Tag Archives: vision

Getting Clean: TorahCycle Tzav

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VayechiIn the psychological thriller Descent, author Tim Johnston sets up several interlocking pairs of troubled relationships, mostly father /son, but there’s just enough pervasive misanthropy and sense of imminent threat, that you’re just never quite sure when everything’s gonna erupt. And then, hope against hope, with not a shed of evidence to even hint you should imagine, you find yourself rooting for one of the meanest ones to become a hero, to be moved by sense of humanity you’ve had no reason to believe is there.

That’s the holy spark. The essence of being that on a soul level each of us recognizes in the other. No matter how unlikely it may seem on any given day.

That’s what this getting holy is all about. Seeing and being those people.

All the rest, in the words of the great sages, all the rest is commentary.

Where’re You Headed?: TorahCycle Vayikra

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Vayishlach 2014

Said if before and likely will every year: Leviticus, the middle book of Torah, is not my favorite. The word means laws. Laws as in: rules; do’s and don’ts; regulations; lots more sticks than carrots, as in punishments for transgressions more than rewards for right actions. Unless you’re counting on an Age of Aquarius style messianic future, which your soul will certainly get an invite for, but your ego/now you may be long forgotten at the party.

Con men and politicians talk about playing the long game. It takes lots of growing up to appreciate. This requires big think, and most of us are stuck in the small stuff, self included.

We get caught, in some life sectors more than others, in the gimme now trap. We may rise to a more tactical approach to satisfying desire in some ways, learn a little delayed gratification. But even when we graduate to having a strategy, we’re still trying to win, to beat the system, too often trying to figure out how to slide in one more pint of Ben and Jerry’s before our diet starts, or the last I-mean-it-this-time cigarette, bet, or needle.

Leviticus assumes you’re going to blow it. But it also gives you guidelines, so if you at least try to color inside the lines, maybe you’ll get it more right more often. It’s a bet on the side of the angels. We’ll get the rebel’s story later.

Now’s the time to make some affirmations. To set some goals, whether they’re for your soul or your waistline.

Six plus months from now we will get to the edge of what is called The Promised Land. Big as a barn wall as it may seem, the messianic age also requires us to all aim that direction sincerely at once. I’ve got enough on my plate coping with my own karma, so I’m gonna choose something achievable, within my skill set, and good for me.

I know mine. If you know me well you probably know mine too. I suspect yours is gonna feel familiar also. If either of us had managed to keep our souls and selves at goal long enough at the same time, we’d be a whole lot closer to the actual Promised Land.

So decide what it’s gonna be for you, for the next six months, now till late September. Write it down. Say it at rising and/or bedtime. Start a journal. Identify barriers that keep you from goal. Reverse the language into a positive. Write down your fears and throw the page into a fire with herbs and incantations. Make up your rituals as you go and enjoy every minute of how you do it. Exercise polite tolerance for the folks next door, who may (and likely will) do something completely different from you. All that really that matters is that they’re aimed at betterment and mutual peace.

The reading is about our next steps to the promised land. Whatever that first step is for you, say it along with your goal as often as you remember. When you get there, identify your next step. Rinse and repeat as needed.

Playing With Dolls: TorahCycle Tetzaveh

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Kedoshim In my tomboy years I denied ever having played with dolls, even while seated next to a picture of younger me holding one. I did like the nested wooden dolls. They start out five inches tall, but when you’ve opened them all, the teeniest sits like a helpless baby in your palm. My closet’s pretty similar. In the work/playtime/dressy groupings, side by side hang the may-one-day-fit, looks-fine-now, and yikes-need-bigger-today wardrobes.

This week’s reading is about priestly garments. Would you think me more priestly in my smaller or my larger duds? In my jeans or a ceremonial robe?

The ways we appear to others may be very different than how we feel inside. We can look spiffy on the outside, while we protect and hide our smallest inner doll.

What makes us holier? The outer doll we dress for the world or something else? I’m definitely more priestly when my compassion and sense of responsibility to truth telling are greater. But I might be cleaning house or making bad puns about the sacred at the same time. Like our jeans and our ball gowns, we’re wired to be both sacred and irreverent. Neither makes us priestly by default. We have to earn it.

Science confirms faith: we definitely become more like how we say we and believe we are. Words or thoughts, if you aspire to something long enough, even if you’re playing dress-up and pretending, you help make it so.

