Cross Country #44: Re: N Tree
Goldie: Our home looks like a Martha Stewart episode, every inch that was lovingly crafted over the years is now polished in hopes of sale. Our three cats are frolicking with scraps of fabric that hit the floor from my work at making a bar mitzvah tallit (prayer shawl) for Mark from earlier today.
Re-entry has been hard, harder than any I could have imagined. Have been dashing from appointment to appointment, viewing exorbitant tiny apartments in NYC in blistering hundred degree heat; and sitting in my non-air-conditioned office, carefully reviewing infinite memos and details for the new term at the Academy (our largest incoming class ever, culled from over 280 interested parties).
Most challenging has been witnessing Barry’s meditation gardens around our home being devastated by the drought in this region; Like ancient corpses the numerous carefully selected species fall to dust under our attempts to offer them a few drops of precious water.
Barry: Most challenging to me was staying up all night with you tearing the house apart looking for your missing passport (only to find out, the next day, that Project Kesher hadn’t returned it to us yet because it was delayed at the Ukrainian Embassy.)
Goldie: Ohhh, would rather be back on the road........hard to refrain from reverie, to stay present to the present. During the cross country trip I met my friend Rabbi Shefa Gold for a few days. Perched on the Oregon coast, she and I would pause for morning meditation. The winds were blowing strong and we nestled into the cleft of a rock for protection, a stunning launching pad for our respective devotions. The low tide rocks are homes to tidal pools rich in star fish and anemones; just beside us was also a river meeting the sea, chatting its ode to joy beside us.
A phrase from Genesis "ruach YHVH m’rahefet al p’nai ha mayim" arises in my thoughts. ("The breath or wind of God flutters on the face of the water"). Look with me into the tidal pool. What do you see on the face of the waters? Who do you see? What does it mean to be created in the image of God? What was God’s reflection on the face of those waters?
Trapped. Captivated by a thought. Don’t want the trip to be ended. GRUMBLE! Did I ever tell you about Suzanne? There we were in Capital Reef National Park with me struggling up hill and coming towards me with a cane, like an apparition, was this long-silver-haired crone....light dancing off her head like Michaelango’s depiction of rays of light on his Moses statue.
Had this ancient limping woman actually climbed to the top?! Expecting nothing short of prophesy from her, I asked: "Hail Holy Woman, what did you find above?" She responded "Je ne parle pas Anglais." ("I don’t speak English.")....Ah, but I do speak some French. Some day, ask me for the rest of the story.
Barry: I’ll tell you. It was hot. Goldie had a good reason to quit and "escort" this elderly lady with arthritic knees down the mountain. I was amazed how they spoke like old friends. Apparently this woman and her frail husband have been exploring the world. Unable to climb at all, he was waiting for her below in their van.
Goldie: Meanwhile, I’ve just gotta stay present to housekeeping, packing up our lives to move to NYC, leaving for the Ukraine this week, leading High Holy Days at Kripalu, endless downsizing of our "things" in anticipation of a smaller environment. GOTTA DANCE is my break through thought....what about all that spirituality one can find in housekeeping? Can I walk my talk? I like to believe that meditation builds life skills, leads to equanimity....ah, no one said it would be easy to stay with the discipline of it.
Thomas Keating describes meditation as the depths of a river and each thought is like a boat that is going by. Sometimes you get onto one of those thought boats, and pretty soon you are two miles down the river before you notice. So you get off the boat and return to the depths of the river. A new layer of depth is added to the strength of the meditation by softly sacrificing the thought and returning to the surrender of the meditation.
Shefa offers an image "make yourself smooth enough so that there isn’t a barbed place on the heart that a thought could get caught." Worry doesn’t heal or create, rather it wears down the fabric of a soul. I love her expression "make yourself smooth." Now to translate that from meditation into everyday life, what a delightful challenge.
Barry: Sitting in our dining room at home, I’m organizing the photos of our trip into an album.
The music of Mystere (the Circ de Soleil show we saw in Vegas) is filling our home - the vast open space that is our living area. The music is loud, and pulsates through my body.
In front of me are poster size photographs of gigantic sand dunes near Cape Town, another of thousands of Gannets on a bird island in Lambert’s Bay. Both were taken on our trip to South Africa in March. To the left of me is a photograph of blue sky and clouds in New Mexico taken on a trip there two years ago. Initially, I thought the photographs of this trip were mediocre. Now I realize that there are many that can be blown up as the others were.
Within reach is a wooden sculpture of two figures intertwined, also bought on a trip with Goldie. We are surrounded by objects lovingly collected. I am sitting with memories of moments and people and gardens and cemeteries and mountains and....... all lovingly collected and treasured in my mind.
Tears are welling up in my eyes. Rushing around New York looking for a one bedroom apartment, I have been uptight and volatile - always an indication that some emotion is brewing.
Our home is for sale, virtually everything around us will be boxed and stored.
I am onto the fourth package of photos. Scenes of Jerome, Jeannette’s B and B, the junkyard with the donkey, the flower gardens and pavement drawing in Santa Barbara, the gardens in Mendocino and many others bring a smile to me as my tears increase.
I think of the loss of the temple and that much of the mourning was related to the intentionality that went into its building. For me, I feel sad at the loss of a home that had so much effort put into shaping its soul.
This is my personal closing ritual I have been looking for. The past three months have been so good, so powerful - I need a powerful release. We both had this same intense feeling the day we left Cape Town - looking down onto the indescribably beautiful False Bay. And look what lay just around the corner......
Goldie: The move to NYC means we need one of our cats to be adopted, Barry’s Homer Katz. The world’s most flexible cat, some exotic oriental sort who is a smooth medium grey and walks so sleekly that he seems to imagine he lives in a regal home in Egypt. Homer is a children’s kind of cat - he loves to be tossed, turned, flipped flopped, danced with and always he comes back for more, more, MORE. NY would be hardest on him, he needs a country home where he can still chase butterflies on lazy summer days and leave tracks in the snow and look at them bemused as though there must be an animal following just behind him. Don’t worry, wherever in the world you are, future adoptive family for Homer Katz, like Dominos, we deliver.
Mark was so tickled by readers’ many notes to him about his posting. We found his comments to be a fascinating mirror. When my sons were much smaller they would sometimes role-play being their different relatives. Often I would wonder what they would say if they role-played their mom and dad. What a wonderful mirror a child’s thoughts can be for those around.
FYI, Mark has created a model bar/bat mitzvah web site, check it out: He’s willing (for a modest fee of course!) to help other kids create a similar site, based around their own lives and parshiot. He’d love your feedback and perhaps you’ll link your site to his if you have one.
There is one particularly great thing about tomorrow, my other son Adam (age 15) returns from his six weeks traveling cross country with USY on Wheels. Rumor has it he shaved for the first time on this trip! How I long to hug him and hear him. I know the proper blessing for a close shave ("gomel" - for a narrow escape from danger or returning from a long trip, hmmm). Is there a blessing for a first shave?
Barry: Enough! I am ready for a formal ritual, one that invites the participation of all who read this. That will be our next, and final posting - # 45.
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