Prayer for New Year's Eve

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

I am glad that I don't believe in an intervening God of cause and effect, 
In a petty king and insecure supreme being 
Who plans everything that happens on our planet.

Because if I did,

After this last year,

I would be way pissed off.

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

I am glad that I do have a knowingness
Of connection and holy conversation,

Of community and friendship and family and love and resistance 
That I call God.

And tonight on New Year's Eve

And in the coming year

I will have hope.

Blessed One-ness

We see the truth

And we see the possibilities.
Blessed be the truth!
Blessed be the possibilities!
Happy New Year.

Amen

The Light

Illustration by Flash Rosenberg 

© 2020 Flash Rosenberg

flashrosenberg.com

Imagine that you are in a room in your home
A room that has a door
And the door is closed
Your favorite room
The room you feel safest in
A room where nothing changes
And nothing challenges
And you sit in this room
And look around you
And you see that the room is dark
Very dark
That the safety of the room has taken all the color out of this room
Where the darkness becomes darker
And the days grow short
And you do not see what you do not want to see
And you are safe
And warm
But you are ignorant.
Sit in this ignorant safety for a moment.

Now in this safe dark room, you look towards the closed door
And you see a sliver of light coming from underneath
Imagine that you rise up and walk to the door
And you open it
And you see that outside this safe room
It is winter
Everything is covered in snow
But you are in the dark room,
This narrow place
So you leave the room
You are outside in a beautiful winter meadow
Covered in snow
And you have your winter clothes on now
So you are warm
But the ground is covered with whiteness
And the light is bright
And the trees surrounding the meadow have no leaves
But the light is magnificent
It’s still cold
You can’t pretend it’s spring
You must see things as they are
You must wear warm clothes
But the days are growing longer
When the world seems most devoid of life
You can see the future.
Someday there will be spring.

You see the beauty and the cold
You see the truth
You see the possibilities
You are one with the One-ness
In the beautiful winter light.

And in this light, you see Light.

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Trisha

For The Sins of Laziness and Omission

Blessed One-ness,

We place ourselves in front of the fear
On the path of holiness and joy and truth.

עַל חֵטְא שָׁחָטָאנוּ לְפָנֶיךָ בִּנְטִיַּת

We have sinned against God (and ourselves)

Through the sins of laziness and omission;

Through the sins of disappointment and missed potential;

Through the sins of nostalgia and sentimentality.

Through the sin of not looking when we should have looked;

Through the sin of not hearing when we could've heard;

Through the sin of not acting when we needed to act.

We are  overly obediant, we are willfully ignorant, we are foolishly complacent.

We are needlessly insincere, we are casually honest, we are easily mawkish.

We lack endurance, we shrug, we avoid argument.

We are hopeless, we despair, we mock optimism.

We are frustrated, we are impatient, we surrender too easily.

We sleep in, we change the channel, we turn the page.

We procrastinate, we assume privilege, we conveniently forget.

We sign online petitions and we share social media posts and we think that's enough.

We put our fingers in our ears, we avoid deep silence, we shush the inconvenient.

We are lazy.

וְעַל כֻּלָּם, אֱלוֹהַּ סְלִיחוֹת,
סְלַח לָנוּ, מְחַל לָנוּ, כַּפֵּר לָנוּ.

Perceptive God of our consciences,

For all these sins (of laziness and omission),
We take full responsibility.

From now on, 
May we see and hear all that can be seen and heard.
May we do instead of being done upon.
May we rise up when rising up is needed.
May we enjoy our lives not despite the struggles but along with them.

And let us say,

Amen.

If you find this offering of my work valuable or pleasurable, please consider supporting me with a mutual offering, if you are able:

If you use one of my prayers or kavannot for a service or event you can make a one time donation via my PayPal account.  

PayPal  https://www.paypal.me/trishaarlin  

If you would like to support my work as a sacred artist in an ongoing fashion, please contribute (any amount) on a monthly basis to my Patreon account.

Patreon    https://www.patreon.com/trishaarlin

Thank you!

Trisha

My Friend, My Captive: A Ritual with Blessings and Confessions for Our Pets on Rosh Hodesh Elul / The New Year of Domesticated Beasts*

On Rosh Ḥodesh Elul, the first day of the new moon of Elul, we begin an accounting for all the souls with whom we are in a relationship.

Listen for the voice of the animals in the sound of the shofar.

(The shofar is blown once, a single tekiyah/blast.)

