Let it Flow

According to one of my horoscopes, today I am supposed to have some very strong psychic powers. But, according to another one, I might doubt everything today.  I admit to my addiction for looking at horoscopes. I mean, I would love for there to be some true guidance from the universe. I often joke that I want to see an arrow in the side pointing in my next direction. But it’s not really a joke. I mean, I am trying to be open to whatever is percolating out their for my life. But ambiguity is definitely not easy. And if there are supposed to be signs, how do you know if you haven’t missed one, or misinterpreted one? Some days I truly trust and have faith, and then others I feel hopeless. I guess that’s only human.  Humans want to have some control over the universe (that’s why we’ve put ourselves into so many predicaments). Is that what makes us human? I want to let go of that need for control and live in a time of trusting that the energy around me is working towards helping me find something good.  I also know that I need to make some positive assertions to help that along. So here goes:

• Nathan will get the job offer we are waiting for, so we will know where we are going to move in the fall.
• Our house will sell within the next month, so that we have money to move and can pay down some debt.
• I will figure out a way to make all of my dreams and goals come true including: publishing my book, becoming an arts advocate, and starting my own business.
• Sarah will be happy, healthy, and thrive in our new home.
• Nathan will be able to start puppeteering (or at least building puppets) and creating that career.
• I will find a group of friends who welcome me and become very close.
• I will stay in touch with the friends that I have now.

Is this letting it flow or visualizing? I think it is both, I’m working on having faith that things will happen, but I also need to ask for what I want. In this way, the universe will let it manifest. I truly believe that.

Thanks for listening.

Windstorm Mindblow

 

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The weather is crazy here today. The wind is blowing non-stop. Clouds of whitish looking dust loom like someone exploded open a  bag of flour. The dust lands nowhere, it hovers in the air. Fine particles that can barely be sen or felt, but you know they are there. Eyes water. Breathing strains. Head fills with a mysterious clogging of gunk.

I can’t help but feel that the outer weather is reflecting my mind. I know, the world does not revolve around me. But the chaos inside and the chaos outside are mirror images of each other.  I wonder if one is caused by the other?

Muddle-headed Meanderings

I cannot wake up today.

Maybe it is because today is the first official day of my unknown future.

Maybe it is because my sleep lately has been an adventure (as can be seen by previous posts).

I want to be awake and tackle the new world with focus and enthusiasm. Instead I find myself babbling on a blog and feeling unmotivated by food.

I guess it is okay to allow myself this time as long as it doesn’t turn into a lifetime.

Dream Madness

Visiting my daughter’s teacher at her home, she seems to own many exotic creatures, including a giant gorilla. She leaves us at her house and a mystical vortex opens up sucking Nathan in and morphing him into some kind of ape-like creature.

Waiting to board an airplane that is being held up because Mike Ditka [don't ask me] is insisting on his choice of seats. I finally argue that they have to let the rest of us board. We go out to the tarmac, only to discover that in order to get to the plane we have to get on an old bus. Somehow the bus gets pushed into a huge puddle of muddy water that covers the whole thing. All of the passengers get together to push the bus out of the puddle. Then, the bus driver takes off. Some of the passengers manage to jump on the back of the bus (which has now turned into a kind of bus/flat-bed truck combo thing) but a group of us are left behind running after the bus. The bus races around a curve that brings it around to the road below us, at the bottom of the hill. It seems the fastest way to catch it is for our group to slide down this giant drain pipe into a murky swamp below, which we promptly do. I speed down the open pipe until it reaches a point where it closes. Being a little claustrophobic, I climb to the top of the closed pipe and continue my slide until I splash down below and race to the road.

The scene changes. My sister and I have a little shop (more like a stand) right on the edge of a river. Literally on the edge. You can jump from the open front of the shop into the water. A family comes to look at our wares, and then goes up river for a boat ride. A while later, I see the children floating on a raft, the parents nowhere to be seen. I dive into the water to check on the kids. The river isn’t natural, it is more like a long, flowing swimming pool that continues for miles. The kids are all right, so I swim back to the shop and notice that you can’t tell what we are selling. I climb out and get into a debate with my sister about creating a better sign that can be seen from the river.

And the dreams continue . . .

Invention of Self

There’s nothing like the attempt at reinventing yourself and restructuring your life to make you really look at who you are and what you have accomplished. I recognize my accomplishments as many, and yet I still strive for something that I cannot quite see. Some people call it your “bliss” some people call it your “passion”. I’m not sure what I call it. That dream that is just beyond the horizon, in a place I cannot see. I hope that, when I look back on my life from the other side, that I feel a true sense of accomplishment. But, more importantly, I hope that I have left something worthy in this world. I don’t need to be famous or even recognized, but I do need to feel that in some way I made a difference.

That is the me I want to become.

In Search of Faith

 

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Questions without answers

burn in the flame

of the Havdalah candles.

Twisted wax of blue and white

drip to the end of the Sabbath

sung out with the strum of a guitar

but my questions remain.

What does it mean to be a Jew?

Racial history of a tribal people

etched into stone

and into the flesh of an arm.

Pain of rejection

and loneliness

as you fast,

light candles,

eat special food off of pink glass plates

learn a language nobody speaks

celebrate holidays nobody knows.

Christmas carols come from other homes

but our menorah plays

Ma ozur Y’shu a ti

eight candles flickering flames

of pride

announce to all

“Jews live here.”

