Mother {Earth} Day Tribute

To all my mothers as expressed through mother earth - the most fertile and giving mother of them all. These photographs are taken from my travels in Israel. The quotes are from Song of Songs, a beautiful love poem written by King Solomon. According to Kabbala, the secrets of creation and the healing properties of all plants are encoded in this short, sacred, erotic text.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Dedicated to Devorah Willaman, my foundation, my mother
ficus tree grove in She'an Valley

The beams of our houses are cedars; our corridors are cypresses. (1:17)

Dedicated to Eleanor Willaman
rose garden in Jerusalem
As a rose among the thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. (2:2)

Dedicated to Rita Domber
sukka in the grape vinyard at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu
Like the finest apple tree in the orchard is my lover among other young men. I sit in his delightful shade and taste his delicious fruit. (2:3)

Dedicated to Rosanne Guido
flower blooming in Tel Aviv
The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of singing has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. (2:12)

Dedicated to Ruth Domber
fig tree in Bat Ayin
The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming. Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one! (2:13)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Dinah Chinn
tree in the valley of Mt. Meron
My beloved is mine, and I am his, who grazes among the roses. (2:16)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Rivkah Marga Gestetner
date palms along the Mediterranean

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right. (3:5)

Dedicated to Lisa Domber
green at the feet of the Judaen desert
Who is this young woman coming up from the wilderness like clouds of smoke? She is perfumed with myrrh and incense made from the merchants' scented powders. (3:6)

Dedicated to Karen Willaman
flower in the Carmel forest
Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; Henna with spikenard plants. (4:13)

Dedicated to Sarah Zadok
sacred desert well in Kibbutz Ketura
You are a fountain of gardens, a spring of living waters, and flowing waters from Lebanon. (4:15)

Dedicated to the beautiful women at B'erot
wheat field in the Hula Valley
Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out; let my beloved come to his garden and eat his sweet fruit. (4:16)

Dedicated to my Mayanot sisters
royal purple flower in the foothills surrounding Jerusalem
I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; to take my myrrh with my spice; my wax with my honey; my wine with my milk. Take meat, O friends; take wine, yes, be overcome with love. (5:1)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Chaya Levinger
vase of almond blossoms in Tzur Hadassah

His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. (5:13)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Chana Silberstein
caper flower in the Golan Heights
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, who grazes among the roses. (6:3)

Dedicated to Shirley Domber
zucchini in the Bat Ayin vegetable garden
I went down to the nut garden to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine had blossomed, the pomegranates were in bloom. (6:11)

Dedicated to Hellen Willaman
almond tree in Gush Etzion
Your navel is perfectly formed like a goblet filled with mixed wine. Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lilies. (7:3)

Dedicated to blood; sisters, aunts, cousins
date tree in the Jordan Valley
I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples. (7:8)

Dedicated to my Garden Girls
tree orchard in Bat Ayin
Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom--there I will give you my love. (7:12)

Dedicated to Joyce Lebowitz
etrog tree in Kfar Chabad
The pots of figs have given forth their fragrance, and on our doorways are all manner of sweet fruits, both new and old, which I have hidden away for you, my beloved. (7:14)

Dedicated to my White Oak roots
blooming the Negev desert
Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? Under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labor gave you birth. (8:5)

Dedicated to the women in Ithaca
sabra cacti in the West Bank settlements
You who dwell in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice! (8:13)

A donations was made to B'erot Bat Ayin in the name of all the women honored in this blog post. B'erot is a place where women learn to live in harmony with the land. http://www.berotbatayin.org/

Here come the Men in Black

Welcome Home!! I officially landed this week. Although it's been 2 full months since exiting the plane, only now is the jet lag is gone, the fog dispersed, and some semblance of order returned to my life. The culture shock has been electrifying, the fruits lackluster, and the weather….enough said. But the spring is coming and there is light. I just started working for two organizations that I love, World Zionist Organization and The Jewish Learning Institute, and am sojourning in a fascinating corner of Brooklyn called Crown Heights.

