Writing for Healing

Midwifing the Writing

2010-03-10T05:08:00.000-08:00

After a Seminar:

It’s quiet in the room in the seconds before the pens hit page. We’ve just spoken about listening to the rustling of a plastic bag. I rustle the bag. We listen. We speak about the signal that Hashem told King David to listen for before he went out to battle the Philistines. It was a rustling in the leaves of the mulberry trees. When the leaves rustled, then he would know that Hashem was with him, and he could bring forward his troops to engage the enemy.

Aside from the rustling, there is no real subject matter to launch the writing. But no one complains. They didn’t complain at our first meeting when all we gave them was a first line. Now we’re giving them even less. But they trust the process. They're ready to let go of the dock and swim into the open sea. It is vague, but it is exhilarating and wide open. I say, “Just put one word down on the page, and let that word lead to the next, as if you’re holding a rope, and you’re pulling, and you don’t know what’s on the other side.” Will they pull in a camel or a hurricane?

I sit with them in the silence before the damn breaks, and the waters gush forth. We stand on the edge of creation when worlds are being born. I feel like a birthing coach. I help with the breathing. I remind them why we are here—to deliver.

The workshop breathes life into old bones. We are diggers for buried treasures. We are beachcombers, collecting seashells. We are constellations shining in the firmament.

Once their pens hit the paper, and they do without exception, I watch them swim out. I wave to them, but they are too engrossed to notice. It’s a blessed silence. Nothing exists, but the movement of arms stroking through and legs paddling. They will return with a piece of light wrested out of the darkness.

When we go around the room and read out loud our finds, there are no comments. Only what we can’t suppress, a sigh or spontaneous applause. Everything is precious for what it tells us about our journey, what it illuminates, what message it smuggles back from the soul.

Bookshop

2009-06-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

PEELING THE ONION:
Six Days of Writing Your Way to Greater Self-Awareness and Healing

12 page e-booklet, $5.

Do you feel clogged up with undigested material from your life? Are you carrying around boxes and boxes of unsorted experiences, feelings, and anxieties?

Using the information about writing for healing and the six writing catalysts in PEELING THE ONION, you will begin the process of making order in your internal world. You will access aspects of yourself that you had forgotten or never knew you had.

Many studies have shown that writing is a powerful tool for relieving stress. Writing exercises like these have benefited people suffering from arthritis, heart disease, and other serious conditions. It was found that writing about emotional issues not only helped relieve symptoms, but led to long-term improvements.

After just one writing session, you will stand up and feel lighter, more awake to the beauty around you and the blessings in your life.

Varda also has an e-cookbook, BLUEBERRY FIELDS FOR BREAKFAST: A Cooking Companion for Creative Souls.

Much more than a cookbook, BLUEBERRY FIELDS FOR BREAKFAST is a guide for turning your cooking into a medium for self-expression. You’ll learn how to break out of recipes and enter the realm of improvisation and inspiration as your kitchen gets transformed into a creative zone.

From Delight Soup to Birthday Cake, from the blueberry fields on a Maine coastal island to the narrow streets of Jerusalem, this e-cookbook reads like a fascinating memoir of culinary experiences.

Varda is known for unlocking creativity in her virtual writing retreats. Now she turns to the kitchen to show you how to elevate meal preparation into an art form and the act of eating into celebration.
34 pages, $10.

I REMEMBERED IN THE NIGHT YOUR NAME
By Varda Branfman

About finding our way back to places we've never been... Some people have been waiting a long time for this voice.

When the heart overflows with gratitude, then song is the natural response. Varda's essays and poems are essentially songs that celebrate her wonder and thankfulness at finding the answer to her question in the eyes of her children, in the air of Jerusalem, in an unused silver spice box, in the silence of her Old World grandmother.

If there is any darkness in these stories or memories, it is only as a pathway to experience the light of our higher selves. It is all one tapestry of light whether she is swimming in a glacial lake, saying Psalms in an old Jerusalem synagogue under threat of war, or witnessing the breathtaking dance of a 70 year-old grandmother at a Jewish wedding. She holds out the possibility of an exhilarating wakefulness – “Make yourself a shore/Hold nothing back” – and she shares a vision of the peace and wholeness to be found in returning to our higher selves.

$20 including shipping. Paperback.

THE HIDDEN WORLD
By Yaakov and Varda Branfman

$17, including postage. Paperback.

Challenge, Adventure, and Pleasure in Giving.

A Gentle, Effective Way to Remove Writing Blocks

2009-01-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

(For a full description of the Virtual Writing Retreat, scroll down to July 30, '08)

Every writer comes up against writing blocks in the course of time. You may feel that the writing blocks are insurmountable as they effectively stop you from continuing to develop your creative projects.

One way to remove a block is to acknowledge it and honor what it has come to tell you. Instead of railing against it and hoping against hope that it will disappear, you can approach it as if it were a locked door. Imagine that door; picture it. With a prayer in your heart that you will succeed in opening it, reach into your pocket and take out a key. Then turn the key in the lock and gently push the door open.

Walk through the door and look around you. Where are you? Is there anyone there with you? Be aware of yourself. Look down at your feet. Are you wearing the shoes you presently wear or are they shoes from your childhood? What memory have you walked into or what imaginary scene? What are you feeling?

You may have walked through the doorway into a situation from your present day life with people whom you know. Ask yourself, “Why am I here? What have I come to see?”

Now take up a pen and paper or sit at your computer and write. Put down one word and watch as the next word comes and the next until you find yourself writing in a stream of consciousness. You may find yourself describing what you found on the other side of that door, or you may find that the door is a catalyst for you to take yourself somewhere else to another time and place.

You may very well find that your writing has become revitalized after the experience of feeling the door in front of you and unlocking it. Hopefully, you will be finding things to say that you’ve never been able to say before in ways that are also new to you. You may realize that the block was standing in your way in order to kick you out of the status quo and the predictable. In the end, it was a blessing in disguise to lead you to new avenues of expression and new frontiers to explore.

Getting Underneath the Pain

2009-01-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

When we are feeling physical pain, our usual response is to try to cover it over with some kind of medication. If we are experiencing emotional pain, then we might want to mask it by drinking, overeating, buying or doing some other activity to totally divert our senses away from the very thing that is crying out to be heard.

Here is an alternative course of action, a healing response rather than something that will only temporarily relieve our pain and distress. Instead of running away from the pain, we will be running towards it.

