Ahz mah (So what)

On vacation, in my own home. Calling it a retreat, because that sounds more spiritually meaningful (although shopping online for a vacuum cleaner and cleaning up the deck and rearranging bedroom furniture and filing papers might not seem particularly spiritual). This morning, savoring a cup of loose leaf fair trade organic green tea from China and a small piece of banana bread with chocolate chips that I baked myself, I hear my reverie interrupted by a sneering inner voice: Suburban white lady. The world is on fire and you are sipping fancy tea. People in nearby Brockton – no, even here in Stoughton – don’t have enough food for their children, and you are sipping fancy tea and staring out the window at the leaves and squirrels. Millions of people in this country and beyond are in high anxiety this week over the fate of our democracy and their very lives, and you are savoring a cup of fair trade tea and a small piece of banana bread. This is a familiar voice. It pretty much hangs out j

Every Thursday in my condo neighborhood, except for during the winter months, the landscaping workers descend upon the earth for many hours with their soul-crushingly loud machines. Mowers and blowers. It has been my weekly ritual, for years now, to sit in meditation each Thursday observing deep aversion, righteous indignation, sadness, bodily distress, cursing. Every week I think: This is Wrong. The gasoline-powered blowers in particular are an ecological nightmare. This has been known for years. I fret for the ecosystem, I fret for the workers' well-being. Someone should Do Something. I should Write a Letter. They should – we should – and then I never do, and they never do, and the landscaping workers continue to descend upon the earth every Thursday. This month, a new level of outrage arises, as I realize that they are altering our experience of the fleeting glory of autumn. Crunchy leaves underfoot on the quiet streets where we all walk, blankets of reds and yellows on the vibr

It’s happening again. I’ve been trying for several days to write about something really Big. A fundamental, largely unseen crack in our culture; something that impacts every one of us, down through the generations. But I’ve been writing about it, in pristine and earnest abstractions. I know I’m right, but who do I imagine I will convince with carefully crafted logic? And then I realize that it’s happening again – that the mind is wrestling with the fog of Big Issues when it could be dropping down into actual experiences – like the swish of yellow leaves underfoot, or the cool dampness of the air at twilight, or the uneasiness in the body after an oddly tense conversation with a friend. Or noticing how the days are flowing by rapidly and that I no longer find it troubling.

What do I know? By that I seem to mean: What do I know to be true? to be reality? Not what did I “learn” in all my years of schooling. (Definitely not that.) Not what do I believe, or want to believe, or choose to believe. (I would say that facts like the earth’s orbit around the sun belong in this category. I accept them as true, but do I really know?) Not what came to me through the filter of family, or the white supremacist-patriarchal-christian-capitalist culture. What do I know, really? Perhaps I only know for sure what this particular body/mind has experienced directly. Okay, so start there: I know that emotional distress arises out of the experience of wanting . I know that a sense of pleasure arises in response to sunshine (but not too much sunshine), and rustling trees and salty ocean air. I know that another person’s drama is not mine to fix or solve or even grok. I know that communicating clearly (both expressing and hearing) is extremely difficult and endlessly humbling. I

I don’t think I’m the only person who does this: When something shocking happens in a movie I’m watching, I cover my eyes with my hands. And, simultaneously, there is the compulsive move to peek out from between my fingers, squinting in an effort to see but not-quite see. This week I am noticing how the national news has this quality of seductive shock, and how the mind is responding with its own gestures of both protection and compulsive squinting.

 Here is what I shared with my community on Yom Kippur: Judaism began with idol smashing. Some of you may be familiar with the ancient midrash about the childhood of our patriarch Avraham. The story is told that Avraham’s father made and sold idols. One day his father went out and left Avraham in charge of the shop. Avraham took a hammer and smashed many of the idols, then put the hammer in the hand of the largest one. When his father returned and was horrified, Avraham pointed to the idol holding the hammer and said “He did it.” His father responded, “You know that’s not possible, these idols can’t do anything. They’re just wood and stone.” And Avraham replied with some version of “Dear Father, if only your ears could hear what your mouth is saying.” Judaism began with idol smashing. The Torah is idol obsessed -- filled with instructions for the early Israelites to smash idols wherever they found them. Including in their own homes. The lure of idol worship was apparently a continuous

Hitler was elected democratically. I read that deceptively simple sentence to a group of teens this week in an introductory discussion about the Holocaust. The discussion moved on, but that sentence triggered a chain of associations in the mind for hours afterward. Eventually I came out of the trance of thought-spinning, recognizing – knowing again – that the mind has a propensity to attempt to solve the grandest mysteries of the human condition. This effort to “figure it all out” feels compulsive, tiresome, and pointless; it feels like throwing the body against a wall, over and over and over. Yet somewhere within the tumult is the flicker of recognition – the knowing again – that there are other options besides either figuring it all out or turning away in despair.