Where I used to work, our standing joke about the boss was his request (so often prefaced by Helen,…) was Please make it so! The old Bubbe Jewish equivalent, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

But what if, indeed, as in quantum physics theories visualized in movies like What the ^%^#@*& Do we Know? or studies of the shapes that water takes around various emotions, we actually did make it so? If we became the selves we act, talk, and wish we were?

How does your “me” doll act and look to others, in your suits, your jeans or your robes? Can you be a holy fool, laugh at your foibles? Do you choose to be in the middle of the pack, suppressing your true self? Or can you strip down to your essence and interact directly with the world?

If you read any random fifty match.com profiles you might think virtually all of us were into long walks on the beach and romantic evenings. The few that stood out would either draw you in or push you away. Too often we with very used to hiding our most personal and special parts, be they sacred or damaged. Just like our wardrobes, we’ve all got both parts that make folks want to run like hell and others that inspire love and holiness.

Which aspects of self you encourage and nurture, which you believe in, and dress in like they are the truest you, are the ones you will grow into. Just like your inner holy robes, or your smallest inner doll, that’s the you we all deserve to witness and honor.

The Other Side: TorahCycle Beshellach

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Beshellach

Sometimes you feel like you’re leaping towards liberation and other times the pace is glacial. But all roads lead to the sea, a metaphor of the last barrier which must be crossed, though the path ahead has vanished.

The story goes that everyone was standing on the edge, unsure and afraid, an angry army getting closer, until one guy jumps in. Only when the water hit his nostrils did the sea part.

That’s how ready and committed you need to be.

They emerge into a place called the Sea of Reeds. Still a sea, but with some purchase underfoot. Things returning to scale instead of a colossal tsunami on either side. And the reality of entering a new world. A new land, where everything’s unknown, both the gifts and the challenges. How nicely prophetic for the turn of the year.

Perhaps you too have made a shift in your life. Maybe not as big as getting out of slavery, but in your world just as important. Hooray if it was conscious. Even if not, think about where you were last year this time. And when you’d like to be next January. Find the vision you’ll need.

Mystical Judaism has the image/idea of klipot. Layers with which our holy spark gets covered and obscured. Think coats of pain that accrue from all your actions of denial and confusion, hesitancy or mistakes. They keep you just disconnected enough from your holiness that it can feel a little out of reach.

Now’s different. The turn of the year seems to peel away a few layers. Like you just had a loofa scrub. A little red and tender. But definitely refreshed and invigorated.

On the other side we’re like newborns. Full of potential, with our freedom, our spark, and our hope.

Take a minute to let the idea of “the other side” sink in. Big or small, you’ve made changes and committed to more. Your holy spark’s a bright ember. How’re you going to keep it glowing brightly?

What do the Israelites do on the other side? They dance and sing.

I’ve been listening to playlists put together by wise and knowing friends. One spins a beautiful refrain: What shall we do, what shall we do, with all this fragile beauty?

That’s the song of now. To decide what to do with your hard-won and fragile beauty. You can sign songs of triumph or songs of new desire. But also sing songs of hope and of commitment. Blow on your holy spark with a sure and encouraging breath. A breath of appreciation for past courage and of trust in your future.

There are moments in life when time slows. When we can get the perspective we need to move forward. That this reading comes at the time of light’s return is no accident. It encourages continuing work on our process. Asks us to look into the eye of God and then back at ourselves. To see and use our inner spark to light the way.

Whether you got here fast or slow, take a good look around. Remember this place of joy and possibility. Carry it with you as you embrace your next challenges.

Step By Step: TorahCycle Lekh Lekha

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LekhLekha 2013

Judaism is only part of my spirituality. But I genuinely believe that embedded in Torah is great insight and guidance for self-transformation and development. Most of us have embedded in our brains Bible stories and imagery from childhood. But deeper Torah raises lots of questions and challenges that can help you shape your now, and your becoming.

There’s an arc to the evolution of souls: your getting from creation to whatever’s your version of a promised land. Last week, the first thing Noah did after escaping annihilation was to get drunk and have sex. Ooops. Like eating a brownie an hour after starting a diet.

This week, the first thing we’re told is that Abraham is to leave the house of his parents and the land of his birth. He’s to set out for somewhere new and unknown. It’s a metaphor for walking away from what in your past defines you too closely. Whatever constrains your ability to grow and evolve. An instruction to leave behind your old habits. To prepare for the possibility of the new. To change without knowing what will come. But because you are ready to embrace the possibility and importance of making that shift.

