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At an earlier time in my life, I was a workaholic, as so many folks in the nonprofit world end up being out of necessity; particularly those of us who worked at the intersection of justice and spirit. There are never enough hands or resources to meet all the urgent needs in our fractured world. The problem with that, of course, was that I destroyed my own body in the process. I wasn’t listening to the needs of my own spirit.
I’d like to say that once the lesson was learned, I’ve been in perfect balance ever since. But the reality is that in the 20 years since, I have fallen back into that pattern a few times. I still wasn’t listening. I’ve learned that if I push, my body will push back, and so I need to account for that in all I do. Audre Lorde said that rest is a revolutionary act – a transgression in our production-oriented capitalist society. It is hard to listen when we get so many messages to ignore our own needs, let alone honor the needs of others.
I entered a grand experiment in listening this winter. For those who’ve been getting my newsletters here (and formerly directly in email), you’ll notice that I didn’t write any blogs or hold any local programs over these past winter months. I listened to my body’s need to resync with the natural rhythms of the seasons, which have been calling to me. The winter is more than a time of death and cold dreariness. It is the pregnant pause, with life gestating under the snowy earth. So this year, I listened and allowed my body and my spirit to wait upon the upsurge of the rising sap and resourcing of spirit.
In earlier generations, the winter quiet was when nets and knitting were mended, food preserved, plans made for the coming year’s harvests. In my quietude, I recovered from an autumn surgery, cared for family members, met with my spiritual direction clients and gestated the vision of a new program at the seminary, which has been growing over the spring. And two months ago, I finally had a surgery that has been 20 years in the making; to repair my hearing.
Those who know far more about the mind-body connection wouldn’t be surprised to see the correlation between listening and hearing. But I had a profound Aha! Moment several weeks after surgery when I went to a Holly Near concert with my beloved. Anyone familiar with Holly’s music knows that folks sing along joyously to her music. During one song, it struck me that I was hearing in surround sound with the hearing returned in an ear that hadn’t heard for 20 years. As this new reality reverberated in the coming days, I realized that my own voice had become unsure and constricted over the years, as I could no longer hear harmonies and so didn’t trust my voice would blend.
It got me to thinking about what else I might not have been hearing. How has my voice been silenced, and whose voices have I not perceived? Can I apply my ability to listen to my body and enhance my ability to hear again, in new ways?
During these same twenty years we’ve heard more and more stridency and anger, as algorithms of social media siloed what we listen to. But in the divisiveness and polarizing anger – as loud as it is – we seem to have lost the ability to listen for the fear which underlies the discord. When we can only hear our own voice, in distorted forms, we miss out on the harmonies possible when we listen to the fears, needs, and hopes of one another. While some are anxious to return to a time when things were “simpler” for them, they have become deaf to the reality that those times were anything but simple or safe for others. Similarly, in our urgency to foster change in a world on the brink of environmental collapse, some of us are equally deaf to the reality that others in our community have not thrived and feel left behind. While it is true that both sides are being manipulated by those in power (who are quite adept at sowing division to distract us all), where once we could share heated and heartfelt debate, now it seems we cannot hear one another at all. How do we relearn how to hear each other? How do we listen for the wisdom of Spirit?
Yesterday our Christian friends celebrated Pentecost, and in a few weeks, Jews will celebrate Shavuot – both holidays of revelation – listening for the voice of Spirit in our lives. In both cases, the people in their respective times were living in fear. For the early Israelites it was the fear and oppression growing out enslavement, birthing a new people from of a mixed multitude. Similarly, for the early Christians, it was fear and oppression growing out of imperialist persecution, as the disciples also birthed a new people, this time out of Jews and Gentiles. In both cases, fear was supplanted when they listened to the Spirit to offer a vision of hope and love.
Who are the mixed multitude today, who can step out of the dominant capitalist culture, steeped in fear and oppression? How do we listen to the Spirit, when the systems of religion no longer speak to so many people? What can the wisdom of our bodies teach us, as we listen to the need for rest, change, and hope?
