Tonight begins Rosh Chodesh Elul, which is the month before the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. I love Elul. Elul has a distinctive smell to it. Sometimes it's the smell of fall, of leaves, the smell of seasons changing. I start to feel hopeful as we move away from summer death. I hate summer death. Elul brings hope.
And every year I think to myself that I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna do the holidays right. I'm gonna find a place (a shul) that feels like home. I have good memories of the Covid days when I tuned in to livestreams for the services, which are hours long. And I have good memories of my Iowa days when I first heard certain tunes for certain prayers that I can't ever get out of my head. When I hear them now I feel what I cannot put into words. A feeling of holiness? A feeling that I've known since my earliest days, childhood memories of sitting with my mother in shul and hearing the Torah being read and the voices of sacred words swirling around us.
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And today we had a New Moon eclipse -- 12th House for me -- and we've got another one in a couple weeks, a Full Moon. Eclipse season is known for its chaos-bringing properties and questions that may alarm us: how have we been living? What are we to do now? What is this crossroads?
It's interesting to me that this year their timelines cross. I have no conclusions about this. Just noting it.
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I started this blog post last night. Hours later I come back to finish it. I've spent the day indoors doing what needed to be done and now evening is close by. What is your current crossroads? Where are you standing? Where are you waiting? What needs to be done?
And if those questions are too intense, too urgent, then never mind. Just know we are entering a season of refuge and mercy. "The quality of mercy is not strained."
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Coming up next is the Full Moon eclipse. August 28th (Eastern time) and the early degrees (4/5) of Pisces. Pisces is associated with both Jupiter and Neptune. It knows no bounds. Whatever ends will be a true end. It will go on forever. "For dust you are, and to dust you will return."
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Last words for now from poet James Wright:
I see you now, out of the woods of the past/Moving through the tall grass/Toward the open light
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To be continued!
xo
