Category Archives: Beauty in Nature

The Wilderness Within – Parashat Bamidbar and Shavuot

10 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Quote of the Day

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We celebrate Shavuot on Saturday evening and Sunday this week. In the spirit of this holiday celebrating the giving of Torah, I offer from the literature of our people, ancient and modern, gleanings that consider the meaning of the wilderness as the site of the revelation of God and Torah.

“And God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, from the tent of Meeting…” Numbers 1:1

“God transferred the Divine presence from Sinai to the Tabernacle, from the Sanctuary (Mishkan) of Adonai which God’s hands had established to the sanctuary which Israel had made. Adonai would henceforth speak to Moses from the tent of Meeting and indicate to Israel by means of the cloud when to journey and when to encamp. The Tabernacle was a mobile Sinai in the midst of them, the heavens and heavens of heavens (the holy place and the most holy place) transplanted and brought down to earth.” Rabbi Benno Jacob (1862-1945) – Reform Rabbi and Biblical Scholar, Germany

“One should be as open as a wilderness to receive the Torah.” Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 55a

“Torah was given in the wilderness because cities are filled with corruption, luxury, idolatry, and other evils…to be pure and ready to receive the Torah, one must be separated from all the vices of the city.” Philo, On the Decalogue I

“There is a wilderness within each person, a desert where selfish desires rule, where one looks out only for one’s own needs. No person is ever satisfied in the desert. There is constant complaining about lack of food and water, the scorching hot days and bitter cold nights. Anger, frustration, disagreements, and hunger prevail. The Torah is given in the desert to conquer and curb the demonic wilderness within human beings. If human beings do not conquer the desert, it may eventually conquer them. There is no peaceful coexistence between the two…” Rabbi Pinchas Peli – Jerusalem Post, June 1, 1985, p. 17

“To a people whose entire living generation had seen only the level lands of Egypt, the Israelites march into this region of mountain magnificence, with its sharp and splintered peaks and profound valleys, must have been a perpetual source of astonishment and awe. No nobler school could have been conceived for training a nation of slaves into a nation of freemen[women] or weaning a people from the grossness of idolatry to a sense of the grandeur and power of the God alike of Nature and Mind.” Nachman Ran, the Holy Land, p. V-27

“Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav…contrasts the sanctuary offered by wilderness to society’s corruption…in his depiction, in the story the Master of Prayer, societies have sunk one step below evil – into insanity. The story describes a series of countries, each organized around its own made obsession. In one, money is worshiped so totally that it has become the key to human identity: ‘Whoever had more money was a human being, and those who were very wealthy were considered gods.’ The master of prayer subversively penetrates these societies and draws people ‘out of the settled places,’ into the wilderness and a life of prayer and meditation…Prayer is the antidote to society’s obsessions because it alone has the power to lift consciousness out of the web of socially conditioned desires into a new matrix whose center is God.”  Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, The People and the Book – “To the Wilderness” – The Jerusalem Report, May 19, 1994, p. 35

“The wilderness is more than a physical location. B’midbar depicts a social wilderness, a human wasteland. This is the place where everything falls apart. It portrays a people wandering, without a shared vision, shared values, or shared words – leaders attempt to lead, but no one listens. The people of this wilderness, driven by fear and jealousy, moved only by hunger, thirst and lust, have no patience for God’s transcendent vision. This is a book of noise, frustration and pain. B’midbar may be the world’s strongest counterrevolutionary tract. It’s a rebuke to all those who believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free humans from their chains. It’s a response to those who foresee that out of the apocalypse of political or economic revolution will emerge the New Man. Here is the people who stood at Sinai, who heard Truth from God’s mouth – unchanged, unrepentant and chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. God offers them freedom, and they clamor for meat…At the end of the book we arrive in the Promised Land – exhausted, depleted, defeated – B’midbar gives way to D’varim – “words” – shared words, shared values, shared direction. Moses talks; people listen. Moses leads; people follow – now shared vision – now dialogue and consensus – the key word of D’varim is Sh’ma – D’varim is a book of listening. This is the Torah’s message of hope, that nothing worth doing in life can be accomplished without crossing the midbar. But the midbar isn’t the last word. There is a promised land of D’varim.” – Rabbi Eddie Feinstein, “The Wilderness Speaks,”  Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, edited by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, pps. 201-2013

The Measure of Our Success – D’var Torah Vayigash

26 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Quote of the Day

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As 2014 comes to a blessed close, our world continues to escalate in brutality, is more politically fragile, religiously challenged, and morally confused than ever before. In times such as these it is worthwhile to consider once again who we are and how we might measure our personal, societal and international well-being. In this I am reminded of Churchill’s words that a successful person will “be… able to go from one failure to the next without losing enthusiasm.”

