Nature, A Puzzle

  

Art by Mike Cockrill

Blessed Holy Wholeness,
Flies have invaded my apartment
And I do not sanctify their lives. 
 
The flies wax and wane.
We kill off most of them but then
They always return. 
I don’t understand,
We keep the place clean and
We never see any maggots,
Where are these flies coming from? 
I hate them. 
There’s a particular loud buzz the flies generate when they’re captured on a sticky fly paper roll,
Trying to flee and freaking out. 
We revel in the sound,
We laugh!
It is disgusting. 
 
And yet,
I believe flies to be created in God’s image 
Just as I am. 
I know they are part of the divine continuum. 
I know they are necessary to the processing of waste
And that they are food for other animals in the chain of life.
I know that flies are as entitled to existence as anything else. 
Most of all,

I know that human intolerance 

Of the unpleasant, the inconvenient and/or the mysterious
In nature
Is destroying the planet.

Still, I hate them.
 
Blessed Holy Wholeness,
I cannot resolve the contradiction. 
Amen.

Seasonal Wishes

Wishing much merriment to those who are doing the red, green and sparkly thing,

Wishing good eating and diversion to those doing the Chinese food and movies thing, 

Wishing a warm and well-lit winter night to those doing the tilting of earth’s axis thing,

Wishing a speedy couple of days to those trying to do the ignoring it all thing.

And

Wishing a complete healing for those with Covid or flu, and for all those who have been injured under attack,

Wishing comfort and serenity for all those in mourning,

Wishing relief for all those who are not safe,

And wishing for everyone peace and compassion in this time of war and anger.

Amen!

Writing Liturgy Workshop for Clergy/Prayer and Spiritual Leaders

(Art by Mike Cockrill )

 

As some of you may know, I have been doing prayer writing workshops for some years now.  Recently, after conversations with a couple of rabbis and a spiritual director about the differences between poetry, kavannot and liturgy, I offered to do  a workshop with them in which we would look at the traditional tropes of Jewish liturgy and what differentiates liturgy from personal prayer and poetry and then, using those discussions, guide them in writing their own liturgy in English.

This workshop is for clergy, prayer leaders and spiritual guides only.

I know many of you already write blessings, at which i’m sure you’re already wonderful.  This workshop is about writing liturgy,  sacred art that might be poetry or monologues or kavannot that are, i hope, potentially very interesting and meaningful and complicated and moving and even beautiful.

I know most of you will have studied liturgy in school, but this is a practical and not an academic class and it will not be in Hebrew.  

We scheduled this workshop for Monday, January 10 at 2:30 PM EST, and I would like to invite you to participate.  (if it goes well and there is continuing interest, i can see making this an ongoing monthly workshop but for now, it’s just this one time.)

The fee is $40, payable via Paypal (preferred) or Venmo.  

(check is okay but not preferred)

Contact me at Trisha.arlin@gmail.com or via Facebook DM. 

The workshop:

1) Discussion on difference between poetry and liturgy.  What are structural elements that make something a piece of Jewish liturgy?

2) What do you want to accomplish in your liturgy?  Who are you writing for, the whole congregation or targeted groups or individuals?  Will it be read out loud?  Do you have any artistic or spiritual goals?  Do you want to teach, comfort,  exalt?

3) Some guided meditation to provide ideas and imagery. 

4) Writing prompts.

5) sharing after writing. If a small class, we will share in one body, if large we will go into small breakout rooms.

6) Feedback.  Unlike my personal prayer writing classes, we will give kind, friendly and useful feedback based on your goals (see #2).   There will be no feedback on the quality of your writing, though if you want to work on that privately with me we can arrange something after the session.

At this point i don’t know if it would work better to write something new for a life cycle event or a new version of a pre-existing prayer, I lean to the former but I’m open to suggestion on this one. 

I look forward to hearing from you.  Trisha.arlin@gmail.com

NEW CLASS: Holy Conversation: The Kavannot of the Shabbat Amidah

 

Holy Conversation: The Kavannot of the Shabbat Amidah

Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:00 PM - Thu Feb 24, 20228:30 PM EST 

Online, Zoom

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/ritualwell/560462

DESCRIPTION

Thursdays, January 20, 27, February 3, 10, 17, 24 @ 7–8:30 p.m. EST
$216 for 6 sessions

Like the journey of our lives, every prayer and prayer service can be seen as a story, a process of transformation. The rubrics of the prayer service preceding the Amidah reintroduces us to our bodies (The Morning Blessings), to our community (Songs of Praise), and then explores the nature of God (Kriat Shema), until finally, we cross the Red Sea and are ready to have our own one-on-one conversation with God: a holy conversation (however you understand or don’t understand God). If approached with mindfulness and intention, the Amidah can be our spiritual mission statement. Using prompts, short guided mediations, English translations of different denominations and discussion, liturgist Trisha Arlin will guide us through the Shabbat Amidah and the seven “stories” within it, and we will then write our own holy conversations. 

