Suspension and The Days of Awe

This photo was taken on Monday.

It is a sensation much like what it must feel like to be floating, these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It is a strange feeling and yet, not totally unexpected.  It is a feeling of being suspended in time.  It is the sensation of waiting, expectantly, for things to pass and although I do not really believe that God has an enormous book in the sky in which he actually transcribes names for another year, metaphorically, the idea strikes me in my soul.  On Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi spoke of The Book of Life.  He spoke of the three "lists" which it is said that God keeps, one for the righteous whose names are automatically transcribed into The Book for another year.  These are the ones who have done only good without any transgression, the very few and far between.  I imagine this list to be quite short in my mind's eye.  The second list is for the wicked.  This list consists of individuals who have done so much harm to their fellow man that they are immediately removed from The Book of Life.  This is the list that I do wish existed.  The third book is for the intermediate.  This is where I know that I belong.  This is the list that contains the names of those of us who try to live our lives in good and honest ways but who do, inadvertently, sometimes miss the mark.  This is the list which contains the names of those of us who are doing our best to learn, to grow and to improve, year after year and, by God's will, will be inscribed into The Book for another year. This is the list of suspension in time.  During the days in between Rosh Hashanah(The New Year) and Yom Kippur(The Day of Atonement), it is our responsibility to evaluate our own behavior, to make amends with anyone we have hurt and to ask for forgiveness from others and from God.  These are days of repentance and prayer.  On Saturday, Jewish people all over the world will observe Yom Kippur.  This is the holiest day of the year for us.  It is the day when it is said that we are closest to God and to the quintessence of our own souls.  This is the day on which we pray that God will accept our prayers for forgiveness and inscribe us in The Book of Life for another year.  This is the day that we admit out loud and to ourselves that we are less than perfect but that we will try harder in the year to come.  And although Yom Kippur is a very somber day, it is also sufficed with joy because it is the day that we come together as a community to pray for God's forgiveness.  Even Jews who do not typically practice or attend synagogue will attend on Yom Kippur.  Why not hedge your bets?

The week down here in beautiful San Clemente, CA began with a mixture of sunshine and clouds.  

This photo was taken on Tuesday.

But slowly, the skies became darker and the clouds became heavier until something very unusual happened.

This photo was taken yesterday.

We got a significant October rain storm.  Now for those of you that live in other parts of the country and even other parts of the world, rain is not an unusual event, but for us, it just does not rain in Southern California as the song says.  This unexpected storm added to my feeling of being suspended in time.  It gave me time to think and to pray and to read meaningful literature.  It gave me time to consider and after it was over, I felt another sensation...The sensation of being cleansed.

May I take this opportunity to ask forgiveness of anyone whom I may have hurt over the course of the past year.  May I find forgiveness in my heart for those who have hurt me, either intentionally or inadvertently, and may I find a way to leave this hurt behind.  But most of all, may God inscribe you, your family members and friends into The Book of Life for another good year.  All of you.

Amen.

With many blessings and so much love,
Debbie-Four Angels Momma

May You be Inscribed in The Book of Life 5772

Sometimes, even the cat feels like he can just stick his tongue out at me.  I mean, just like everyone else, he loves and adores me but hey, I am Momma and if he's having a bad day, I guess I should be, too.

When done correctly, I have found that the moniker "Mother" is synonymous with the words safety, security and comfort.  My husband wants to be able to fix things when a problem arises.  He is definitely the strong and silent type in a lot of ways so with five women surrounding him(and sometimes all at once!), he has to take in a lot of excess chit-chat which probably often hurts his brain.  I can sympathize with that because sometimes it even hurts my brain.  But women, not all but many, like to talk things through.  We like to discuss different angles.  We like to explore various solutions.  We enjoy the interaction and oftentimes, that is what it takes for us to arrive at a resolution. Men, not so much.  So here I stand.  Unlike my husband, I know that I cannot really just fix anything and move on.  Long after he is off the topic with one or more of our Angel Daughters, I am still trying to maneuver them into a positive direction that will both make them feel better and produce superlative results.  Neither way is absolutely right or wrong, it just is.  I am not, however, a magician.  A goddess, maybe, but...Well that is not what I am writing about right now so I will just move along.  Just take my word for it, it will make me feel special.  The goddess part, anyway.

