SomatoPsychic

Whoooooooosh!! It's coming at me from all directions, the pyschosomatic-somatopsychic connection,
the complexity of effect becoming cause,
the notion that ailments we thought were psychosomatic or behavioural are actually physical,
that emotional sources lead to biochemical changes, which are molecular, and even, you might say, physical.
A biochemical imbalance is a physical thing. It may look on the outside like Attention Deficit, and you find out it's a wierd balance of norepinephrine or dopamine.
You're down a quart on your a neurotransmitters or your windshield washer fluid. Would you like the oil checked? Let's top up your antifreeze. Yes, in our cars we treat a missing fluid by unscrewing the tank where that fluid goes, and adding just the right amount. Complicated, but not complex.
So, by strange chance, synchronicities piled upon coincidences, I happened to meet Dr. Esther Silver, an old friend from Montreal, now a specialist in Attention Deficit Disorder in Jerusalem. She points me in this direction of diagnosing a physiological biochemical problem, and treating it behaviorally. And in my "daily dose" from my hero Tzvi Freeman, I receive
"Exchange of Matter
....it is impossible to separate between physical needs and spiritual needs. The spiritual transforms into physicality and the physical rises to become spiritual in a perpetual chemistry of exchange. heal the soul and the body is renewed. Heal the body and the soul is empowered."
Oooo. Walls are crumbling. Does this mean the scientists and the faithful will start to hear each other?

Ceaselessly Creating

I've changed my term for what forms and energizes this world, from yesterday's "Ceaseless Creativity" to today's "Ceaselessly Creating". This is in keeping with Cooper's interpretation of the creator portrayed in Kabbalah. He helps us understand the energetic process by telling us, "God is a verb". The process of godding, as it were, a continual breathing of the world.
We still have the initials CC. Ceaselessly Creating.
Or Ceaselessly, creatively, creating, changing, charging, recharging, because there is no good creating, there is only good recreating. Aha. In the creation story, each day's creating was whole in itself.
And CC saw that it was good. And it was evening and it was morning, one day. There is a wholeness to the world at any point in time. It stands precarious, ready to change, by revolution or by evolution or by emergence or by CC or by CCC
I get asked here what my therapeutic approach is. I think I'll call it the Ki Tov approach. "Ki Tov" means that it was good, "And he saw ki tov", he saw that it was good. This implies that the world as it was each day, was whole and fine, just the way it was. I see each individual I work with as whole and good and fine and sturdy. And able to change.

Ceaseless Creativity

There is an interesting thread of similarity amongst the responses of wildly creative people, to questions regarding how they come up with their creations. There is the notion of stepping out of the way, and letting creativity flow through them.
Jackson Pollack said, "The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through." I will take the liberty of substituting "Ceaseless Creativity" for each time a person used the word "God".
"The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by C.C. I was merely instrumental in putting it on paper and communicating it to the public. Giacomo Puccini
Straightaway teh ideas flow in upon me, directly from CC. Johannes Brahms
What we play is life. Louis Armstrong
Creativity is harnessing universality and making it flow through your eyes. Peter Koestenbaum
When we get out of the way and allow Ceaseless Creativity to flow through us, Emergence has a chance to play itself out.

The Age of Reason = Humanity as an Autism Spectrum Disorder

It's bizarrely universal and crosscultural: I bring out my dollhouse with the miniature chaiirs and table and all the sweet little people and cars and cups and plates and swings. Neurotypical children, enchanted, arrange the house and playground, and play out a story. Children "on the autism spectrum", all over the planet, line up the toys, sort them by size into closed, gradated circles. They get very mad if you tamper with their closed circles. My fleeting, playful thought, not to be taken to its limits, just to be played with, as a playful child plays:
The strange child who lines up the toys is simply a premature scientist - lost childhood's fancy early, and moved right into the serious task of sorting, classifying, knowing everything. Don't mess with my circles, he says.
How could he possibly "learn" language?
"You're telling me this superstitious bunk, that if I put my lips together and release air through my nose and it sounds like mmmmmmmm and then I continue voicing with my mouth open I, then lift my tongue and release the air to the sound LLLLLLLL and finally lift the back of my tongue to my hard palate K, then milk will be given to me? I don't buy into that superstitious voodoo bunk. I've got more important things to do.
And he continues lining up the cars, determined, rational, hungry.
I believe that recent thinkers such as Kauffman, (Reinventing the Sacred), are edging towards an initiative similar to that of St Antoine D'Exupery's Little Prince: to free our world from the reductionist lining up of toy cars, or atoms, or quarks, or ideas, into neat rows and boxes.
Reminds me of the man in 100 Years of Solitude who wanted to know how the player piano worked. He took it apart and laid the pieces neatly on the carpet. No music.
Where's the piano? Where's the player. Not in the bits and pieces lined up before us.
A sense of play. That's what this ceaselessly creative universe asks of us.