Ask yourself, ask your soul, and ask G-d: "Where is the pain coming from?"You already have some answers from your childhood, from your boss, from your marriage, from a school principal, from a crabby neighbor, from bureaucracy, from too much chocolate chip ice cream. But more important than all those people and things outside of you is what's inside of you.

Try sitting down with pen and paper or at the computer keyboard. With your eyes closed as you breathe deeply, ask again, “Where is the pain coming from?” What's the root of that pain which is catalyzed by outside forces? Does the neighbor bring up some deep-seated memory of conflicts with parents, judgments by authority figures, or unmet expectations of love or acceptance? Is the ice cream your way of silencing the place inside that is crying out for love and acceptance?

When you really listen to your insides, you may hear some very, very simple answers-- they were there all the time, but you just hadn't heard because there was so much static flying through the air. At the same time that you face the underneath sources of your external pain, the answers to what to do about it will often spring up spontaneously. Your insides know what to do to heal.

The universe is full of answers to questions that we don't bother to ask.

When the pain motivates you to re-unite with your insides, then the pain turns into light. It turns into a flashlight to illuminate your way in the dark. You can be thankful for the pain-- because pain is a sign that you're alive and feeling. You're awake.

Write from the inner landscape where you’ve journeyed. Pick up the pain in your hands and carry yourself through the silence into your vast inner world. Let the pain turn from ache to song, and let your voice rise up and sing.

Catalyst: A Memory that You Don't Remember

2008-12-03T01:53:00.000-08:00

Your writing catalyst is to find a memory that you don’t remember. You’ve got plenty of memories that you replay over and over again in your mind. This time you’ll be fishing in your subconscious for a piece of the past that you don’t really remember.

Maybe you have only a tiny smidgen of it or the thinnest slice, but you’re going to hold on tight and pull the whole thing in.

It’s all there inside of you, only you don’t usually have free access. In relaxing and allowing things to float up without taking conscious control of their direction, you’ll be discovering something in the forgotten past.

You’ve already relaxed, but try relaxing even deeper. Let your mind float on the waters like a rudderless boat. Let your mind float to wherever the current moves it. You can trust and let go. Watch how an image from the past will slowly float up into view.

Like an iceberg, most of it is underwater. Get a sense of its size and shape. Now start writing by letting one word lead you to the next word.

You don’t know where you’re going, but the memory will take you where it needs to go. Be ready for surprises as your writing illuminates a piece of your past.

A Full Description of the Five-Day Virtual Writing Retreat

2008-07-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

About Writing Retreats in General:
Writing retreats are a well-established institution, which are often held in scenic spots all over the world. They are designed around private time for writing and writing workshops for receiving feedback from writing mentors and other participants.The idea sounds great on paper, but the retreats are impractical for many of us who can’t take time off from our work and families. Plus, their cost can be prohibitive since it includes travel and accommodations.
What is a Virtual Retreat:
We want the valuable opportunity to concentrate on our writing under the guidance of an experienced mentor, but how to carve out a space and time for doing the writing and receiving the feedback? In answer to this question, the idea of the virtual writing retreat was born.Since the virtual retreat takes place in cyberspace through e-mail correspondence, it can happen in any place and start at any time. Its main requirement is a commitment of one half to one hour of writing time each day for the duration of the retreat.
How Varda’s Virtual Retreat differs from a writing course:
The retreat is customized, meaning it is designed around the individual’s personal needs and desired focus. There are no standard writing exercises.The first day’s writing catalyst is created to facilitate the exploration and excavation of the area that the participant has mapped out with me. Subsequent writing catalysts depend on the direction the writing is taking so that the participant can go further and deeper.Often, the focus changes as material emerges that was not anticipated.Always the emphasis is on the process unfolding rather than on delivering a certain end product. In this way, each participant experiences the writing as an exhilarating journey into self-discovery.
Scheduling the Virtual Retreat:
The retreats usually begin on a Sunday and go for five consecutive days, but it's fine to being on any day of the week. It’s best to pick a week that has some free time for writing, and it’s ideal to schedule consecutive days because of the obvious benefit of establishing continuity and momentum. However, a participant may not be able to schedule the retreat for five days in a row, and in that case, the times can be flexible.
How the Retreat works:
Before Day One of the virtual retreat, the participant decides on a certain focus, e.g. overcoming a writing block, choosing which way to go at a crossroads in a writing project or in one’s life, healing from a traumatic event or issue, or developing clarity about an emotional, physical, or spiritual challenge. Keep in mind that the focus is not written in stone and can shift dramatically in the course of the retreat. It is simply a way to begin.
I send you a writing catalyst for each day of the retreat to facilitate and guide your writing. These are jump starts rather than assignments, and the participant is always free to take off in the direction he or she wishes to go. After reading through the writing piece that was generated, I respond with suggestions for developing it further. I base my choice of the next catalyst on my experience as a writing mentor in knowing ways to break through to a deeper and more profound awareness of the material. I also rely heavily on my intuitive abilities.During the course of the retreat, participants usually keep up a lively correspondence with me about their self-encounters during the writing, their daunting struggles, and their stunning triumphs.
One participant wrote about her experience on the retreat: “I had fun, honed my writing skills, and touched down on my personal imagery. Varda’s a great wise spirit and guide.”
From another participant who has so far taken the retreat 8 times:“Varda showed me how to gain access to the hidden gifts within. I learned that it’s possible to meet up with and reclaim memories, feelings, attitudes, or situations that had eluded my grip. Varda taught me how to write from the subconscious. If that were the only thing I would have learned on the retreat, It would have been enough. Catalyst after catalyst took me to far off, distant places that existed right inside of the me I longed to know.”
Cost for the Five-Day Retreat: $180.00 or 600 shekels.
For further information the best place to reach me is at vardab@netvision.net.il

A Sample Day of the Five Day Virtual Writing Retreat

2008-06-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

People are often asking me how the virtual retreats work. So I decided to post a sample day from an actual retreat.
First, the individual decides on a focus, which is always flexible, and simply provides a starting point.
In this sample day, "Malka" chose to focus on her ambivalent relationship with her daughter and her desire to increase the love between them.

What I Want to Focus on in the Retreat:

Dear Varda,
This time I want to focus on discovering the language of love - this is a new language for me, as yet unknown. It's a state of being that I am not familiar with.

Much pain in relation to my daughter. I find that when I go out of my way to help her become a mature person, afterwards I get very "stingy" and mean to her and I know it's a way of disconnecting from my storehouse of sadness on the neglect of my childhood in those same areas.