Just as listening to my body’s need to rest in winter’s season, made space for me to envision new possibilities at the seminary, it also created space for my family to step out of the 20th century nuclear family illusion of self-sufficiency, to reclaim the shared caring and support of a multigenerational household. The spring has brought an upsurge of growth and work, on all fronts, but in a way which supports our collective wellbeing. Just as the natural world around us is sprouting and growing, the spring and summer months are reminding us to listen to bird song and to new forms of life all around us.
Listening to our own hearts and the hearts of others can only happen when we slow down and live into the unitive rhythms of nature around us. When we are listening to the needs of our bodies, we are engaged in that radical resistance, that Audre Lorde espoused. When we can listen, only then we can have compassion – for self and for others. When we listen to the chorus of our companions, the harmony of Spirit rises and enflames our souls to dream into possibilities. We can become that mixed multitude that transforms into a new people and envisions a new way of being in relationship with each other and the planet. When we can hear the notes of each unique truth then the harmony of hope can remind us that it is only when we come together – because of, not despite our differences – that we can manifest miracles.
There is no escaping that this fall has seen the heartbreak and trauma of war in a way that has caused normally aligned friends and family to be at odds, and even (for many) conflicted feelings within ourselves as we reckon with the horrors of Hamas’ brutal massacre and at the same time struggle with the horrific loss of innocent lives in Gaza, while hate spreads death and destruction. We’ve watched as antisemitism and Islamophobia have increased exponentially, exacerbating the widening gulf between left and right. We continue to be numb to yet another senseless mass shooting, this time in Maine. We’ve seen the hopelessness in the eyes of our youth as they watch repressive new laws taking away their bodily autonomy and as they watch the continued degradation of the planet they will inherit. For many (young and old), it seems the safest bet is to lose themselves in social media, digital gaming and substance abuse, checking out of the larger world. We’re seeing an epidemic of isolation in the world today.
While the old models of religion did give folks a sense of connection, they also came with some hefty dogmas and otherizing of anyone who didn’t believe as they did. We are seeing a rising Christian Nationalism which clings to those older models and rejects the pluralism which has been a source of hope for others in a world that is far more nuanced and interconnected than the binary constructs would have us believe. Countless people have walked away from religion in the past 30 years, and many ran due to religious wounding.
Yet, being in spiritual community can be a source of emotional support when times get rough; studies have actually shown that being in spiritual community can reduce mental health problems as well as lengthen life. Conversely, other studies have looked at the rise in White Christian Nationalism, and at the various hate groups akin to it as a reaction to the loss of connection and a yearning for any community even if it is one based on hateful tribalism. We are relational creatures; without that we fail to thrive.
Many of the mystics and sages have said we’re in a time of paradigm shift, but what does that actually mean? Yes, we know that religions across the board have grown smaller and smaller in the last 20+ years while the largest growing demographic is that of the Spiritual But Not Religious. But what will spirituality look like when the old models die away or reinvent themselves? How will spirit thrive when it is no longer tied to patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism? How do we build beloved communities which honor the lived reality of people of color, queer folk, poor & homeless people and the refugees of the world, let alone a beloved community which embraces all of the Abrahamic family – Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims & Palestinian Christians? How do we step out of our safe but lonely cocoons to help create the world we want to live in?
First, we must pause to breathe. Our automated and hyper-connected lives leave no room for nonproductive being. That is by design. Audre Lorde said that “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” It was the radical reason that a group of Israelite slaves created as their most sacred commandment, the sabbath – a day of rest for all of us enslaved to the demands & power of commerce. Those powers know that if we have time to rest, then we have time to notice what is happening in the world around us, and that awakens compassion within us. We need only look at the massive turn out for Black Lives Matter in the early days of the pandemic – we were all at home to witness that knee on a throat and couldn’t look away.
One of the terms that came out as the pandemic drug on was “compassion fatigue” because there was so much heartache that folks had nothing left to give. Was that what the Divine meant when scripture speaks of “hardening” someone’s heart? But compassion is what calls us to stand up for the oppressed. It is what calls us out of our self-interest to lend a helping hand. Yet, we have so little compassion for ourselves; we are enculturated in this capitalist society to berate ourselves if we don’t measure up to someone else’s idea of “success.” Ironically, compassion is the one thing which can lead us back to connection and community. Compassion is a name for the Divine in many traditions. Compassion calls us to see the devastation, to cry with the heartbroken, to hold the children and to say no to the machine of war.