Cat Baby, Dog Baby, Fur Baby, My Baby, 

Baby Boo, Love Machine, Poosy, Schmushy

Pupster, Puppino, Doglet, Kittenhead, 

Fuzzy Wuzzy, Wiggly Tush, Mr. Nose, Miss Whiskers

Pearly Pink Paws, Mr. Claws, The Cuddly One, The Silly One

Belly boy, Muffin man, Old fella, Pretty boy

Fluff Meister, Wiener dog, King of Soft, Mr. Ruff

Barkmeister, Mighty Hunter, Miss Poo, Mr Vomit

Cat from Hell, Dog o' my dreams, Bark-a-roni, Flat cat

My Boy, My Girl, My Cat, My Dog

Mine

Mine

Mine

For all the love you allow me to give you,

For all the love I allow myself to believe you give me,

For all the times you have protected me from physical or emotional harm,

For all the times you warned me,

For all the furntiture you have destroyed,

And all the rugs you have peed and puked on,

For all the exercise I got walking you,

For all the sleep you got on my head,

For all the pleasure I get watching you eat,

For all the litter boxes and plastic bags I used to clean up your shit,

For all the nights I dreamt about you,

For all the work days you missed me,

For all the blood pressure lowered
For  all the depressions mitigated,

For all the tails wagged,
For all the purrs purred,

I thank you, loved pets and companions.

Specifically, I ask give thanks for the lives of (my pet's names)

Do you want to thank your loved ones?  Call their names out!  

 (they call out their pet’s names)

For all the services you render us as our pets and companions,

Anachnu Modim

we give thanks.

(The shofar is blown a second time.)

Dear Friend and Companion, I am your

Master

Owner

Trainer

Keeper

(together) My friend, my captive.

You eat when I decide to feed you, You don’t eat if I forget.

(together) My friend, my captive.

You pee where and when I tell you And I punish you if you do it in wrong place.

(together) My friend, my captive.

You only go outside if I let you.

(together) My friend, my captive.

If I want to  hit you I can hit you, If I want to caress you I caress you.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I have decided that I want you to keep me company for many years, so I force you to go for check ups and treatments at the vet, which you hate

(together) My friend, my captive.

I have cut out your reproductive organs to make you more pliable and easy to live with.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I keep you shackled in a collar and it’s up to me whether that collar is comfortable or has rhinestones that humiliate you or spikes that dig into your flesh.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I named you without asking what you call yourself.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I went to a shelter to pick you out and I told myself I was rescuing you, that when you happened to look in my direction that you chose me, but all the choosing was on my side, you had no say in the matter.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I might be a good master, or I might be a bad master, it doesn’t matter.   You can’t leave.

(together) My friend, my captive.

For your lack of freedom,

For my demands for attention and comfort,

For your lack of the company of your freely chosen fellow creatures,

For my theft of your sexuality,

For my many terms of endearment that mask your captivity,

For all the privilege I exercise over you without thought,

I ask your forgiveness.

Specifically, I ask for the forgiveness of (my pet's names)

Do you want to do the same for your beloved captives? Call them out!  Thank you…?

 (they call out their pet’s names)

For all the times we have transgressed against your dignity and agency, as our pets,

Selach Lanu

We ask forgiveness.

(The shofar is blown a third time.)

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Yah

Praising One-ness

We are so blessed by the soft and attentive animals that we are able to love with all our hearts and all our souls,

Together, let us give thanks to the One-ness

Out of which we have found our pets.

We give thanks for the simple love between us and them that teaches and mirrors the simple love for God and from God

That we return for every year

When we make Teshuvah.

Perhaps during this month of Elul,

We will pray to to show our beloved companions and captives how much we appreciate them

And wish for them a healthy and happy New Year.

Baruch atah Adonai Elohainu Melech HaOlam,

Blessed is the Fierce Mystery

Blessed are the domesticated beasts of the earth.

Amen.

Rosh Hodesh Tov. 


* With gratitude to the resources of OpenSiddur.Org 

If you find this offering of my work valuable or pleasurable, please consider supporting me with a mutual offering, if you are able:

If you use one of my prayers or kavannot for a service or event you can make a one time donation via my PayPal account.  

PayPal  https://www.paypal.me/trishaarlin  

If you would like to support my work as a sacred artist in an ongoing fashion, please contribute (any amount) on a monthly basis to my Patreon account.

Patreon    https://www.patreon.com/trishaarlin

Thank you!

Trisha

For Mommy, On The Anniversary Of Her Death

I was 16 and away for the summer 

When I found out about women's liberation 

From my first boyfriend, a 19 year old Marxist, Nigel. 

The moment I saw my first feminist flyer,  

I thought, 

This is for me. 

The second thing was, 

I can't wait to tell my mother! 

This is going to change her life! 

She hates her marriage

She hates cooking and cleaning

She hates her children, sometimes.

Now she can be free! 

But she died about a week later, 

while I was still away,

long before email and texting and Zoom.

So I never told her about my discovery. 

I always thought that if she'd just lived until I got home 

Feminism would have saved her. 

Probably not. 

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