Crown Heights is intriquing, home to both the largest West-Indies immigrant community and the Chabad-Lubovitch Hasidic Jewish community, every excursion to the market is worth taking a notepad and recording. Bearded Hasidim and vividly dressed Caribbean-natives make for a colorful experience. I am surprised by how comfortable I feel around black men and men in black hats and even more surprised that I am the one who stands out on the street.

I have made some interesting observations about the two groups, who share a lot more in common than first meets the eye.

• Both speak a barely intelligible English, interspersed with Yiddish or a Caribbean dialect
• Both full of pride for their roots and brazen to show it, assimilation not a word in their vocabulary
• Both are slightly distrustful of the powers-that-be, there is only one allegiance, and its not to the US
• Both stock grocery stores with food products that are unidentifiable to the average shopper
• Both always muttering something under their breath, whether a hip hop song of a psalm of David
• Both speak of a promise land flowing with milk and honey
• Both don’t move out of the way when you are jogging down the street

My only complaint is that men from both sects have aggressive responses towards women, one looks way too hard while the other abruptly looks away

I get a kick out of the dready and the chasid chilling outside the bodega smoking stoges together. Only NYC! There is a nice harmony that pervades this area. It’s a spicy and flavorful bowl scooped out of the melting pot soup that is New York City. Tasty! I am enjoying the experience. Plus there is no where else that jerk chicken and gefilte fish are so abundant.

The last blog post was written in a coffee shop in Jerusalem, and boy have I come a far way since then. I am now sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn hundreds of miles, breaths, waters, and prayers from Tzion. Since coming back, I have been meeting up with lots of friends and family who have spoiled me with decadent amounts of love, hugs and enthusiasm. It’s invigorating to sit across the table with a friend whom who feel such affection towards but, due to circumstance, have no idea about what is going on in their lives. After an hour or so, over drinks and snacks, you fill in gaps of time with juicy details; divulging, embellishing, and reliving adventures - sharing moments of inspiration, revelations, ups and downs, and life perspectives. Story telling plays an important function in the history of mankind and is unique to our species. It connects us to our friends and family. What’s that all about? This topic has been on my mind quite a bit, especially with Passover right around the corner. The entire point of the seder (the traditional Passover meal) is to sit around the table and ‘tell the story’.

There are two sides to every story; the teller and the receiver.
From the perspective of the receiver, I have this to say:
“Please please tell me a bedtime story” I used to whine to my parents every night before going to bed. Better than any toy, I still carry these pearls with me, never outgrown, stored away in my mental jewelry box. A story is an inheritance from our parents and friends more precious than gold, everyone can share in them equally without diminishing the value. Also, stories enable us to learn and grow from others experiences, rather than reinventing the wheel each time around, we are lifted onto the shoulders of historical experience. That’s why it’s so important to remember history. Based on two truisms: History always repeats itself and There is nothing new under the sun learning and retelling history is a building block of civilization and wisdom. Intelligence is a highly valued trait in our society- weaning valuable information from stories is the ultimate skill in my opinion, it should be part of standardized testing.

On the flip side, once you get a story, it becomes your own, imbued with personal meaning, filtered through the lens of our experiences. It is impossible that two people can tell over the same story. A quintessential transformation takes place from hearing and retelling a story, it’s called ‘comprehension’. Relaying an event to others requires the storyteller to take an active stance and become personally invested, to understand the events in the larger scope. The key word is retrospection. While in the middle of an experience, it’s impossible to make sense of it, its only after wards, in the retelling of it, that we fill it with ethical lessons learned, comedic twists, dramatic pauses, a narrative voice and an outsider perspective. It is only in hindsight that stories can come to an end...and hopefully with a 'happily ever after'

Speech is the thread that binds us to each other. Stronger than twine, more durable than hemp – speech comes from deep within our throats and penetrates into the mind of the listener. A story shared between friends ties them together, when two minds have the same piece of knowledge you essentially become one. I suspect that is the secret of speech, perhaps it is why G-d spoke the world into creation.

