Spiritual Time Reminds Us of Who We Are

On Monday I took my two children, aged 12 and 14, off to camp for a four-week stay. They go to camp every year, but this is the first time they have attended for more than three weeks. My son was so excited; camp is the highlight of his year. My daughter was less excited; she’s at that age when camp is no longer such a thrill (unless, like her brother, you live for camp) and she left a boyfriend behind, which made her very sad. My husband and I said goodbye to them with a mix of melancholy and joy. We always miss them and worry about them, but we are so thrilled to have a break and to get some time to ourselves. We always say, “We all need a break from each other.”

Since my husband goes off to work early and returns late, I have the whole day to myself when they are gone. I decided to treat myself each morning to spiritual time. First, I sit in my bedroom and read an inspiring book and a little of the Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation). Then I write “morning pages” in my journal. Then I make tea and go upstairs to my meditation room, where I read a little of the Zohar, the most important Kabbalistic text written by Shimon Bar Yochai, a little of The Course in Miracles, and a page or two from Kabbalah 365. Then, I do Wayne Dosick’s 20 Minute Kabbalah practice, which involves a time for meditation or prayer, and then I finish up by pulling a Tarot card and two Kabbalah cards (from different decks). I write down the meaning of these (intuited or from a book) and then write a little about them in another journal.

(Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue this full process after these four weeks, since it has been taking me at least an hour and 45 minutes to complete, and I normally don’t have that much time in the morning. During this time I will at least get me in the habit, and I can then pick and choose what I do each day, incorporating as many elements as time allows. I will, unfortunately, also miss one week while I am at the Aleph Kallah, but I plan to incorporate at least the morning pages and the 20 Minute Kabblah practice into my schedule there.)

I have to say that this time during the last two mornings has been so enjoyable and refreshing and rejuvenating, that I don’t want to do much the rest of the day! I just want to continue reading and meditating and chanting.

Today I really lucked out. A tree feel on some electrical wires not far from my house, which caused the electricity to go out. (That might not seem lucky, but keep reading…) In fact, the electricity has been out all day. So, I actually completed my morning with an hour long walk. It was perfect. I could do this easily every day, and I would probably actually get some real work done afterwards if I was simply writing my own books rather than feeling pressed to edit for clients, write queries to magazines, handle emails, prepare and schedule talks and workshops, etc. (I’d be inspired and in the flow for my own creative work, but I sometimes find that I’m less inspired or motivated to do things I “have” to do.) When I returned from the walk, I read and ate lunch in the sun on the deck with my two cats for company. I would have loved to then go into the garden, or continue reading, or meditate again…

Isn’t that the thing that stops so many of us from having a regular spiritual practice each morning? The fear that then that is all we will want to do – be spiritual? I know I’ve always been afraid that if I spent too much time meditating and doing spiritual rituals and praying and the like, I’d want to be like one of those hermits or gurus who just sits at the top of a mountain or in a cave communing with God. What would happen to my life? It would fall apart.

That’s the reason most of us don’t pursue really, truly having a spiritual experience. We’re too afraid of how the experience will change us and our lives. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Jesus said it best; the goal is to “be in the world but not of it.” We must have the experience of our own other-worldly-ness and of God but bring that knowledge into this physical world to help us live in it more fully. We must all remember that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience” (Anyone know who said that?) not human beings having a spiritual experience. We must remember who we are and then bring that into the mundane, every day-ness of our lives.

Both yesterday and today I received a messages pertaining to this idea. On Tuesday it was during the meditation that is part of my 20 Minute Kabbalah practice and today it was afterwards when I pulled a Kabbalah card. Both times I was told to reconnect with the spiritual dimension – with God – continually during the day.

Today, before my walk, I also treated myself to a phone session with a dowser. (Yes, they not only find water but clear energy and do healing work – even by phone.) I wanted to clear some blocks I felt I had concerning my work and my health. Interestingly, he reiterated this same point before we hung up. He told me that during the day I could spend 15 seconds thinking about him, thereby tapping back into his energy. He sees himself as a conduit for this energy – be it Divine energy or healing energy or whatever type of energy you want to call it. So, I see his message as similar to the others: Don’t let the whole day go by without connecting and reconnecting to the spiritual dimension and to God. Don’t forget that you are part of that dimension even as you exist on this physical plane. Remember that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. Don’t lose your connection to God and the Divine flow of energy and goodness.