My main goal is to become more loving so I can patiently and lovingly help my daughter and improve our relationship. When it is good, it is very, very good and when it is bad - it is AWFUL

This time I want to focus on discovering the language of love - this is a new language for me, as yet unknown. it's a state of being that I am not familiar with.

Based on Malka's statement of focus, I gave her the following catalyst:

Catalyst for Day One

Malka,
Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Imagine being with Leah and seeing her in front of you. Open your heart and feel the love. Express the love. Just as there are connoisseurs of diamonds who can appreciate every single facet of them, be a connoisseur of your daughter and observe her from every angle. Find the language of your love.

Now imagine yourself at her age. Sit yourself at her age next to Leah in your mind's eye and send love to yourself as well. Appreciate the young Malka. Minister to her wounds. Send her compassion and understanding. See Leah's light and beauty in you at her age. And then see yourself in her. Realize how you are being healed as you love and accept your daughter in all that she is.

You and your daughter are one. Loving her is loving yourself. Loving her is loving you. Can you feel it?

Malka's writing for day one took the form of letters written by various aspects of her inner world. She addresses her resistance to exploring the whole issue of love and then she proceeds to find her own creative ways of overcoming the blocks.

Dear Varda,

Thank you very much for your kindness in taking on this hard job of sending catalysts to match my very own issues. However, I didn’t make it clear from the start that this problem that I have with my daughter and finding ways to love her won’t be possible for me to fix. I let you know that this is my problem, however I should have specified from the start that I cannot find all that love in my heart for every facet of her person. I cannot sit myself next to her and find what to love in me either. There is ice-cold hardness at every turn, there is a problem I have every moment and that problem is this:

i hate myself. it’s the plain truth. I never talk about it or anything, but it’s true. so when you tell me to go ahead and nitpick to find every possible lovely thing about Leah I feel a block, a wall of stone in front of me. I can pretend and try that there is what to love, and I can even believe in my heart of hearts that there is what to love – but the actual action of reviewing all the lovely parts of her is going to be fake.

I know it. I know that I can sit her up and I can admire her. I know that I can scrutinize her and find what to love. There is a lot there. She is a special person. She cares, she wants, she is cute. But what I find such strong resistance to this work that I am inclined to toss this whole idea. I know that I can write and it will be a piece of art, but I don’t think it will work on my insides. I am very, very hardened at this point to this kind of intense, unconditional love. I don’t see what to love in myself, I don’t know what love is, I am not familiar with this word. I am just a foreigner. All I know is what I have lived through, I don’t know what is supposed to happen. I don’t know what there is to love. I just walk through and slip by. I am unnoticed and will never be noticed. I can’t find the love. I am too lazy to work on it. I am unhappy that I have to work so hard to talk about love. I am upset that it is so unnatural for me to love. I recoil when reading the catalyst because I feel I cannot pry open the doors of my heart to Leah’s or to anyone. To anyone I’ve hurt or who have hurt me.

I don’t want to find the love because I am afraid of the feeling. I think that true love is hurtful. I think that finding true love is painful because there is nothing to do with the intensity of the feelings. I am worried about facing a situation I never experienced. I know that I am capable of intense feelings but I am not sure if I ever loved anyone unconditionally and I am fearful about starting this now. I am afraid that if I start on this catalyst and start scrutinizing Leah as if she’s a diamond, I will miss half her goodness, I won’t be able to see her soul in the best possible light. My glasses will be tainted by my own anger and upset and it won’t be giving her the best possible examination. I don’t want to get involved in an art that I am not familiar with.

I don’t want to sit myself up there next to her and just love myself at the same time. I feel like I am a lost case. I tried loving me already and it never penetrated. I tried seeing myself in a sympathetic light and healing from this traumatic period of my life ,. and my whole traumatic life, but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t hit me in a way that really helps me. I feel so down. I am afraid nothing can help. Talking about love won’t work. I don’t know what real love is. I only see people with their deficiencies. I only see people with their faults and shortcomings. I don’t know how to look at people with a good eye. I am forever judging.

I never learned the language of love and I never will.

So says, Inner Coward Malka

To see to it that my wounds are properly bandaged and sacredly visited. To admire and to empathize. To allow for pain and hurt. To understand that healing takes time and only by finding the source of the infection, can it actually take place. By administering gentle doses of love. By affirming the importance of me and my needs. By waiting patiently for health. And by forgiveness. But most of all, by learning the definition of the word – love.

I can learn that. It will be like learning a new language. I love language. And I love the language of love.

Malka continues, now writing to her own inner coward.

Dear Inner Coward Malka,

You are very funny. Almost making me think that you are for real. Why scare me like that? I almost believed you, that you are giving up on yourself. Now, now. Come on, this is no time for joking. I understand that you feel a bit fearful about starting on this journey of feeling and healing and looking for love etc. But please – it’s not a time for such indecent jokes! Do you hear? Please don’t trick me like that again.

I can hold your hand as we go through this process. So Varda took you literally. So she really believed that you wanted to work on loving Leah and yourself. So she gave you a very precise catalyst with all the ways you can figure out how to love both of you. It doesn’t mean you actually have to go sit down and do it word for word. Let’s say you find it hard to love Leah now. Let’s say you don’t even feel like looking at her face right now. Let’s say she is so unappealing to you that you can’t look at her. So. So what will you do now?

Don’t write me a letter saying that this whole thing is impossible and you will never learn the language of love. You have to find your own way around this block. There has to be a way around it. If you truly want to work on it, as you wrote in the first place, you will have to be creative and find a way to do it.

Perhaps you can look at Leah when she was a tiny infant in your hands. Holding her and scrutinizing her when she was a few months old bringing joy and light into your household. Perhaps you can admire her when she was a toddler. Before the day of judgment came upon you, after giving birth to Ezra and becoming a scary Mommy.

Don’t run away or shirk your responsibilities. Don’t think that you can escape your work. You have to take the bull by the horns and take care of it. I am not saying that love is s/t a person neatly takes care of, but I also won’t advocate you loosely letting go and giving up on it entirely.

Malka, I believe in you. I have faith in you. You can do it if you truly want to. Tonight you don’t feel so loving, You are very tired now. Tonight you can dream about what you might find when you look at her w/o her glasses and w/o your glasses. But tomorrow, we’re back to business. No shirking.

Love, Me (Inner Strong Malka)

Another letter from Malka to one of her inner selves.