Most of us have screwed up. Usually not just once. For our core issues – – love, food, money, or deeper — screwing up is probably familiar territory. Now’s a great time to begin to make a shift. Maybe not packing and calling u-Haul, but by doing something that feels potentially as important. Deciding to make a fundamental shift in the shape of your reality, your daily life, and your beliefs.

The first big step is self-scrutiny. The next, deciding what to change. Everything after is follow through. Aiming yourself in a different direction. Then continuing, step by step. Making your life about who you want to become, not who you have been.

In the beginning, the changes don’t have to be huge, or even consistent. Even doing one thing differently every other day will begin to increase your awareness. Consider every act a choice.

If you’re like most of us, you won’t walk in a straight line. You might go sideways, in circles, even backwards, for days, weeks, or longer. But each step is a step away from the old, a new step on your journey. Self-reinforcing and invigorating when you succeed.

It’s much easer to see other people’s paths. Your friends’, partner’s, or family’s. You have the perspective and vision to see quicksand two steps or two months ahead of them much sooner than they seem able to. You can see them looping around, not knowing they just veered way off course. (They can do the same for you.) It’s harder to see that clearly for yourself.

Life is such a fascinating and tenuous mix of insight and knowing, intention and awareness. We make greater progress when we add in faith. Believing in yourself is a great starting point.

That’s how change should begin. An energized mix of vision and focus. Sep by step it leads to manifesting. Anticipation and determination. Acknowledging the difficulty of change, but committed to trying. All your doing counterbalanced by the receptivity of an open heart.

Step by step.

In the Beginning (Again): TorahCycle Bereishit

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Bereishit 2013Someone asked me recently what this blog is about.  My answer: to help you answer the question Who are you in the process of becoming?

Torah readings offer a vehicle for self-transformation. They help us to look through the window of the aspirational self. To listen to what the words are saying about how to live. Me. You. Now.

Almost all of us wrestle with something, for that long night we call life, the way we’ll soon remember Jacob wrestling with the angel.

We each have our own issues and process. Some are unhappy in a relationship or a job, while others long for one. There’s body stuff, and money stuff, and friend/family stuff. All the aspects of our daily reality that our minds chatter and fret about so much and often. There’s soul stuff too, whether that translates into becoming a meditator or simply kinder, deepening a spiritual practice or searching for a resonant path.

We’ve cycled back to Genesis. Creation. The edge of another new beginning.

You may believe in the Big Bang, The Voice/Hand of God, or a different creation story. But anyone who’s ever had a brainstorm knows how quickly something can appear out of apparent nothing. An idea bursts through, alive with energy. The synergy and synchronicity of all of you. Your history and your becoming. Your holy spark glittering to show you the next next. Suddenly a vision, where a moment before there was not. A new world of possibilities, multiplying quickly.

That’s the way to start this year.

Shed last year’s battles and disappointments. Bring with you what you’ve learned, what you earned, and what you aspire to. Leave behind the old struggles, fears, and sorrows. Start over cleansed and optimistic.

Poof! What an idea!

Here’s my invitation: To celebrate creation, give yourself time this week to invite new ideas about how you want to feel this time next year. With hopes you’ll feel like you’d just won the lottery of your life and soul. Like you can create the world you want to live in.

It’s another chance to reinvent you. To edit and to refine. To take everything you’ve learned and have it become your ally. A mini-reincarnation without having to start over again with diapers.

A lot of the “in the beginning” story is about separation and discernment between opposites: heaven and earth, day and night, land and sea, and so on. It’s also about free will: following instructions or risking the consequences of your actions. We all face those kinds of choices every day.

As you make them — consistent, impulsive, risky, wise, or not — some of the glittering possibilities of your great new ideas will fade. And some will grow brighter. The array of bright lights will narrow and cluster. As they do, your life options will become clearer. If you’re lucky or blessed, and can hear the hints and instructions coming from your inner voice, they’ll even show you the paths for your evolving journey.

I’m suggesting folks journal this time around. Whatever strikes you as worth remembering along the way.  If you’re so moved, write yourself or the rest of us a note below.

Living Your Dream: TorahCycle Ha’azinu

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HaazinuUnless you’ve been under a rock, you know last week was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Synchronistically, this week’s reading is Moses on a mountaintop overlooking his own promised land, the precursor to Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech. It’s presented as a song, with the same powerful rhetoric.

