dwindle

After autumn equinox, the light becomes precious. Part of that has to do with the alarming reality of the incredible shrinking days. Another piece - at least for me - is about the quality of light at this time of year.

Brother Sun shines pure gold from equinox until Halloween in this corner of the landscape. That color enhances everything about the season. The turning leaves, deep blue sky, the river and all our super white monuments, are all illuminated by the gold light, made radiant and graceful, like a pre-Raphaelite painting. Our city couldn't be more gorgeous.

Sometimes I wish there was some way to capture a little bit of autumnal light, put it in a bottle and save it for one of the dark days right around winter solstice.

Except ... winter solstice is about paper thin, silvery white sunlight. Scarce as daylight is at that time of year, it's exquisitely beautiful. Gold light in winter would be, well, weird.

And anyway this autumnal gold can't be captured, not even digitally (though lord knows every year I try). If I want to enjoy the seasonal light, I've got to get out into it as much as possible, drink it in while it lasts. I'll be able to catch a few rays today, a great gift. (Yes I dropped an atomic bomb of antibiotics into my system yesterday, with enthusiasm, I might add. Yes they leave a strange taste in the mouth and make me queasy, yes. But compared to pneumonia, which is what I have, they're wonderful. Thank God for antibiotics.)

Thank God for the gold light of autumn. Amen, Brother Sun! Amen.

L'shana tova, ya'll

ROSH HASHANAH


the birthday of adam

the innocent earthling
and the day hagar and ishmael

found water in the desert
in memory of whom

mud staining our shoes

water flowing in handfuls
we sniff the smell of living dying things
reach into our pockets

for the bread that represents our sins, toss it in, praying release 
us, help us,
forgive us

the river answers

by swallowing our crumbs
do our prayers travel upward

do they defy gravity

like rain splashed on the windshield

of a car speeding through storm
in ten days we will go hungrier

pray harder

---Alicia Ostriker

Sick of Being Sick

My foot was recovered enough to walk Jake around the block this morning. It was miraculous! There's a world out there of people, birds, dogs, trees, and tropical moisture, a la Hurricane Kyle. WOW!! I felt like I'd just been released from jail.

But I'm still suffering from the cold from hell. Can't kick it no matter what I try - Chinese tea, homeopathics, chicken soup, extended rest - nothing is working. I'm superstitious enough to have hoped that when the moon turned last night, suddenly I would be on the mend. Even the moon can't fix this one, apparently.

Tomorrow or Tuesday, I'm going over to the dark side - I'm going to get a prescription for antibiotics. It's a big deal for me. I can't remember taking an antibiotic since I had my wisdom teeth removed at age 21, which means the last time I took them, the Sufi acupuncturist had not yet been born. Wow.

I keep reading about the impact of flu on "the elderly." Am I elderly? Yikes.

Paul is Dead

Paul Newman? Dead?? OK ... he was old enough to die, definitely. And he was sick, and had stopped acting because his memory was fading. I shouldn't be surprised, but, well, Paul Newman has been an integral part of my cultural context, making movies and being a really good guy (and a beautiful guy, too) all my life. It's shocking, even though it shouldn't be.

He was always one of my favorites. I felt a kinship because he was an Aquarius (so is his wife Joanne Woodward). I loved his stable and long-lived marriage. Loved his salad dressing and fig newtons, and the fact that he gave so much money to institutions that needed it.

Here's a true story. I had a friend who, on a hot summer day in NYC, bumped into a man who was coming out of a corner grocery. She was in a bad mood, hot, and a bad-ass New Yorker, so she of course cursed the guy. "F you!" He looked at her for a second, then said, "You know what? F YOU!" There proceeded a perfect New York exchange of "Oh yeah? Well, F your mother" "F your father", etc. etc.

At some point in this exchange my friend realized the guy was Paul Newman! (Working on a film set in the Bronx). But being a New Yorker, she had to keep going, at least for a little while. Finally the exchange wound itself down. She marched off proudly, and never forgot that day.

Paul? You lived well. In a way you had a perfect life. You're now one of the Mighty Dead, it's hard to believe, but it's true. Rest easy out there beyond the veil! We will miss you. Hail and farewell!

Grounded

When it rains, it pours. Oy vey. I'm just about recovered from the Cold from Hell, a good thing, yes? Then why oh why did I lose my balance and slip on the stairs? I've come up and down those stairs literally thousands of times in the past seven years, sometimes after too much wine. Never slipped before. Shook me up, but I was OK. An hour later, why did Tonka (the biggest household dog) rear up enthusiastically and come down hard on my right foot? Why?

OK, well, he was feeling enthusiastic about going out for a walk, and my foot was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The question "why" is more about me waving my fist at the sky. You know.

