Your Pure Soul: Elohai Neshama

© 2015 Patricia Arlin

Your soul was pure:

You were in yourself,

You remember that.

You remember safety.

Amazed at the taste of food, sugar blew your mind.

You danced and laughed and told jokes.

You slept on the dog.

You loved to hear the cantor sing the songs,

You knew that God was in that room.

You loved cartoons.

Then life happened to you. 

Your soul became corrugated

And you kicked back at the world.

You forgot how to be in yourself,

You only knew how to react.

Your hurt looked like anger,

Your fear looked like sarcasm.

Other people's pain was somehow all about you.

God-ness looked like stupidity

And you were not allowed to touch the Torah.

The past was wrong

And the future was fantasy

And you thought you could not love.

Then one day you stopped.

You listened to the ambient sounds.

You listened to your breath,

You listened for that pure soul.

And you saw things as they really were:

Hurt was only hurt

And you were not the center of the universe   

And you felt compassion instead of fear.

God-ness surrounded you.

The past was past, the future was yet to be.

You began to touch Torah

And you remembered to love.

It is very difficult to get there,

It can take a long time,

But once achieved

It is simple.

Really.

Your soul IS pure.

Our souls ARE pure.

And we are each of us a part of all creation,

Protected in the One-ness.

אֱלהַי. נְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּתַתָּ בִּי טְהורָה הִיא

Amen