Session One: Avot v’ Emahot – Praying with the Ancestors (immediate and ancient) 

Session Two: Gevurah – What is divine power, even if you don’t believe in an intervening God? 

Session Three: Kedushah – What is holiness? How is God’s name holy? Does God need praise? What is God? 

Session Four: Avodah – How does prayer apply to service to the community, to God, to ourselves? 

Session Five: Hoda’ah – To loved ones, leaders, essential workers, health, God (ingratitude, too)

Session Six: Shleimut – Completeness, Peace, Connection, being seen and seeing

All sessions will be recorded and sent to participants. We encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience.

NEW WORKSHOP: The Soul’s Transit: 24 Hours of Neshama

 

The Soul’s Transit: 24 Hours of Neshama

Thu Jan 6, 2022 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM EST 

Online, Zoom

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/ritualwell/561067

DESCRIPTION

This event is free and open to all. Please consider making a donation to support our free programs and events from Ritualwell.

Where does the soul go when we sleep? How do we express gratitude for the life that flows through us when we miraculously awaken each morning? How do we praise the gift of life? Jewish prayers of the soul’s journey from night to day and back again can offer a format for expressing our deepest feelings of connection to life, to ourselves, and the divine. Using prompts, short guided mediations and discussion, liturgist Trisha Arlin will guide us in following the journeys of our neshamot/souls. Through the examination of Jewish prayers of the soul—the Bedtime Shema, Modah Ani, and Elohai Neshama—we will creatively engage with the concepts of forgiveness, death, gratitude, and praise, and then write our own versions of these prayers in response. 

Trisha Arlin is a liturgist, writer, performer and student of prayer in Brooklyn, NY. Trisha has served as a Liturgist, Scholar, and Artist in Residence and taught for venues including the National Havurah Committee’s Summer Institute, Ritualwell.org, Haggadot.com, and for synagogues around the country. She is a builder of Bayit’s Liturgical Arts project. Trisha received a BA in Theater from Antioch College in 1975 and MFA in Film (Screenwriting) in 1997 from Columbia University. In 2009/2010, Trisha was an Arts Fellow at the Drisha Institute. In 2011, she graduated from the sixth cohort of the Davennen Leadership Training Institute (DLTI). Trisha’s liturgy has been used in services, for ritual occasions, and at venues of many denominations nationwide. She is the author of Place Yourself: Words of Poetry and Intention (a collection of liturgy and kavannot). Her work has appeared in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion; Seder Tefillot, Forms of Prayer: Prayers for the High Holydays, (Movement for Reform Judaism); B’cholLevavecha (CCAR Press); Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal (Bayit and Ben Yehuda Press); A Poet’s Siddur (Ain’t Got No Press); Studies in Judaism and Pluralism (Ben Yehuda Press) and can be found online at TrishaArlin.com, at Ritualwell.org, opensiddur.org. 

About Ritualwell
Ritualwell is the most extensive online resource that curates original Jewish rituals for Jews and fellow seekers. We publish rituals, ceremonies, prayers and poems to mark sacred moments in Jewish life. Through creating and sharing rituals, hosting Ritualwell Immersions (online learning experiences), curating an online Judaica shop and hosting Rabbi Connect, Ritualwell fosters a supportive environment for Jewish creativity, spiritual growth and discovery. Learn more at www.ritualwell.org.

Ritualwell is committed to offering an accessible space to our community members. We commit to:

1. Providing participants with all the session materials ahead of time
2. Providing automated captions on all live sessions
3. Providing subtitles for all recorded sessions
4. Using the chat function and read it aloud during the sessions
5. Asking for participant accessibility needs and doing our best to accommodate them. Please feel welcome to contact us at ritualwell@reconstructingjudaism.org.

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We Are Not Alone: A Hanukkah Blessing

 I think of all the Jews lighting candles

All over the world.

And I am not alone.

Which brings me to

The plagues and the storms and the fires and the floods and the wars

When so so many people

Are lost in real darkness.

So for eight nights this year

As I light the candles on my hanukiah,

I will say the blessings

And pray for those who have been sickened or injured or killed or raped or exploited.

And pray for those who are worried and homeless and jobless and vulnerable and hungry.

And pray for those who are lost to themselves, 

Even the ones who are willfully ignorant and gleefully cruel (though I do wish they’d shut up). 

And thank God for all of us who are still here.

And thank God for our loved ones.

And thank God for the Maccabees,

Of all kinds,

Who, when times are hard,

Refuse to disappear,

Fighting so hard for their communities

With food and shelter and work and justice and science and love.

Not a miracle exactly,

It's what good people do and give, 

When giving and doing are needed. 

They are the best and

It is a blessing.

We are so grateful.

We are not alone.

Blessed is the Source of Light and Darkness,

We are holy with the obligation to do good.

And so tonight we kindle the Hanukah candles

And eat fried foods 

(it doesn’t have to make sense).

Enjoy.

Amen

We Give Thanks

We give thanks 

For those who pursue justice

And mourn 

The need for it.

