashana, and once more the intersection of self and spirit and tradition.

"It is impossible to say just what I mean."

Now it's nearly Yule after a Samhain that passed almost unnoticed in a flurry of business and busyness and bloody-minded theatrical determination, wending into an Autumn of stress and discontent, and striving toward all sorts of things while subsequently falling shortish of that 'start again' of Summer. Now, the first reall snowfall past (experienced in Cambridge, MA, in a spring coat, woefully unprepared for the truth of Winter) it grows time to take a look at what I've stored for the oncoming cold, and what-all I mean to do with it. Tonight I feel very scattered and stretched out--a good time to try and pull things back together and focus.

My match lit the first time, for this candle-lighting. I'll take it as as good an omen as I'll get for self-reflection.

I do not, I think, give myself enough credit for changes made in the past--the things I have done, rather than the things I yet wish for myself. Myself as I am, considered, current. I had a tarot reading from a friend recently which pointed all so many signs upward, and a giant smack in the face from both her and the Higher Powers saying "Give yourself some f*cking credit! Be proud of what you've done!" But I am much more Virgoan than I think I am, sometimes, and letting the criticism rest is often difficult.

I've been working on applying to graduate school--balancing the application process with theatrical work that ought to inspire it, the stress of money and time, the pressure to make much with little--I am so tired of hearing people ask how I am, recently. How I am is very well, on a level of happy-self: I had a marvelous weekend, catching up with friends, meeting new people, driving free on the highway and getting back to some neglected bits of experiential, sensual art-y self-hood I had been missing. I need to hold onto that, and not the next part. Because how I am on a practical level is much less happy: I'm stressed about money, about work, about this show I have to design under pressure and budget and some nagging misgivings, about time and location and all sorts of seasonal-affective crud.

But underneath the pile of crap? I feel like there's something brewing. Like if I can get through this winter, this show, these next couple months, there's an idea that wants expressing. There's Art that wants to be made, and it's just on the tip of my mind, and it matters. Something to do with masks, and myths, and oh very likely emergence from the Underworld--Inanna has been much on my mind lately. There's a mask-maker in Cambridge I want to go work with, take a week in February when the snow is deepest and the light is slow returning--go up, and reward myself with learning for Imbolc. Return, and get to work on creating something new, something my own, something independent of lame scripts or finicky scene changes, budgetary restrictins and other people's drycleaning. I love being a Designer--I love telling stories with my designs, sure.

But sometimes? Especially recently?

I just want to get back to being an Artist. Perhaps I ought not to wait until Imbolc.

This practicality is getting me down. I love pulling people together, celebrating the changing season with this fledgeling Crown Heights Coven Collective Crew and singing silly songs in Circle--revelling in new-baked bread, fresh dirt from the Botanical Gardens, apples in honey for Rosh Hashana and Mabon. I'm so proud of how a bit of a notion on a rainy Equinox has made a small something wonderful, a way to greet the Sabbats and Jewish holidays in tandem, in appreciation and simplicity. This Yule ritual scheduling is making me grit my teeth--be practical when all I want is everyone in a room for the night with tea and tarot, quiet conversation and maybe just the magic of the sun rising in the morning on a group of happy, sleepy people, together in simplicity to greet the unconquered sun.

More and more my touchstones are the simple things, the things that heat the Hearth inside--cooking for others. A cup of tea and a candle. The smell of yeast rising. The shape of the face as a mask takes shape, arcs rising through the plaster. Reconnecting with books in boxes. The perfect chain of songs on Pandora. Fiddle music in my ears and the incidental morning walks in my pajamas, falling back asleep in a warm bed--alternate side parking achieved.

I will not let the Winter pass in grumpy bitter slush--I lost my favorite season to stress, I refuse to let another pull me down.

From the journal entry after that last poem posted (mildly modified for seasonality)--

Thalia and Athena, you Ladies who look on thespians and artisans--grant me a return to the Work of my heart and my hands. For my heart it is sore and my hands they are empty, and I cannot just keep trudging on, Artless. Brigid, help me relight the fire in the head, for Winter is past and Winter has returned.