The experts in trauma teach us that to heal from any trauma – individual or collective – we must be witnessed as we tell our stories, and to engage in embodied practices which ground us, connect us to each other and to the Breath of Life. Some of the very practices we see in spiritual communities – singing together, sharing the same breath patterns as we speak aloud our hopes and our concerns through prayer, hugging our neighbors – are the same tools for healing trauma.
Spiritual community may not look like megachurches in future years. Before we see what the collective will look like, though, we first must pause, breathe, and explore what our own spirits are yearning for, individually. We must name the hurts and hopes of our own souls and be witnessed on that personal journey. We must reconnect our souls and minds with our bodies and the body of the earth which sustains us. It is no coincidence that our fevered society is mirroring a fevered planet. We must engage in the political act of self-care and self-compassion. We are seeing myriad unions standing up to big business; workers saying they’ve had enough of subjugation for subsistence. What is possible when we collectively empower our own spirits and make holy the very real need for healing and compassion on a global scale?
Instead of bowing to guru, priest or politician to tell us what to do and think, a new spiritual care provider has been emerging in recent years, the spiritual companion. There have been Spiritual Directors providing pastoral care for a few centuries now, but the current breed of spiritual director isn’t directive – doesn’t tell you what to believe or how to relate to the Divine. We walk along side – Jews, Christians, Muslims, Wiccans, Buddhists and Spiritual But Not Religious – as those we support make meaning of their own lives and their own relationships with others and with that which is holy to them. Most chaplains and spiritual directors/companions honor what you believe AND what you don’t believe. We make space for you to decide how you want to relate with Awe or Gd or whatever Source is guiding you.
In this time of grief and trauma, we all need a witness on our journey, who listens for our hopes and celebrates our own soul-connections and self-compassion. We all need the sacred space in which to heal our spirits. So in this heart-wrenching time, pause to breath; seek out a spiritual companion; invite self-compassion. As you nourish your own spirit, may your compassion grow for those who are counting on us to create the world we are all waiting for. In healing our own spirits, may we bring healing to this hurting world.
Friends, I have moved my blog over to Substack. Check out the latest one, posted today: https://open.substack.com/pub/rivkagevurtz/p/widening-our-welcome-in-pride-season?r=kdjq0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Tonight is the last night Jews count the omer. Originally, a harvest practice of collecting sheaves (omer) of barley, the Kabbalistic mystics redefined it as a time of spiritual journeying through the divine attributes of the Tree of Life, in preparation for the receiving of the Torah on Shavuot (which is celebrated this Thursday evening through Saturday.) Not coincidentally, this time of inner reflection and anticipation is mirrored in the Christian tradition’s Lenten season leading to Pentecost, celebrated this Sunday.
In both cases, we are given tools for inner spiritual reflection which leads to revelation. Or put another way awakening to Awe and Aha! Whether a mixed multitude of seekers at the base of Har Sinai or a gathering of disciples hidden in an upper room, both groups were trying to make meaning of the upheaval of their lives. What do we do when the life we used to live is now too small but we’re afraid to step into our spiritual power?
We are at such a moment today, I believe. The past 3+ years have seen pandemic isolation, the senseless killing of black folk, the taking away of bodily autonomy of people with uteruses and trans youth, the almost 500 pieces of legislation in 47 states restricting the rights of queer folk, their families and their medical providers, the astronomical rise in hate crimes against not just queer folk but refugees, Asians, and Jews. It is hard to not despair when the beloved community is under attack; when return to the “good ol’ days” espoused by some means the negation of the rights and safety of others. We must recognize that what is at stake for us all is the right to fully embody the expanded reality of what it means to be created in the Image of the Divine. We can’t go back to ignorance and prejudice once we have awoken to the spark of the Divine in each of our human and nonhuman siblings on this planet.