Hey, Strong Big Talker,

It’s nice of you and all to be so “loving” and “firm” at the same time but you don’t really understand what I am saying, I see. You think it will be so simple and you will just encourage me a little and I’ll go on my own and it will be all drama and fun. But you are in for a big surprise. I have grown old and stubborn. I have grown old and lost all my spontaneity. I have grown old and rusty; I creak at the hinges. I won’t buy your goodwill and nice talk. I am too busy for this. I have no time for niceties. Thank you very much, but you can try peddling your wares elsewhere. I am clear about myself and I am clear about what I can do. I will give it a shot tomorrow but don’t you DARE give me a hard time. I think you strong big talker are more of a judger than anything else. You masquerade as a strong, encouraging, and loving voice but no, you are not. You are still a judger who likes things to be good and right. You aren’t loving one drop.

And that tells me s/t about myself – the voice of love is so tiny, I don’t know if I can be quiet enough to ever hear it. I have a tremendous amount of visceral noise but the one lone tiny voice of love is threatened, deadened, and overpowered by all the inner noise. Especially the judging one. Argh. If to rid myself of Ms. Judge, your Honor, and get myself some love. If to rid myself of constant scrutiny and flattery and drown out the voice of nagging, berating. If only.

Thanks for your help, but no thanks.

From Inner Quiet Malka

Responding to Day One and Catalyst for Day Two

Malka,
Try looking at this foreign country called "Love" from afar. I am not asking you to enter it by force or even to steal yourself across the border in the dead of night. Just climb a tower in your own territory where you feel "at home" and put on your binoculars and take a good long look, a scrutinizing look at this country called "Love" that doesn't give you entry. (And what happened when Ezra was born and you became a scary Mommy? How did that banish you from the Land of Love?)

What you "mustered together" for Day One, by the way, was brilliant. I always appreciate your honesty and feel dazzled by the power and rhythmn of your voice, and in this case, all your voices. When you wrote at the end about the need to get quiet in order to hear the tiny voice that is love, I felt the pang one feels when hearing Truth.

"Coincidentally," I've been working on getting quiet in myself lately and discovered that I could see the wind singing in the trees as their leaves tremble-- which could be a good metaphor for what love is. If you can't get quiet, it's hard to love yourself. If you can get quiet, then it's hard not to love yourself and everyone and everything around you. I wish I had the secret to getting quiet with yourself. It just seems to descend on me like a gift from Above, maybe in response to having dovened for it in some way. In the past it happened in only rare moments, but I'm hoping that it
will come more often.

I think it might have to do with letting go instead of pushing so hard, as in pushing to get ___________(fill in the blank, examples are: money, your child in a certain school, your husband to change a certain way) The trick is to let go but still keep living the life with your family and doing basically what you always do. It's fairly easy to let go when you're in some ashram meditating for half the day and eating raw food.

I hope I haven't digressed too much, but this is all in response to your beautiful comment about the lone tiny voice that is love.

Varda

Take a Virtual Writing Retreat with Varda Branfman

2008-05-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

My virtual writing retreats are designed to develop your writing voice and charter a journey to your inner world. In a virtual retreat, you can immerse yourself in your writing without having to travel away from home and disrupt your daily life.

You’ll receive personalized writing catalysts and my responses to the exercises by e-mail for five consecutive days or one catalyst and my response per week for five consecutive weeks, whichever fits best into your schedule.

Discover how guided writing can be used for gentle healing and transformation, as you explore your internal landscape and tune up your writing.

One participant wrote: “I had fun, honed my writing skills, and touched down on my personal imagery. Varda’s a great, wise spirit and guide.”

And from a woman after completing her sixth retreat: “This past retreat was so, so wonderful. I always marvel how I land up at such a different address than the one I previously imagined I'd be at.”

Please contact me at vardab@netvision.net.il for further information. A short description of how the retreats work was posted here on May 15, '08, and a more detailed description was posted on October 31, '07.

And for a look at my writing and sample writing catalysts, please visit my website, www.carobspring.com.

Nothing is Lost and Nothing is Wrong

2008-05-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

A relief to know that whatever you write goes into building the foundation of what’s coming up. It goes into the site of your constructing. It’s needed, although no one else, and sometimes not even you, know why. But since you can’t build a house in the air, you have to stand it on something, and the area that you stand it on can have the pieces and remnants of other construction attempts and revisions.

You may need to write ten poems in order to get to the eleventh which finally stands on its own without wobbling. It may be so solid because of what it came after, and what’s underneath it on the ground and three feet under the ground. Since every builder in a northern climate knows that the frost line is three feet down in the ground, and if you want to build a house that doesn’t shift and move, you’ve got to pour your foundation down there under.

You don’t fear rejection because you know that you have your own reasons for writing what you write. And you, yourself, will not reject your attempts to “get it,” because they are all feeding into the process of what you trust will finally stand.

How to Get Underneath the Pain

2008-01-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Close your eyes and get quiet. .
Ask yourself, ask your soul, and ask G-d: "Where is the pain coming from?"
You already have some answers from your childhood, from your boss, from your marriage, from a school principal, from a crabby neighbor, from bureaucracy, from too much chocolate chip ice cream. But more important than all those people and things outside of you is what's inside of you.
There are no formulas. This is not a melodrama or a theatre production where you can imagine all kinds of dramatic answers.
When you really listen to your insides, you may hear some very, very simple answers-- they were there all the time, but you just hadn't heard because there was so much static flying through the air.
The universe is full of answers to questions that we don't bother to ask.
When the pain motivates you to re-unite with your insides, then the pain turns into light. It turns into a flashlight to illuminate your way in the dark. You can be thankful for the pain-- because pain is a sign that you're alive and feeling. You're awake.
Pick up the pain in your hands and carry yourself through the silence into your vast inner world. Let the pain turn from ache to song, and let your voice rise up and sing.

2007-12-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

Up On Your Mountaintop - A Writing Catalyst

2007-12-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

I used to imagine climbing in the Himalayas. I had met someone who had taken a trek to that part of the world and and she spoke eloquently about the silence there, the sound of the wind, the complete leaving behind of the world. The going beyond of labels. The going beyond of stuff and need systems. The going beyond of expectation and disappointment. A place to meet your essential self, and where every other concern is irrelevant.

I never made it as far as the Himalayas. On my way there, I found another part of the world where I began climbing spiritual mountains. Thirty years later, I am still climbing. When I finish climbing one mountain, another rears up in front of me.