Tomorrow, I will clean my room, which has of late been disgustingly reflective of the clamor in my mind. Friday, I will cook. Saturday, I will cook more, and celebrate a reconnection of friends for Thanksgiving, Yule and Hanukkah all rolled together into one. I go home on the 18th for Hanukkah with my family, candles blazing against the dark, my grandmother's latkes and the coupl songs that I'm fairly certain are preserved in my family alone--and try not to wince at the line about 'martyr race', as ever. Comfort in consistency. Reconnection in cleansing, reconnection in connection, reconnection in repetition, and for Yule?

It takes nothing but a sunrise to bring me back my peace.

"Reading Tarot on the Train to Los Angeles"

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Secretly, you always hope someone will ask.
But you are in the back of the empty train car,
writing this poem,
feeling transitory--
cards face down.

The brown June grass goes by,
the lazy Pacific and the Sun
(upside-down in front--
and even where you sit,
you don't feel so inspired)

--just another star burning its way down the horizon,
(another Star inverted
these days you are less peaceful than the Sea.)

As you wend your way from San Diego,
considering how this trip has changed--
so full of notions and illusions;
seven cups of fears and falsehoods
left behind,
carried forward.

The light falls golden on the stones beside the rails,
beatific rubble, scattering.
The train, the Chariot --pausing
to collect more travelers, rolling on.
(More options, more movement
keep going and choose.)

And choosing, moving, is always a beginning--
the Ace of cups (like the Sun upon the ocean,
like a handful of fresh water)

You can always start again.

Start Turning the Grain Into the Ground...

Sunday, October 5, 2008

...roll a new leaf over. --Counting Crows, "Omaha"

Autumn makes me thoughtful, always. What with Mabon and Rosh Hashana past, there's some setting down of thoughts that needs to happen before autumn wends too far along and moved past that liminal space -- after sandals and tshirts, but before sweaters and scarves. October especially is a thoughtsome, transformational month. When you can really feel the season changing, leaves shifting brighter, air cooling crisper. Lots of changes.

I got a cat for my birthday this year. It seemed the right time, and so I lit an orange candle, and put some energy out there, calling for a friend of the four-legged variety. Not neccessarily for a familiar, but the idea certainly presented itself. And perhaps ar some point Thomas will decide to be that, but right now he is an extremely energetic and intelligent 8-month-old fellow who is teaching me any number of things (besides how much of a sucker I am for a cute expression and a purr.) Responsibility, and what it means to have somebody who looks to you for his feeding and comfort and yes, entertainment. The importance of play. How good and important it is to take a break from stress and trouble.

These are important reminders for my life right now. With not enough work coming my way, and things not quite working out as well as I would have liked with this New York move, I've been feeling very lonely and isolated. My motivation comes and goes (often goes) and I've been having a hard time trying to keep from feeling put-upon or self-pitying. There's some changes I need to make. I need to get my ass in gear, ramp up the motivation and not let a shitty economy or daunting wall of City affect me. But hey, I've got a cat to keep me calm. And some days, that's really been something.

For the past couple years I've looked at the period from Mabon to New Year's Eve as a long space of changes, a planting ground for new resolutions. Starting with Mabon, a harvest of the past year, then on to the clarity of Rosh Hashana, and the close of the old year in Samhain, then start of the New Year on January 1st. What's better than three opportunities to start the year anew? Three opportunities to resolve, and reflect.

I spent Mabon this year peacefully, quietly. Lit a candle, made a nice dinner, played with the cat, and gave myself a break from everything for an evening, letting myself rest at equilibrium.

I went home for Rosh Hashana, and brought the challah. It's been five or so years since I was last home for the holiday, and so there was something Big Deal about it. Besides, I needed to get out of the city, if only for a night. Get out of the mire I'd been/am stuck in. Maybe get some perspective. While it was good to be with my family, and [unfinished]

Shabbat Shalom, and Blessed Be

Friday, August 22, 2008

I've been thinking about gifts a lot tonight. Human ones, like a neighbor with a stepladder, or a long phone call with a good friend, meeting wonderful new people or overcoming one's own inertia. Ones from the world, like a perfect smooth rock in the middle of the road, or a small handful of shells, or an acorn from your favorite tree. A book you need before you know you need it. A poem that fits the time and mood just right. Small things, unexpected things, important things.