Tonight the Omer concludes with the attributes (one for the day and one for the week) of Shekhinah shebe Malchut – majesty in sovereignty or presence in embodiment. Shekhinah is the Divine indwelling presence and she is considered represented in both iterations (whether one counts in the traditional form of Malchut shebe Malchut or in the egalitarian version I just used). I especially take hope in the combining of the feminine and masculine iterations as an embodiment of the sacredness expressed in all genders. How will we manifest our divine empowerment and authority; how will the Holy Spirit anoint our actions and intentions to heal this broken world?
I would love this to become a conversation that visions a different future, where we step into our spiritual power not just to fight the needed fight against Christian Nationalism and fascism, but to recommit ourselves to love instead of fear. Let our Aha be in seeing those who would harm us as also frightened (because anger and prejudice are faces of fear); they too are in need of our example of love. May the Awe which we know by many names and no name, strengthen our spirits and empower us as a priesthood of all believers coming together on the Holy Mountain.
There has been a lot of talk in the media and in the halls of government about gender of late, as we all know. A lot of fear-mongering and handwringing among the conservative albeit vocal minority, that presumes to dictate to the rest of us how we should each live within our own bodies. They would warp our views to believe that drag queens are out to “groom” our children, to become trans and queer. And they claim to have the final word on what God thinks of all those wigs and corsets. Just like an earlier McCarthy era, (that of Joe McCarthy and his witch-hunt of supposed communists), they are trying to stir up fear and distrust among Americans.
I have a problem with all this hysteria. (Which is, itself a word steeped in genderized stereotypes.) Let’s start at the foundation of their strident “proof” that trans folk are supposedly not part of God’s plan. Even more precisely, let’s start at the literal beginning. Genesis chapter 1 to be precise.
In our linear way of understanding a “story” we think of a “chapter” as a segment of one contiguous story. But Chapter 1 of Genesis is a completely different origin story from that in chapter 2. Chapter 1 is the whole create the world in 7 days and it’s all good story. Chapter 2 is the story of the subjugation of women and the subverting of the earlier goddess worshiping cultures (which surrounded Israel in the 6th century Before the Common Era).
So, if you remember your Sunday School or catechism, you’ll recall that on the 6th day God created humanity, ha-adam – the earthling, the human – from adamah, the earth. Not some specific dude but the whole of humanity. And the God who did this creating? Elohim – which is a plural noun (gods) that is rendered singular (as He in English). Today when someone is not bound by one gender or we don’t know the individual’s gender, the singular pronoun used to describe Them is often They. When this nonbinary or unidentified God is considering creating this human being, God speaks to God’s self (presumably) about how the humans will be created in “our image”. Either this god was talking to other co-gods or to God’s self – as a being of more than one gender – when They say that humanity will be created, in Their likeness. Either way you look at it, you are only left with two legitimate possibilities. Either the monotheistic God we claim to worship was not the only God (don’t even get me started about the archeological artifacts throughout Israel inscribed to YHVH and His Asherah) or the monotheistic God was nonbinary &/or intersex.
The early Talmudic sages took this one step further and asserted that the first earthling was, like God, not bound by just male or female but an intersex unitive being which contained all genders. And at the end of the day, GOD SAID IT WAS ALL VERY GOOD!
Now even if that is a bit too much for our little human brains to process, we then come to the second chapter; really a different and separate origin story, set in the Garden of Eden. This is the one with the snake and big bad Eve tempting poor naïve Adam. We have a different name of God in this story; YHVH (whish Jews do NOT call Yahweh – that is a Christian construct). Anyway, this God supposedly puts ha-adam asleep and creates woman by taking her from the human’s tzela. Tzela, contrary to popular belief, is not rib, but rather side. Imagine how differently we would have all experienced our worth, (particularly as female bodied people) if we had read that we had come from the side of – equal to rather than subordinate and from – males.
So, here’s a non-binary God whose second act upon creating humanity is to perform gender reassignment surgery on Their creation separating as if conjoined twins, so that this solitary being would not experience the sense of isolation and loneliness that the Divine saw them experiencing. One of the points in many theological treatises is that the whole reason Gd created was to not feel alone in the universe. An act of compassion.
It is no coincidence that the same conservatives who are taking away the bodily autonomy of people with uteruses are also the same folks legislating the bodily autonomy of trans people. They have been quite good at stirring up fear “for the children”. Where is their compassion?