I have spent a good portion of today dousing fires and wiping tears from my daughters cheeks.  And a few minutes ago at exactly 6:39 PM, the sun, which never really shone itself down here on the edge of the Pacific ocean today, went down for the last time on the Jewish year of 5771.  For Jews all over the world, another year has just passed and ten days of awe will now be observed.  Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year which begins as a celebration and then culminates after ten days with the observance of Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur is a somber, serious day because it is a time of self-reflection and atonement.  It is a day when we ask God to forgive our transgressions and to guide us into being better people next year.(simply put)  The time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is known as "the days of awe".  These days are used for self-evaluation, reflection and prayer.  On Rosh Hashanah, we ask that God inscribe us into the Book of Life for another year.  On Yom Kippur, it is sealed.  I suppose that the cloudy day today was appropriate for the misty moods which I encountered but during these next ten days, I am going to focus on growth and redemption and healing for all of us and when I say "all of us" I mean myself, my family and all of my wonderful friends, both Jewish and otherwise.  The new year is a time for transition and transformation, much like the season of autumn, so what better time to contemplate the things that we can do better, for others, for ourselves and for the world.  The September mist which blanketed much of the Southern California coast today reminded me that my daughters pains and concerns and fears are very, very real and that it is their father's job to protect them and to try to fix what ails them.  But it is my job, as their momma, to walk them gently but firmly back into the light, allowing them the time and consideration that they might need to get there.  A perfect combination.  A band-aide and a time to allow for healing.

I will write more about these "days of awe" throughout the next ten days and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.  I know this might all seem a bit mystic and confusing to someone who is not Jewish, but trust me, it's really not.  Tomorrow, Mark, myself and our four Angel Daughters will spend part of our day in synagogue celebrating the New Year.  We will pray, we will sing, and we will hear the blast of the shofar as we welcome in the New Year of 5772.  I look forward to this outward expression of gratitude to God before turning inward to evaluate myself.  L'shana tova(which means "for a good year" in Hebrew) to all of my Jewish readers and friends.  To everyone else, I wish you good health, happiness and so much love because we can never receive enough in the way of blessings from those who care about us.

With so much love,
Debbie

What the Falcon Told me

While watching this very majestic Falcon land on our patio chair this afternoon, its visit brought with it a moment of complete clarity.  As we sat, eye to eye, beast to beast, this winged creature relayed a message so pure that it almost startled me into believing that this bird had spoken out loud.   "No matter what else is going on in our lives at any given moment, it is still our complete responsibility to soar in spite of it all."  In spite of it all.


Soar, my friends, my children, and even myself.  If you think you cannot do it; soar.  If someone has hurt you and you just do not feel like you will ever be able to do it again; soar.  And if someone has done something that has made you feel puny, sad, lonely, small, insignificant, blue, crushed, incapable, unable, less than, ugly, fat, unheard, stupid, fill-in-your own blanks here; then soar anyway.  Never give anyone the power to clip your glorious wings.  You were placed here to soar in spite of what life might bring on.  Fly high, dear hearts, fly high...

Is it Safe to Come Out Yet?

It has been one week and one day since my Angel Daughter was forced to face the heart-clenching reality of finding out what it feels like to have loved and then lost.  This was not something that she was at all prepared for and it caused her world to come crashing down around her swiftly and intensely.  Most of us know what this feels like and it is not something that we would wish on anyone else.  Sadly, it is something that most of us must go through at least one time or another and oftentimes, even more than once.  It is especially difficult when it happens after an almost three year relationship in which almost everyday was spent together,  college classes were attended congruently, promises were made, futures were discussed, and family became family.  For the past week, I have observed as my daughter slid into the easy company of her number one defender and protector...Me.  She has always been the tentative one.  A bit different than our other three, she does not allow people in easily.  She is content with just a few close friends, and she does not like change.  She has surprisingly handled all of this a bit better than I thought she would which is good.  Very, very good.

Yet I know that she is #1-Leaning on hope.

And #2-Going through the normal stages of grief.  Which can change from one emotion to the next over the course of a single moment.

And #3-Leaning on hope.

She is tentatively popping her head out from underneath my protective wing in order to bathe, eat, go to work, go to school and to hang out with her younger sister.  I am watching her very, very closely.  I am very glad that she is talking to me about how she is feeling.  I am trying my best to help her to process through all of the emotions.  I am losing a lot of sleep over all of this because #1-I am worried about her.
And #2-She wants to be close to me when she is not doing one of the things that I listed above.

And even though I know that she will get through this in time(We all somehow, do), I wish that it could be easier on her.  I wish that she could know, really know, that most of the time first loves do not become forever loves.  I wish that she could understand that there really is more than one person in this world that she could be happy with.  I wish that, like when she was little, I could put a pretty band-aide on it and make it feel all better.

She is in the process of talking to him right now and I just know that the result will not be what she is hoping for, but it might just end up being exactly what she needs in the long run.  And at least he has been a gentleman about this.  There was no cheating involved.  He is communicating with her when she asks him to.  He thanked both Mark and I for being so supportive of him over the past three years.  And he is admitting that, yes, he does still care about and love her, but that he doesn't believe that they have common goals and that it would be much, much harder to break things off at a later time.

How do you mend a broken heart?