Always a symbol of difference

the yellow star

the pointed hat

the tallis.

But that was years ago.

My search continues.

A search that started on a cool spring night

running with friends to find

Elijah.

He never came.

We never found him.

I chanted to the memory of grandparents lost

on the bima of adulthood.

I became a woman

through the words of my haftorah

but they took on more meaning the following year

asked to repeat my performance

with no ceremony attached.

I sang with pride.

Where did my pride go?

Rejected by my community when we could not pay;

rejected by a Rabbi who could not see the value

of a star and a cross printed on the same t-shirt,

not on top of each other

but reflecting the value of

differing beliefs.

The circle of equality in difference.

Was I still a Jew?

Judaism rediscovered in the middle of Japan

a Passover celebration with Israelis

bonded by a ceremony

a language

a song.

Rejoicing over non-kosher food

and a smoke that brought us closer to heaven

floating from spirituality

and community.

Am I still part of that community?

Being a Jew is

contradiction

confliction

reality

confusion.

It is kinship and isolation.

It is daunting and authentic

It is who I am.

I am a Jew

but I am also a Buddhist.

I am a Hindu.

I am a Wicca.

I am all religions and I am no religion.

I am belief and disbelief.

I search for answers

in a world of prayer and ceremony

in spirituality that feels

beyond my grasp.

I want to dance in glory

a circle of holiness and faith,

celebrate love and essence,

rejoice in community.

I want to honor both earth and spirit.

I am Apache

I am rebel.

I am black.

I am white.

I am outsider.

I am Jew

I am lost.

I am found.

Connections

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I remember a woman wilting in line, wondering when her prescription would be filled.  The man on the bus home, with words of honey, captured a piece of me and took it with him.  The Russian women, wild orchids in Bali, offered me words to adventure with.  The cherry blossoms of Japan shared laughter and tears.  A new driver, I watched in sadness and frustration as a boy’s skull broke like a pomegranate, hit by a car I could not catch.  Growing milkweed girls gave me gifts of disgusting bits of goo.  Mrs. Sekler, who shared her special story with me alone, revealed the numerical tattoo fading on her arm, like the remnants of a vicious wasp attack.  The clinging vine I stopped calling because I became a snob taught me humility.  A group of five roommates struggled to survive and create, living like ants in an anthill.  My Canadian friend, another seed on the wind, is my lifeline to the world.  And I recall the little dog, attached to me like a burr, who had an overnight adventure.

Did I give them anything in return?  Have I nurtured and fed?  Have I harmed and destroyed?  Are some hoping to be in my garden?  Do others simply want to be free?

Lines of energy, purple as the landing strips in geraniums guiding bees to nectar, connect all, past and present.  Thick lines are strongest.  Thin lines stretch into the distance, never breaking.  If I could see them from the universe, would the earth become a spider’s web stretching from people I’ve touched to people they’ve touched to people . . .?

Lisa A. Kramer, 8/27/2005

Thoughts on Earth Day, Kids Plays and other Craziness

 

Image by Images by John 'K' via Flickr

 

I’ve spent the past few weeks helping my daughter’s 1st grade class create an Earth Day play that they will perform today. I think they are doing a great job, if I do say so myself.  They wrote the play themselves, of course. So on stage this afternoon we have: star wars fighters (who trash the earth); Sleeping Beauty, Belle, a kitten, The Little Mermaid, the Nutcracker, Scooby Doo, a pirate, Bambi, Santa, Rudolph, a teacher, the Gingerbread Girl, and the Wizard of Oz. I think that is everyone. While they felt the need to create characters that already existed, during this process the kids imaginations soared. If I had a budget of thousands we would have had an actual spaceship that crashed, a full-fledged pirate ship (we do have a mini one), trash falling from the sky throughout, ocean on the floor, and actual light sabers. But, as it is, we have kids doing a really good job showing characters and telling an important story about taking care of the earth. Yes, they have to step forward to speak (it is the only way we can hear them) and some of them fidget on stage (the trash is irresistable) but overall they’ve learned so many things.  Every time I do something like this and see the wonderful things that can happen my passion for arts advocacy and my desire to keep drama in the schools grow.  It is a crazy job, but I love to do it.

Another Reason to Strengthen Gun Laws

This has been a strange year for me. I’ve gotten to know a lot of people who are pro-hunting, pro-guns, pro-war. They have influenced my thought process, and made me see things as much more complicated than I thought. But then, the tragic death of a 3rd grader from Cassidy Elementary in Louisville, KY brings things into clarity again. This is a death that should not have happened. He was a little boy, and he and is sibling who was in kindergarten decided to play with a gun in the garage. Why did they have access to that gun in the first place? I understand that we have the right to bear arms, but when that right makes guns accessible to children, hasn’t it gone too far? I am saddened by this incident in indescribably ways. I wish we lived in a world where the only weapons were words.

My Computer and Me

Call me crazy, but I am now thoroughly convinced that my computer can sense my emotions. I was just chatting with a friend on Facebook, and started venting about something that is annoying me at the moment. The computer, sensing my anger and frustration, chose that moment to have a complete meltdown. Seriously. I have been working on forgiveness and letting go of the anger that seems to boil inside me and makes me unable to move forward. So, by crashing, my computer reminded me that what I was saying was not healthy for me. All right, I know my computer isn’t a sentient being. I am not totally insane. But I do believe emotions can affect your surroundings, and sometimes that effect serves to remind you that you are human. I need to learn how to be calm.