This week’s Parashat Vayigash has something to teach us about the importance of our attitude. In these closing chapters of Genesis we come to the climax of the Joseph narratives. The crown prince meets his brothers after 20 years of exile and reveals himself. As they cower before him, he forgives them and makes peace. Then he settles his father Jacob in the land of Goshen.

Pharaoh meets Jacob and one old man asks another: “Jacob – How many are the years of your life?”

“The years of my sojourn on earth are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life-spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” (Genesis 47:8-9)

This seems an odd response given Jacob’s manifold blessings. Recognizing Jacob as a kvetch, the Midrash (B’reishit Rabba 95) brings an incredulous God into the conversation:

“Jacob: ‘I saved you from Esau and Laban; I brought Dinah back to you, as well as Joseph, and you complain that your life has been short and evil?’ [If so] I’ll count the words of Pharaoh’s question to you and your response, add them together and shorten your life [by that number of years – 33] so you’ll not live as long as your father Isaac, who lived to 180.’ Jacob lived 147 years.”

What happened to Jacob that he should be so negative at this point in his life? After all, he had 4 wives, 13 children and many grandchildren. His son Joseph had become the second most powerful man in the world, and he himself had encountered God twice, in a dream and at a river, but Jacob could only complain!

Where was the gratitude? That this conversation with Pharaoh should come just after Jacob had been reunited with Joseph, his favorite son, is disheartening and disturbing.

Truth to tell, we all know people like this who see their lives through a negative prism – parents who fixate on their children’s weaknesses and failings; marriages that dissolve because one partner won’t let go of past slights; people who refuse to see the half-full glass and always negatively spin whatever happens to them; others who refuse to overcome disappointments and predict instead a negative future on the basis of past hardship repeating the familiar cynical refrain regardless of new opportunities that could be very different were they not so stuck in their approach and negative attitude to the world.

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey concludes that the most well-balanced, positive and proactive people, who live happily with others at work and home, are successful because they balance four dimensions of their natures: the physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

We may need to care more for our bodies, eat better food and less of it, drop excess weight, get sufficient rest, keep stress and negativity at bay, and exercise more.

Perhaps we have closed our hearts and souls to the experience of mystery, awe and wonder.

Maybe we are intellectually stagnant, our curiosity suppressed and our minds inactive.

Possibly, we’ve become jaded and numb to feeling, focused too much on ourselves without bothering to empathize with others.

The Midrash surmises that Jacob’s negativity and propensity to complain, despite his many blessings, shaved years from his life. Writing 1500 years ago, the rabbis anticipated what psychiatrists and scientists know today, that some illnesses and even some early deaths can be avoided if we take better care of ourselves in body, mind and soul, and paid more attention to those relationships of meaning and trust that we have with one another.

Robert Louis Stevenson described a successful life this way:

“A person is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent people and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his/her task; who leaves the world better than s/he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best s/he had.”

Wiser words have not been uttered.

Shabbat shalom and a happy, healthy, meaningful, balanced, loving, and peaceful New Year!

[Note: This is an edited d’var Torah that I posted here in December 2011 and in re-reading it, I realized that nothing substantially has changed in the world or in the lives of multitudes in that time – hence, its reprise.]

 

“The Creation” – A Poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Art, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely–
I’ll make me a world.

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That’s good!

Then God himself stepped down–
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas–
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed–
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled–
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.

Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That’s good!

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I’m lonely still.

Then God sat down–
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

“For with God there is steadfast kindness!” (Psalm 130:7)

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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Sukkot so often is associated with ‘doing.’ The first thing observant Jews ‘do’ after Yom Kippur, the most ascetic holyday in the Jewish calendar, is get back to work and build sukkot. Beyond the doing, of course, is much meaning that gives the holyday its character, power and appeal.

The Sukkah

There’s a machloket (controversy) in the Talmud about what a sukkah represents. Rabbi Akiva said that it represents the booths our people lived in during the 40 years of wandering, thereby recalling the years of exile and suffering experienced by the Israelites who, despite God’s beneficence (per Rabbi Akiva), wanted to return to the Godless Egypt and attach themselves to the false physical comforts based in brick and mortar, as if there were any.

Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus disagreed saying the sukkah represents the ananei kavod (Clouds of Glory – i.e. God) that hovered over the people en-wrapping them with God’s self like a tallit, and providing them with food, water, protection, and safe passage in the desert wilds. The Clouds of Glory were a physical reminder of Divine-nearness that enabled the people to develop trust and faith in a redeeming God without fear.

We seduce ourselves into believing (per Rabbi Akiva) that any house, with its thick walls, gates and alarm systems, can guarantee safety. And so, the sukkah becomes our “house” during this season to remind us of our fragility, impermanence and the limits of the material.

Sukkot comes each year to break us of our illusions and to emphasize that real protection lies within God’s arms. This is the spiritual message of the sukkah, and it’s there that we live for seven days under the t’sach, God’s canopy, a sukkat shalom.

Our bodies are like a sukkah as well, a vessel within which the indwelling presence of God (i.e. the soul) abides. We know, especially as we age, that our bodies are not forever. They break down; we get sick and frail; and we die.

Our homes can so easily be knocked down by earthquake, tornado and storm, just as our bodies and the sukkah are subject to time’s vagaries.

Kohelet

The megilah (scroll) we read on the Shabbat of Sukkot is Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and it emphasizes this theme of human impermanence and fragility. Kohelet says: “Havel havelim amar Kohelet – havel havelim hakol havel!” – ‘Utter futility, said Kohelet, Utter futility, all is futile!’” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

A better translation of havel is “vapor.” We feel it one moment, and the next it dissipates much like Abel, whose Hebrew name was also “Havel,” for he left no trace when his brother Cain murdered him.

Most often we attach far too much importance to things – our home is important – our job is important – certain possessions are important – we’re important – everything feels important because we’re attached to, identify with and treat our possessions and self-made identities as extensions and reflections of ourselves, but the truth is that over time nothing tangible or created by human beings is ultimately important – “All is vanity,” like vapor dissipating leaving no trace.

That’s the disturbing side of life, and Sukkot reflects ultimate truths about the limits of materiality and the eternal nature of the spirit. The other side of the holyday, thankfully, empowers us because tradition calls us to rejoice in the very things that we know are impermanent which, like us, are the manifestation of divinity too.

The Four Species

The arba minim (the four species), the lulav, etrog, hadas and aravah plants, represent different aspects of the natural world. They symbolize also different kinds of Jews, the Jewish people as a whole, the oneness of humankind, and God’s all-encompassing unity.

And so, in this z’man simchateinu, this “time of our rejoicing,” we leave our homes and return to nature and the earth. We become more aware of what’s around, above and below us, and we become even more aware of who and what we are.

Universalism

Sukkot carries a deeply universal message. It’s not just for Jews – it’s for non-Jews too. We know this because in the Talmud 70 sacrifices were brought to the Temple during Sukkot, representing the 70 known nations of the world at that time (Bavli, Sukkah 55b). This festival is for the entire world, for everyone everywhere on the planet.

Redemption

Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot is a triad of Biblical festivals celebrating three kinds of p’dut, redemption.

Pesach’s p’dut celebrates our people’s liberation from Egyptian bondage.

Shavuot’s p’dut celebrates our receiving Torah.

And Sukkot’s p’dut celebrates our redemption from ourselves, especially from the finitude and impermanence of our lives.

In Psalms (130:7-8) we read:

Yachel Yisrael el Adonai
Ki im Adonai ha-chesed
V’har’beh i-mo p’dut;
V’hu yif’deh et Yisrael mi kol a-vo-no-tav.

O Israel, hope in God
For with God there is steadfast kindness
And great redemption is with the Eternal;
And God will redeem Israel from all its wrongs.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sukkot Sameach.

My Brother – The Universe – Henry Miller – And New Year Hopes

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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My brother, Michael, is a scientist (i.e. hematologist-oncologist on faculty at UCLA Medical Center). He accepts truth when empirical evidence is clear. However, he also knows that no matter how much we may think we know, we never have all the information necessary to make categorical statements about objective truth.

He recently wrote the following to me:

“I often marvel at how improbable we all are as humans. There had to be the creation of the universe, then the stars and planets. There had to be an Earth with perfect conditions ripe for life, then enough time for natural selection to create the diversity of life we know. As humankind, we are merely one invention of this process. And as individuals, who are so dependent on both nature and nurture for who we are, each of us is the improbable union of one particular egg and one particular sperm raised in a particular environment by two particular parents. How improbable and unique can you get? Mind boggling!”

Henry Miller wrote the following relative to the truth my brother articulated above:

“Let each one turn his gaze inward and regard himself with awe and wonder, with mystery and reverence; let each one work her own influence, her own havoc, her own miracles.”

