Category: Teaching, Learning, and Reflection

November 2020   Kislev 5781

As we enter the new moon of the Hebrew month of Kislev, we experience the darkest time of the year, the time when we must use our intuition, understanding, and courage to bring in the light, to keep our faith burning strong and clear in the midst of darkness, chaos and fear. In this moment, we are called to maintain our vigilance, our determination, our perseverance, as the very foundation of our democracy is challenged and a virulent pandemic is sweeping through our world. 

Throughout the history of the Jewish people and many others, there have been those leaders who wish to usurp power to themselves. And there are those forces that rise up in protest. We saw it in ancient times when a small band of dedicated souls, the Maccabees, sparked an uprising against the ruler of the Seleucid Empire, attracting enough followers to achieve victory.  The 36 candles we light during the eight nights of Chanukah honor their bravery and the human spirit reaching for freedom, for justice, for the light.

This week I have been overcome by a mixture of elation, anger, agitation and sadness, weeping for the vicious internal conflict that is seeping into the pores of our institutions, shredding the confidence people have in our system of voting and governance. This is the moment my spiritual practice is no longer practice; daily meditation, prayer, and grounding enable me to stay centered, hopeful, and able to believe that transformational changes will ultimately prevail. Without doubt, we are living through a pivotal historical moment and need to be resilient and vitally present, channeling our anger into action with wisdom and compassion.  

The energy of Kislev invites us to rekindle our hopes and dreams and to believe in miracles, symbolized by the one vial of pure oil that lasted for eight days that helped our people rededicate themselves to the One.  What will it take today to overcome the dark energy that sits heavily upon our nation and to move into the dream of freedom and justice for all that has guided us forward?

As we enter the darkest time of the year, the Kabbalists teach that the healing energy of sleep and the dreams that flow to us from the deep channels of connection to the One can spark our intuition and help us understand new frontiers for growth and expansion. Despite the challenges we face, I enter this month with a renewed belief in miraculous synchronicities and faith in the Divine Light that illuminates our path. Let us all step forward, in whatever way we are uniquely called, to contribute to the co-creation of a revitalized and re-envisioned country and global community at this momentous time of transition and possibility.  

Blessings,  
Lucinda

October 2020 – Cheshvan 5781

After the vibrational recalibration of the High Holidays, we take a dive down into the depths in this new month of Cheshvan. It is often called “Mar Cheshvan,”  “Bitter Cheshvan,” because there is a stark contrast between the holidays and relationship building in the previous month of Tishrei and this time of reckoning. This year we are particularly challenged to keep our faith in the midst of the pandemic, the chaotic elections, the fires and floods raging across the country, and our uncertain future. 

Now, we come face to face with the personal ingrained patterns we identified during the Days of Awe but also with the institutional structures that no longer fit the evolving needs of our society. This month provides no holidays to relieve the intensity of our own personal journey, and the tension around election outcome only heightens our anxiety.

At his time of Cheshvan 2020, we feel a deep loss, a loss of equilibrium, a loss of clarity and stability, of safety and protection. We are overcome with floods of emotion as we witness the tragedies large and small, personal and global, that trigger feelings of profound sadness within us.  We trust that this falling down is part of going forward, that this descent into division is a precursor to a greater unity, that this chaos is a harbinger of a new paradigm that creates justice and shalom.

Yet, Cheshvan is the month of transformation and regeneration, under the water sign of Scorpio. We begin the Torah cycle again by reading the stories of Creation, Noah and the Great Flood, and the call from God to Abraham to leave home and undertake a profound spiritual journey into unexplored inner and outer terrain. Each year and in each generation we reinterpret these messages according to tradition, our own levels of consciousness, our own personal struggles, and the social and political worlds that we inhabit. 

I just returned from a solo twelve-hour drive to visit my son, daughter-in-law and two-year old grandson in Boston. Though my body aches and my legs are in knots, I feel an exhilaration at seeing a new generation coming into life on this planet. This new generation will interpret the challenges we face with fresh eyes and a keener sense of smell, (the healing energy of this month), that can sniff out our future direction and move all humanity forward.

This is the time to root ourselves in our core values as we simultaneously connect and align ourselves to the One, creating a sturdy and secure ark for ourselves to negotiate the turbulent waves around us, grounding and sustaining us in hope and trust. We can transmute our fears and insecurities into fuel for our upward movement and support the next generation as it gains tools and wisdom, so together we can right the ship of state and steer a steady course into healing waters. May it be so. 

Blessings,
Lucinda

We are entering the new moon of the Hebrew month of Tishrei and the new year of 5781, a powerful time to entertain new possibilities for ourselves and the world in which we live. At the head of the year, Tishrei invites us to push the reset button on our lives to allow our nervous systems to come back into a state of equilibrium. After the personal and global traumas of the pandemic, climate change, racial unrest, and political upheaval, I yearn for this moment to breathe, to settle down in this sacred time of balance and equanimity, to surround myself (even though virtually) with my family and community, to hear the laughter and joy of my grandchildren as they experience the wonder of each new day.  

Tishrei and all of its important holidays, like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, are the main energy centers, the cosmic nervous system, of the entire year. Our wisdom tradition teaches that how we move through this month can have a profound effect on the unfolding of our lives in the remaining 11 months of the year. The shofar blasts during the High Holidays resonate to the core of our being; their primordial sounds initiate a vibrational recalibration of body and soul that aligns us with our essential self.

In this place of greater vulnerability and openheartedness, we embrace the work of “tikun,” repair, that is desperately needed. We are particularly challenged during this charged election year to find an internal harmony that can sustain us, that can move us toward a connectivity that can strengthen relationships rather than tear them apart.

