In the Details

My sister Janie reminds me to see the tiny intricate design on one orangeblossom petal. The changing turquoise colour of the sea as it deepens. Picturing Janie beside me, as she so soon will be, I walked the details this Shabbat seaside morning. Up on the cliff over the sea, I saw the face of each rock formation, even noticed the change in the sandstone's holey configurations since my arrival three years ago. I have sketched the circular rock formation with a round hole view to the sea, and now it is a new moon, smile open to the waves. Even rocks live and change, if you slow down your breathing, and observe. How many different winter wildflowers peek tiny from amongst the rocks. One small leaf, Janie teaches me, is where you can see the forest, understand it. Dogen, and we'll look up the ancient Eastern source, tells us, "The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. And Woody Allen is "astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." Maybe if we study the tealeaves in one cup at one dimsum table on one Sunday morning, that's where we'll find the universe we're looking to understand. Tom Robbins describes Ellen Cherry rummaging through her purse to find her lipstick. "If a woman doesn't know what's in her purse, how can she know what's in her heart?" It is true, that with the sorting of our purse and our junkdrawer come a sense of order in the universe.
The truth and its opposite. seven blind men went to learn what an elephant was. One, feeling the tusk, said, "An elephant is hard and shiny and pointed". Stand back for a moment. Just a couple more steps back. There. Now look. Daddy talks about reaching an age where you're not limited to seeing this wave, this one, this one. You have been around long enough to see the slow movement of the tides, the big picture.
So there we have it. To see the universe in one dewdrop. And not to be fooled, for this one dewdrop may be just reflecting the red of my Canada hoodie as I lean to see it close in. The sea is many colours today, clear transparent water over the beach sand, turquoise as it deepens, and wondrous indigo black over the reefs. A dewdrop is one dewdrop, and I want to stand afar, open my eyes in amazement and empty readiness to take in the whole palette of wonder.

Simple

A plain Shabbat. Sweet Friday morning at the school, preparing for Tu B'Shevat, and then seeing the modern day manifestation of two portions of manna before Shabbat: all of the children of Israel in crazily crowded grocery checkout lines, their carts spilling over with fruits and vegetables and challahs and treats for Shabbat. Everyone calling out to friends, loudly discussing every issue in the news, making sure their voices are heard. Shabbat dinner was all about the crossing of the Red Sea, that definitive moment when our people had two options: swim or turn back and fight the huge Egyptian army. Options? Both were useless. When option a and option b are both pointless, just take a moment and listen. From the waves, a whole new possibility will open. Survival is in that moment of possibility.

And then today we were in the Arab village of Tira. Arab, Muslim, and part of Israel. A plain and simple hello and we helped in the shaping and baking of these big flat pitas, with mounds of fresh fresh oregano leaves and green onions folded into the dough before it is patted and baked in the windy woodfire oven, out near the lemon trees. Here it's not some significant event when Muslim families and Jewish Israeli families spend an afternoon together. It's plain and fine and ordinary, and the warmth is a sharing.

Kilkelly and Skype

In Israel there are no doors between houses. My neighbour Rachel dashed in to use our Skype tonight, as hers was not working, and she Needed to talk with her daughter Meshi who is vacationing in Thailand. Rachel showed me all the photoes on her cell phone, and even called Meshi a couple of times in Thailand while we were getting the Skype video connection organized.
I was remembering my year in Neuchatel, during which there were zero phone calls, one telegraph, and many letters. And then I remembered, and looked up this song that dear John Leeder used to sing:
Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 60,
my dear and loving son John
Your good friend the schoolmaster
Pat McNamara's so good
As to write these words down.
Your brothers have all gone
to find work in England,
The house is so empty and sad
The crop of potatoes is sorely infected,
A third to a half of them bad.
And your sister Brigid and Patrick O'Donnell
Are going to be married in June.
Your mother says not to work on the railroad
And be sure to come on home soon.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 70,
dear and loving son John
Hello to your Mrs and to your 4 children,
May they grow healthy and strong.
Michael has got in a wee bit of trouble,
I guess that he never will learn.
Because of the dampness
there's no turf to speak of
And now we have nothing to burn.
And Brigid is happy,
you named a child for her
And now she's got six of her own.
You say you found work,
but you don't say What kind
or when you will be coming home.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 80,
dear Michael and John,
my sons I'm sorry to give you
the very sad news
That your dear old mother has gone.
We buried her down at the church in Kilkelly,
Your brothers and Brigid were there.
You don't have to worry,
she died very quickly,
Remember her in your prayers.
And it's so good to hear that Michael's returning,
With money he's sure to buy land
For the crop has been poor
and the people Are selling
at any price that they can.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 90,
my dear and loving son John
I guess that I must be close on to eighty,
It's thirty years since you're gone.
Because of all of the money you send me,
I'm still living out on my own.
Michael has built himself a fine house
And Brigid's daughters have grown.
Thank you for sending your family picture,
They're lovely young women and men. Y
you say that you might even come for a visit,
What joy to see you again.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 92,
my dear brother John
I'm sorry that I didn't write sooner
to tell you that father passed on.
He was living with Brigid,
she says he was cheerful
And healthy right down to the end.
Ah, you should have seen him
play with The grandchildren
of Pat McNamara, your friend.
And we buried him alongside of mother,
Down at the Kilkelly churchyard.
He was a strong and a feisty old man,
Considering his life was so hard.
And it's funny the way he kept talking about you,
He called for you in the end.
Oh, why don't you think about coming to visit,
We'd all love to see you again.
..........and if you Skype me, I'll even sing it to you.