Today we have accelerated the sharing process, through twitter, facebook, texting, etc we can tell our thoughts, experiences and dreams to one another, creating a constant line of communication. Tragedies, hardships, exoduses, births, and deaths become universally experienced. These bonds are tying society together and breaking down past barriers that separated tribes, states, cultures, and continents. Speech is unifying.

Passover is a time of story telling, of creating bonds and strengthening one another for the trip ahead. Please take this time to share and listen, a garner tools for the challenges that confront us in life.

I hope everyone has a meaningful Passover.

Giving Birth to Myself

Shalom, my name is Ganendl daughter of Devorah daughter of Joyce daughter of Ganendl and daughter of Shirly daughter of Kitty. That’s how we introduce ourselves when sitting at the table, bringing our entire selves, including the unbroken chain of mothers, the thread that ties us to our roots, from deep in the earth as we thrust upwards, growing into the unknown future. Linear time is not relevant, ancestral roots and the coming redemption are part of the same phenomenon, its cyclical, you die to be reborn. Ancient ritual and new-age universal consciousness are partners in same evolutionary experience.

Women’s gatherings have become a pillar of year in Israel, especially the New Moon gatherings. Fortunate for me, at every station on this journey extraordinary women have been placed in my life, nourishing me with woman-love. Starting from birth with my mother, whose all-encompassing embrace has been my lifeline, secure and durable, a mother’s love has a quality of eternalness. I continued receiving heavy doses of woman-love from sisters, friends, cousins, aunts, and teachers throughout life. I can try an explain what woman-love feels like, although language is so limiting, I urge you each to reach into your own experiences as I try to elaborate: it’s warm, encompassing, accepting, forgiving, the closest we can get to being in a womb again. Until you’ve been blessed by a room full of women, had healing energy directed to your bleeding wounds, been danced circles around, been embraced by, been loved by, kissed by, remembered by, caressed by, joined voices with, held hands with, and let your soul come out and join in with other women until you are absolved into a puddle of fertile light prepared to birth the next era... that is my pathetic attempt to explain woman-love.

Women are extraordinarily powerful beings and it’s a pity that common culture has written us off as sex objects or even worse, as equal to man. Liars, Shekar. Women are magicians, shamans, witches imbued with the secret powers of creation, we make miracles, harness the greatest potential and grow it into actuality, heal, listen, build, expand, nurture, create worlds. Every sage whose ever written about the messiah, acknowledges that it’s the feminine aspect that will cater in the next era, with song, laughter, kindness and love, this is the uncompromising nature of women. Most ancient and indigenous traditions have also tapped into this awareness. Returning to a state of Mother Nature, reversing the cataclysmic events in the Garden of Eden, breaking the terrible misnomer that in order to be great, women need to act more like men. We need to act like women. I want to send love and encouragement and gratitude out to all the women who have generously shared their love. Please continue supporting each other as we tread down this life path.

OK, that was an introduction to the new women’s movement; you should join too, sign up now and give a generous contribution….love.

I apologize a hundred times (will you mochel me?) for not writing in the past four months. Be assured, I was doing some important work in the interim. I returned to Mayanot Institute of Torah Studies after the extraordinarily high days, Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot. Experiencing these holidays with full consciousness enabled me to really tap into the energy pockets G-d has masterfully tucked into the folds of time, like sailor, I was able to adeptly turn my sails, catch onto the currents of wind (spirit), and be propelled up and up. It was glorious.

When I returned to Mayanot after an amazing summer, my Rabbi sensed that I had entered into a new space and responded by building a special curriculum to further my studies. I stepped into a hermetic existence (some may call it the Pardes ;). I learned Torah from early morning until late in the night, breaking only to pray, put food in, let food out, and take solitary walks around Jerusalem to inhale the sacred air and allow the words to saturate my soul. This time was magical, G-d began opening my mind, revealing the secret formula used for creating the world, the elixir of life and happiness, letting me sip from the fountain of youth, shining the wisdom of the infinite into my eyes…mmmmm it’s sweeter than honey from a rock.