Even though we hope for immediate, tangible solutions that can transform the chaos we now experience, we are engaged as individuals,  a nation, and a global community in generational  change work. It will take decades of focused effort to transform the systems that we humans have created so they align with our evolving understanding of what is just and sustainable. 

If we can open to a landscape of forgiveness within ourselves, return to the truth of who we are, and connect to the One, we can free ourselves from the fear of the great Mystery before us. We can welcome the changes that are inevitable as we continue individually and collectively to gestate a new vision that can create a strong foundation for our future evolution, healing the wounds of divisiveness that have frayed our nerves and plagued our culture. 

I wish you blessings of a happy and healthy New Year, a year of peace, a year of hope, a year of healing. 

Blessings, 

Lucinda

We are entering the new moon of the Hebrew month of Elul, the time of teshuvah, return to our inner wholeness and alignment with our essential self. In this month before the New Year and the High Holidays, we are invited to look deeply at our actions during the past year and assess if they have been congruent with our highest aspirations for ourselves. Or have we fallen short of our expectations, holding a feeling of regret that drags our energy down, hampering our capacity to actualize our potential? 

Without question, this has been a most difficult and challenging year, taxing all of us in ways none of us could have expected, asking us to draw upon our inner resource with a patience that was not always available. Moses in Deuteronomy exhorts us to see clearly the choices before us and then choose between Blessing and Curse. During this month of Elul, we can assess how we, individually and as a country, have confronted the weighty and urgent choices placed before us this past year and take this opportunity to shift hardened patterns and destructive policies that don’t serve our health and well-being.

As each of us grapples with the personal implications of the continuing pandemic and the political unrest tearing our country apart, can we perceive new ways of holding these challenges? Can we awaken to new possibilities in this liminal space between the world we have known and the new world that is not yet born? Living in this in between place, this place of Mystery requires us to rely on our own moorings, our own practices, our connection to what is eternal and never changing, our faith in the One. For me, my morning meditation, prayer, and energy practice is absolutely essential to feel grounded in the midst of the confusion and chaos of living with a 3 and 6 -year old in my home and the consequences of childlike behavior in our leaders. 

The piercing cry of the shofar, blown each morning of Elul, calls us to turn inward and awaken to the brokenness of our hearts as we sit isolated from our loved ones, wearing masks, in our own separate spaces. It calls us to see the inherent racism at the foundation of our country and confront the inequities in our social and economic system with wisdom and compassion. The shofar calls us to combine the healing of seeing we experienced in Tammuz (June) with the healing of hearing in Av (July) to heal our actions in Elul, so they are fully manifesting the truth of who we are at this pivotal moment in time. During these days of grace when love from the One is uniquely accessible, may each one of us embrace our highest self and choose the path of renewal and blessing in the coming new year.  

Blessings,
Lucinda

We are entering the new moon of the Hebrew month of Av, the most emotionally intense month in our yearly cycle.  Av contains both the day of greatest tragedy and sorrow in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, and the day of greatest celebration of love and joy, Tu B’Av. The volatile and passionate energy of this month can swing us from low points of fear and despair to high points of celebration and renewal.

The wisdom path of Kabbalah teaches that the way forward to create harmony and balance, especially this month, is to heighten our capacity to listen so we may hear each other, hear what is being said and what is being withheld, hear our inner guidance and that from Above, hear the cries of the earth and her creatures – and then respond. We are challenged to control the fiery nature of this month and our own emotions by listening more attentively and wisely witnessing our reactivity, a difficult thing to do as we sit alone in our homes hearing the numbers of infections from Covid-19 rising from commentators on our televisions and podcasts. 

As I hear the cacophony of our public life reaching a fever pitch of disharmony with different themes and tones competing with each other, I feel almost overwhelmed by the cycle of blame that focuses attention on wildly divergent perspectives of reality that pull us apart in a destructive pattern of tweet and counter tweet. 

And then I drive up to Northern Michigan and am greeted by the squeals of pleasure and welcome from my grandchildren, hear the lapping of the waves inviting me to cool off in the clear waters, and hear the call of gulls circling the waves.  Connecting to the earth, to our loved ones, and to our own steady breathing can reconnect us to the truth at the core of our lives. This grounding to what is true helps us to re-image a world of greater harmony that can be music to all of our ears, across seeming boundaries of cultures and tribes.  Can we find a harmonious chord that can unite us and soothe our souls?  Do we have the courage and will to release old behaviors and step into a world of new possibilities and promise?

These are the questions of our time that are coming to a crescendo this month.  May we each step up to this holy task and sound our unique note in the great symphony of creation and re-creation looming before us.  

Blessings, 

Lucinda

Nesting  

Sitting patiently
Protected in the corner nest
from the spikes and tangled lines that surround the sacred space
Slowly breathing in and out
Silent
Still
Eyes open
Beak pressed against the thatch
Warm and comforting
She waits
She waits
She waits
Day after day
Breathing in and out
Living in eternal time.

Coocou coocou  coocou coocou
Her mate flies in from the nearby rooftop
To cover the cherished nest
To protect the precious eggs, the new life
The new generation of doves
Coming with an olive branch
Like a harbinger to Noah assuring us
That birds and trees and all life will continue and thrive
That life will go on
That new beginnings are possible
Despite the flood 
Despite the raging virus 
Despite the wildfires, earthquakes and tornadoes.

This loving couple assures us 
That devotion can be honored
That patience can be rewarded
That commitment can bring a miraculous unfolding
That compassion and gentleness can bring peace
That birth and rebirth can bring forth unimagined possibilities of
creativity and resilience
That the underlying current of life  joy.

Sitting patiently, impatiently, patiently
In our separate sacred spaces
Protected from the unseen danger
We wait
We wait
We wait
Hoping for an olive branch to show us it is safe to leave the Ark.  

–Lucinda Kurtz