This is the nature of this High Holiday season. We are dynamic beings, just as the natural world is dynamic, and we are capable of changing and climbing out of and moving from the holes into which we’ve fallen and become stuck, if only we have the will and the clarity of mind, heart, and spirit to do so.

May it be such for each of us in this New Year 5775.

May Israel and the Palestinians strive to find a better way to live side by side in mutual respect, in peace and in security.

May the forces for good destroy ISIS and defeat all those who would destroy innocent human life and thereby save human lives (I pray specifically in these days for the well-being of Kurdish Muslims of Syria).

These are my most fervent New Year’s hopes. To attain them, it will take us all, decent people who regard every human being as the infinite embodiment of God’s creative and loving will.

L’shanah tovah u-m’tu-kah u-v’ri-yah l’chul’chem u-l’mish’patch’chem u-l’chol y’di-dei-chem!

Erotic Poem, Intra-Divine Allegory – or Both?

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“The world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

So said Rabbi Akiva (2nd century Palestine), who believed that The Song of Songs, traditionally attributed to King Solomon as a young man, is an allegory between two lovers, God and Israel.

According to Moshe Idel, Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Kabbalah – New Perspectives, 1990), the 12th century Spanish mystic, Rabbi Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona, the 13th century Castilian mystic, Rabbi Isaac ibn Avi Sahula, and others focus on what are called the theosophical processes taking place between the two lower Sefirot of Tiferet (symbolized by the bridegroom) and Malchut (symbolized by the bride). According to these Kabbalists, both the biblical description and human love itself reflect or symbolize higher events within the metaphysical structure of God. (p. 206)

In other accounts, such as that of the 13th century Spanish Kabbalist, Avraham ben Shmuel Abulafia, The Song of Songs is an allegory of the intellect and its union with God.

These allegorical interpretations of The Song of Songs, beginning with Rabbi Akiva, are the basis upon which The Song of Songs is read each year on the Shabbat during Pesach, for it is then that we celebrate our people’s redemption on the one hand and the hoped-for-redemption of God within God’s Divine Self on the other.

All that being said, this extraordinarily enriched poetry seems at first glance to be a purely secular poem (God’s Name is never mentioned) celebrating young, sensuous and erotic love, the passionate draw of two lovers yearning for relief from their existential loneliness:

“For Love is strong as death / Harsh as the grave. / Its tongues are flames, a fierce / And holy blaze” (8:6 – Translation by Marcia Falk)

Taking the Songs as a secular poem, an allegory, or both, the emotional and spiritual longing can be sated only by one’s human and/or Divine lover.

The great Rav Avraham Isaac Kook wrote of the higher love this way (Translation by Ben Zion Bokser):

“Expanses divine my soul craves. / Confine me not in cages, / of substance or of spirit.

I am love-sick / I thirst, / I thirst for God, / as a deer for water brooks.

Alas, who can describe my pain? / Who will be a violin / to express the songs of my grief?

I am bound to the world, / all creatures, / all people are my friends.

Many parts of my soul / are intertwined with them, / But how can I share with them my light.”

          Shabbat shalom and Moadim L’simchah!

 

 

 

 

The Big Bang and “Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey”

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by in Art, Beauty in Nature, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“What are you doing earth – in heaven? / Tell me – what are you doing – silent earth?”

I recalled this two-line poem by Giuseppe Umbaretti (1888–1970) recently because in the last two weeks the relationship between heaven and earth has come sharply into focus in a new 13-episode Fox television series called “Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey” that explores the beginnings of the universe. It is narrated by the astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, the Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that scientists have detected in patterns of gravity waves in the radiation that lingers in space that they believe is the faint afterglow of the big bang. Before, the big bang was only a theory of the universe’s origins, but with this discovery astrophysicists and astronomers believe that the big bang actually occurred 14 billion years ago.

“Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey” has stunning graphics and spectacular photography, so it is a magnificent series to watch. As I experienced that first episode I was struck by awe and wonder and by how very small we human beings are against the staggering size of the cosmos and the enormity of time that has passed since the big bang.

In the first episode Dr. Tyson sought to make intelligible the enormity of cosmic time by placing the events of the last 14 billion years on a single one-year cosmic calendar.

The first two hundred million years, he said, were quiet, but then things began to happen. The first stars appeared on January 10, thousands of galaxies emerged on January 13, and hundreds of billions of suns on March 13. The birth of our own sun came much later, on August 31, four and a half billion years ago.