So I'm grounded again, at least for awhile. No long walks, not even any short walks until I figure out how seriously I'm hurt. In the meantime, ice packs, warm soaks in epsom salts, arnica gel, Reiki (from myself as from friends).

I'm batting minus a thousand this week in the realm of physical health. Wish me well? Thanks.

Less is More

One of the most profound truths in modern science is that the fundamental reality of the universe is nothingness. There's the nothingness of space, the nothingness between the atoms in a molecule, the nothingness at the subatomic level. There is some stuff, of course, but not much.

A profound spiritual truth in many traditions is the belief that divine reality, a.k.a. God, is completely without form, cannot be seen or known or even described. What we Jews like to think is that any attempt to describe God can only tell us what He isn't. He is everything and nothing (which might account for why God is depicted in the Bible as such a psychopath, one second loving and generous, the next minute raging and smiting. Current translations of the Bible leave much to be desired, if you ask me.)

I've been thinking about how prayer works here in our reality where everything is shaped, where our bodies, homes, cities and landscapes all seem solid as rocks. Our ideas, too, find congealed forms within the "solid" domes of our craniums. Oh, we humans are such great sculptors on so many levels.

What do people pray for? We ask for help, for guidance. We pray that people who are sick will recover, for the safety and happiness of the people we love. What I'm wondering is, are we asking God to undo the illness, to remove our loved ones from dangerous situations, to open the hearts of our near and dear ones so that unhappiness can melt and evaporate? I'm thinking when we pray we are usually asking for the miracle of undoing.

Of course sometimes we pray for a new bicycle or a puppy (though mostly not after the age of eight) and I'm not saying those prayers don't work. It seems to me, though, that we're overcapable of bringing more stuff into our lives. We're great at shaping the world and our minds, too great if you ask me. We don't really need divine help with any of that.

It's the undoing that's so hard for us. Isn't that why so many spiritual paths include meditation as part of their practices? It gives us a chance to experiment with having an unformed mind. Even a glimpse of quiet mind/quiet heart is miraculous - that's why so many of us sit down to meditate every day. It brings us closer to the unformed reality of the divine, gives us a glimpse of true liberation.

I don't know what's going on in the U.S. at the moment. Our stuttering monkey of a lame duck president threatened us with a great depression by next Monday if we're unwilling to pay off the bankers who are responsible for the financial mess we're now facing. Shame on him! Comparing what's going on to 9/11? What a bully ... oh, and no offense to monkeys intended.

While I was meditating this morning it came to me that this crisis, though chaotic and horrible for those of us who don't have money or means to do anything about it, is in its own way a divine blessing of undoing. Empires rise and empires fall. They always have. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

May the people with funky mortgages find the resources and guidance and strength they need to get through this next period of time. May we see through the tactics of fear, may we remain calm, may our minds stay open to all possibilities. We can make this mess worse - we're good at that. God? Will you help us let go? Please? Thanks for listening! Amen.

The Financial Crisis for Dummies. If you have 40 minutes, give a listen. Incredibly clear and understandable. And very sad.

The Importance of Taking Time

I have a client with lumbar disc troubles. She sees a physical therapist once a week, has a therapeutic massage every other week, dutifully goes to yoga and also dutifully goes to work every day in spite of the incredible pain she's in.

When her little dog developed disc problems, the vet said "Restrict his movement, let him rest until it heals." My client said, "Why does my dog get to rest but I have to keep working?"

She makes a good point. Once upon a time, taking time to recover from illness and injury was emphasized. Folks who had money would take months to rest and recover, but not any more. These days the only thing that matters is how fast we can get back to our routines. I find this so bizarre. And we wonder why there are so many immune system problems in our population. For heaven's sake.

Speaking of systemic disfunctions, I have awakened from my Alice in Wonderland cold to the news that our financial system has collapsed. The Washington Post headline this morning says Congress "balks" in the face of a $700 billion bailout that Paulson and GW Bush say is urgent.

Balks? From what I've seen on the news, members of Congress are asking a lot of questions, trying to understand what's going on and what needs to be done. I remember how quick they were to send the U.S. to war after 9/11, a Very Big Mistake. I'm so glad they're taking a little bit of time to think about this before going ahead. It's a crisis like nothing that has ever happened. It's important to take time to ask questions and consider carefully before moving ahead.

The client with the disc problems works for Congress. No chance she'll have any time this week (and for many weeks) for physical therapy, massage, or yoga. She, like many hundreds of others, will be working day and night, trying to figure out how best to address what's happening. Her lumbar spine will come out the worse for it all, needless to say.

I wish my client and all her colleagues the best of luck in navigating their way through this. May the force be with them!

THANKS to my sister Deborah for pointing me towards NPR's Fresh Air interview from Tuesday. Thank God for my sister and for Terri Gross! It's the Financial Crisis for Dummies, a.k.a. privatizing gains, socializing loss! YIKES!