Life, a heart, beats, "Working for a Living"

I felt an immense personal unrest in Israel, until I very recently began working. The work I do is pure delight. And so, when in an email conversation with my father and my Uncle Larry, my father commented that I am the only one still working, I had to giggle.
Larry asked,"Still working? Still doing? Were we ever really working and doing? Treadmill, salt mines, opportunity, vision, repetition, circularity, spiral, arrow."
Shall I try,
this off time (perhaps)
to tell you
of my "work"?
Am I off, this moment,
4:31 a.m.,
we two on simple cots
in the basement apartment,
our guests in the Swiss System adjustable
luxury satin bed?
They will wake up to the view of the sea,
and we will change their sheets.
(to the song of the waves,
to the streaming of sun
bright from the open balcony).
> > And I own the place.
> >
> > We'll dance through the seavilla they've rented,
> > fluffing and shining,
> > tending the anemone, the clownfish,
> > (who works for whom,
> > in that finetuned
> > underwater contract?)
> > Anemone and clownfish,
> > the lover and the loved,
> > the loved and the lover.
> > A different equation
> > suggests itself.
> >
> > One of the services
> > our villa offers
> > is dinner at home.
> > Your hosts will prepare
> > a dinner to your specs
> > for you
> > and any number of guests.
> > We've served up to 61
> > (though that one was not "work")
> > Tonight was work
> > but just as fun.
> > Your hosts will prepare
> > the dinner you desire
> > or the dinner you don't have imagination to desire.
> > You may leave the dreaming
> > to us.
> > You may watch
> > at the cream coloured island,
> > some of you
> > may read bits aloud
> > from the books we set around
> > to delight and inspire. We'll talk of Israel
> > and of sushi rice.
> > The right balance
> > of vinegar and sugar.
> >
> > This week's guests chose
> > for tonight
> > the Japanese dinner.
> > I set the table
> > overlooking Mediterranean
> > this meal a ginger sorbet
> > between today's kibbutz tour
> > and tomorrow's Masada.
> >
> > While Beno prepared each exquisite course,
> > I sat with the guests
> > demonstrating the art of chopsticks,
> > this one stable, this one flexing,
> > a kabbala of eating utensils.
> > May we balance
> > the stable and the flexing
> > the chesed and gvurah
> > the working and the playing
> > the effort, the delight. I comically exaggerated
> > their choice of blessing,
> > a delicate Japanese "Itadakimas"
> > or a rowdy, "B'Tayavon"
> > and being in Israel
> > they chose B'Tayavon.
> >
> > Over yakitori salmon,
> > crisp, tender,
> > over sushi rolls,
> > a little sake,
> > I quietly guided the Israel talk
> > to hope and to knowing
> > (typically our guests
> > fall in love with the place.
> > Several have decided
> > to buy in Netanya)
> > (I do not take credit
> > for the weather,
> > or waves to beach,
> > the beauty of this place,
> > the story)
> >
> > Yes, by some formal definitions
> > tonight was work.
> > Or even this 5:03 a.m.
> > is part of our high season.
> >
> > While the guests are touring,
> > I sunlight as a Speech Therapist.
> > There was a leap moment.
> >> From "who would want me,
> > the immigrant who hardly speaks Hebrew,
> > fumbling, bumbling,
> > looking for words,
> > and saying them funny"
> > to "Here is an expert
> > from far across the sea
> > with a sparkle and a sense.
> > She studied in the new world.
> > Surely she has the elixir
> > that will heal our child". I am both.
> > I bumble and I search
> > and the children do well.
> > Let's see,
> > one little boy
> > ...........ah,
> > but suddenly,
> > this feels like work.
> > Someday, maybe tomorrow,
> > I'll feel like telling you
> > about the little one
> > who arranged the playhouse toys
> > equidistant
> > in perfect circles
> > a little kitchen sink
> > beside a toy daddy
> > both of equal meaning,
> > items to line up.
> > He used me to climb on
> > to reach a puzzle on the higher shelf.
> > And now when I arrive
> > he smiles
> > and meets my eyes
> > before he dives
> > for the toys I have brought.
> > And now the daddy toy
> > drives in the toy car
> > and pretending has dawned.
> > A story is forming,
> > and the little boy
> > is beginning to tell it.
> > But playhouse is fun
> > and it is not workhouse
> > for me.
> > There's my man
> > with a stroke at age 53,
> > too slowly recalling
> > his French and his Hebrew
> > but at least recovering
> > his family status
> > as man to be respected
> > the master of the house.
> > A little boy and his mom
> > come to me by train
> > to get his lips working:
> > they meet together over a kazoo
> > for the m sound.
> > His lips do the work
> > and I, the doula of sounds,
> > tell tongue tip
> > to touch palate
> > and birth
> > the letter t.
> > A woman needs to learn
> > samech which is s
> > and tsadik, a ts sound in Hebrew,
> > that phonetically is t plus s
> > and I know how to teach that
> > and besides,
> > she has chosen a time, her children grown,
> > to do this thing for herself,
> > to correct a skill
> > she's been waiting to work on. Okay,
> > time to sleep.
> > Tomorrow is Friday.
> > No work on Shabbat.
> > No treadmill, it's a creative, new act,
> > each day an invention,
> > or an opening to uncertainty.
> > No salt mines, I work to the rhythms
> > of wind and salty sea.
> > Opportunity? Who can know?
> > Vision, repetition, circularity, spiral, arrow.
> > Yes Uncle Larry,
> > the arrow spirals and circles and circles and spirals
> >
> > Nor arrow nor circle,
nor direction nor spiral,
our life, a heart
beats its steady song
our life, a heart,
beats:
"working for a living!"
> >
> >
> >