Amen. 

Greatness Happened Here

 

I am not inclined, this year, 

To celebrate any miracle. 

All these

Political lies 

And

Unproven remedies 

Of late,

So much willful ignorance 

And I feel no need to harken back

To dubious claims

Of God’s intervention 

In order to buttress up

Autocrats

Be they Seleucids, Maccabees or Trumps.  

I don’t care if it’s fun for the kids. 

A great something did happen here though,

But no miracle. 

Behind it was years and years

Of research and

Money and human effort. 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

I give thanks for  

Vaccines

And Science!

Amen.

In Praise of the Dark

Light candles, as one does, but consider this:

Over many millions of years

Organisms evolved

To thrive in the dark,

Eyes big and reflective,

Taking in the main chance. 

Mysterious only to those who slept 

While they flourished

Under the stars and the waning moon

Away from galumphing day hunters,

Safe in their night. 

For many thousands of years,

Humans slept during the dark

And rose in the light.

And if we didn’t feel safe at night

We sat together in circles under the stars

And told stories

Of god and miracles

Of warriors and kings

Of love and children. 

And that mastodon we had for dinner. 

But for the last hundred or so years,

If we were lucky,

We’ve lived in bright rooms,

Safe behind doors at night,

Unable to see past the streetlights to the stars.

Instead of circles we sit in bubbles

And the stories come from the outside,

Sometimes helping us laugh and cry. 

Sometimes provoking pain and shared resentment,

Each in our own well-lit isolation. 

Tonight, perhaps, 

Don’t be in such a rush

To set up your candles against the dark.  

Turn off that backyard lamp,

So you can see the constellations and

Let the night animals breathe.

Listen to the frightening ambient sounds

That don’t explain themselves to you. 

Then tell your own stories to each other,

Of miracles and myths and what you had for dinner.

And praise the darkness. 

Praise the light. 

Praise it all. 

Amen. 

Maybe: For Sukkot

 

“Oh let me behold your presence!”

Exodus 33:18

Maybe when you sit in the sukkah, 

And you look around at the flimsy walls 

That maybe you built yourself, 

Maybe you can imagine 

That they are there to remind you 

Of the need for humans to construct descriptions 

and meaning, 

Golden calves and theologies, 

To help them make it through their lives, 

Which is okay, maybe.  

Maybe, as you sit in the sukkah 

Within these tangible constructs, 

You look up 

And you can see through to the stars 

And you can’t help but be reminded 

Of how vast and incomprehensible this universe is

And how amusing are our explanations. 

And maybe this will scare you

Because it cannot be grasped. 

But maybe it doesn’t need to be understood 

Especially because  it never will be

Or because the answer is obvious 

Like death and creation.  

And maybe that’s what all the atonement 

And redemption was about last week. 

So maybe if you sit for a while

Surrounded by immense mystery 

It gets easier to forgive the forgivable 

And enjoy your day. 

Maybe, 

When you sit in this hut, 

Contemplating the universe 

Whilst eating a snack,

Safe within the see-through sukkah walls yet

Under the stars of the awesome whatever, 

You will let yourself imagine that

God is never begun, never over, always now.  

Maybe. 

And may it be that God’s goodness passes over you. 

Amen

On The Birth Of Babies (And Grandbabies)

The future screams in our arms!

Maybe they know what’s coming for them,

I hope not.

For now they are pure joy,

Newness incarnate

Mindful without effort.

We laugh as they discover everything,

Literally everything:

Toes, poop, sugar, grief…

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

We welcome this child into the One-ness!

May they save the world 

And have lots of fun. 

Amen

(Written for Otto Rose, born August 23, 2021)

Aleinu for Yom Kippur

Bend the knee and leave the old damage behind. 

It is resolved

Or it is not.

It is forgiven

Or it is not. 

In any case

Those gates are shut. 

Walk into this next year

And acknowledge the new suffering.

The Earth begs for a rest

And it is up to us to help,

This is our covenant. 

And it’s not enough to live small,

This year we must act big. 

Aleinu.

Underneath (For Selichot)

 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

During the month of Elul we ponder and remember,

An illusion of thoughtfulness,

Because underneath the meek apologies lie

Obsession

Resentment 

And embarrassments that do 

Whatever it is that

Hate

Lies 

And ignorance do 

To help us create the past. 

During the Shmita year the field lies fallow, 

An illusion of rest,

Because underneath the lumpy dirt lie

Microbes 

And worms

And burrowing creatures that do

Whatever it is that

Tefillah 

Tzedukah 

And Teshuvah do

To help us create the future.  

We’re sorry, blessed One-ness, 

But

On Selichot,

After this time of fear and wild hope,

We may not be able to

Find room in our hearts 

For the haters and the liars and the idiots. 

But

On Erev Rosh Hashanah,

In honor of the coming Shmita year,

We might still find

There is room in our hearts

For microbes and worms and maybe a gopher or two. 

Amen

(Drawing ©  Mike Cockrill)