Today, I got a lot done for a change. I wrote applications for jobs, I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner (a rare occurrence), I wrote emails, I made phone calls, I wrote short letters on Facebook -- I went for a walk, and the weather was lovely.

Gifts.

I left the house, and walked a little ways, then back up towards another street. A couple of young Orthodox girls were passing by which is hardly remarkable, I live in Crown Heights. The Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters is somewhere down my street. I walk on a little, and the girls run over.

"Excuse me, are you Jewish?" says the first. The second is quiet through the whole interchange.

"Ah...well, kind of --I suppose..." I stammer, for all the reasons described last post.

"But is your mother Jewish?" First Girl asks. It's not pushy, just friendly finding-out.

"Oh, definitely," I say. On that subject, I'm perfectly clear.

She beams. Ah-ha! "So of course you're Jewish!" And she hands me a small metal box, then goes on. "7.26 tonight, light these. It's a time for a Jewish woman to be in a place of peace, tell God and the Universe what you need to."

I say thank you, they continue down the street, and suddenly it's a beautiful day, with the sun shining down, and I have a ridiculous smile on. I keep walking, and a part of my mind is going along the cynical 'wonder how many white girls in the neighborhood they've asked that today' path, but a much louder part is going "Shabbos candles. They just gave me Shabbos candles."
And it's big, and important. And I recognize a gift as a sign when it's pointed at me in Big Flashing Neon Lights by the Universe.

Because here's the thing: I've never lit Shabbat candles for myself. Physically lit them, said the prayer, for me, alone. With my family, with college friends, with other people's familes, yes. But never for me.

And then these Chabad girls give me candles. In a little metal box with matches, and a charm with the logo of the FridayLight campaign, and a little booklet that says "Find Your Inner Peace." The second they handed it to me, I knew that tonight, for the first time, I was going to light my own candles.

For me.

I set things up, two candles on my desk in the tin, and it's not enough. It's just two votive candles, like the kind we keep in the living room for ambiance. Nothing separate, nothing special. It won't do. So I break out my 'altar box' which has been sitting under my desk, waiting for me to find a shelf and a space. I rummage through, seeing what's been hiding there. I pull out the box of stones and shells and acorns and other accoutrements and altar bits, and a scarf for a cloth, and try again. A Shabbat altar, simple, bright.

The candles in the center, and the elements around them. A twisted twig, found on a sunrise walk, an acorn given by my favorite tree, a myrtle twig, a chestnut from a deep-felt day in Pere Lachaise cemetary for Earth. Shells collected on my cousin's beach in Israel, for Water. Fire is always harder, but a silver sun charm, a stone from a walk, an agate from a friend. (We're going with the theory that all rock was lava once, and lava is Fire of Earth. Like I said, fire is a hard one for me.) Feathers for air, naturally. And an array of stones across the top -- wishes, intent for the coming week. Amethyst and quartz on either side - to keep peace amid the chaos. Blue Tiger's Eye - keeping energy up, and goals and conviction strong. Lodestone - to attract good fortune and (hey, practicality here) employment. Also grounding. Malachite - to clear blockages that prevent transformation, to get things rolling. Better.



And then I lit candles. I said the prayer, I said what I needed to, and the scent of the wicks catching, the flame rising, the wax melting, was just as it was when I was little. The heat rising to meet my hands, bringing the light towards me. Just what I needed. Something settling into place as just the right thing, at the right time, in the right place. I took some time, then made dinner, and relaxed, watching my Shabbos candles glow.

A gift.

Shabbat shalom. Blessed be.

And to the young ladies I met today: Thank you.

Have to start somewhere...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

So why not here? This is to be a blog and thought-space for my myriad meanderings around the subject of Spirituality. Seems like a good idea, I have a lot of thoughts. Of course, they don't always fit together in ways I can articulate, or ways that fit within the confines of Religion 101, but I always think that makes things more interesting. My goal here is to get what I am learning and thinking and discovering down on paper/screen, and see if that helps clarify. Of course, dialogue is definitely welcome, and I love discussion, especially when it comes from different viewpoints.

