Saturday, December 31, 2022

This year shall be a peaceful New Year...




This year shall be a peaceful New Year...

Goodbye to the mind-cracking chaos of 2022.

I have tried the marches, followed the news in an incessant loop, wrote postcards to encourage voters until my wrists ached up my arms, stayed sleeplessly wide wake into the early morning hours, running as a worn ribbon over and over, the rationale for, the potential solutions for, inexplicable estrangements, hatred, violence, hunger, pain, lay wide eyed in wonder and horror at the sheer grit and grieving there in Ukraine, there in Afghanistan, and here, on stateside borders. Watched impotently, recycling my cans and paper and plastic, as tempestuous storms rose and buildings crashed and then guns fired and lives fell and children huddled in classrooms and too many police confoundingly lost their compass. I have tried to take it all in, to translate it all into some sort of sanity, to find a path in the darkness, even for myself and too often, found the ceaseless whirring of my mind in those looping paths to no answers… and so…I have decided that it is my inner sense that has been askew - Finally realizing that I cannot control but I can manage. I can manage. And so.....
This year shall be a peaceful New Year. I shall drink some simple coffee with sweet cream from a heavy cup whose heft fits my hand – I shall allow pleasure in whatever form it appears. I shall see the spectacular marvel of a single raindrop as it joins its collective, I shall know the wonders I cannot see of savannahs, seas and arctic circles, of birds flashing in the midnight skies and all creatures, in all places doing their natural creaturely things. I shall hear the joyful cries of newborn babes and not permit misery, no matter how horrific, to obliviate joy. I shall comfort where I can and bring compassion in any way I can to all that suffer. Yet, this year, I shall humbly acknowledge my limitations as one single creature on this teeming planet and I shall choose to know with the certainty of belief that all will be well even when it is so clearly not – I shall choose to believe that the path forward is one of peace, and that love, compassion and calm is the only way through – and whether there come sunshine or darkness, whether the skies storm or clear and shine in glorious splendor there shall be light … in me.
If it shall come to pass that each of us cherish and protect and refuse to extinguish our own spark of light – Ah that would be quite something would it not? I wish for each and all the joy of your own indomitable, light and that 2023 shall shine with our colossal connection as each day unfolds. With love to you and yours and to each and all. Happy 2023.

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Happy Chanukah - Light To The Lonely -...The Miracle of Light For All...


HAPPY CHANUKAH - LIGHT TO THE LONELY .... THE MIRACLE OF LIGHT FOR ALL...
To all those who have fond faces of family and friends to share the light of Chanukah I bid you well and wish you happiness in your joy - this, though is not for you - Not quite yet …
This is for those who hold the first candle over their menorah - and listen to the single sound of their striking match

This is for those who through, death, distance, disagreement or the simple cruel throw of the die land
Alone

Some shall remember and hunger for a past where the scent of latkes and love lingered loud and lasting in clothes and hair and walls and air from first night throughout
Some shall remember the glow of children’s faces - or shockingly their own face safe and excited over the simple sumptuous pleasure of a smear of jelly in a donut the incomparable taste of powdered sugar - the scratch of chairs as family gathered - the laughter of elders and the galed giggles of children

It won’t be the gelt felt in these ghostly yearnings - though tiny net bags of foil wrapped coins,dreidels , plastic and wooden and the inevitable electric menorah in someone’s house will very likely appear
This is for those tonight in quiet houses - who pull out an old or maybe a new menorah, who pull the first colored candle from the box and as the legions of lonely ready themselves for the scratch of the match to light the flame

Know that you are not alone - for this is the holiday where light lit the darkness and hope and resilience rose triumphant and joyous over darkness, fear and attack
This is for you - each and every and all connected as the flame catches and light dances within …
Listen and hear the laughter of then, of the what-could-be and rejoice in the spark of hope you carry forward joining as one on this first Chanukah eve creating a conflagration of camaraderie
throughout the ages -

This is for you - as you touch the tip of your light to your first candle know -
This is for you - for all those who in solitary or severely compromised number, nevertheless murmur ancient words, watch the wick light and allow oneself to feel the fill of the miracle of hope
As they did then - so you shall do on this first night and on each following night

May you feel your spirit lift as you join in the festival of light and may your memories and imagined perfect Chanukah merge, spin in the dancing of millions of flames together

For it is you, those who light -
in spite of it all who shall understand as the candlelight flickers and waves that you are never alone with the power of light in your hands - the true miracle of hope
To those and to one and all - may the glow of light warm your home and heart and may I wish you what can only be a Happy Chanukah
In honor and memory and musings of it all - from camps to kibbutzim to congregations to singing perfect families and back back back again to those who lit oil against darkness, gathered in solidarity and resistance and began it all ..
All as One - connected in the light lit tonight