Teshuvah 5774

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.  – Mahatma Gandhi

 

When the world cracks open, there comes a holy sound.

The airy, rasping blast of the shofar. The muffled thud of fist against chest while collective sins are chanted. The whisper of a hundred flames after all the Yizkor candles are lit.

It is the sound of elderly voices singing hymns by heart from wheelchairs. The soft click of rosary beads through fingers. The dry crackle of palm fronds swaying overhead, announcing He Is Risen.

It is the throaty, amplified intonation of the Muslim call to prayer. It is the neverending resonance of a singing bowl, marking time for meditation. It is the sound of Om.

*****

I am on my knees in child’s pose in an unfamiliar yoga studio. The teacher instructs us to chant the sound of Om in this position of deep surrender.

Forehead to the mat, the sound comes from my gut, not uttered outward to the universe, but in the direction of my own folded form. Intimate.

My body receives these vibrations like a secret message being shared. This is what I hear:

This sound is a prayer beyond words. A sacred utterance with echos in every human culture, repeated in every religious tradition. It is the sound our ancestors and our babies made before speech. It is the sound of human longing.

It is the embodied soul’s beseeching of the Divine, of what it means to be separated from Source in this body, in this lifetime. It is our hunger for connection on the deepest level…a visceral yearning for the absolute Oneness that we are at our core.

These vibrations are a sonic bridge, a cellular reflection of my soul’s union with your soul, all souls’ union with the Divine…so intimately connected, even when we find ourselves on our knees in our separate human bodies.

*****

To me, herein lies the power of communal prayer. It’s not about the words. It’s not about the meaning behind the words. It’s about the ways in which the rituals we perform with our bodies and the sounds we make through voice and breath, bring us out of our heads and into a state of returning. This is teshuvah. Where boundaries disappear and we begin to feel less alone. Where we lay down our burdens and become one.

Yes. There is space for you to be here without disappearing. No. You are not separate. Yes. Your vibrations connect you to everything and everyone. No. You are not alone. Yes. Feeling your truth – the pain, the fear, the shame, the nakedness of it – this is the blessing that you are ready to receive.

Today, and every day, may we pray with abandon. May we release what holds us back. May we experience teshuvah. Together, may we make a holy sound.

 

*** Teshuvah is the Hebrew word usually translated as “repentance”, but better translated as “return” and signifies a return to the original state. 5774 is the new year of the Hebrew calendar which begins with Rosh Hashanah. 

 

The Blessing of Interconnectedness

“The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms.”

~ Lao Tzu

Exhibit A
This quote from physicist and string theorist S. James Gates, speaking lyrically about the how new scientific discoveries are named:

In many cultures, the act of naming is regarded as a very, very powerful thing. And for us, the naming represents a celebration of becoming aware of knowing the universe at a different level than we had known before.

I love this. We become aware of another layer of understanding, so we celebrate. Substitute “ourselves” for “the universe”, and the song comes alive in two-part harmony. It is the song of microcosm and macrocosm: the Universe expressing itself as our individual selves, and our personal process of awakening mirrored in growing awareness of the Universe itself.

Exhibit B
This poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

(Book of Hours, I 59)

Exhibit C
In the moments of feeling flooded by terror, I am there. At the outer limits of my longing for connection. In this terribly vulnerable, little-girl state. Inside of heartbreak, inside of aloneness, inside a dangerous landscape of parched earth, high heat, and exposure. Tears fall and words fail. Throat and heart constrict, eyes glaze. I am not in my 40 year old body. I am not my 40 year old self. I am barely in the room.

This is hard to talk or write about, because I am still learning. Learning and trying to remember what I’ve learned, as memory gets tricky when my nervous system goes haywire. What I’ve come to understand is that historical details don’t really matter. What matters is what my body feels, how it reacts, the vise-grip of protection that cannot be reasoned away.

Where I am opening and expanding, I am parcelling out some land for her, on which she can run. That’s what she wants, to pound her feet against the earth, to feel the power in her legs. Then, maybe she will come back, sweaty and sated, and allow me to sit with her while she catches her breath. Maybe she will let me listen to her. Eventually, she will hear me when I say, It’s not your fault. You are safe here. Give me your hand.

Exhibit D

I used to think she made me small. (It often feels that way, it does.)

Instead of small, could the opposite be true? Could it be that I am making bigger shadows for God to move in?

That by turning toward and not away from her terror, I am embodying the Universe becoming aware of itself on a different level?

Isn’t the mere knowledge of her a beautiful reason to celebrate?