Turning Purim Upside Down

Since I entered my sixtieth year, I have grown more in touch with the many maps of this body of mine. I picture a circulatory system, busy highways of red and blue. Main arteries are flowing smoothly, reads the traffic report. I will them to stay untangled, patent, as in the prayer. I map onto this body the bone structure, firm but with just enough bounce. Backbone is a flexing, giving multiplicity, never rigid. I map the kabbalah spheres, a Calder mobile of balancing forces, always rejuggling their weights, balancing big picture with detail, firmness with give, determination with acceptance, as above, so below, as in head's theory, so in body's practice. The first sixty years, I thought all of those were just schematic cartoons, the skeleton a Hallowe'en costume and the circulatory system a transparency in a children's book. I am ready to become transparent to myself, picture a food I eat becoming part of me. I wash the Purim masquerade off my face, put away the mask and the costume. And here I am, me: a persona, another mask paper- macheed out of old newspapers, memories, beliefs about what I should decide to be. Keep washing off the masks, the mappings. This world of our lives is a Purim, a masquerade, a cloak over the circulation of real essences. Main arteries are flowing smoothly. I will them to stay untangled, patent, as in the prayer.