Counting the Omer
As the sky fades and the second day of Passover begins, so the counting of the omer begins. I have been hard at work making the little omer books I share with friends and family who join me in this spiritual practice that I have come to love.
I do not know where this year's omer practice will take me, but for now, I am simply trying to get started with the practice that I hope to continue through the next 49 days.
When I tried to think of what kind of image best represents Chesed shebe Chesed or the lovingkindness within lovingkindness, the first thing that popped into my head was my two boys together. I feel so much love for them both, and I love to watch them interacting, enjoying each other's company.
This image is especially dear because they are sitting on the love seat that came from my grandparents' home. My sister and I too loved to sit on this loveseat, and my grandparents fully embodied chesed in the way they made me feel so very loved.
16 Nissan 5774 * April 15, 2014 * Omer Day 1
Warm Up to Passover
During the beginning of Nissan, I participated in #ExodusGram, a creation of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer who also created BlogElul.
Instead of blogging, I posted a photo each day to Instagram. Now that all 14 days are done, I thought I'd post the whole series here.
Nisan 1 - Believe
He calls it his "Baruch Atah Adonai" book, and likes to sit next to me. For me, belief is really about experience, and I delight in his early experiences of the holy.
Nisan 2 - Tell
My Nana wrote a most beloved Haggadah (Hebrew "to tell") that we used at our Passover seders when I was a girl. We still use much of the text from her Haggadah, and each year I appreciate her telling all the more. In the photo used above, she and I were celebrating our joint birthdays in May 1992 (hers four days before mine).
Nisan 3 - Enslave
It was difficult to find an image for enslave, but one from my year of collages did seem to fit the bills. It is an attempt to portray that thin line between enslavement and liberation, between bound and free.
Nisan 4 - Free
One of the joys of hanging out with a toddler is that I get to stand by while he feels free to explore his world.
Nisan 5 - Prepare
The first step in preparing the Omer books was printing them all out.
Nisan 6 - Clean
A sink full of dishes and a silverware drawer full of schmutz and chometz. It is so satisfying to pause and appreciate getting it all clean, before we start the cycle all over again!
Nisan 7 - Bless
Scilla is one of my favorite flowers. At my grandmother's house, a whole carpet of scilla would bloom around her April 14th birthday. In her memory, we have a few little ones that come up by our house now. As they help welcome spring, I often feel stirred to bless the Source of Life.
Nisan 8 - Learn
Our toddler is learning at a breakneck speed these days. He found a Hebrew Picture Dictionary on our bookshelves, and immediately asked for the bulldozer. I have learned so much about trucks of all varieties from my boys, and now I know that the Hebrew word for bulldozer is dakhpoor.
Nisan 9 - Ask
During my weekly walk at Caratunk, I played Poohsticks while asking, "What would it be like to be liberated from _____?" I tossed many sticks into the stream each as I asked about each of the places where I feel stuck. None of the sticks made it to the other side of the stream. Finally, I broke a stick into smaller pieces, and the littlest one made it to the other side.
Nisan 10 - Leave
I took this photo on March 24, when the last of the snow was melting. I thought the pattern of melting and the light in the hole was really remarkable, and I had regretted not posting it to Instagram. Very quickly snow seemed entirely out of date, but the Leave theme gave me one last chance to revisit winter before moving all the way into spring.
Nisan 11 - Count
On this day, I mailed out 7 books to friends. How fitting, since the Counting of the Omer lasts 49 days, 7 weeks of 7 days each.
Nisan 12 - Redeem
How could I resist these first magnolia blossoms? For me, beauty has a power to redeem that always fills me with awe.
Nisan 13 - Change
Every year in March and April, my father lights great bonfires to burn the brush, the invasive exotic plants that he removed from the land during the previous fall and winter. Fire transforms, changing huge piles of brush into ashes, and yet this yearly ritual has a timeless quality, especially as I look through the smoke at my father in his cap.
Nisan 14 - Be
There is something about this duck, and the ripples it creates, that encourages me to be with what is.
Direction in Adar
Life sometimes takes unexpected turns, and my life seems to be full of them right now. I have found that this blog has not been the right place for this part of my journey, although I have missed it.
With this new month of Adar, I am at least able to return and take stock.
I walk most weeks in Caratunk, a beloved Audubon Society refuge near to where I live. I almost always start out on the same path, and vary my route only based on the length of the walk I wish to take. I walk on the edge of a big field, and soon enter the woods where I quickly cross a stream and come to a pine grove. Next I cross the stream again and loop around to Monument Rock. The path then takes me back to the stream, where I can either cross for a third time, or continue right along its banks for a while.
This past Wednesday I walked this loop, taking in all the ice on the stream, the places where it was completely covered and the places of open water. I appreciated both the seen and the unseen movement. When I reflected my walk later, I pictured myself walking along with the flow of the stream, until I was startled to realize that the stream actually flows in the opposite direction!
Hunh. So interesting, and such a good metaphor.
Quite often recently, I have found myself thinking about how hard I try and how futile those efforts seem sometimes. I am worn out from these efforts, and even more worn out from being angry that my efforts don't seem to bear fruit. I am ready to find a different way. I am ready to stop wrestling so much, ready to stop fighting my way upstream, ready to stop walking against the current.
So I returned to my beloved Caratunk the next day and walked the same loop in the opposite direction. I was delighted to meet the stream and walk right along with it, both of us moving in the same direction. I had fun playing with making my pace match its gurgling progress. I felt lighter with this new intention, and I welcomed the shift within me.
I continued along, leaving the stream for a while, and when my path finally met with the stream again, I found again to my surprise that for a very short stretch, I was again walking against the current. So much for my fine grasp of the geography of Caratunk! So much for my grand metaphor!
Or maybe, actually, the back and forth is the true metaphor. Sometimes we get to go with the flow and sometimes we don't. The stream meanders on its path, my feet meander on theirs. We meet and separate and meet again. Sometimes we are sync, sometimes we are not. And it's all fine, it's all real, it all contains beauty.
Here, in Adar, I will continue to play with walking in the opposite direction from my habitual one. I will continue to seek out ways to release more into the flow. I will continue to seek out more help and more ease and more grace. And I am sure that I will also put in great efforts that may or may not work out the way I hope. I will continue to think I'm walking in one direction when really I'm walking in another. Through it all, may I rejoice in the variety, remembering that it is all present, it is all holy, and it is, it simply IS.
In this new month, I am grateful to be able to walk along the stream, no matter the direction.
Chodesh Tov.
3 Adar 5774 * 2 February 2014