Reaching the top after a long climb, it’s always worth it. I can see around myself for miles. The deep quiet up there. The wonder of being alone with myself and G-d in a majestic world.

Up there on the mountaintop, there is no one to approve of you or disapprove of you.Up there on the mountaintop, you can see through your own eyes without sponging in the visions that sit in other peoples' eyes. Up there on the mountaintop, you have the luxury of relaxing completely because there is no one to threaten you with an image of who and what you're supposed to be. Up there on the mountaintop, you have the freedom to dream your own dreams.Up there on the mountaintop, you are safe. There's a tree lying on its side. You can sit down with your back up against the log. You can breathe the clear air and look out across to the other mountain peaks. If there arepeople doing what you're doing on those other mountaintops, they are so far away that you can't see them. And they can't see you. You are perfectly alone with G-d. Use your writing to climb up your mountain and sit at the top. What does it feel like to breathe deeply and know that you are safe, completely alone, and invisible to the rest of the world? Do you feel peaceful? If there are nagging thoughts that have followed you up to the top of the mountain, then take them and gently put them into a box that closes securely and send it sliding back down the mountain awayfrom you. What are the weather conditions up on your mountaintop?If it is a clear day, then how far can you see? If there is fog and mist, then what sits revealed to you close by where you can see clearly?

Do you feel discomfort with the intense stillness and the fact that you are completely alone? Can you be patient and see what happens after the initial discomfort begins to wear off? Do you begin to remember what you are carrying inside of you? You contain enough feelings, thoughts, and memories to keep you busy for as long as you choose to stay on your mountaintop. Turn these over in your hands like smooth, richly colored stones you might find in a riverbed.

Or just lie down on your back and look up at the sky, letting your mind wander. If there are clouds, watch them racing across your field of vision. You can write about being on your mountaintop in the form of a poem. You can start each line with the phrase:"On my mountaintop....."On my mountaintop...."On my mountaintop. . .Or choose another phrase to repeat as a refrain. Once you explore your mountaintop you will be able to take it with you wherever you go and in whatever situation you find yourself. It is a place where no one can touch you, where no one take away your inner peace, self-knowing, and experience of G-d’s Presence always being with you. When you climb to your mountaintop, you leave behind all your self-doubt and dwell in peace with yourself just as you are.

Now go to your mountaintop.

Cave

2007-12-02T02:10:00.000-08:00

Caves are wonderful metaphors for going inside. They are cool, protected, secure, womb-like spaces. You can make yourself a cave by putting a blanket over your head and leaving an open space so that you can breathe comfortably and have plenty of oxygen.

Because you want to relax in the cave. You want to relax deeply. Breathe and relax. Let your mind wander. Don’t try to control your thoughts. Let the images and memories surface by themselves. You may be surprised what comes up, but your subconscious knows exactly where you need to go.

You may keep coming back to one specific memory. Now let yourself settle in that memory. Be inside the memory as you sit in your cave. Remember what you saw, what you were wearing, who was with you, what was happening, and what you were feeling. Each detail is a brushstroke that makes the memory more vivid and restores a part of yourself that is tied to that memory.

When you unlock the feelings that are stored, or rather, bound inside that memory, then you reclaim a part of yourself.

Now write the memory with all the vivid details and allow the feelings to speak.

Here is a poem to read after your cave experience. It was inspired by a real-life cave not far from Jerusalem. My husband used to go there on Thursday nights to learn Torah long into the night with a group of friends.

Cave Dwellling

Hood of warm air
easy as pulling the covers over your head.
You leave the clear night and wide open field
to enter cave.

Earth hollowed by
prehistoric yawn.
Cave walls smooth
as the roof of your mouth.

Cave reared up out of the earth
without bulldozing trees and
picking out rocks
or sinking foundations.

You enter into
slumbering earth.
Your entrance doesn't awaken
birds.

Cave exhaling
as you bring in sacred books
to read by candlelight,
turn the axis of reality
before your eyes.

The caves
sheltered whole families
who stayed long after the Romans
left the open fields
and sailed off the edge
of history.

You expect this dwelling
will bring you back,
back before anger,
before regret,
before exile,
back to heartbeat
and simple longing.

Back to the smell of your own skin,
warm, close air
in a womb of earth.
When you speak,
words smooth down
and softly echo back.

The suede of cave tones
erases difference between
faces and ages,
beginnings and endings,
refuge
and flight.

A group of you gather
to read ancient texts,
take turns dozing off,
each sleep joining ancient sleep,
and breath matching breath
of distant stars.

Three Exercises in the Art of Seeing to the Inside

2007-11-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

With Three Writing Catalysts
One - Luminous Object
A luminous object has rich associations when you hold it in your hands. An example of a luminous object is the jewelry box which I salvaged from my mother's house, may her memory be for a blessing. It must be about 80 years old or more by now. I remember holding it as a child and rummaging through all the necklaces, bracelets, rings, and assorted jewelry. It looks Old World, and I always thought it came from the Old Country with my family during the move.
The jewelry box embodies childhood memories, feelings about my mother, my grandmother, my ancestral home. It leads me to reveries about the old mahogany furniture in my parents' bedroom and dreams about hidden money, hidden chocolates, and other hidden goodies. I think my mother actually did squirrel money away in that box.
The box is falling apart, and it sits on my shelf in pieces. The metal filigree sides have disattached themselves from the velvet covered bottom. The satiny cover is so faded that the flowers have disappeared. But more importantly, the box still carries the smell of my mother's perfume.
Writing Catalyst: Think of something you own which is much more than a simple object since it serves as a repository for your memories. Hold it in your mind's eye, and savor its presence. Look at it from all angles. Let it resonate, and listen to the tales it tells.

2 - Your Hands
The act of looking at your hands can take us on a journey inside to our internal world. The hands are your faithful servants. Every line and crease records the work you’ve done, the care you’ve given, the love that you’ve shown, your accomplishments, your hopes and dreams for what you haven't yet accomplished, etc.
Each person's hands are unique. You may have looked at your mother's hands or a close friend's hands, or your husband or wife’s hands before you decided to marry them. What were you able to see in their hands?
Writing Catalyst: Take a few minutes to look at your hands. Turn them over and over in front of you. Look at the palms and the lines that crisscross and intersect. What journeys do you see in your hands? What futures do you see? What memories from the past? Do you appreciate your hands, and if yes, why?
Do you hear your hands crying to tell you something? Listen to the whisperings of your hands as you rest them gently on your cheeks. Feel their warmth. Listen to what they are saying. What are they yearning to do?

