"I've looked at clouds from both sides now, and still somehow, it's cloud's illusions I recall."
This is what I had started to write when the news started to come in. From SCOTUS, decisions that raise corporations above people (by the corporations for the corporations, rather than by the people for the people) a decisions that will have wide ranging and log term reverberations.
From Israel - three kidnapped boys found murdered. Cries of revenge. An Arab boy murdered. Soldiers announcing rogue retaliations. Rockets flying this way and that. Desires to build new settlements and name them after the dead Israeli Jewish boys.
And counterbalances: to SCOTUS, the dissent and the outcry makes me think that in the long run we might just beat this; from Israel, peaceful words and hopeful desires, from the families of the murdered boys and not just from the usual peace organizations.
And because of this, I know that we still merit to dance with the clouds.
Today, I witnessed such dancing - of clouds and of humans - when my son pointed skyward and said "hippopotamus!" He brought be back to awe and wonder.
He also brings me back to fear and heartbreak. Because of him, I am much more empathetic to (and more likely to want to tune out from) the kinds of things I mentioned above. My son could be targeted because of his religion: from American laws that protect corporate religious affiliation over personal (religious or otherwise) beliefs and choices; because he is Jewish, and someone here or abroad decides to take revenge or use a child to push a violent political agenda (he because he is Jewish - but clearly the other side must be wary, as well).
Forgive me if I vacillate, then, between hope and joy and awe on the one hand, and fear and uncertainty and utter sadness on the other.
But permit me to end where I began - with cloud dancing. Because I first began to think of this blog topic a month ago, when I was in the city I most want to live in, visiting family and looking for work. From the airplane window, I saw clouds dancing. I saw them morphing and swaying and growing and dissipating. I saw them responding to breezes and winds, to shadows and light, and to each other. And in the dancing of the clouds, I saw great hope: that something so tangible, so real, could also be so open to becoming something different - a different shape; a raindrop, snowflake, or finer vapor; tall and thin, light and fluffy, dark and brooding.
I aspire to cloud dancing - to moving through life as a cloud, open to that which will invariably change me, and offering where I will invariably create change.
Thanks in part to those clouds and their dancing, and in part to the support of some magnificent people, I am in the process of moving to that place I want to live. I will be near family, and I will be working with people I am very excited to work with. I offer myself to the teachings of this transition and of the new work and of the new people who are coming into my life - to the ways they will change me and the ways I will change them.
Today, I witnessed such dancing - of clouds and of humans - when my son pointed skyward and said "hippopotamus!" He brought be back to awe and wonder.
He also brings me back to fear and heartbreak. Because of him, I am much more empathetic to (and more likely to want to tune out from) the kinds of things I mentioned above. My son could be targeted because of his religion: from American laws that protect corporate religious affiliation over personal (religious or otherwise) beliefs and choices; because he is Jewish, and someone here or abroad decides to take revenge or use a child to push a violent political agenda (he because he is Jewish - but clearly the other side must be wary, as well).
Forgive me if I vacillate, then, between hope and joy and awe on the one hand, and fear and uncertainty and utter sadness on the other.
But permit me to end where I began - with cloud dancing. Because I first began to think of this blog topic a month ago, when I was in the city I most want to live in, visiting family and looking for work. From the airplane window, I saw clouds dancing. I saw them morphing and swaying and growing and dissipating. I saw them responding to breezes and winds, to shadows and light, and to each other. And in the dancing of the clouds, I saw great hope: that something so tangible, so real, could also be so open to becoming something different - a different shape; a raindrop, snowflake, or finer vapor; tall and thin, light and fluffy, dark and brooding.
I aspire to cloud dancing - to moving through life as a cloud, open to that which will invariably change me, and offering where I will invariably create change.
Thanks in part to those clouds and their dancing, and in part to the support of some magnificent people, I am in the process of moving to that place I want to live. I will be near family, and I will be working with people I am very excited to work with. I offer myself to the teachings of this transition and of the new work and of the new people who are coming into my life - to the ways they will change me and the ways I will change them.
May I merit to dance - with all of my family, our friends, and the clouds.
Addendum: today, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi died. I did not ever meet him, though surely I could have had I tried only a little bit, and I regret that I did not make the effort. He was a teacher and an influence to many of my teachers, and in that way to me. I take this opportunity to add to my above words because the whole idea of dancing with clouds is related to both seizing and creating opportunity, and reaching for dreams. May Reb Zalman's memory be a blessing - and may I yet learn from him.
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