 My Rosh Hashanah teaching: This summer, while scrolling through random Facebook posts of some of the young people who I am connected with in different ways, I happened upon a classically anti-semitic post. It was written by a young Black man, someone who I do not know personally. It was apparently in response to something happening in pop culture, something about a sports celebrity. I didn’t know the details, nor did I need to. When I say it was a classically anti-semitic statement, I mean right out of the medieval Church playbook. No attempt at oblique dog whistling here – just openly slamming “The Jews” directly. As we say in Yiddish: Oy. This is not a congregation, thank God, where people tend to say things like “Why should Jews bother caring about Black people and racism?” But I know that the question is being asked by some Jews elsewhere, and I can imagine that after reading this young man’s post, and the many others like it, some of us might begin to wonder “why bother.” Yes oka

A significant number of people very dear to me have experienced the breakdown of a relationship in the past year or two. I have been witness to much sorrow, confusion, anger, hurt, mourning, and exhaustion. And I have also witnessed, sprouting up through all of that, glimmers of insight... resilience... hope... the clarifying of needs... sometimes for the first time in a lifetime. Over and over I am humbled by the power of the process itself. Over and over I am reminded that there is nothing to fix, no one to judge, and often nothing to even say. Sinking into the fertile composting of pain, seeds are sown which eventually sprout and blossom on their own inner time scale. In this I have faith. And meanwhile this witnessing stirs up in me ample grist for the mill of compassion. Old memories stirred up from the soil of my own relationship breakdowns, composted long ago.

 Since I think late February, I have been sitting outside every morning, for 30-45 minutes. Just sitting, outside. I have never done this before in my life. Me and morning and meditation and outside have never happened in the same sentence, certainly not in any sustained way. Except perhaps if I count walking to school when I was a child. Three moments, all within the last few days: One morning, while sitting with the intention to simply be present with a “bad” headache, an image flashes into awareness – not even an image, more of a... whiff, or an intimation, or a felt sense – of a hug and caressing of my aching head. I am moved to tears. One morning, a praying mantis sits on the deck railing in front of me. I have never seen one before, up close like that. One morning, the squirrels in two nearby trees emit harsh, alarm-like sounds. I open my eyes in time to see a hawk swooping low across our long, shared backyard and up onto one of the roofs. Of course, I am always accompanied by my

 My temple’s high holiday services will be on Zoom this month. This is my reality. It’s not “virtual” for me, it’s actual. This is what is happening. And when I consider the likelihood that less people will be participating than in the past, I also notice the mind scrambling for explanations, justifications, comparisons, judgements, solutions. As though – as always – there is a problem in need of solving. But what if there is no problem at all? Or what if the problem is so big that it is beyond comprehension or solution? In either case, I am free to simply have the experience I am going to have. That’s all. Whatever happens – including the possibility of total Zoom or internet failure – I am free to choose how it will be for me. And perhaps this is one of the messages of the high holidays this year: This is what is happening. How will you receive it... with a tightly clenched fist, or with an open hand?

I first encountered Jane Kenyon’s poem Otherwise many years ago, in a small frame on the dining room wall of a couple who had invited Alan and me to lunch. The poem catalogues the pleasurable moments of an ordinary day in the poet’s life, punctuated several times by the refrain: It might have been otherwise. The final line of the poem floated up into my consciousness recently, as it occasionally does: But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. How would it be to hold this refrain in our consciousness as we experience the pleasurable moments of an ordinary day? It all points towards mindfulness, gratitude and blessing, doesn’t it? Oh, and that couple with the poem on their dining room wall – They later divorced. And then remarried other people, and then divorced, and then got together with one another again. It might have been otherwise.