3 - The Promise in Your Name
When a child is born, the parents are given a measure of divine inspiration in order to find the name that is already known in Heaven. Therefore, a person's name is far from coincidence or the simple whim of the parents. It is the Jewish custom to pray for a person, using a person's name with the name of his or her mother. The Jewish marriage contract or kesuba is very carefully written with the correct names. One’s name embodies one’s identity in ways that are known, as well as ways that are beyond our knowing.
In looking closely at our own names, we can learn more about ourselves. I enjoy my English name Wendy because it expresses a playful, adventuresome side of me. My Hebrew name Varda is in memory of my Grandfather Velvel. When I was born my father looked through a list of Hebrew names beginning with the letter vav and settled on the name Varda, meaning “rose” in Aramaic.
As a child, I don’t remember knowing my Hebrew name. They called me Tzippora during my summer in kibbutz, since I didn't know I already had a Hebrew name. I found my name when I returned to Israel to study at a women’s yeshiva, but I was mistaken. I called myself Chana Varda. At the last moment, just before my wedding in Denver, my mother stepped forward and corrected the misunderstanding by telling me, and the scribe who was writing the kesuba, that my name was really only Varda.
It took me some time to grow into that name, but over time I found it wrapping itself around me like a perfectly fitted garment.
Writing Catalyst: Think of the stories you were told about your own naming. How have you related to your name over the years? How has your name been a promise you were growing into? Turn your name over and over in your hands as if you were appreciating a luminous object.

Preface to My Upcoming E-Book

2007-11-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

BLUEBERRY FIELDS FOR BREAKFAST
A Cooking Companion for Creative Souls

I divide my mornings between cooking and writing. The carrots may get diced and thrown into a poem, and the poems peeled and tossed into the soup. The trick is how not to burn the rice if I get busy in making that last paragraph of a story just right.

The writing and the cooking benefit from each other—their pathways of creativity intersect, run parallel, and even merge. My writing room is next to the kitchen, and I’m not one to follow strict recipes on either front.

Some might believe that a recipe is engraved in stone, but not so. It goes against the very grain of the creative soul to repeatedly follow directions to the last letter and produce the same success again and again. There has to be some variation, improvement, or twist to make a difference.

We are not only here in the kitchen to prepare supper, we’re also here to taste of innovation and insight, experiment, and play. And take risks as we eagerly wait to see what comes out of the oven and what happens when peppers are added instead of tomatoes. Or when we flick cranberries into the stuffed cabbage.

As one might expect from an unrepentant creative personality, my cookbook is not simply a collection of recipes. It does happen to have a few recipes tucked into personal recollections, reflections, legends, and lore on the subject of cooking and eating. As well as other diversions and a sprinkling of poems. Actually, most of my cookbook is a diversion into other areas where the art of cooking naturally leads—to the art of being grateful, the art of sharing, the art of loving, and the art of celebrating.

This cooking companion roams through my incarnations as daughter of one of the first heath food Moms, as connoisseur of solitary meals in Bar Harbor, Maine, and as chief cook and nurturing presence to my tribe of children and grandchildren in Jerusalem.

It’s been quite a journey from the natural beauty of the Maine Coast where inspiration came built in to the landscape to the spiritual intensity of Jerusalem and the challenge of cooking creatively for a multitude of teenage girls, toddlers, and hungry sons-in-law.

As I form little balls of cookie dough and discover that I can fit six rows this time instead of the usual five or flatten them with a pecan on center instead of using a moistened fork, I am also cooking on my writing and art work. At the end of a row of cookie shapes, I may suddenly discover the inspiration for my next collage or the climax of a story that eluded me when I put my mind squarely in front of the task.

The kitchen transforms into a creative “zone” much like the runner’s zone where solutions can arise effortlessly while washing the dishes or stirring the soup.

My hope is that these creative cooking excursions will lead you to transform your kitchen into a place for relaxation, tranquility, and fun, a fertile ground for breakthrough insights to emerge. And when all that creativity and happiness spill over into the food, it is guaranteed to be more nourishing and taste even better.

Baked Apples

2007-11-07T13:25:00.001-08:00

Flexibility is related to creativity. Some of the greatest discoveries were made when certain unexpected conditions required someone to change course mid-stream. Our first reaction when faced with this seeming bit of adversity is to scream, stamp our feet, and try to breathe deeply.

It’s like finding that all you have is lemons when you were about to make cranberry punch. The creative individual is never daunted. He or she takes the lemons, squeezes them, adds a bit of sugar, and makes lemonade.

There’s a wonderful phrase in the Jewish tradition, and it often comes in handy. It goes: “Also this is for the good.” It Hebrew it’s “Gam zu le tova.” There actually lived a wise man whose name was Nachum Ish Gam Zu who, as tradition goes, originated this phrase since he was always seeing the good in everything that happened to him.

One of the qualities of a creative cook is making the best of what’s at hand. In fact, it can be a creative challenge that you choose to embark on. Instead of jumping in the car and running over to the supermarket to get what’s missing, you make alterations either on your menu or the specific dish you’re making. When your brain starts cooking and you leave yourself open to inspiration, you can stumble on some of the best discoveries of your cooking career.

When you are moving in the direction of simplicity rather than diversification and complexity, there’s a certain beauty that might have been once lost and now reappears. Since we easily get accustomed to thinking in complexities after a certain age, usually around the age of seven, we can’t always return to simplicity on our own.

By that time, we have certain need systems in place, and most of this comes from the society that socializes us into believing, for instance, that something has to be very sweet, include chocolate, and need an electric whipping machine to be worthy of the name “dessert.”

One day, you may discover that you’re about to prepare a dessert, and the only ingredient you’ve got is apples. Or maybe, you have a severe time limitation before those guests will be tumbling through the door. Or maybe the supermarket is closed on Tuesday afternoons from two to four when everyone is taking a siesta, as they do in Israel. And all you have is apples.

It’s the moment of reckoning when simplicity rears its glorious head and you discover that apples, alone, can be dessert. They can be cored, filled with some brown sugar or honey, maybe dates or raisins, maybe walnuts, or whatever you have on hand. Or they can be made simply by washing them, placing them on a baking tray, and sticking them in the oven for an hour.

A baked apple connoisseur will experiment to find which apples taste tart, which are sweet, which are smooth, and which are crunchy even when baked. Since each apple variety has its distinctive flavor and crispness, you can try making several diffent kinds of apples on one baking tray.