On September 21 life began. On December 17 sea creatures filled the oceans. The first flower bloomed on December 28, and on December 30 a great asteroid crashed into the earth wiping into extinction the dinosaurs.

On December 31,at precisely 11:59 PM and 46 seconds, 14 seconds before the cosmic year ended at mid-night, our human ancestors stood erect, walked the earth, looked up, and contemplated the cosmos.

Consider how far we’ve advanced in just the last 57 years since Sputnik and 35 years since Neil Armstrong walked the lunar surface.

Where formerly imagination and the spirit world claimed heaven as their domain, the space age has enabled us humans to enter that formerly inaccessible realm.

Everything connected with our space program has brought us deeper scientific knowledge and achievements the ancients could not have imagined.

The staggering immensity of it all boggles the mind. Science is now postulating, as religion has always affirmed, that every species of life, tens of thousands of diverse forms, have come from a single atom exploding in the big bang.

This recognition of our oneness with the universe is where science and faith come together. Both inspire surprise and awe. Both evoke appreciation and gratitude. And in our hearts our response can only be one based in love, because in oneness we understand that all things, all creatures and all existence belong to each other, are a part of one another and share together our one universe.

We live, each of us, in a sea of energy that moves all things forward. Our task is to attune ourselves to that flow of energy, to the life of the world and the surprise of being, that we might flow with the greater family of life, and become one with the same force that moves the sun, moon and stars.

Our yearning to belong and be a part of that oneness is fulfilled when we give back of ourselves in love to others and the world, thereby preserving and perpetuating what has been given to us.

Shabbat shalom!

Well-being and a Wishing Box

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Health and Well-Being, Stories, Uncategorized

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A friend and member of my community at Temple Israel of Hollywood, Sophie Sartain, has written a wonderful piece on “Well-Being” in the current issue of LA Magazine (below) about her daily walk on a popular Hollywood trail called “Runyon Canyon” whose trail head is several hundred yards from my synagogue. There the famous and unknown hike and exercise their dogs without leashes, one of the only open places in LA to do so.

The hike, requiring mild exertion and then excruciating effort the higher you go to the top of Mulholland Drive, enables the hiker to see Los Angeles from the beach to downtown. Sophie compares the levels of hiking up to Mulholland to the trek of the cherpas to the top of Mt. Everest. Granted, Runyon Canyan is hardly Mt. Everest, but to those starting out it feels as though it is.

Sophie is a cancer survivor and a mother of small children, and Runyan Canyon has become her “gym.” As her conditioning progressed she was able to reach the summit and having done so she discovered that this daily routine was meant to be more than just her personal gym and an opportunity to sight-see and meet friends and enjoy the dogs. This is what the hike came to mean to her:

At the Top my Runyon story took on a new dimension, for I happened upon the Wishing Box. A metal contraption with spikes protruding from its roof like the Statue of Liberty’s crown, the box was just there, unannounced and unexplained. When I first discovered it in 2011, it was painted with the message “Give a Prayer, Take a Prayer” and adorned with rainbows, flowers, and a geographically accurate globe.

Many people take advantage of this “Wishing Box” and have written down their fervent (at times trivial) wishes for fame and fortune. More importantly they have prayed for love, good health, courage, and the fortitude to cope with their lives.

When we become ill, and when compelled to learn how to cope with our unmet dreams, personal limitations and fear of the future, we can feel very much alone and powerless in our lives.

The “Wishing Box” offers a vehicle for enhanced mindfulness and prayer, both of which can help us to stay present enough to count our many blessings and be grateful for them.

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“Born on a Blue Day” – by Daniel Tammet – Book Recommendation

21 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Book Recommendations, Health and Well-Being, Stories

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“Born on a Blue Day” (publ. 2007) is an extraordinary memoir written by a young British autistic savant, Daniel Tammet. His mental capacities are so remarkable that he was able to recite Pi to the 22,514th digit and holds the British and European record.

The author writes about his unique way of thinking called “synesthesia,” in which he sees numbers, letters and musical notes as colors and shapes. One of about 100 people in the world with his abilities, scientists believe that they are a consequence of hyperactivity in his brain’s left pre-frontal cortex.

Tammet is able to multiply vast numbers without having to write anything down. He is a gifted linguist and is fluent in 10 languages – English, Finnish, French, German, Lithuanian, Esperanto, Spanish, Romanian, Welsh, and Icelandic (which he learned to speak in one week!).