The wealthiest, most powerful people in this country are overwhelmingly white male christians. The one percenters. Sometimes I wonder about their souls, and if there might ever be someone who could reach them at a soul level. Someone to help them heal their childhood traumas and ease their toxic fixation on material wealth. In my 61 years of experience, I have observed that most adults are children in adult bodies. “Growing up” turns out not to be what we imagined it was; for many, many people it’s primarily about the aging of the body rather than an evolving consciousness. Or I could say it this way: There is a part of us that remains childlike, regardless of our age, and that childlike part of us is in control more than we would care to admit. (I was recently listening to a teenager talk about growing up, and I thought: Oh, do I tell them the secret or let them find out for themselves? I didn’t say anything. They wouldn’t believe me anyway.) So my assumption is that these one percent

Dream fragment: I am sitting in a row of people who are being called up one by one to receive a blessing. Suddenly I realize that I have been skipped. And then I have to assert myself and step up and claim my blessing even though it is no longer my turn. I wrote this down last week, and of course have no recollection of any other details of the dream, the feeling tone, nor what was happening in my life (if anything) that might have precipitated it. How wonderful. It feels like a gift now, to understand any way I choose. And suddenly I realize that it is a gift I can share. What blessings have we missed receiving, for whatever reason, that we might step up and claim now? What might it mean to assert ourselves to receive our blessing? I would even interrogate the image of taking turns, of being called up one by one – When did we learn that blessings are limited in time and space, doled out to the deserving like diplomas?

I knew that the self-imposed challenge of writing a blog post every day would mean facing the inner voices of judgement, doubt, shame. No different than any other daily practice. This week the voice of doubt has been whispering louder, deleting entire paragraphs soon after they are written. Yesterday it stopped me from posting anything, even though I was filled with thoughts and ideas. Why are you writing this? Ahz mah? Last month I read this quote from an interview with Zadie Smith about her essay writing, which felt so right to me at the time: “Talking to yourself can be useful. And writing means being overheard.” It’s the “being overheard” piece that is tripping me up right now. And it’s all okay. Grist for the mill, as Ram Dass would say.

A young Black man, who I admire for his activism but do not know personally, recently posted a classically anti-semitic statement on Facebook. When I say classic, I mean right out of the medieval Church playbook. No need for oblique dog whistling here – just slamming “The Jews” directly with language of Christ-killing and the “crucifying” of Black people who dare speak truth. Talking with white Jewish friends, I notice how many of us speak of anti-semitism in terms of personal prejudices, or “ignorance” that could be resolved through better education about cultural differences. That frame – locating the anti-semitism within the individual and the interpersonal realm – is valid, necessary, and insufficient; there’s another frame I find more compelling. Expressions of anti-semitism – especially coming from a young Black man, for example – need not be experienced as a personal attack by an individual or group whose moral character is in need of correction. Instead of focusing on problemat

This is the time of year that I write sermons for the High Holidays. My summer ritual. And suddenly, it isn’t. I mean, it should be, but it’s not happening. Yet. Nothing is what it once was. Of course. Pandemics change everything. And now my writing practice is different, and the sermons are not happening. Yet. And our services will be on Zoom, which changes everything. The thought of sharing a carefully prepared sermon on Zoom is... unmotivating. To say the least. I feel like saying the least. I feel like not saying anything. But the Rabbi gives sermons on the High Holidays. Of course. It’s a ritual. But nothing is what it once was. And what could I possibly say in the face of all that has been happening? That Black lives matter? Of course. That love is all we have, really? Of course. Even if I have said these things before? Of course. Do not imagine that anyone remembers. Do not imagine that it sinks in. And imagine that every word sinks in, that this ritual has meaning and power. Im

My mother wanted to buy me a gold heart locket, from Fortunoff’s. I was in my 30s, and a gold heart locket to me was the epitome of everything my mother wanted me to be that I was not. I often called it her “other” daughter, the one she wished she had. But I was not that other daughter; I was the actual daughter who chose not to share her valuing of material signs of social status. We fought a lot about things like this: gold jewelry, fine linen suits, Italian-made shoes... The more she pushed, the more I viciously ridiculed. And now it was a gold heart locket. I mentioned the conflict to Sandy, an older friend of mine. In response he told me the story of how his father, who had died recently, had once wanted to buy Sandy a “real” coat. At some point Sandy realized that for whatever reason, it meant a lot to his father; and that he could choose to say yes and accept the coat as a gift without being critical... and without feeling compelled to actually wear it if he didn’t want to. He s

