December 2020   Tevet 5781    

Greetings,

Darkness and light, solstice and returning sun, the wheel touches bottom and begins its slow movement upward. The new moon of the Hebrew month of Tevet ushers us into this liminal space and time where we are suspended, in transition, waiting, watching, wary. I hold my breath and feel the anger that is bubbling up within and around me.   

Tevet is the month that asks us to dive deeply within to root out anger and negative emotions that have been building throughout the year, throughout the four years, throughout the decades and centuries. This deep healing requires us to touch the wounds and begin the process of transformation, so we don’t carry our pain and anger with us into the new year of 2021, into the new administration, the new generation, the new relationships and actions we will take when the pandemic abates and we can step out of our houses with a vision of expanded possibilities.

Rather than looking through a distorted and fragmented mirror that reflects a dark story of fear and malicious intent beamed to so many screens these past weeks, I look into my grandchildren’s  shining faces on these past nights of Chanukah, beaming at me in their little zoom screens delighted that all 13 of us in the family are together, lighting the candles, singing our songs, and then opening the gifts we have lovingly chosen and sent in advance for precisely these precious moments. It is for these little ones and the millions of others being born into this world that I pray for release from the old stories, the old fears and traumas that damage souls. 

During this time of great reckoning when our leaders are but “cosmic crowbars,” helping us leverage a monumental transformation that is emerging, we need to bring in the light of truth and wisdom as strongly and powerfully as we can with our words and actions, to be models of what is possible. At this time of awakening, this light can illuminate the dark places, releasing the toxins, and clearing the way. In this moment, we must trust in the divine unfolding of creation, just as our ancestors trusted as they wandered in the desert, not without questioning, but with ultimate faith in the One. May we align ourselves with the forces of peace, love, and justice and discern the rare beauty in the birth pangs of the new creation struggling to be born into the light. May we be midwives to this new evolutionary creation as we light the final Chanukah candles, seeing possibility rather than destruction reflected back to us, and acknowledge the Divine Mystery that cradles us all.  

Blessings,
Lucinda