Archive for the ‘Alma Vida y Corazon: Stories of Ascent’ Category

From Tisha B’Av to Days of Awe

From the narrows
I call G*d
Who answers me with
Expansiveness – Ps. 118:5

We were learning during the three weeks, between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, leaning into the deep sadness of that period. Felt through the arc this time drawing us out of the depth and into the arc of the days of Awe, not after the descent but during the descent, felt the draw of the ascending arc this year.
From the depths I call out to You
De profundis [see Oscar Wilde and Lorca]
Me’ma’amikim karaticha Hashem
Out of the depths I cry to you, O G*d
hear my voice
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in prayer
The 9th of Av we drop deep into Exile, the secret of Exile the secret of contraction and expansion, to constrict in order to release, to withhold in order to expand, between the narrows (Lamentations 1:3) we are.
We are the shofar, Blessed are we who know the shofar sound, because, O G*d, they shall walk in the light of your face (Psalm 89:15).
On that day,” says Isaiah, “the great shofar will be sounded. And they will come, those lost in the land of Assyria and those forsaken in the land of Egypt, and bow before G*d on the Holy mountain, Jerusalem.” — Isaiah 27:13
We make the sound of our freedom the same way. We purse our lips and contract our breath.
Between the narrows
The straits –
The 17th of Tammuz
And the 9th of Av

Constriction
Opening onto –
What?

Pinch
Squeeze
And from the squeeze –
Surge

You open to me
With expansiveness

Contract and expand
Constrict and open

Breath pursed
Narrows to
Release

From constraint
To expanse

From Exile to
Redemption.

From the ruins of the 9th of Av is contained the promise of redemption, this the secret of Exile, for every descent a hidden ascent.
There is a hilltop in Jerusalem where heaven and earth touch.
After the destruction the bride began to weep, the ground wept too.
The bride returned as a bird perched at the wall.

For three summer weeks, I sat low in sadness. I planned to bleed,
to wash myself clean.

This I have been taught: After a river of tears, expect the messiah.

jsg, usa

We are standing

From Nitzavim
On ML King jr. Day
For Jews United for Justice

Moses gathered them before the Holy One
on the day of Moshe’s death
to bring them into the covenant. — Rashi

We are standing today
all of us
the big shots
the chumps
the children
wives and sweethearts,
and the stranger
that is within
all of us,
before Hashem
the Name
– God
from the hewers of wood
to the carriers of water,
all of us
every busy one of us,
Today.

To cut a deal
with You
so that You will remember the deal
You cut with our ancestors,
good people
eager
covenant cutters.

But not for us alone
do You keep this agreement
not for us who are here today
but for those of us
who are not here today:
Your children
who shall rise up after you
and strangers
everyone.

For this deal that I set before you
this day
you know which one I mean
it is not too far from you
that you should say:
Who shall go for us.

Nor is it too hard for you
that you should say:
Who will do this for us.
It is not in heaven
and it is not hidden
it is not distant
but right here
under your nose,
it is in your mouth
and in your heart.

It is sitting next to you on the bench
waiting with you for the bus.
It is standing on the corner
in front of the coffee house
waiting for the light to change.
Close,
that you should do it.

Look,
see,
look see
I have placed before you
the life and the good
and the death and the evil.

So love Hashem
God
walk like God
do the right things
the simple things and the complex things
figure out what you can for yourself
and be wise together
then you will multiply
and God will grow you
and bless you.

But if you don’t listen
and fly away,
I tell you
I surely tell you
I know that you will be lost
and your days will not be lengthened
on the land.

So I call heaven and earth together
to witness for you and against you
I have placed life and death before you
blessing and curse.
Choose life
choose blessing
love God
glue yourself to God
for God is your life
and the length of your days.

God promised your ancestors.
God promised them
I swear.

james stone goodman
united states of america

Raza De Hanukkah
The Secret of Hanukkah
In eight poems and a lullaby

Lullaby:

Neir li neir li
Neir li dakik
Ba Hanukkah
Neiri ad-lik

Ba Hanukkah
Neiri ya-ir
Ba Hanukkah
Shirim a-shir (2X)

C – F – C
C – G – C
Am – G – F
Em – F – G – C

On the first night

We asked questions:

What kind of light?
Mai Hanukkah? [Shabbat 21b}
What is Hanukkah?
A miracle but which one? [Rashi]

It hasn’t clarified yet.
Backwards we are telling the story
the prophet Elijah standing on a street corner –

Fire, he said
as well as light
some specially created light

or fire –
We call Hanukkah
the festival of lights

Josephus did too –
the kind of light
that burns.