It was so good, but this living can only last for so long. Wisdom is slightly useless when a person is not living. Life is the arena in which is all takes place, and since I was not being tested by life, I was not applying anything. Stagnation, like the foaming water that gathers next to a waterfall, fully capable but stuck, longing to be part of the current. And so I pulled my head out of the book and finally did it…booked a ticket back to the United States.

I am ready to be reborn, ready to leave the womb of t’shuva, Israel, Jerusalem. I am grossly overdue, but oh how my spirit has enjoyed sucking from the breast of the source, where spirituality, holiness, and kosher food are without end. It’s time to be weened, time to come back to the US…I am expecting on January 10th.

I feel incredibly grateful to the Creator for letting me selfishly take this time and space, for protecting my friends and family in the States so that I could comfortably be here without worry. Coincidentally (although nothing is coincidence), right after I booked my ticket, I was suddenly called back to the states. My sister sustained a serious knee injury and it getting surgery the day I arrive (please pray for Miriam bas Devorah for a complete and fast healing).

Additionally, there is a lot of joy happening in the states that I need to be part of. My cousins both had babies (welcome to the family Oliver Shalom and Maya Pearl…you are very lucky to join our tribe), friends are getting engaged and married….mazel tov, the biggest congratulations to Julie Gutman, Miri Cohen Birk, Devora Rosenheim, Yehudis Rumbak, Esther Nemy, Leah Casper, Romy Greenblatt, Emiliano Acevedo ….G-d should bless you to build homes filled with light and that you’re doors are always open to share it. So many incredible things are happening in this world, bodies have a limited capacity for experiencing such joy, so thankfully the soul is infinite and is expanding for the occasions. I think it has to do with the shift since Chanukah and the solstice, the world has realigned, the days are getting longer and there is more revealed light.

Friends and Family in the States, I am so extraordinarily excited to see each of you and I want to badly to make time and space to reconnect. Please contact me. I will have my old cell phone back, I think? As for my plans…I am trying something new. It’s called not making any plans. Crumbled in the recycling bin are my to-do lists, my future expectations, and my monthly planner. I am currently suspended in air and being catapulted into…….the unknown. I am testing out my trust in G-d that what is destined to happen is much grander and more extraordinary than what I can conceivably plan. If anyone wants to join, let’s go. I’ll sprinkle some special fairy dust on you and we can fly to NeverNever Land. We’ll try to get a peak at the world from G-d’s ariel, omnipotent viewpoint.

To summarize (I know this is getting long) my last few weeks in Israel have been amplified. Every moment is intense, every color more vivid, every step is clearly taking me to the destined place. Chanukah was brilliant, I reveled in all the candles, all the lights of the amazing people who have blessed me this year. People and their influences are like the oil used for the candles, it leaves a stain, a bit of residue on our hearts forever. I will miss everyone here so much, but leave in complete faith that I will see everyone again.

Chanukah at the Wall, the 7th night

Wedding Recipe

ingredients for a wedding:
friends, fabric, fruit, drums, beautiful view, and a bride

9:00am create a place to dance

10:00 am cut, dice, and pray so that the food is imbued with holy vibes10:30 Roast lamb

11:00am sample the cake icing

6:00pm serenade the bride

6:30pm Enter Groom from stage left to lower the veil

7:30pm Fortify and Bless the Union

9:00 - until the am : dance and celebrate
Mazel tov Shirly and Daniel

Sukkot Circus ++

Welcome to the fam Maya Pearl and Oliver Shalom

Etrog field in Kfar Chabad

Samuel the Prophet (Shmuel HaNavi) is buried here

someone told us that the Moshiach had just arrived

Havdalah (the ceremony that escorts Shabbos away) in Bat Ayin

Harry the Chassid, my cousin, Tzvi Yoel, at the Western Wall (The Kotel)

My Rebbetzin's son had his Bar Mitzvah during sukkot

Holy women breaking it down at Moshav Modiin's sukkot festival. Freestyling while fully strapped (with an infant)

Hundreds of people gather at the Western Wall during Sukkot for the Blessing of the Kohain (Priests) once a year. Look hard, there are people on every porch and rooftop.

