On my knees. In one hand, a little brush and in the other a dustpan. Picking up crumbs of food from the floor and humming a prayer for the removal of life’s obstacles. Everyone needs a prayer like that. When our eyes met, I felt like he was searching for something in my eyes. I doubt if he could see behind the mask. I doubt if I wanted anyone to see.
High waves. She doesn’t know how to swim but she gets in the water with me anyway. Brave. It’s easier in the water. Our bodies float, and we submerge ourselves in conversation. She has been through a lot over the last few years. Her heart has been broken time after time. The illness was an accurate mirror of her soul. Now she is here. Determined to put her choices in life into action. With sanity. Love. She mentions him in question. I shrug and here he is, approaching us. The two of us laugh and I think to myself how intuitive she is and how wise. If only she knew. His gaze is on the horizon as he stands at the edge of the water. As if he’s listening. I seemed to hear something.
Don’t help him, let him do it by himself. He is a big boy. I agree with this voice. I am also not sure if and how I might help him. I sure can’t help someone who doesn’t want it or wants help but is afraid. And I see him. Here he is, peeking over his shoulder in my direction. Here he is waving to me in a happy and embarrassed hello. Bumping into one another on the path. And that time when he stood behind me so quietly. I was busy with something and didn’t notice, until I felt him smiling from behind my back. I gathered my things and fled. Yes, I have a tendency to flee. I think he knows.
Two days before he went up to the Torah, the rabbi asked Guli: “If God were to give you three wishes, what would you wish for?”
Guli replied immediately:
“That I will feel good, I mean, that I will feel good and so will those close to me.
That I won’t be alone
and that I will hear when God speaks to me.”
At the height of our celebration at home, with our closest friends and family, I heard myself tell him, and everybody: All the answers are inside you, my love. Just go from the end to the beginning. God is inside you. And when it is quiet, you can hear Him. When you hear God (or any other name would give to the great, motivating power), you don’t feel alone. And when you don’t feel alone, you feel much better.
Explain. Quiet is created from the pureness of the consciousness and the heart. We learn to gradually quieten our consciousness through focusing. Thinking of one thing and slowly releasing it. Emotion is a little harder to quieten. It speaks in a language that isn’t logical and demands recognition of its independent existence. If we don’t acknowledge it, it’ll make trouble. So what do we do? First, we declare its existence: “I am emotion, my emotions are part of me.” Gradually we learn to distinguish the entire rainbow of emotions as they arise. We put all the relevant vocabulary back into use (joy, sadness, satisfaction, frustration, embarrassment, pride, pain, anger and more). When the emotion feels sure of its place, it calms down. And then, communication improves. We have created balance and quietude.
This is the quiet that enables one to hear better. To hear the God that is inside of us too. When we understand that God is inside of us, and hear Him, we can see Him and ourselves in others as well. From here, the understanding grows that we are all one living human tapestry. That the borders between you and me don’t really exist. This understanding opens the heart a little more, and a little more. We experience empathy and love. And when we experience love, we don’t just feel good, we soar with it. Love is our true nature. This is what the yogis teach. Emotion is the bird of the soul. When we let it be itself, it grows us our wings.
A tiny swift lay on the ground in my back yard. When I approached, fear stirred her wings and she stood herself up at the base of a palm tree stump. Her head leaned to the side and her beak was wide open. I went in the house and came back out with a syringe full of water. I placed drop after drop on the edge of her beak. Hypnotized, I gazed at the drops of water flowing into her wide-open beak. A few moments later, she straightened her head. She seemed to be gaining strength. Suddenly she spread her wings and flew high over the fence. My heart soared with her into the sky. Ecstatic.
A realization. It’s the nature of love. Say you find a treasure that can have others thrown high into the sky, and it’s in your hand. Do you keep it for yourself? If so, continue trying to open your heart…you have not yet experienced love. Love keeps nothing to itself. It distributes every crumb of happiness and every bit of information with whoever opens their mouths around it. Yes. No crumb will enter a tightly closed mouth. From this insight, Rega[1] was born. I didn’t disappear, I was on maternity leave, more present than ever.
2.8.17
Tel Aviv
[1] Rega Association (Non-Profit) (rega means “moment”) was established to provide accessible tools (yoga, guided meditation and other arts that have collected over the years of practice, research, etc.) to all groups in society. Because everyone deserves to breathe, to relax and to soar. We will be going out to teach various groups. All you need to do you know already – simply open your mouths. Soon.
