Shabbat Shalom, Y'all!

SHABBAT MOMENT

A scarf trailing
over the lilac sunset,
fair weather clouds,
cirrus uncinus
silk chiffon.
Twilight softens the air,
whispering, come,
lie down with me.

Untie the knots of the will.
Loosen
your clenched grip
barren hills of bone.
Here, no edges to hone,
only the palm fallen
open as a rose about
to toss its petals.

What you have made,
what you have spoiled
let go.
Let twilight empty
the crowded rooms
quiet the jostling colors
to hues of swirling water
pearls of fog.

This is the time
for letting time go
like a released balloon
dwindling.
Tilt your neck and let
your face open to the sky
like a pond catching light
drinking the darkness.

--Marge Piercy

Davening

Honestly, it's too much. Seriously.

I sing praises for rain. I offer prayers of thanks. I open my window and breathe deeply - because I can! My head bows low in gratitude for the arrival of the cold front last night in Washington DC.

Spring has been so impatient this year. All of the green world has been in a frenzy of popping, blooming and bombing the landscape with pollen. Yikes. The nice cold rain last night brought down the green dust. The temperature has dropped by 35 degrees F. What a relief!

Gods and goddesses of springtime blossom and pollination, listen up: May cooler heads prevail!! THANK YOU!!

I've been trying to capture the incredible magic of this wysteria vine for years. Though the collage below falls far short of truly representing its magnificence, at least you get the idea of how HUGE it is, how FABULOUS it is as it twists and winds up the front of a BEAUTIFUL, three-story Victorian on Lincoln Park. Every year I stop and stare. All I can say is: wow.

Meteorological Passions Run Amok

Logan Circle

The earth is a living being. When I say that, I'm not being poetic or metaphorical; it is literally true, at least according to the cosmology of Reya.

Of course I have created a complicated structural schematic of the living being we are a part of. What I'm thinking about today is the weather, which I think of as the emotional body of the earth. Complicated, changeable, and frequently unpredictable, earth's weather patterns are not unlike my own human emotional body. My moods pass through me like weather fronts, often surprising me with the power they have to change my inner landscape. Sometimes when I get angry I feel as if tiny lightning bolts shoot out of my eyes. When I'm calm and content, it feels like I am emanating gold sunlight. Sometimes my mood is windy. At those times I can not stop talking. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The earth's weather patterns are inextricably interwoven with the currents of our oceans, as well as with the seasons. Seasonal weather is all about which hemisphere is leaning away from (or towards) Brother Sun of course. The dance of the earth and sun is so interesting to me, as is the hard-wired relationship of the seasons to the emotional body of every landscape on earth.

I'm thinking about the emotional body of our beautiful, living planet because of the weirdness of this particular spring in DC. What is normally a slowly unfolding season of color and energy is, this year, an explosion. The sky is full, all of a sudden, with waving green leaves. Usually it goes like this: tree bloom, then tiny specks of green, next tiny, tender little leaves and then finally, in mid-May, the leaf canopy fills in. But not this year! This year there was the bloom, then KA POW - full leaf canopy. It seemed to happen almost overnight. We've had three days of 90 degree heat, something that doesn't usually happen until late May. All that sultry summertime heat must have inspired the trees to jump into full leaf ASAP. I guess.

The dogwoods have bloomed, too, and iris and all kinds of flowering bushes that, during an ordinary spring, don't open until May.

This spring reminds me of those times when I can't hold back, when an emotion comes up inside me so strongly that it bursts out. Have you ever had that experience? Yesterday I was thinking about my sister Hannah shouting, "I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM!" just after the conclusion of a beautiful wedding ceremony. That's how it is in Washington this week.

Explosions, even "positive" explosions like passionate expressions of love, have an impact. For those of us who are allergic to the erotic springtime dance of the green world, it's an especially great time to hunker down indoors until things settle down.

Looks like I'll have plenty of time to catch up on my blog reading today. I've decided to look at this situation in the most positive light possible. Love is a many splendored thing. Oh yeah.


Dogwoods? Already?? What next - roses in April? It could happen this spring.

Huh?

As you are aware from our previous communication, in a world-first film making exercise, we are gathering 6,000 people from around the world to collaborate in the making of The Difference™ film and TV show. By tapping into the collective conscious and unconscious of a global group of open hearted, service oriented people, an influential film and TV show will be produced that will open humanity’s heart and make a significant difference to many people throughout the world.

Yesterday I attended the project briefing. I've been curious and bewildered that I was invited to be part of this. Following the briefing, I'll admit to being even more confused. The other people there were truly amazing. One of them lived off the grid with her twin sons for ten years in a community that didn't understand they were living "green." They had every creature comfort, she said, except cars. All their energy was solar-generated. One woman has written a book about connecting with the sacred divine. She hopes to help people find joy and direction in life without having to be part of "organized" religion. Another person teaches inmates to train therapy dogs, thereby healing those incarcerated by way of dog magic. Wow. She had one of her therapy dogs with her, an Irish setter named Jack. That was the BEST dog!

I'm not trolling for compliments here, honestly. My question is, why was I part of this group? I don't do anything like these people. One of the first exercises we did was to sit in small groups so we could explain to each other how we make a difference in the world. Not only could I not think of a single thing to say, but in my heart of hearts I'm not clear that I (or anyone, for that matter) has to change the world. Are we required to make a difference? I think we are fine just as we are. The world is OK, it will carry on with us or without us.