Shaking the lulav and estrog in the sukkot. Yael glows whenever she does a mitzvah!

Natural Healing

Our Sages, z’l, teach that the world is a large human body (and likewise, the human body is a small world), from this we see that we are all part of one incredibly intricate pulsing, breathing organism. Individually we all perform our own functions, the fingers touch and interact with the outside world, while the liver purifies, the nerves communicate. But together, we all serve one end, to maintain the life and health of the overall body.

The realization is: We each have a vital and irreplaceable role in the perfection of this world. And even more so, we should realize that every person we encounter does too. It is taught that we should treat every one has if they are potentially the Massiah. On an even higher level of understanding: when we all do our parts accordingly, we collectively bring about this realized state of full body health, or ‘messianic times’.

Really internalizing the interconnectedness of everyone allows us to understand what it means to ask for forgiveness. In Hebrew, the word for forgiveness is ‘michila’ which translates into ‘circle’. Since we are all one being, one interconnected world, everything should ideally be existing in a state of harmony. When we hurt somebody, either intentionally or accidentally or somebody hurts us, booboos and riffs are made in the circle. In order to repair the fractures, we must repair the relationships with each other so the blood can flow and we can return to the perfect circle.

Medically, in a real human body, a broken bone heals and is stronger than it was in the first place. Likewise with repairing relationships. When we ask for forgiveness, forgive others, and forgive ourselves, we strengthen the circle, reaffirming that we were once conncected and that we came apart temporarily. It's only when we are part of the bigger picture, that we can clearly recognize and perform our vital role in the body.

We should have a quick and complete healing in body and soul, Refuah Shelamah!!

And on that note, I would like to ask everyone for forgiveness, to mochel me, and that I completely forgive you. And may G-d bless you that this year you have life, blessings, peace, happiness, health, tranquility, completion, prosperity, deliverance, consolation, and favorable decrees from the Heavens, that you are remembered and inscribed in the Book of Life, and that you find your space in the circle and that together we bring the divine energy into this physical world in a revealed way so we can point our finger at it and say “there it is”

A letter to the ultimate editor

Dear G-d, as you pick up your quill to begin the next best seller
Expectations are high because from experience, you’re a heck of a storyteller
Last years was a masterpiece, a page-turner with an unexpected hook
You are a literary genius, hence you’ve been commissioned to write the Life Book
May I make some suggestions...if that isn’t too bold
Although, you surely don’t need any, the Bible is still the #1 book sold
Add some eloquent dialogue, maybe a poem here to there
Borrow from Shakespeare, iambic pentameter to add a flare
Historical fiction is fun, but a touch of biography will make it all come true
Enter in Massiah to thicken the plot and add it to the sci-fi genre too
Flowery adjectives, magic realism, with a hitchcockian twist
Insert a love story featuring a romantic sunset where someone gets kissed
A strategic absence of words, Hemmingway’s silences say it best
Comedic Irony and humor work well, truth resonates when said ingest
Polemic rhetoric, mystical teaching, and philosophical complexes replete
Throw in a villain too, as long as you script in the defeat
May the writers block be locked away and the words just flow
If you need better lighting, some tea, or a proofreader, let me know
Would you like to use my labtop? It has Microsoft word and html
Use my mac for its audio applications, or are you more comfortable with a Dell?
Change the font, add italics, and increase the margins as you please
Remember to hit the save document button, the most important of the keys
Although I like mad libs, I pray you write with the utmost intention
Fill up every page and end it happily ever after...the ultimate redemption.