A delicious baked apple for dessert is a great reminder that the easiest, the simplest, the cheapest, and the most natural can sometimes be the best.

Breaking the Silence

2007-11-01T03:39:00.000-07:00

BREAKING THE SILENCE:
Meetings With the Jewish Elderly
I think of them as long‑distance runners who have passed more scenery than I can imagine. Now they sit quietly holding it all inside of them-- first-hand experiences of the Russian Revolution and the Nazi Terror, and all the heroic private battles that go with being human. I am newly married and new to Denver. On a threshold. They have passed through all that I am entering.
We gather in the second-floor reception area of the nursing home every Monday afternoon in what I call “writing workshops” because I write down their stories, memories, and philosophical musings. They either sit in wheelchairs or have canes propped up against their chairs. Sometimes they are puzzled by my efforts to record their words, but they perk up just to see the names of their sisters or late husbands immortalized on paper.
Because of their physical weakness and obvious frailty, I feel initially overwhelmed by pity for them and saddened by the thought of old age, but I remind myself that it is all an illusion. My resolve is to make contact with them as individuals, to learn from them, to look beneath the exterior of their physical beings and find them inside, as fully alive as I am..
Chaim left the town of Bialistock in Russia when he was six years old‑ that was in 1890. Whenever I ask him to recall something about his past, he shakes his head: "It's hard to remember. Well, it was only about 90 years ago." At one meeting, we speak about weddings, and Chaim tells me: "I must have been happy under the chuppah, but it was only 75 years ago, so it's hard to tell." Often, he leans forward to catch as much of our discussion as he can. I can tell that he's reached his saturation point when he sits back with his hands folded over his cane, protected by his hearing disability.
Once I asked him what he thought about when he withdrew into the quiet space beyond words. Chaim looked puzzled, so I tried to explain: "Everybody daydreams. You might daydream about your profession, considering all the years you spent at your work."
Immediately, I can sense a bridge going up between us, and Chaim gingerly steps across: "I designed machinery. I never went to school for it, but I always loved to tinker with machines. It started out when I was about 12 years old, and my friend ordered a simple lathe from `The Youth's Companion,' this magazine for kids. He put the lathe in the basement, and we spent more time monkeying around with that lathe."
Chaim's face lights up as he sees how he commands an audience. Everyone is turning towards him to listen; his words are awakening their memories and dreams.
Annie is transported back half a century when she remembers helping out in her mother's fish store. That was on Denver's Westside when there were so many Jewish immigrants that the area was called "Little Jerusalem."
First Annie's mother raised and sold chickens, but the neighbor across the street kept a look‑out and stole most of her customers before they reached the front door. It took a long time to save up the $25 for a fish store license. "Talking about cutting and filleting fish‑‑ I've done that not once or twice, but a million times. On Sundays, when people went fishing at Sloan's Lake and didn't catch anything, it was a great day for us in the fish store."
While she helped in the store, Annie dreamed of becoming a Hebrew teacher. Proudly, Annie tells us that her nephew, the boy she raised when her sister died, is now a rabbi in Montreal.
I can hear Frank stewing about something, and I take the risk of asking him what he thinks of all this. His words fly back at me: "I was an orphan in Russia. I wasn't allowed to dream big dreams. When I started to think about doing something, the World War broke out. Life was cruel to me-‑ the revolution, the civil war, and then the pogroms. A bomb dropped in my backyard and killed my aunt. After that I packed up and went to America."
Edith also came over from Russia, and something in Frank's story reminds her of an incident in her distant past. She recalls how a peasant woman came back to her rural village from a visit to America. The woman wanted to sell a little American dress to Edith's mother, but Edith was out playing when her mother called for her to try it on. "I must have been six years old, and I was out playing too far away to hear my mother's voice. I cried and cried when she told me that I could have had an American dress. Oh, how I cried."
Edith is talking about something that happened to her 80 years ago. It’s refreshing to see her relive the emotions of a six year‑old child and her dazzling dream of America. The story carries us across time and space.
At moments like this, I can easily imagine each one of them as they appeared at different ages in their lives. I can look beyond the dark folds surrounding his eyes to see Cappy as a young man about to be married. Cappy may not get around much now, but he doesn't always feel eighty-six years old and stuck in a nursing home, especially when he tells me, "I'm still in love with my wife, and she's been gone for 25 years."
Annie waxes eloquent when she weaves her tales about the personalities and way of life she knew on the Westside of Denver 50 years ago. She brings to life Channa the Gabiter ( Yiddish for “charity collector”) who went into pool halls with the opening line: "Tramps, giv mere a por cent." Annie remembers those times when "people cared and things were good, because we didn't know better," and Rose nods her head in agreement. Rose lived in Annie's neighborhood, but she lets Annie tell the stories, because she feels more comfortable as a listener: "It was my husband who taught me how to listen."
Besides the fact of their pleasure in sharing memories, these Jewish elderly are the guardians of a valuable record of the first generation Jewish experience in America. Almost without exception, their stories reflect the process of assimilation.
When Edith came to this country to stay with her cousins who had stopped being observant, it was the first time she questioned her strict orthodox belief. At the age of 19, she began a course of self‑education that made her fluent in the English language and literature. Now she is proud that there is only a hint of the Old World in her pronunciation and her beliefs.
I am her natural successor with my degrees in higher education, and if I had chosen to continue on that path, hardly a trace of my Jewishness would have remained. Edith became for me a symbol of the “enlightened” attitude which gave Judaism a bad name and turned away the spiritual seekers of my generation who then looked for G-d in ashrams and Jews for Jesus.
Sometimes we argue. Edith calls it "an antiquated way of life" when I defend my choice to observe Jewish laws and customs. When she expresses her glowing admiration for the "modern" approach, I rush to enumerate its miserable failures.
The battle rages, and the other members of the group quietly wait it out. Because Edith and I are such a good match, they can barely get a word in edgewise. When Edith remarks about "the beautiful flowers and the organ music in our new synagogues," they immediately turn to me and await the counter‑offensive.
However, the lines are not so clearly drawn. When I ask Edith about Shabbos in her mother's house, she can hardly find the words to describe the white tablecloth, the glow of the candles, and the smell of the special foods. In spite of her "modern" views, Edith conjures up the Shabbos in parents’ home like a precious jewel in her safekeeping.
I look around the table at these good Jewish faces. Sometimes I picture how their parents must have looked ‑‑ the same faces full of humor, depth, and character, but distinguishing themselves as Jews by their yarmulkes and tzitzit and the hair coverings of the women. Here are the children who once meant everything to their parents, and in some other real dimension, they are still the children and the hope, even as they turn towards me with their one good ear.
I am inspired by something my Rabbi said to me just the previous week on a Thursday night, as I stood in his kitchen sifting flour in the Rabbi’s kitchen. Suddenly, he called me over to the dining room table where his siddur was open to “The Song of Songs.” He pointed out the word “varda” which is the Aramaic for “rose.” It was in the passage which describes the Jewish People as G-d’s beloved, as “a rose among the thorns.”
When I asked him what it meant to be a rose among thorns, the Rabbi talked about the beauty of acts of kindness. He wasn't answering my question, but he pointed out the way. I began to think of my name as a mysterious point of truth that was beckoning me.
By seeing my name in a new light, I felt that I was making a fresh beginning. Now I wanted my old friends at the nursing home to experience the thrill of beginnings as they recalled how their own Jewish names reflected the hopes their parents had seen in them. I can see their stories flame up in response to mine. Suddenly for all of us, a name is a hidden promise that takes a lifetime to emerge.
First they talk about their own names and then go on to tell stories about how their sisters and brothers were named, and how they named their children. Annie's brother got his name in a mystical way: "My mother had a dream of an old man with a red beard who appeared and said, `You are going to have a son, and I want you to name him after me ‑ Eliahu.' She found out later that the man in the dream was her husband's father.
At this meeting, we know each other by our Jewish names ‑‑ Annie is Channa, Frank is Fishel, Edith is Ittel, Rose is Rachel, and Chaim, and Leiba.
Frank has never before spoken about the death of his only child during the Second World War. I didn't even know he had a son until he tells this story: "A cousin of ours named her son after my son who was killed in the war. Now this baby is a grown man ‑‑ he's a doctor ‑‑ and his name is `Baruch Noach.'” Edith adds, "The main thing is that the beloved person reappears, in some way, with the birth of a child."
Another time, I ask my friends whether or not they remember their dreams when they wake up in morning. It takes them a while to warm up to the subject, and I find myself having to explain why I am so interested in dreams; how they can conjure up fantastic situations with star appearances by people we haven't seen for years.
They seem to be preoccupied with their own thoughts until I read a poem about my father and how he appeared in a dream exactly as he looked during his lifetime, but even more radiant and loving. Edith responds that she never dreams about her husband who died in 1944. However, just recently she had a dream about her cousins in the Old Country, and the dream cleared up a misunderstanding that stayed alive in her mind all these years.
Annie has been smiling for the last few minutes since she heard me read aloud the poem about my father. Very slowly she begins by explaining that this is not an actual dream but something she experiences when she is just about to fall asleep ‑‑ she has the physical sensation of flying like a bird. Annie is almost entirely paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. I can tell that she doesn't expect us to believe her, but she tries to persuade us anyway that she is not simply imagining soaring like a bird, but that she actually feels it in her limbs.
I watch the others as they listen to Annie's dream. They are looking at Annie and realizing that there is a place in her, even when all her vital systems seem to be slowly shutting down — a place of renewal and growth that cannot be touched by her crippling illness.
It’s a moment of triumph. It’s the victory of the human spirit over the forces of bitterness and despair. Annie is shining. Now we are silent from savoring the exhilaration of it, for we are all flying with Annie. We sit in silence for another few moments, but it’s not the usual silence of the elderly in a nursing home. And then we continue on together—laughing, remembering, sharing, and breaking open what was locked inside.
--This is a chapter from my book, "I Remembered in the Night Your Name," presently available through emailing me at Vardab@netvision.net.il

