Today is Sivan 11 in the Jewish calendar. The reading for today in The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, by Jill Hammer, says, "The changing currents of Torah are imagined as water but also as wind. Torah, like the breezes of summer, carries fragrance to us, and each word has its own fragrance. When all the scent has been wrung from that word, a wind comes along and blows the scent away, and a new wind arrives with a new word on its wings."
Do I get a pass for not writing in eons since I'm just now beginning to rediscover what it means to have a "deep quiet?" Once the semester starts, my mind is constantly in work/student mode, even when it looks like I'm focused on other things. It's annoying and I'm going to be working on that this summer. I'm finally at the half-way point in my MBA now and the end feels reachable.
Now it's time to slow down and reconnect with some of the other sides of me that have been neglected.
My "aha moment" came on Saturday morning as I spent a little over an hour with some women from my shul in a spiritual direction group meeting. I've been a part of this group since its beginning almost four years ago though ever since starting school two years ago, I've been less involved than I would have liked.
Carol, the leader of the group, brought some readings that started everything churning around inside of me. The topic for the day was Wisdom. She read a piece by Deena Metzger, called "In the Beginning Was the Humming" and then she read from the book of Proverbs and the book of Wisdom, only found in the Catholic version of the Bible.
It felt like the wind arriving with "a new word on its wings." Only it wasn't a new word for me. It was a word I've spoken many times in the past but not in a long, long time. The word was "goddess." Being with these women and talking about Wisdom and the feminine aspects of God brought memories to my consciousness. Memories of the many times I gathered with women to celebrate the rising of the New Moon, drumming her up, dancing around fires (or often candles lit to represent the four directions), sharing joys and sorrows with my sisters who came from all walks of life to celebrate just being together in sacred space.
My spirit needs sacred space. One of the reasons I converted to Judaism two years ago (next week) was because I knew I would be able to blend my need to celebrate the Divine with the earth-based part of me that has been so strong in the past. Judaism is a very earthy religion. But the professional side of myself has been front-and-center and the part that longs for the sacred has been left aside. I'm not sorry I've been so focused on work and school but I need to do a better job of balancing those two things with the part of me that used to dive into that deep quiet on a regular basis.
An idea for a way to fix this is brewing. I don't yet know what it looks like, but it involves other people who want to share this part of the journey with me. Maybe we'll find a place to drum up the moon. Maybe we'll read Torah and love each other through the hard places. Don't know. I do know that it's time and that I need to do something about it.
As Hammer says, "To move with Torah, we must be willing to change course, to be surprised." I am surprised. Thank you, Carol, for helping me remember the feeling of living in the sacred.