Poetry and song get into our bloodstream in ways that rules and regs cannot. They’re inspiring and emotional. They open our eyes as well as our ears. Help us to dream a new world for ourselves. To visualize, even feel, what we have not yet experienced. They create hope.

That kind of dreaming, which I call visioning, unlocks the process of change, both personal and societal.

It’s a process of setting goals. The more tangible ones, like I wanna earn $xx,000 or marry so-and-so. But more importantly of saying: This is who I am in the process of becoming. This is the world I want to create. I’m willing to ante up my time and energy to make it so.

Visioning is a necessary first step to creating change. You can’t ask for what you want until you know what that is. Turning your vision into reality also requires action harnessed to your desires. That’s kavannah, intention, coming from the deepest parts of your head, heart, and soul.

You can manifest vision with intention by surviving occasional thumps on the head, tests of your patience, determination, and willingness to persevere, even without short-term gains. Without a clear vision you won’t have the courage or stamina to last through the process.

If you haven’t yet seen The Butler, go and bring hankies. It’s about the courage of those who stood up and said: I say No. I’m putting my life on the line because I envision a different world.

Only you can know what causes enough discomfort to motivate you to act. But until you say, I’m ready for change now, you’ll feel and stay stuck.

It’s never too late. You might whine, or enable yourself, or grab for the chips and remote because denial is easier than action. But once you’re deeply ready for change, all the energy you’ve used to keep yourself held in place will come roaring to your aide. You’ll be amazed at how invigorated you feel when you start to turn your visions into reality.

There’s a great quote from Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who said: When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.

Vision plus action plus prayer is the fullest meaning of intention. It acknowledges that you’re asking for help from every realm, and channeling that energy into your own life. Sometimes step by weary step can feel like an endless march. But only with true intention can you create the lasting change that you’re yearning for. That’s what the whole arc of Torah, what this blog, is about. And soon we’ll start a new cycle, another chance to get it right, or at least better.

Exercise: Envision yourself on a mountaintop looking into your future. What do you see if nothing changes? How would you prefer your life to look? What are you willing to do now?

Give Yourself A Break: TorahCycle Behar-Bechukotai

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BeharSomeone once observed that Judaism’s greatest gift to humanity was not monotheism but rather the idea of a Sabbath. A time to hit the pause button, taking the seventh day to be, not do. A time to live off the labors of the previous six and give gratitude for creation. Not just one day a week, but every seventh year. And amazingly, in the fiftieth year, to have what’s called a Jubilee year. In Biblical times Jubilees included freeing the slaves, a bold act of socio-economic re-engineering. There’s lots of planning and trust involved.

There’re suggestions (okay instructions) for how to be and yes also do’s/don’t’s about how to spend your time and energy. But they aren’t organized around running errands, getting your lawn mowed, or cheering for your favorite team. They’re about taking time to rest, to pray, to learn, and to make love. Not a bad day, and one many might yearn for Monday through Friday.

When you think weekend, do you also think to-do lists, even the ones that include fun line items like friends and playtime? What takes priority? Why does scheduling regular down time sound so unrealistically pie-in-the-sky? Why’s it so hard to give yourself a break?

One reason: we’re trained since childhood to value of our lives by what we accomplish, by what we can point to as products of our skills and talents. To be able to say proudly, I made that!, whether that’s a misshapen vase in a pottery class or a knockout PowerPoint presentation.

So what happens if you give yourself a break? If you trust, as we’re told to do, that the work you’ve done in days/years one through six should be enough to provide for you in the seventh? That it’s okay to vision and dream, not labor?

You’ll have to trust that the rest and regeneration you’ll get from not doing, from not being in motion or crossing something off your to-do list, is also a benefit. Ditto not fretting that you’ll be more harassed and stressed just by finding relaxation time, or fearing you’ll pay for it later. That there are benefits to what outsiders might write off as day dreaming.

These benefit are short-run and long-, tangible and immeasurable. Benefits that will pay off in ways your now you doesn’t yet have words or imagery for. But remind her to say thanks later, when she realizes that gifting yourself some chill and mellow has not just slowed you down and softened you, but given you a new sense of possibility.

Exercise: Take some daydreaming time each week. Organize your world to insulate yourself from your regular reality for at least a few hours on a regular basis. Get some colored pens. Write down how you wish your life looked and felt. Repeat every seven days. Write down whatever you’re dreaming of, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. You can make it pretty later, when you have more time and energy. Then we’ll work on making it real.