Notes on Going Inside

2007-10-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Notes on Going Inside
You don’t have to travel to Nepal or Nebraska to find yourself, even though sometimes it can be helpful because the actual going and leaving your usual habitat forces you to wake up. The new realities require new responses to your surroundings.
But your “insides,” the interior of your mind-body-soul entity is an even greater frontier. Exploring there is a fantastic opportunity to see, not only the physical world, but the worlds upon worlds beyond. You can go there whenever you want and as often as you want. After spending some time there, you’ll want to be there always in the state of wakefulness and alertness.
The great thing about these explorations is that, unlike traveling to Nepal or Nebraska, you don’t have to leave your house, your family, or your job.
Your insides are a beautiful place after you’ve pushed away the cobwebs. Sometimes it’s been so long since we’ve connected to ourselves inside that it seems that there’s nobody home. When we knock, there’s only the faintest response, a voice that whispers, “Is that really you coming home?’
Go for a walk with yourself or just sit next to the window in a quiet moment. Be aware of your breathing, and focus on the breath reaching down to your solar plexus. Let your mind rest. If a concern or worry pops in, then don’t resist it. Just watch it sit there and slowly fade away.
Take a seashell and imagine being inside. Or look at one of your plants and take note of the new growth that is springing up at the tips of leaves.
If it’s nighttime, go sit on the porch and look at the stars. Let your mind relax. There is nothing you have to think. Let the thoughts come and go. Listen for the sound of different voices.
If you hear a critical voice, let it speak and then die down. You can stay right where you are even when it points the way to dark clouds ahead. Notice how easy it is to simply stay where you are in the face of its insistence.
Usually, a great wave of relaxation will wash over you if you stay put as the voice slowly fades away. Then you may hear a gentle, loving voice. Encourage it to speak on. It may talk to you about the beautiful curve of the seashell or the healing green of the plant. It may tell you to notice how precious your children are, how delicate, how much they need your love and words of encouragement.
The face of one of your children may come into focus. The voice tells you what this child needs to grow in your loving care. Like the plant’s thirst for water, which words will help this child to blossom.
The voice may speak to you about a new direction in your work. It may remind you of your gifts and innovative ways to use them.
Every day is a totally new creation. And every moment brings us to a new threshold. When you tap into your inner voice, you have entered the natural flow of your life. Here there are always chiddushim, which is the Hebrew word for new insights.
The whole of creation is always singing. Every part of creation has its own song. Now you can listen to your own song, the new song that your soul is singing in this moment.
This is not a matter of will power or discipline. It usually happens only when you are relaxed and open to whatever G-d wants to give you in the moment.
You have left your expectations about yourself and what you might be getting at the door. Once inside, you have entered a world of wonder and discovery and peaceful watchfulness.
You have tapped into your inner dialogue. You are dwelling inside. You have pierced the thin veneer of the real world and entered Eternity.
Varda Branfman