On the second night

the Chernobler Rebbe came
dressed as an angel in Japanese embroidered silk.

The Chernobler Rebbe opened:
oil is wisdom
poured over the head
of the Priest King Messiah
overflowing like precious oil on the head
running down the beard of Aaron. [Ps.133:2]
The pure finely-beaten, most excellent olive oil –
the olive that releases its finest product when pressed.

Smell this, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
pressing his wrist to my nose
another quality of oil
the capacity to absorb.
I smelled yasmina
jasmine,

When I make perfume the scent is absorbed into the oil –
then distilled. Wisdom
is absorbed from the world this way
– both its beauty and its contaminants.

Now, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
one small vial of pure oil
when fired up lights everything.
Wisdom when it is tended burns pure
burns long burns sure.

We are all in the game –
attaching to the pure
resisting the contaminants lurking
everywhere around us within us.

Bind me to the purifications
separate me from the contaminants –
O God — a heart of purity create in me. [Ps.51:12]

On the third night

an angel came in the form
of a master of Kabbalah
he opened with
Darkness IS Light –

God separated the light from darkness
called light day
and darkness night
And it was evening and it was morning
day one.

In the beginning, darkness and light one,
a single seamless sourced good
then the challenge
subdue the dark
illumine the good
the fearful dialectic.

Light from the luminous essence of darkness –
this the Hanukkah light.

Temple menorah lit by day to illumine the night
Hanukkah menorah
lit by night to reclaim dark –
light from darkness itself

the source of light.

On the fourth night

We remembered the opposing Greeks,
who defiled all the oil except
one small vial of the pure,
uncorrupted oil
shemen tahor
one small vial that when fired up
lit up the entire eight days.

From our prayers –
The miracle of the few
Against the many,

So it is with the quality of light
Wisdom
Light
– when it is tended it burns pure

From the holy Temple in Jerusalem
We
Lit up
– the world.

On the fifth night

Rebbe Nachman appeared
he spoke out of a thatch of black beard

He told this story:
a young man left home traveled to a faraway land
where he learned the art of making menorahs.
When he returned home he went to work.
He worked alone covering the menorah with a large cloth
– even the father had not seen it.

When he was done, he asked his father –
gather together the townspeople in the square.
He unveiled his work
– everyone was silent.
Each one saw a defect
– each a different defect.

The father told his son,
what one person praised another person cursed.
That’s what I learned, said the son,
each defect is in the eyes of the person who sees it.
I fashioned a menorah entirely out of defects,
I made the menorah out of flaws.
Now I will begin its repair.

Rebbe Nachman always giggled when he came to the end of a story.
When you find a flaw, he said,
you find your own flaw.

On the sixth night

a tarnished angel appeared

We fired up the lights, stood staring into the fire.
What’s the miracle?
he asked us.

Light victory power revenge clarity purity
dedication –

Afterwards, he asked for a ride to the Metro Link
and maybe a couple of bucks to get downtown.

What’s the miracle? I asked him back.
Grateful, said the angel
– the miracle is gratitude
find that and you won’t need anything.

You’ll breathe into the souls of your feet
and live as long as you want to.

On the seventh night

We turned to the purity within,
resisting the many contaminants
Lev tahor bara li Elokim,
a heart of purity create in me, O G*d [Ps. 51:12]
we chanted.

We located this wisdom in the language of soul,
With tending, caretaking,
midwifery, it requires our attention –

Oh Hanukkah
we fire up the quality of soul
every year it strengthens
this is the secret
the raza of Hanukkah –

Light up the wisdom within
let it be brought into the world
separate it from the contaminants
care for it in the common
and uncommon methods
of soul tending.

Begin now.

On the eighth night

We stared into the candles

The Temple lit seven
Hanukkah we light eight
all natural cycles given in seven.

Eight –
surrounding the seven
the extra measure set around nature
beyond nature
the eighth lamp
light from darkness itself
darkness as an aspect of light.

It’s all light
all over.

james stone goodman
united states of america

I Love You With All My Broken Heart
A Blessing for the Chag

I was sitting with the truthful linguist, the Gerer, just before he became nifter, er dead, it must have been ‘04, maybe ‘05.