My husband (and others like him) knew that he was male at 5 years old; it was society that told him for the next 45 years that he was mistaken. And yet, when he finally took the leap of faith to transition at 50, it was and is a true blessing. His transition was blessed in our congregation with a naming ceremony, and when we later celebrated at his 50th birthday party, his mom proceeded to tell stories about the little boy she had witnessed even while the dictates of the time insisted he was a little girl.
What we’ve learned from science (itself also under attack by the same conservatives) is that gender identity is formed in the 3rd trimester, separately from the biological sex formed in the 1st trimester. When children like my husband say they were born in the wrong body, they are being truthful. Their brain and their bodies are not aligned.
There are currently almost 500 bills in 47 states which are trying to dictate to families with trans youth how to control and conform to one group’s idea of gender. That doesn’t even count the number of bills about abortion rights. In both cases, a calculating group is banking on creating fear and uncertainty under the guise of protecting children. Their goal is to subjugate women and trans folk, in an effort to return all of us to a fictionalized “good ol’ days” when the white male ruled supreme. But their rhetoric never seems to address the concerns or needs of queer and trans children who have been forced into homelessness or who have died by suicide because of the judgment imposed by fearful parents and their fear mongering ideologues. Nor do they address the financial and health realities which are wrestled with by parents who must make the painful choice to abort a fetus regardless of whether it is wanted or not.
These hate-mongers do not speak for the Source of Love and Hope. They certainly do not speak for the Christ they claim to believe in. What did he have to say on the matter? He dined with eunuchs and stood by the woman who haters would have stoned. Nor do these Christian Nationalists speak for the vast majority of religions in this country, who affirm the worth of each person, regardless of gender, as being made in the image of the Divine, with a Gd-given right to live fully and compassionately in control of their own bodies and genders.
I had the interesting experience for the last two days of needing to keep my head immobile after physical therapy, for crystals in the inner ear. The PT therapist instructed me to not look up or down, and since the crystals are in the left ear, not to turn my head to the left either unless I turned my whole body.
I quickly became aware of the question, “What am I not seeing”? I carried this question into spiritual direction (with my own spiritual director), as I pondered, “What am I not seeing?” in my life, spiritual and mundane. I share this now, as an example of the kinds of conversations one might have in spiritual direction. It is not just the big liminal moments, or the dark nights of the soul. Spiritual Direction is more often about the still small voice moving through our lives.
What does narrowing my focus look like, in the spiritual realms of my life and the ordinary? We recalled that in last month’s session, I had been feeling a need to hit the pause button after the busy-ness of the last year as caretaker of my family while teaching at seminary, serving clients and seeding spiritual community; the need to pause for self-care or even self-cherishing! Did I do that? Of course not, and so here is the universe giving me a clearer message to pause, with the PT’s instructions to rest for the two days after the procedure. (But this was going to be my week to get things done!) There is always too much to do.
This invitation to pause and gain a new perspective invited questions of what does self-care look like? What am I not attending to? What happens if I narrow my focus to that which enlivens my spirit? What happens if I let go of those things which are outside a narrowed perspective?
As I sat with these questions, both in the session and during these past two days what came into focus is the need for rest; as Audre Lorde said, “Rest is a radical act of self-care”, (in a world which would have us constantly focused on Doing instead of Being). My incessant doing, is about being considered (or at least maintaining the illusion of being considered) valuable. Don’t even ask me about self-cherishing! Oy! If I am not “valuably” contributing to family and society, (ie caught up in endless striving), how can I possibly find value in myself – to be cherished or cherishable. How can others cherish me for my innate beingness when I don’t constantly produce outcomes that can be monetized?
Taking this to the next level, if I can’t cherish my own innate Being, how can I possibly cherish another? This is the underlying question of the Golden Rule regardless of which tradition’s iteration you use. And the answer to that question, (and at the heart of the Golden Rule itself) is compassion; compassion for self and compassion for each other.
