gypt. “Tell me,” she stood in front of me so cute in her shorts and yellow shirt. “Tell me about Egypt.” I close my eyes as if to show her, and say briefly, “Egypt is inside of us.” She rolls her eyes, laughing, youthful and free, contemptuous of the lack of logic in the words. I hear her and say, “Egypt is completely within us.” A spark of understanding. She’ll make a movie out of it.
Here. I didn’t want to come, I explain. I never wanted to. I thought the time wasn’t right, but she begged me. And now, he asks, you are here? I nod. It isn’t sufficient for him, and he insists, “If you are here, declare, “Here I am.” Music is heard, and a pleasant energy flow begins to rise from my sitting bones to the inside of my pelvis, climbing resolutely through my solar plexus, washing my heart. When it reaches my throat, I hear it say: “No need for words, look, I am completely present”. Rising and breaking through the top of my head, unifying with everything. For one long moment, I am one with the wind. I never stay, the wind says. Arrive, touch and leave. It sounds just like me. And I’m not even sure which of us is speaking.
Staff. My hands are not connected to my body. It sounds strange, and it’s okay if you don’t believe me. That’s just the way it is. They have a life of their own. I have learned to release them to touch, to breath, to learn and to fix. My pharaoh’s head is still learning love, and his criticism weighs on the words that come out of my mouth, as if I were chewing hot coals. There is a moment like this in every exodus from Egypt, where it seems nothing could get worse…it’s the time to raise one’s hands high, over one’s head, holding one’s staff at both ends. To beseech the God within to set Pharaoh in his place. And then to begin walking barefoot, fearless, towards the sea.
To the sea. I began this journey towards the sea alone. My bare feet leave marks on the ground. Walking without stopping, even in sleep. I have become so used to walking alone that I feel alone even when people are around me. I found the ocean one day, resting between my pelvic walls. Stormy, calm, contrasting currents, life and death…everything was there. Little by little I got to know it, to contain me within it, to interpret its signs. One day I suddenly saw the entire ocean as pairs of opposites. I could see myself containing and encompassing it, and crossing it in ruins, or, more correctly, in heavenly peace.
Independence. I am afraid to hear what you wish to say, little bird. You fly so high, out of my field of vision. How will Pharaoh Mommy not worry? There is a great deal of pain in love. I carry ours in my hip joints. Build a pyramid. “In sorrow shall you shall bear children”. I hadn’t always understood. It isn’t just childbirth in the physical sense. It’s multi-dimensional in space and time. It would be better to say: “In sorrow shall you release your children to fly in the domain of life again and again and again.” It always begins with the physical separation when one becomes two. I have been slowly learning since then. Teaching myself about me and about you. Enabling us to also see how frustration and sorrow feels, how hatred and disappointment feels. Respecting the choice to explore pain in depth. Today I know, the path to freedom is paved with good intentions, but also with exhausting choices, frustration, sadness, disappointment, hatred and pain. All these and more.
Butterfly. Can I leave Egypt without gathering all the pair of opposites together? He looks out from a wrinkled face, and a question mark appears in the pools that are his eyes. I lie on the ground that I am, smile at him in faith: What is the point in gather what is already gathered inside? Keep on going, barefoot and fearless through Egypt and another Egypt and another Egypt…it will come out in the end.
Niti 07.20.18
Tel Aviv
