Making Room

Much talk of chametz these last moments before Pesach. Chametz, that leavened, overblown, blown out of proportion, self-importance. The very item we bless at other times, that interface between what we receive from universe (plain grains of wheat, rye or spelt) and that so human, so creative, so proud invention, bread. We clean our houses, make a little feng shui space in our homes and our bodies and our heads and our hearts and our souls at this time. Because if there's no space, how will we hear the hagaddah? Let's go empty to the seder, hear our story as small children, be new.
I am inspired by Tzvi Freeman's daily offering. Of course, "God" here will be reinterpreted as the ceaseless bounty, ceaseless wisdom, and ceaseless creativity of the universe. Ceaseless though each of us may cease. Beginningless, without form or definition.
Tzvi writes, and think ceaseless creativity here:
Making Room
He is a very big God. As soon as you take up any space at all, there is no room left for Him.
But take up no space at all, and He gives you the entire Universe.

In One Dewdrop

"The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass" Dogen
"......the science of dynamic systems, not static entities, enabling us to track the delicate structures and unifying principles underlying such complex realities as the irregularities in crashing waves, dripping faucets, waterfalls, heartbeats, and the collective song of your neurons." Rico
Each moment contains all of the moments of our lives. I see it so clearly today. I'm seeing madness on the small scale of our own lives, finding madness in the newspapers. Wondering if the human race is a two-year-old who was given the keys to the car.

I Just Want to Come Home

Sometimes I want to untangle myself from all the linguini,
and come home.

The Soul is Always Singing

Felt a tinge of longing, while connecting by pelephone with the spiritual centre of this world, Winnipeg. That's how I feel, at times. That "chul", an acronym for "chutz la-aretz", or "outside of Israel" carries a vocabulary of prayer that includes a blessing for Israel. (I'm thinking about that evocative line in Joni Mitchell's Circle Game, "Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true".)

"Next Year in Jerusalem" has defined us for so many centuries. Is there an element of, "OK, now it's this year and we're here. Now what do we hope for?"? Is it the sheer weight of living here, that drains one of the hoping? I don't mean the weight of outside threats. These exist only if you have time to read the newspapers. Honest. Everyone I talk to is wrapped up in rent and taxes. Which brings me to the pictures I've shown above. Look at the salad. Look again. Can you see a saucy, cheeky martini glass? I never saw it, the whole night that I was working on the photo as a possible logo photo for Benino. And yet the martini glass has always been a kind of a trademark of ours. The subconscious is alert to so much that we miss. And so, in this time that seems so materialistic, so hereandnow, so lacking in Winnipeg Silkenwine spirituality, my spiritual cup is still overflowing with prayer and with song....they say the soul is always praying, even when we're not tuned to its channel. Maybe the heart is always singing, the feet are always dancing, and we are always in sweet and connected conversation with our moms and our dads and our sisters and our brothers. Maybe that's why the Shma begins, "Shma!" Listen!!!!! Tune in! You know about oneness and about the deeperness of things and about the triviality of the worries that separate you from other people and about the mainness of connection. Just listen, tap in, tune in, and you will see that your soul is constantly talking about the Important Thing. Even when you think you are alone.