Compassion seems in short supply right now, regardless of one’s tribal affinities. I use the word tribal very intentionally and by it I do not mean the indigenous nations whose lands we inhabit. I am talking about the divisive tribes we collectively find ourselves in at this moment, not only in this country, but in many countries as we struggle between different world views and the looming danger of nationalist fascism. The battle isn’t really about good versus evil, as we vilify each other it all becomes so subjective. It is not about bathrooms, drag queens nor pronouns. But it is about fear vs love, and how we react from our places of fear on both the right and the left.
Fear is the currency of trauma. The reason I and so many others become workaholics, or alchoholics, or shopaholics is fear that we are not cherishable. And certainly, trans and nonbinary kids are getting a loud message that they are not cherishable, thanks to the repressive legislation being put forth throughout this country. We live in a culture which trades in the business of fear, and uses it to keep us from not only being compassionate with self, but with each other. Those in positions of power would much prefer we fear-monger and scape-goat, against trans youth, people seeking abortions and refugees at the border rather than examine the ways voter supression, tax-cuts for the rich, and abdication of responsibility for climate change are benefitting the powerful and undermining democracy (not to mention our common humanity). Fear (and its tribalism) lives in our amygdala’s primitive “lizard” brain. Compassion lives in our mammalian cortical brain, where our needs for caring, nurturing community invites love to guide the collective ever toward freedom and hope.
Here’s the thing about our busy little lizard brains – they are strictly about survival, so the perspective they encourage is that everyone is a dangerous Other to be feared. The fearful amygdala is a gatekeeper who does not allow compassionate thoughts to even form (in our curious and feeling mammalian brains). Our gatekeepers have been very loud of late creating fear that has fed war abroad and civic discord all around us. Rather than “going back” to a mythical “good ol’ days,” we have escalating Otherizing not just of BIPOC and queer folk, but anyone with a uterus or who lives in a “blue” state. And those of us in our liberal towers are no less Otherizing of the middle American struggling in the rust belt or those left behind in the bible belt. The gatekeepers are not just the strident talking heads on TV or politicians in the halls of government, but the silos and echo-chambers of social media and even members of our own families. The gatekeepers also live within each one of us, as we weigh our worth and devalue our spirits.
We need to stop, breathe, pause, before we can even consider what self-care might look like; how cherishing self, loved ones or community might be expressed. So, what are the ways I can pause for compassion for myself? What does the still small voice within me whisper?
First, I can pause to really receive the positive feedback I have been given about my gifts. Within my ministry that which feeds me and for which I get positive feedback are the spiritual direction and heart-felt reiki treatments I give to clients. I can also take in the appreciation of my seminary students, that what I teach enriches, in turn, their ministries. Second, I can be gentle with myself; where striving has not been met by interest, and where it has. So, I will narrow the number of offerings at Shelter For the Spirit to those programs which also feed my spirit; letting go of Being Spirit and reimagining Teaching Tuesdays, but continuing Interspiritual Service, Dwelling in the Luminous Dark and Shabbat Supper and Song, for as long as they feed me and others. Third, I must recognize what all the busy-work keeps me from. So, making more concerted space for the contemplation which is needed for the next phase of writing my book. That one in particular invites me to Be instead of Do, because it requires valuing what I have to say and making space to just Be with my thoughts. It means owning the truth of my journey and asks me to mine how the compassion of others has influenced the thriving of my queer family.
It all must begin with that pause for self-compassion. If you were to pause, what would the still small voice within you whisper? If we stepped out of striving, how could radical rest recharge our passions? If we could grow our sense of self-compassion and rest, could we begin once more to value the diversity of our sacred siblings instead of alienating them as Others? Could we recognize the Image of the Divine in the eyes of those who look, worship and act differently than us?
How might we transform our relationship with ourselves and with one another if we took that pause for compassion and realized that we are all trying our best to survive in a culture that places commodifying of our life force above the truth (within all the wisdom traditions) that we are uniquely and beautifully made as part of a richly diverse world. We are all expressions of Divine Light – maybe not when we act as striving, fearful, and divisive tribes – but most definitely when we are self-caring, mutually cherishing multi-faceted expressions of the Breath of Life. What makes us unique among our animal relatives is our ability to move beyond not only our lizard and mammalian instincts but to embody Beloved Community wherein we each can bring our gifts from a place of joy, where we can recognize the wisdom in every tradition, and when we can celebrate the myriad expressions of humanity as valuable and cherished expressions of hope.