I’ll be looking forward to the morning…and reconnecting a little bit here and there until the dawn comes.

Mitzrayyim Makes My Passover Meaning-full and Spirit-full

I remember as a child sitting through the Passover seder each year with little sense of why I was there or what we were doing. I knew the Exodus story, but the actual celebration of Passover meant little to me. The only thing that got me out of the Mitzrayyim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, of the too-long ritual meal was drinking as much of the Manichewitz wine as the other children and I could without the adults noticing and sneaking bits of matzoh and charoset when we knew we weren’t supposed to be eating anything. We would get sillier as the evening wore on and were almost too giddy to consume the hard boiled eggs and matzoh ball soup we were served at the long-awaited start of the meal.

I continued celebrating Passover as a young adult more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. No matter where I lived, I would find somewhere to attend a seder, but other than feeling that I had done what “I was supposed to do” my observance of the holiday felt empty. Later, after marrying and having children, I began learning a bit more about the holiday and its symbolism, but I was more concerned with the fact that I couldn’t eat bread – my favorite food – for a week than I was about my ancestors being freed from slavery by a God with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. In fact, except for the matzoh ball soup I ate just once a year – ‘till this day I wonder each year why I don’t make it more often –Passover felt devoid of anything meaningful or spiritual but full of a sense of being stuck in Mitzrayyim, a narrow place where I was enslaved by the rules and laws that went with the holiday.

As I began to host my own seders, and as my family became more ritually observant, Passover became a new type of Mitzrayyim. I had to figure out how to get from the slavery of housecleaning, reviewing haggadot and stressing over the actual seder leading to the other side of the Red Sea where I could return to “normal” living without fear of hametz in corners, making a ritual faux pas or accidentally ingesting something that puffs up when cooked. (See my article on this subject at http://www.jewishmag.com/112mag/passover-prep/passover-prep.htm)

These days, however, Mitzrayyim provides the meaning to my Passover observance and my seder. I find that revolving the week, as well as the seder, around the idea of moving through narrow places, tight situations and difficult experiences lends meaning to all aspects of the holiday remembrance. I have discovered that looking at how I come through these and become someone new – am reborn – gives me a chance to connect with who I am at a deep enough level to make the experience spiritual as well. And after all, during the telling of the Passover story, we are supposed to all feel as if we were there at the edge of the Red Sea and on the other side.

It’s easy enough to find those narrow places that exist in our lives right now or have in the past 12 months. I have been through the narrow place of finding a literary agent, my father-in-laws cancer and impending death, money issues, and struggles with time (not having enough) and work (having it take over my life and my husband’s life). I’ve been in the Mitzrayyim of needing to create a teleclass, finish a book proposal, write an article on deadline. Any or all of these are things I can place on the Passover table – the misbeach (altar) – for all to see and to hear my story. My story, and my guests’ stories become the new version of the Passover story. They bring us to that place of feeling the struggle of slavery – to anything or anyone – and, if we are already on the other side of the parted sea, and the joy of freedom as if we were, indeed, there with those we read about in the Torah and with the story we retell in the Haggadah. It causes us to be present…now and then.

This practice, this new ritual, this focus, gives the holiday, the seder and the retelling of the story meaning for me and for my family and friends.

And, it reminds us to have faith that we will, indeed, come out of the tight place. All we need is to trust like Nachshon, who entered the waters of the Red Sea even when Moses could not part the waters with his words or his staff. He walked into the water until it was up to his nose and he couldn’t take another breath without drowning. And then the waters parted. His faith caused the miracle to occur. And our faith can do the same today, now, in this moment, or the next time we feel ourselves squeezed, in a tight place, between a rock and a hard place, in Mitzrayyim.

And this brings into the observance of Passover and the ritual seder a sense of spirituality.

Thus, for me at least, revolving my Passover observances around this idea transforms the cleaning, the food restrictions, the seder – all the elements of this holiday – from empty observances to both meaning-full and spirit-full ones. And, I’m released from the Mitzrayyim I’ve experienced around this holiday in the past. Ah…Another tight place from which I have escaped, been released, been freed, to share, and one which I can place on the Passover table with the others.

(I’m sorry to stay that I remain in Mitzrayyim, however, when it comes to not eating bread for a week...)

Happy Pesach!