The Sukkah is a chuppah, he opened with, we wedded God on the way out of Egypt. I am the Holy One who marries you, he chanted quoting Leviticus 22, then he chanted the prayer Who spreads out a sukkah of peace over us. The truthful linguist stopped and cocked his head sideways, spreads out means to choose a portion, a part of the whole, he said. God is wholeness itself, and part of wholeness. I dwell with the partial, I dwell with the lowly with the humble, he was singing again, quoting Isaiah 57.

Who is a whole person? He was quoting the Book of Splendor now — me, the one with a broken heart. His voice ascended. Wherever God dwells there is wholeness. God makes whole out of half. Who spreads the sukkah of peace over us? He spread out his arms like he was saying come to poppa.

He was bringing down the idea now to its resting place, his voice settled into a whisper, a low hum heard from one corner of the room to the other.

God sets aside the partial, the inner point that is everywhere, the part that is all. A few of us among the many, the wounded, the sick among the well, the partial among the whole.

He closed with this: Everywhere, everywhere God dwells — is whole.

• From the Sefat Emet Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter,
the rebbe of Ger (near Warsaw)
d. 1905.

Chag: holiday of Sukkot
Sukkah: temporary booth
chuppah: wedding canopy

I Drank Tea For The First Time

After searching the land
For curative, palliative, preventive
Drinkables for health and for pleasure,

I sampled 72 plants a day
Some days poisoning myself
72 times.

On one occasion
I was lying on my back in the brush
Having taken a poisonous plant,

My mouth open and gasping
A potion dripped from a bush
Into my mouth and saved me.

From that plant
We make
Tea.

It restored me
And protects me from all contamination.
I am Emperor Shen-nung.

I was spending some quality time with my hair dresser, walked across the street for a little late lunch, ordered a tuna sandwich with a splurge of those crispy chips and sat in the corner checking my e mail on the free WiFi. I finished the sandwich and within a few minutes I was already suffering the aftershocks in my alimentary canal, having become more sensitive of late than usual. There was an eruption threatening near my imagined duodenum and I was sitting in front of my Facebook wall reminding myself to draw a mental note never to eat tuna sandwich there again. No crispy chips for sure.

I saw him asking the manager to use the phone. The manager pulled out his own cell phone and let him make a call. He was wearing institution-issue clothes, I noticed that first off, gray on gray, big bulky cottons that were much too large for him. His skin sallow against the gray of the uniform, the brown generic cap, I was surprised, delighted, to see him because I had thought he was dead.

My good pal F. and I had discussed him many times. We went back almost thirty years with him, he was newly sober then and F. especially followed him throughout the years, his inability to stay sober, still he kept in touch with F. and I know F. was thinking about him now and then and wondering how he was doing. Every once in a while F. or I had run into him, he was rarely sober, usually living off the public largesse in a group home or some other low rent flop after he had lost everything – wife a long time ago, a kid that kept intermittent contact and would be in college by now. The last time I saw F. we talked about him, and F. or I (can’t remember which) had heard that he was dead. There he was, I noticed the clothes first, then the face, drawn, old for wear, color not good, but it was him.

I was drawing out my own strength over that corrupt tuna and not sure I was up to the encounter with him just then, but when I looked back he had disappeared anyway. I looked around the restaurant, and I didn’t see him. I figured he had walked out, caught a bus, gone. I went right back to my screen, signed on to e mail, and sent F. a message to Minnesota where F. now lives that I just saw him and he was not dead. I knew F. would want to know.

I sent a few more missives and got up to throw my detritus away. I was standing at the waste basket, threw away the paper ware, stacked the plastic tray in its designated place, and at that moment I looked up and just as I did he looked at me from the corner where he was sitting, hard to see him from the corner where I was with my computer, we were both in corners, I saw him as he saw me and the recognition traveled between us and he motioned me over.

Can you come here? He asked.

Hold on, I gotta pack up my stuff.

I went back to my seat and packed up my machine. I sat down at his little table in the corner.

Some small talk, I recognized the old stolid sarcasm that distanced him in life, and some attempt at his form of humor. Then he launched into big talk and told me he was thirty days sober, he was homeless, living in a shelter, hoped to get into the Salvation Army. He was aspiring to enter the Salvation Army shelter. He does not give up.

We talked about how hard it was for him to stay sober over the years, how he hadn’t, and when he didn’t he ended up homeless. His was no polite story. He had off and on contact with his daughter. Still, he perseveres.