Enough preamble. Without any more ado, welcome to "She Lights Candles."

Start with titles. I've styled myself as Pagan for 10 years, and Jewish for 22 (approaching 23), 'witch' for 5, kitchen witch for 3, 'Jew-ish' for 7ish, 'Jewitch' for 2, and all of these conversely or consecutively for various times in between. What comes home to me is that, while I shuffle through 'em like masks depending on the company in which I introduce myself, I never feel comfortable with any of them. (Except kitchen witch. That one I'm pretty darn comfy with.) Everything feels like it needs explanation. Because I was raised with a strong Conservative Jewish upbringing, I feel like I need to say I'm Jewish, because that's my background, the roots of things, my family. But then I feel like I can't say I'm Jewish, because I read Tarot, and believe in the duality of Deity, and stir spells with my soup. So then I'm Pagan.

But then...

'Nyeeeh, I'm a bad Pagan, I don't do rituals enough, I don't update my altar, I meditate once in a blue moon, I keep forgetting about the Sabbats, I never feel like I know enough, I'm not sure whether I believe in everything or nothing or whether just beileving in most things is allowed..."

"But I'm not Jewish enough, I don't go to shul, I don't observe Shabbat, I have issues with Yom Kippur, of all things, I get antsy over the liturgy, I get uncomfortable around people more devout than me..."

And then...

"But I love rituals, and being in nature, and reading cards, and the focus of working joy and calm into a meal. I love energy work, and the way a full moon feels when you really notice it. The way a chant changes in a group working as the power builds. Feeling the Circle hold you in, the Quarters flare up around the compass points.

"I love Hannukkah with my family, singing "Maotzur/Rock of Ages" when none of us can reach the high notes, that one song my grandmother sings that I've never heard anywhere but our family. The order and rhythm of Seder, the wonderful ritual format of a meal, and a story. My mother and uncle racing 'Chad Gad Ya'.

"Chakra meditation, the notes of that one CD we used plucking my energy like strings, swirls of image and color, drifting in and out of awareness. Grounding, the strong green energy of Earth reaching through me to the Universe, the light of the Universe pouring down, until I vibrate, a conduit of energy and calm. Journeying--the unexpected exploration within and without at once. Messages given and received in meditation. A red leaf left at the edge of my subconscious at Mabon, retrieved the next year as a reminder that time passes.

"The utter rush of ruach/spirit/joy as the harmony of "Etz Chayyim Hi" reaches into my soul and lights it up, taking my breath away every time. The beauty of my friend's wedding, the seven blessings for their future. My mother's hand on my head when we'd remember Shabbat and light the candles--"Yivarechecha adonai v'yishmerecha..." Yahrtzeit for my father, said since I was small, the importance of the candle flickering all day in its glass holder.

"Remembering departed loved ones at Yizkor and Samhain. Rejoicing in the New Year at Rosh Hashana, at Mabon (Harvest is a time of reflection, after all. A chance to start again with the crops and year gathering in.) The reflection of the Great Rite in Havdallah, the egg on the Seder plate and the altar at Ostara. The importance of ritual, and food, and friends, and family, and friends-who-are-family.

The way things sometimes fit together so I don't have to label them. The reason I can't be happy as one thing, and not another. While I can't say I've reconciled my Jewish self with my witchy self, I know that both parts are valid, and necessary. Part of this blog is to try and bridge the gap.

But then again, I'm not happy unless I'm exploring new things, too. So this is also for that.

"She Lights Candles." Because common threads are important. And I always stare into the flames.

---------------------------------------
Reading: I'm prone to reading a lot of things at once, so this will probably shift around and keep some things for a long time while I get distracted/go off on some tangent/read some sci-fi instead.
--Tarot Outside the Box, Valerie Sim
--Inventing Jewish Ritual Vanessa L. Ochs (Really excited about this one, just picked it up today.)
--The Magical Household Scott Cunningham
--The Chicken Qabala of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford Lon Duquette (I don't understand Kabbalah at all. This book is, so far, entertaining AND educational.)
--She Who Dwells Within Lynn Gottleib (Picked this up off the bookshelf of my uncle, who is a rabbi. Had to get my own copy when I left...)