Our bodies were made for moving - walking, running, stretching. And our minds/souls were made for creativity. For me, remembering these gifts, and the soul-freedom that comes from them, doesn't always come freely.
I haven't written a blog post in two months. I started one, shortly after my mother's April heart attack, but I let "life" get in the way. I continue to write in my journal everyday, forcing myself to "stay unblocked," but quite obviously pushing myself some days to keep the flow going.
In this two months, though, I have relearned the power of walking. It helps that warm weather has returned, and that I've been spurred on by teachers.
Today, half a mile into my two mile walk I remembered beautiful things from this morning. A mile in, I remembered how critical walking is. This is what happens when I walk, especially when I walk alone or in companionable quite: My mind opens, my thoughts loosen up as my arms and legs limber, and I start to write - in my head, and something on whatever paper or device I can grab.
This week's Torah reading, about the death of Korach and his followers, is full of the kind of blindness that gets me in trouble. I stop paying attention to the gifts I have - or I stop using them - and I try to force tight ideas into unreceiving spaces.
There is a redeeming note in the story if Korach. "Once [things] have been used for offering to the Lord, they have become sacred." And ever more shall be so.
A colleague this week reminded me to listen to my gut feelings - not to try to force myself into a particular situation that just didn't feel right. Wisdom for Korach. Wisdom for all of us.
And from that reminder, along with another friend's about the gift of my writing and the above words from Torah, I am trying to connect to the sacred, trying not to let "life" get in the way of living - walking and writing and telling stories of the things that move me spiritually. Like teaching my son this morning to communicate with a caged bird by bobbing and nodding and tilting our heads the way the bird does, and being amazed that it actually calmed the bird, and my son. I almost forgot about that, until half a mile into my solo walk this afternoon. Thank G-d for this body and all the life and sacred, creative energy that flows through it.
