The rainbow halo you see around the moon literally depends on the location of where you are standing. We look up, each of us standing in our own unique location, and see a different halo formed by ice crystals in the atmosphere of our location.
As we wander in the desert toward the Infinite with psychic gates continuously opening and closing, may we take notice of the Infinite light refracting everywhere… lighting a single narrow path toward home, toward Beauty, toward Compassion, toward Peace.
Said the Holy One: If you have come to a house of worship, do not remain standing at the outer gate, but enter gate after gate, until you have reached the innermost gate.
The gates are made to be entered.
Open for us the gates even as they are closing.
The sun is low, the hour is late; let us enter the gates at last.
When we begin life, countless gates stand waiting to be opened. But as we walk through the years, gates close behind us, one by one.
Remember the unopened gates. Open them before they are locked.
The gates do not stay open forever. We walk through the years, and they shut behind us. And at the end they are all closed, except the one final gate which we must enter.
Today shall I come if only all of you would listen to My voice.
Before it is too late, let us open the gates that lead to blessing and beauty, enter the gates of Torah and tranquility, go through the gates of kindness and compassion. Let us open the gates to those things in life which abide eternally … before the gates swing shut, before all of them are closed.
Do not remain standing at the outer gate.
The gates are made to be entered. The sun is low, the hour is late. Let us enter the gates at last.
— from Harlow, Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: A Prayerbook for the Days of Awe (New York: Rabbinical Assemby, 1974)
I can’t wait to die and be deathless.
No more sailing from harbor to harbor
In my storm-wrecked boat.
No more diving for pearls where none can be found.
I seek a deeper abyss
A soundless place
Where I can take the harp of my life
And tune it to the notes of forever.
Then, when it has sobbed out its last refrain
I will take my silent harp
And lay it at the feet of silence.
On the Shores of Eternity: Poems from Tagore on Immortality and Beyond by Deepak Chopra
This time I won’t struggle.
When the moment comes,
I will let Him take the helm
In an instant the thing will be done
It was vain to fight it.
So take away your hands
And put up with this defeat, my heart.
Sit perfectly still where He tells you to
And count it good fortune.
Stop running around so desperately
To protect your little lamp from the wind.
Can’t you remember after all this time?
We have to be wise and wait in the dark
Spreading out cushions on the floor
So that whenever He pleases
My Lord will sit with us.
On the Shores of Eternity, Poems from Tagore on Immortality and Beyond by Deepak Chopra
Black Ice by David Blackwood
“Everything you do, every prayer you utter, every intention you form, every act of compassion you perform, ripples out from the center of your being to the end of time… At the same time you become aware that you also stand at the end of a long chain of consequences. Many things are beyond your control. They are part of a process that was set in motion long ago. You find the idea of this unbearable.
” Rabbi Lew, This is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared
In this profound season of introspection we are called to see through the eyes of G-d. In preparation, we hear “Judges and officers you shall appoint for yourselves in all your gates.” (Parshat Shoftim). This may be taken to mean to be ever mindful at the seven gates of the soul – the eyes, the ears, the nostrils. May we be mindful, absorbing whatever enters in long contemplative silence and stillness, both watching the reactive impulses of the small self and abandoning our subservience to these habit patterns only to embrace whatever pain and sorrow that arrives with mercy, treating each direct experience as our most honored guest, breaking in new light out of the darkness.
Rabbi Yael offers the following reflection, compassionately inviting us to step out of our small way of seeing ourselves and others, into the unbearable compassion of G-d that ushers in the dawn of our becoming.
“We humans are so quick to judge
Ourselves and each other.
There are, of course,
Times when our judgments are sound,
Clear,
Helpful.And, as we know,
Our judgments can be harsh,
Demeaning,
Shaming and cruel.
We so often berate ourselves for our perceived shortcomings.
We belittle our efforts.
We criticize our questions, vulnerabilities and fears.
And we do this to those we love as well,
Allowing harsh judgments to invade
The spaces between us.
And our harsh judgments run wild
As we look
Toward people with whom we deeply disagree.
All these harsh critical, berating judgments
Add to the pain within and around us
And yet, they persist.
As Elul shines its light
It calls us to notice judgments as they arise.
The small and the massive,
And each time we do,
To take three deep breaths around the judgments.
Rather than attacking the judgments head on
Or trying to figure out what to do with them,
Three deep breaths into the expanse of Elul
Creating some softness and space around the judgments.
Three deep breaths
To make way for discernment and compassion
To find and lift us.
A mighty task,
A deep practice we engage in
For the sake of each other and all life.
Three deep breaths.
May Elul turn us with care
To paths of love, connection and peace.”
Shalom,
Rabbi Yael
Ten thousand flowers in spring
A cool breeze in summer
A moon in autumn
Snow in winter
If your mind is not clouded
By unnecessary things
This is the best season of your life.
– Wre Men Kuan
“Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
Will you drown out my scream?
Will you let me rise through the fog?
Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study
the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more year?
Will you still let me draw my sacred figures
and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?
Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.”
~ from “Lucky Life” by Gerald Stern
“Inner healing requires self-acceptance. Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav offered the following strategy: When all we see and feel is negativity, we must search within ourselves for an aspect of goodness, what he called a white dot within the black, and then find another and another until these dots form musical notes. Our task, he said, is to find enough white notes to form a melody—a melody that will define our core and affirm our fundamental goodness.”
Lew, Alan. This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared (p. 128). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.
“It seems I would rather feel starkly empty than let any thing be planted that cannot be tended to the fullest possibility of its growth.”
Georgia O’Keefe