There was a table of three women next to him, and almost all the other tables in that part of the restaurant were also occupied. I could hear the three women talking behind me.

They used the word serendipity, he said, gesturing to the group of women behind me. I was eavesdropping, I guess (they were also kind of loud I thought). I don’t think I believe in serendipity, he said, I mean – I talk to God all the time now. I really do, he said, I never did before. You know that. But I don’t think much about serendipity, as a matter of fact, listen to this. Just when they said that word, I asked God something, I said in my own way – show me something. And at that moment, just then, I saw you. Now that’s – not – serendipity.

I didn’t make too much of that in my head, and I didn’t tell him that I saw him before he saw me and didn’t jump up to embrace him, that my stomach was still roiling from lunch, that I first sent off a note to F. telling him he wasn’t dead because both of us had thought he was. I just didn’t say anything.

Can we pray together? He asked me.

Sure.

How do we do it? Who starts?

I’ll start, I said. Let’s close our eyes first and be quiet. Then let me say it. So we did that in the restaurant, I dropped my self consciousness, we closed our eyes and found our silence and when we did I half spoke half sang a prayer about the accompanying angels who we invoke to help us heal, and ended with a request to the Great Healer, I made it up in a new form and then I said, Amen.

When we were done with the prayer, we sat there together in silence for a moment and then said goodbye. I wished him luck or something and we made no plans to meet up again but I was happy he was thirty days sober and what the heck – maybe I’ll bump into him again in another ten years, twenty years, and he will have become, he will have become – who he was supposed to become.

Marlon called me not long after that with a take on a prayer he had made up. I told him I would tell him the story later, this story, so I wrote it out and sent it to him. I sent it to F. too and I read it to myself, several times.

jsg, usa

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story******

On the sixth night,
I asked him –
What’s the miracle?

Grateful, said the angel
– the miracle is gratitude
find that and you won’t need anything.

You’ll breathe into the souls of your feet
and live as long as you want to.

The Very last of the Thanksgiving Suite

Part 1

I was born
In 1896
I sent a message to the future
To my first-born grandson
If he remembers
After I have gone
If I live.

I might have written the message on a scrap piece of paper
With a chewed pencil
Left it for the future in a wooden box.

I might have written the message into a journal
[I didn’t keep a journal]
I might have prayed it in the synagogue
A spiritual creation lurking between the suns
Until the time was
Right
For delivery
[I didn’t pray].

I sent it through the post.

Part 2

Grandfather sent me a message
Into the future
On the night of Thanksgiving
He sent it in the least likely way
He who always tended me well
When I was a boy.

I stood in a doorway on this particular Thanksgiving
And told a story about my Grandfather
And just as I came to the punch line
It was the story how Grandfather had rescued me –

I received a text message
Something for me only he said
He sent it text message.

I was least expecting a message, at all
But a text message was so clever
Long after his departure
His voice returns to me.

I carry his voice with me always,
But this –
The name he called me that was reserved for him
The expression he sent by text which only he said
The way he filled me up when I depleted.

I love you enough, he taught me,
When you are diminished
You may take from me,

I love you enough –
When you are partial
You may fill from me,

I love you that much –
When you feel less
You may draw from me
I am more,

And I have been created to be your grandfather
And you have been created to be
My grandson.

You may live all your lives this way,

Now –
Don’t forget what we are
For each other.
There is no shame in need
To be whole.

jsg
Thanksgiving, 2008

What Turkey-Merchants Want

The turkey-merchant wants to do something right,
thinking –
maybe this can help me.

He wants to be filled up.
The turkey-merchant wants most
to feel significant,
he wants to be remembered as having
lived.

He sees someone bagging groceries at the store
late one night –
there is one grateful man,
thinks the turkey-merchant.

He sees the grocery bagger another night. . .
soon the turkey-merchant goes back to the store
whenever he needs a reminder,
watches the man bag groceries.

One night he feels the opportunity –
I’ve been watching you, says the turkey-merchant,
what makes you so content?

I used to steal from this store
says the grocery bagger,
now I work here –
now I am giving something back.

There is nowhere
I would rather be right now –
than here,

Says the grocery bagger.
He looks at the turkey-merchant to see if he understands
thinking –

Maybe you should be working here.

jsg, usa

Two Thanks-giving Stories

There was a contest on the radio. Write or speak your gratitude on this Thanksgiving. What are you grateful for? the radio announcer asked. Send in your story.