The still small voice moving in our individual lives also informs the undercurrent of our collective experience. When we ask the little and big questions of ourselves, as we are witnessed in spiritual direction, we can feel the collective pulse and touch heart of the Ineffable. In this moment of trauma, fear, mistrust, and hate, let us stop, pause, breathe and turn away from the god of Fear toward the Divine Source of Love.
The new moon in Pisces (which began last light) is an invitation into awareness of our spirituality, creativity and emotions. This particular new moon is a stellium – a conjunction of sun, moon & Venus – all appearing in the same sign, powerful enough (according to some astrologers) to blast open our 3rd eye. This is also a super moon, meaning it is at its closest position to earth. And later in March, we’re told that Pisces has a generational shift into Saturn’s sense of order and boundaries. So this is a moon which envisions our biggest dreams, and then gives us Saturn’s discipline to manifest those dreams into long-term goals. It is a moment for leaps of faith – especially concerning our spiritual growth. But to take that leap we must first let go of the past, forgiving ourselves and others.
And that is where Adar comes in. Like Pisces is the final month of the astrological calendar, Adar is the final month in the Hebrew calendar. The central theme of Adar is the story of Queen Esther in the Hebrew Scriptures, where a young Jewish girl hides her identity and becomes the Queen of Persia, taking a leap of faith to later reveal her true identity to save her people from the massacre planned by the evil Haman. But there is another story hidden within this story.
Because this story takes place in Persia we know it is supposed to take place during the exile of the Jews of Jerusalem to Babylon. We know now, thanks to modern archeology, that prior to that exile, Judaism was not monotheistic. Throughout Israel there have been items excavated inscribed to “YHVH and his Asherah”. Asherah was the Mother Goddess, the precursor to Shekinah (the indwelling presence of the Divine). In earlier cultures she was the partner of El, but with the Hebrew slaves return from their Egyptian exile, she became the consort of YHVH. At both the sanctuary at Bethel, and later at the temple in Jerusalem, the symbol of Asherah, a wooden totem pole or tree, was planted next to the altar of YHVH.
So Asherah went into exile with the Jewish people when they went to Babylon and there became that same persona, known instead to the Babylonians as Ishtar. The goddess Ishtar becomes the human character, Esther. The Esther archetype reminds us that fixed identities can shift/transform. And so the Esther story becomes an allegory: Esther/Ishtar is the hidden Queen/Goddess; Mordechai (her uncle in the Hebrew story) is Marduk, the patron King/God of Babylon and Aman/Haman is the rival god (in both Babylonian and Hebrew cultures). YHVH does not appear in this story, because it is the Goddess who stands in her own truth and power instead of allowing herself and others to be sacrificed to either patriarchal god.
Adar, according to tradition and Talmud is supposed to be a month of increasing, radical joy. It is embodied celebration of vanquishing those who would kill us – or those parts of ourselves which constrict us and prevent us from being our fully embodied divine selves. The veils and mask which are the symbols of the holiday are representative of hiding Esther/our self from highest Self. And we are commanded to get so drunk that we can’t tell the difference between Mordechai & Haman – can’t tell the difference between either patriarchal gd who would keep us in smaller self.
What is the invitation to us on this new moon? Brene’ Brown tells us that “joy is the most vulnerable human emotion.” So, what are the veils & masks (we use to conform) that we are ready to let go of; which hide us from our joy and our divine selves? How do we treat ourselves as someone deserving of joy? Can we sit in that curiosity and see what unfolds? Who can we become if we stop sacrificing ourselves at the altar of gods that no longer serve us? May this new moon be a time of taking leaps of faith, to become our highest, truest selves and embodiments of the Divine Feminine (regardless of the genders we inhabit).
2022 was tough for many of us. In our family, health was a central theme of the year, as first I, then my husband and finally our adult child all underwent various surgeries and covid illnesses. We’ve watched the world around us struggle with fear: fear of illness, fear of war, fear of rising costs, fear of divisiveness, even fear which simply seems to pervade …everything. Fear and trauma seep through all our interactions, so that we react from our primitive amygdala before we can even engage our thoughtful pre-frontal cortex. That coupled with the recurring surges in a pandemic which is now defined as endemic – even tripledemic – has left many of us feeling depleted and cut off from the very things which bring healing – community.