Emailing Buby

Such an impulse to email Buby this evening, as I ate my yummies and flumveisch and felt so good. Wondered what her email address was, and then laughed and laughed at my silliness. She was standing right there at my elbow!

And You Shall be a Blessing

My cousin Jeremy learned a lilting melody to L'cha Dodi at summer camp, back in 1968 or so. I was so captivated by the joyful tears in this little tune, I played it for years as a sort of signature nign on my guitar.
Then in 2000 I sat in a crosslegged circle with my sister Janie's friends, in a grassy Toronto park, just after my mom's breast cancer surgery. One of the friends suggested we sing Mi Sheberach for Janie's and my mother. I was lifted, carried, by the healthy words to this song. It didn't say, "Make her all better". It said, "Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing".
Mi sheberach avotenu
M'kor habracha l'imotenu
May the Source of Strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage
to make our lives a blessing
and let us say
Amen

Mi sheberach imotenu
mkor habracha laavotenu
Bless those in need of healing
with refua shlema
the renew al of body
the renewal of spirit
and let us say
Amen.

The pure, healing melody of that prayer sang me through Mommy's surgery and into that first visit when I saw Mommy so tiny in the hospital bed with a tube coming from her nose and wondered if she would wake up again. And soon the hospital room door opened and there was Susie, and the next knock brought flowers from Randy and Eva, and Mommy woke up to a happy party there in her recovery room.
And we sang Debbie Friedman's Mi Sheberach. (as I type, this faraway Monday morning, me so sick with a flu, the memorial service for Debbie is just beginning. What beautiful beautiful healing harmonies. What an outpouring of sweet, accepting love. Debbie's melodies each walk that tender line between comforting, familiar singability and heartopening brilliance, so that we're singing along the first time we hear the song, yet lifted to a certain windowmoment of clarity, through which we begin to understand what prayer can be.)
And then, when we were new to Victoria, and living in the Regent Hotel, I walked the rainy block to the the downtown shul to find out what a healing service was. Maybe I'd meet some nice people in this new town of mine. It takes such an energy to start fresh in a new town. I opened the heavy door to the shul, and heard three women's voices in the most otherworldly, exquisite harmonies, Shma Kolenu, with a long and everchanging lalalalalala la la so touching, so releasing, so healing. I thought, I want to celebrate my 50th birthday with the sounds of these voices. The melodies were Debbie Friedman's. The voices were Josie Davidson, still my soul's inspiration and the opener to wider thought and feeling. Also Helena and Nehama. Josie sang gloriously at my 50th birthday, and continues to sing to me. She and I sang together at monthly healing services throughout my dear time in Victoria, and Debbie Friedman's songs opened us to new thought each time. We explored the notion of a pure, totally pure core soul in each of us, no matter how muddied we can get at times.
Elohai
neshama
shenatata bi
tehora hi.
So many times, so many many times have Debbie Friedman in them. My first Yom Kippur fast in the Kolot Mayim choir, singing out Shma Kolenu over a room of loving people. Debbie's melody. My soul soaring in such entire love.
The day Janie first heard Debbie's Ahavat Olam, and added to it such rich velvet harmonies, with Eva and me. I can hear this right this moment, and feel Mommy's listening smile. Sunny was a baby.
We should not have left Victoria. I was dumb to leave Victoria. I dashed into the shul on our way out to the ferry, to buy a gift to bring to Tala on our way across the country. I hadn't realized the shop would be closed and a service would be going on, for the second day of sukkot. Well, they wafted me up onto the bima, and the Rabbi said to me, "Be Solid, in Israel. Be solid". And everybody sang to me, Debbie Friedman's song,
L'chi lach
to a land that I will show you
Lech l'cha to a place you do not know
l'chi lach on your journey I will bless you
and you will be a blessing
you will be a blessing
you will be a blessing
l'chi lach.

Rain

What a rain.
When the downpour began, I said thank you. Israel so very much needs rain, and the sound of the rain on the roof is so comforting, the very presence of a roof for it to rain on, so reassuring.
Ceaseless Creativity, thank you for rain.
And then when the sun came through for a brief dazzling moment, I said thank you.
And that reminded me of Mussi, a tiny girl in Calgary when I taught her, now a wise young woman on facebook. Mussi reminded everyone at the turning of the year that we don't need to hope for good. Good will always pour down on us in different forms.
It is we who need to cup our hands in different ways, orchestrate the shape of our vessels so the good pouring down upon us at this moment is channeled to nourish us right. Good is always coming our way.
Are we shaping ourselves right, to be able to receive it?