I do believe it's important to make the commitment, every day, to TRY to be a good person, you know: fair, tolerant, good hearted and good humored. I think it's important to do the right thing whenever possible, and to make amends when it doesn't feel possible. Some days I am able to live accordingly, other days - well - not so much. Does that make a difference? I'm not clear that it does, and that's OK with me.



Obviously they found me through the blog. My question is, do I come off here like someone who has a message to pass on to the world? They kept talking about getting the word out about what we do in order to make change available to people who want something different from their lives but aren't sure how to go about it. Do I have a message? Do I? I don't think I do.

Occasionally some people we invite to be part of The Difference™ comment, “Why me? What do I have to contribute? What difference will I make?” In response to these questions, The Difference’s™ Executive Producer Jacqueline Bignell says, “There is a reason you need to be involved in The Difference™ even if we do not know what that is right now. There are many people who need to hear your message. But even if it is only one person living on the other side of the world who needs to hear what you have to say and it makes a difference to them, your work is done. The ripple effects of the difference you make to that one person will be far reaching across many generations.”

OK, that appeals to my ego, but I still don't get it. There's a lot more to say about yesterday's experience, but it isn't "speech-ripe" yet (as my old cohort Anne Hill used to say). Picture me scratching my head, brows knitted, wondering, wondering. All I can say is, "Huh???"

Detente would be good enough for me.

I can almost hear the oak trees whispering "Reya must die!" Actually, I think they're shouting.

Diplomacy is an excellent skill to cultivate. It really benefits interactions among our own species, or at least it can. Yesterday and today I'm wondering whether it's possible to negotiate successfully between humans and plants. Is it? Of course many plants are already our allies, so there's no need for diplomacy there.

But what about the plants that are openly aggressive towards our species? No one would ever say that poison ivy, for instance, is a great ally, right? Do we try to seek a peaceful relationship with poison ivy? Never. Right? Everyone I know, when encountering poison ivy, puts on big gloves, then yanks it out of the ground without a second thought. End of story.

In a blog I read yesterday, the writer was trying to figure out how far she should go to accommodate a wasp who decided to build a nest in a porch planter. (She decided against allowing it, flooded the nest when the wasp had flown away.)

My quarrel with the oak trees is seasonal. During the summer they are great allies, providing cool circles of shade that protect me against the hideous DC summer sun. They're beautiful to look at in all seasons, quite regal, in fact. But in spring when they are pollinating, they are NOT my friend. Like the Hatfields and McCoys, we just don't get along.

The common wisdom among humans is that we should tank up with antihistamines and pretend we're allies even if we aren't. I'm all for tanking up on herbs and drugs, but I also very consciously avoid their territory. I want to be respectful, even though I admit that I do feel mighty hostile towards them at this time of year. Sad but true is that when the breeze blows, oak pollen can travel far and wide. Sometimes pollen from a particular oak is found forty miles away, or so I learned this morning. Hence I'm thinking there's no avoiding them, no matter what, especially in DC where there are a million of them.

You see all of this is my attempt to lift my annual allergy whinge to the level of philosophy. Pathetic attempt, eh? OK. I'll stop now.


Loved these little girls on scooters and tiny bikes, zipping around the periphery of Lincoln Park last night, clearly oblivious to the lurking presence of oak pollen.

The Green Dust

Yesterday I saw the first of the iris - one of my very favorite of the springtime array. (It's amazing how hard it is to capture that beautiful amethyst flower digitally. I find that dramatic shots taken from below the bloom reveal more of its complex, sexy shape than those taken from above - which is odd since the pollinating insects come from above. Surely they're looking at the flower differently than I am, yes?)

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, the first iris. That always marks the beginning of my Season of Sneeze, a.k.a. the Tyranny of the Green Dust, a.k.a. oy vey. What it means is that I have to close my windows during the most beautiful spring days of soft air and low humidity. Whenever I step outside, My hair goes under a hat. When I return home, I wash my face, snort saline then blow my brains out, change my shirt and hope for the best. At this time of year I change my pillowcase every day. Seriously. I place homeopathic eye drops in my poor, bloodshot, itchy eyes, guzzle Chinese medicinal herb tea brewed from a witchy-looking bunch of stalks, pods, and dried out flowers. I take Claritin, receive acupuncture, gulp tinctures to strengthen my immune system. On the worst days I just have to lie still in my hermetically sealed room while trying to breathe, my eyes squeezed shut in spite of the soothing effect that comes from the steeped dandelion teabags and cold washcloths I place over my eyes.

I try, oh God I TRY SO HARD not to rub my eyes because that just makes everything worse. Sometimes, though, like Dr. Strangelove I lose control. Before I know it, my fist locates an eye socket. After that, my histamines are in a frenzy.

Oy. vey.

Also it is my tradition to complain every year here on the blog. Mea culpa!! Maybe next year I'll have health insurance. Maybe I'll get a prescription for some heavy-duty allopathic allergy meds. Maybe I'll get allergy shots. Maybe I won't complain. Ya think?

Maybe! In the meantime I'll hunker down while the green world does its wild, frenetic, crazy fertility dance. L'chaim. Ah-choooo!! Oh yeah.

Happy Easter to all!

WILD GEESE
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.