After our kiddo came home from the hospital, I found myself baking – a lot. Not from the novelty of it, (as in the beginning of the pandemic when folks were swapping bread recipes), but instead, baking old family recipes. Looking at the handwritings of my mother and aunties, now gone. My mind was also on my dear mother-in-law, who passed this summer (so this was the first holiday season without her festive meals, too.) Suddenly, we’ve become the oldest generation. Feeling called to the hearth, which for most generations, before the current times, was the heart of the home.
We think of winter as cold and shriveled, much like the way we portray the Crone in modern culture. But earlier cultures looked beyond the wrinkled bodies, and clouded eyes, and saw our elders as the wisdom keepers and storytellers. The smells from their kitchens, the warmth of their hugs, have left visceral imprints on our hearts. While it is true, sadly, that not all people had the gift of a good external parent, we can all access the Good Parent within; hugging the inner child who hungers for companionship, nourishment, and love. And thankfully, many have been able to call in surrogate mothers/grandmothers to inspire and warm their lives. I find myself calling in the Divine Feminine in the form of the Crone, asking which are the lineage of ancestors (biological or not) who inspire us to kindle the hearth anew?
While the dominant image of the fearsome hag continues to negate elders (especially older female-appearing individuals), we forget about the lifegiving qualities of the Crone. Just as winter appears (on the surface) to be cold and barren, under the snow and rotting leaves, new life is forming which will burst forth in the spring. Likewise, the seed of the grandchild is within the womb of the grandmother as she carries the mother. The magic of the Crone is that she calls us to honor our ancestors while nurturing our future descendants. So this winter, I am inviting in the Crone, to dwell at my hearth, to help me vision what the coming year may bring.
At the hearth we tell stories of hope, we break bread together, we nurture and teach the young, we create family not only of blood, but family of bond. My mother used to say “How is it I could have 6 kids and no 2 of them are anything alike!” We come to the hearth as different individuals. We don’t always get along, and even cause harm at times, but the warmth of the hearth can be a metaphor for warming the heart – our own or those family or friends who we’re estranged from. We often work out those family of origin patterns in community, bringing our vulnerability and our hope that healing may happen. The experts in trauma teach that, as we metabolize our trauma and find healthy ways to move forward in our own lives, the healing ripples not only forward to future generations, but backward as well, to the ancestors; healing the epigenetic fractures within our DNA.
I’m hungry for the hearth and community, and in our fall survey it was clear others hunger too. 57% of respondents resonated with the idea I’ve been exploring, about creating interspiritual community. What might the hearth look like if we came together through shared spiritual practices instead of shared dogmas? How might my heart soften when you tell your stories of struggle and survival that echo my own? How might our image of ourselves – and of the divine – shift and grow, when we make space for each of us to live into the fullness of our own truth? How might we cool the heatedness in our society while cooling the heatedness mirrored in Mother Earth?
So this new year, I invite you to explore these questions with me. I will continue (of course) to provide individual spiritual direction, reiki, lifecycle events, workshops and guest sermons. I will continue to offer some of the programming we had last year, but this year I am setting the intention to birth an interspiritual community. That means I bring the fullness of my spiritual journey – Catholic child, Jewish adult, interfaith minister – into relationship with the fullness of your spiritual journey – whether you come from a place of faith or no faith. In launching this new community, you’ll see (on our upcoming events page) that there is a different type of experience regularly each week: 1st Tuesday Being Spirit Healing Circle, 2nd Saturday Shabbat Service, 3rd Tuesday Teachings, and 4th Friday Supper & Song. And in keeping with the rhythms of Mother Earth, we will continue to offer Dwelling in the Luminous Dark on the new moon. There will also be special holiday programs like the Mystical Tu B’shvat seder on Feb. 5th when we will enter the four worlds and invite healing for the Tree of Life and all life on earth.
You can come to the hearth at the Shelter, either in person or via zoom for most events (though some are billed just as online and others as just in person.) Sample the menu, come warm your spirit, and bring your own wisdom to the table.