I heard the winners. It was a tie. Two women, one from California, one from Massachusetts.

First, the woman from California spoke. She was a sheep rancher in California. Her father before her worked the ranch. The ranch had been in her family for several generations.

She was, I imagine, a woman in her late forties. Her husband now also worked the ranch, along with her eighty year old father. They all lived right there on the ranch.

She spoke of the difficulties in running such an enterprise these days. The cost of harvesting and processing the wool is for the first time greater than what it can be sold for, in addition to which there has been five years of drought in her area. “There’s dust in everything,” she said, “and the grazing land is parched and cracked,” her flocks thin and diminished, her father old and tired, herself and her husband frustrated.

I waited for the punch line. What was she grateful for on this Thanksgiving? I wondered.

The night before telling her story, she said, it rained. It rained an inch and a half. The dust liquified back into the earth, the earth smoothed and healed off some of its cracks, but this was not the source of her gratitude. Certainly all the difficulties of running a sheep ranch in these days were not solved by an inch and a half of rain. This was a bonus, a sign, perhaps, a clue, but not a solution, not even a temporary one, it may have been a joke: God writes straight with crooked lines. Rain, as if that would make a difference.

What was she grateful for had to do with her tired 80 year old father who has seen so many seasons come and go on the ranch, something to do with herself and her husband working the family ranch scouting the sky week after week, month after month, year after year for rain. It had to do with the shared judgment about their business which is fragile, outdated, bound up with the shared destiny of one family, one plot of land, one generation after another, being in that thing together, the tenderness as she described her father waddling into the farmhouse after a long day of work, and the brave possibility that the ranch would yet turn a profit somehow. Another season. The possibility, the hope of a future, measured not only in rain but in the dignity of these human beings who hope, who imagine it working, again, for the sacred possibility of the future — hope, hope, hope. Hope sustains, everything is possible when you have hope.

The second woman tied for first prize in the radio contest. She was from Massachusetts, a Jewish woman I imagined, from her name, from her brand of humor. She was very funny. About the same age as the other woman, late forties. This was her story: It has been almost a year since he died, she began, and still she hasn’t set up a tombstone for him. It was a marriage no one thought would work — he had been married 3 times previous, she several times herself. Neither looking to get married ever again, they met. Against all advice, against their own better judgment and plans for living, they married anyway. Out of the chaos of two lives and ex-wives and kids and step kids and recriminations they found deep love, love that outlasted the complexities of their lives, and calmed them, tamed them both.

She spoke her story touchingly, funny, sad. A year after they married, he was diagnosed with a terrible cancer, given not much hope for even another year. He lived six, living with cancer, with dignity and joy and living more deeply than ever before because everything was so precious. Every moment.

Now he was gone. She was broke. Public aid in Massachusetts had all but dried up. She had not been able to find full time work, she was substitute teaching in Boston. What was she grateful for? I was waiting to hear.

This: first, many friends. They called her regularly and invited her to meals, she usually declined but loved the invitations. Someone brought over a load of firewood to heat her wood burning stove as winter came on. She was grateful because she had felt her heart unlock to life so freely that it would never close again, the great gift of love that changed her permanently.

The last thing she said: I’m alone, broke, but not unhappy, not in the least afraid. As a matter of fact, I’m rather content, she said, because I believe something, my little way of thinking about things, that may sound wacky but I really believe this –

I think of him as if he has gone away somewhere ahead of me, as if to find the perfect apartment, you know something near a bookstore, where there is a cafe that serves fresh raspberries all year round. He has gone there ahead of me to find the perfect place for us, she said. I am as certain of this as I am of anything: we will meet again, and because I believe this, I am full of gratitude this Thanksgiving, content and not at all afraid of the future. Everything is possible when you believe in something.

These are the two American stories of gratitude that I heard on the radio just before Thanksgiving.

I listened and then I wrote my own tale of gratitude. It had to do, like the ones I had heard, with health, and loving somebody, with what I believe gets me through the long nights, with a vague sense of possibility, that everything is going to be all right, of hope, I suppose, that accompanies all our lives like a sense of something fine arriving from the distance, something good, hope, that’s it.

In the distance, it’s God you are discerning, or nature, or whatever it is you believe in that animates your life. This is what you are hearing bearing down on you:

be grateful, it’s going to work out, somehow –
It’s going to be just fine.

james stone goodman
united states of america