As a child his father introduced him to chess by taking him to the local chess club. Daniel was instructed by one of the older members and after familiarizing himself with the moves of the different pieces and then visualizing them moving in mathematical configurations, he beat his teacher in his first game. He went on to win many matches.

This engaging memoir tells the often painful story of Daniel growing up, isolated because of autism, Asperger’s and an early epileptic episode that almost killed him. As a child he was so unusual that he had no friends, which he did not miss because he was happy spending time alone in his room thinking.

Daniel only learned to become empathic (a problem for those with autism and Asperger’s) by associating his feelings about numbers and colors to feelings others experience in their lives. He wrote:

“Emotions can be hard for me to understand or know how to react to, so I often use numbers to help me. If a friend says they feel sad or depressed, I picture myself sitting in the dark hollowness of number 6 to help me experience the same sort of feeling and understand it. If I read in an article that a person felt intimidated by something, I imagine myself standing next to the number 9. Whenever someone describes visiting a beautiful place, I recall my numerical landscapes and how happy they make me feel inside. By doing this, numbers actually help me get closer to understanding other people.”

Daniel describes his obsessive and compulsive need for order and routine in life, explaining:

“I eat exactly 45 grams of porridge for breakfast each morning; I weigh the bowl with an electronic scale to make sure. Then I count the number of items of clothing I’m wearing before I leave my house. I get anxious if I can’t drink my cups of tea at the same time each day. Whenever I become too stressed and I can’t breathe properly, I close my eyes and count. Thinking of numbers helps me to become calm again. Numbers are my friends, and they are always around me. Each one is unique and has its own personality… No matter what I’m doing, numbers are never very far from my thoughts.”

Tammet is often poetic, especially when describing his love of numbers and words through color and texture:

“There are moments, as I’m falling into sleep at night that my mind fills suddenly with bright light and all I can see are numbers — hundreds, thousands of them — swimming rapidly over my eyes. The experience is beautiful and soothing to me. Some nights, when I’m having difficulty falling asleep, I imagine myself walking around my numerical landscapes. Then I feel safe and happy. I never feel lost, because the prime number shapes act as signposts.”

Despite his Asperger’s and autism, Daniel lives independently. When he was in his early 20s he told his parents that he was gay, soon fell in love, and moved in with his lover/partner.

Daniel Tammet is a wonderful story teller, and to read his words is to enter a unique world. He is a descriptive, honest and often touchingly vulnerable writer.

People have often asked him how he feels about being a human “guinea pig” to scientific researchers of the human brain. He does not mind because he knows that what is learned will expand knowledge of how the brain works. He is also interested in understanding himself better and says he wrote this book so that his family will understand him better.

This memoir is not only a fascinating read, but is important in understanding a true savant and the condition of autism and Asperger’s.

You can read an excerpt from “Born on a Blue Day” here:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=2794451&page=1#.UcJHOdjm9I0

 
 

Blessings for Pets and All Animals – Part II

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Beauty in Nature, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Uncategorized

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This past week I posted a blog on whether Jews should say the Mourner’s Kaddish for a beloved pet. I have received many responses to that blog both in agreement with me that distinctions must be made between human beings and pets and that the Mourner’s Kaddish is meant for mourners to say for parents, spouses, siblings, and children only, and in disagreement that since the Mourner’s Kaddish affirms God in life that it is appropriate to say the Kaddish for a pet. Though I do not agree with this position, I am sympathetic, which leads me to post now these two blessings.

The first is my blessing when a beloved pet dies. The second was written by the famed scientist and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer.

A Blessing on the Death of a Beloved Pet

Eternal God of Creation:
I am grateful to have enjoyed the gift of _______ (pet name)
Now that he/she has passed from this life.

Give me the strength and courage to cope with my heart-ache and loss.
Despite my grief, I am thankful that my beloved companion no longer suffers.
________ will live in my heart and memory as a dear companion of my soul.
As he/she enriched my life with love and devotion,
May I show similar care for the lives of all your creatures.

May he/she be at peace. Amen.

A Blessing to End the Suffering of Animals – by Albert Schweitzer

Hear our humble prayer, O God,
for our friends, the animals,
especially for those who are suffering;
for animals that are overworked,
underfed, and cruelly treated;
for all the wistful creatures in captivity,
that beat their wings against bars;
for any that are hunted or lost or deserted,
or frightened or hungry.

We entreat for them all
Yours and our compassion,
and for those who deal with them,
we ask a heart of mercy
and gentle hands and kindly words.

Make us, ourselves,
to be true friends to animals
and so to share
the blessings of the Merciful.