I'm Gonna Let It Shine

I had a great Toronto visit this past winter. I loved merging my Israel life with my Canada life, seeing that both are real for me. Seeing the odd similarities between the Wolbromski offshoots that sprouted in Canada, and those that took root in Israel's sandy soil.
Chani, the newest member, just married the grandson of my Zaidie's sister Golda. Just like my Canadian cousin Bitsy, Chani danced barefoot at her wedding. I looked at the bare feet, and thought, "Yes. This family".
It happens again and again, in the homemade weddings, or a familymade haggaddah at the ancient seder table. Mommy says with certainty that Buby stands at her elbow as she makes the chicken soup, and Shlomit's voice is just as sure, telling me that of course Abchu and Leah are with us at the happy memorial hike to their gravesite. All this with a hearty disdain for religion, but a ready shehechiyanu at each bright step, and an always freshened array of wondrous family rituals that map out melodies for joy, paths for transition, containers for comfort, reasons for hugging and seasons for gladness. Tradition starts here, sings our family here and our family there.

Working for a Living in Netanya

 

Do click on these pictures, travel through them closeup, sabra by sabra. Here is the shore where my mother's aunt and uncle waded out to boats bringing Jewish survivors home. Hamapilim, not allowed in to their own home by the British, though for two thousand years they had sung of return, dreamed and prayed and planned return. golda and Moshe would bring them in, feed them oranges, baskets and baskets of oranges to people for whom, as I.L.Peretz wrote, an orange was a family affair, a rare treat shared with all the children and grandchildren. Oranges and oranges. Great grandchildren of these arriving survivors now surf and sip caffe under bright beach umbrellas, and we bring touring families in a shining white landcruiser, welcome them into our villa with a big bowl of oranges.

Live Now

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.~H. L. Mencken
He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. -Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)
Israel lives round the clock, now, today, this moment. Dance all night, then dress for work. Tonight, a family wedding.
Dive for dreams
Or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death away at this wedding)
ee cummings

Finding

There is a flipside to all of our delightful finding-stories, so many synchronicities that parallel, but never touch, my mother's moment on Simcoe Street in Victoria, when she had jsut enough chutzpa to ask a stranger about his clever playen on wheels, and discovered that he was family from Kibbutz Yad Mordecai. Last night, at the one-year memorial yartzeit of my mother-in-law Rachel, may her memory and my own image of her, looking upward, hands raised to heavens, bring blessings to all of us, the relatives started telling of their arrival in small, seasick boats at Haifa's shores. No internet, not even phones, were available, for tracking down relatives. They didn't even know which of their relatives were alive. One took his feverish little son to the health clinic and couldn't get an appointment. A man approached him and said, "In my country I was a paediatrician. I'll check your son. What's the name?"
"Kaston"
"Kaston? My daughter is married to a Kaston." And thus two branches of the family, one who fled to Argentina and one who went straight to Israel, were reconnected.
Why do we delight in these tales? Because we could have passed each other on Simcoe Street a hundred times, and never found out we were related. Because our family, like so many, has members who are assumed dead, but we never found out for sure. Because we don't know how many times we have walked by a relative on the street, and simply not found out we were connected.
"Nice stroller"
"Thank you"
And the two walk on.
Because, like the beautiful sister Bella in Fugitive Pieces, Bella who played the Moonlight Sonata, Bella who figured in her brother's every dream, was carried off, and her brother will always search for her, though the novel has ended. In a weekly radio show here in Israel, family members give the names of their missing relatives. I wonder how many reconnectings there have been.
Here's to internet and to unshyness. And to life. And to the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.