Imagine this: The pandemic has given each of us a customized, independent study curriculum. Part of our task is to discern what that curriculum is, although it’s still our personal curriculum even if we aren’t aware of it. What is it that we are learning, either explicitly or implicitly? What meaning are we finding in our experiences? Aware of the privilege I have to live safely at home during the pandemic, I feel obligated to make the most of the independent study curriculum I have been given. At first I thought that my independent study would be an extended mindfulness retreat, modeled after the retreats offered at meditation centers. But lately I am aware that my independent study is more like a mashup of mindfulness, compassionate communication, anti-racism, and challah baking. There is much to be learned.

In the absence of sufficient sleep, the mind is mush. I wrote that line half an hour ago. After staring out the window for a good long while. A really long while. Mind and body are not two distinct entities. In the absence of sufficient sleep, we experience this truth viscerally. Right now I am a fog of wispy, half-formed thoughts, a thrum of tension. A head which feels too heavy to be held upright. A heart which is weary of pumping. I’m also feeling humbled, because yesterday I was judgemental about someone who was so tired they weren’t thinking clearly and said and did things they “shouldn’t” have. Part of me wants to defend myself – at least I have the sense to keep quiet when I’m this tired – but the body/mind can’t maintain focus on a single line of reasoning, and the argument fizzles. Give it up. If there is any meaning at all to be gleaned in this moment, let it be compassion.

One of the early lessons in nonviolent communication (NVC) training is to notice how often what we think of as objective observations are actually filled with judgements, evaluations, and diagnoses. Even the simplest attempt at describing a situation, such as “you yelled at me,” turns out not to be an objective observation. What was it about your vocal expression that I experienced as yelling? Someone else in the room or watching the incident on video might not experience it as yelling (or might have an even more extreme evaluation, such as that you were “enraged” or “out of control”). Why does this matter? Here’s the thing: If I give you “feedback” laced with judgements, evaluations and diagnoses (masquerading as “fact”), how likely is it that you will be open to hearing my thoughts and feelings? How likely is it that either of us will get our needs met? The more I learn NVC, the more I see how powerful this habit is in our culture. Attempting to swim against the current feels difficu

Here is when I feel my age, and the pull to despair: A young friend posted a cheery meme that said “I’m going to teach my sons how to cook and clean; it’s not just a lady’s job.” Wait, we were saying that – and much more – back in the 1970s! Are there really people for whom this is news? But really, now that I think about it, why am I surprised? Haven’t I noticed over the decades that the gendering of toys and games has never stopped? and that the sexualizing of girls’ appearance, at younger and younger ages, is more pervasive? and that the culture of toxic masculinity has gotten more toxic? and that sexuality and violence have been irreparably bound together by the white male dominated entertainment and pornography industries? And then I hear the voice of hope, not wanting despair to have the only say this morning. But today, I think I will just let it be.

There’s a part of the mind that I affectionately call Guy. This is the part of the mind that has been going full steam since I woke up a couple of hours ago, compulsively attempting to solve all the ills of humanity before breakfast. Not because anyone has asked him to. Not because he has the intellectual capacity, really. But because that’s just what he does. He’s analyzing, sorting, categorizing, associating, figuring things out... ALL THE TIME. Sometimes his voice is loud enough to be heard clearly, like this morning, but other times he’s whispering just below the surface of consciousness. (And yes, I am gendering Guy as a he, because that’s just how it feels to me.) A random comment on someone else’s Facebook post can get Guy going on a rant for hours. Often, like today, he can insidiously show up before I’m fully awake, offering to be “helpful” about what I could write about this morning. I almost fell for it today. I almost sat down to write a treatise on the conflicting definiti

I am a lover of words. A quick random flip through my old hardcover dictionary yields a delicious harvest: perspicacious... luncheonette... deuteronomic... flannel... quench... slovenly... deign... slugfest... electrostatic... harbinger... wobble.... I recently wrote down 100 of them from a dictionary hunt, every one a tasty treat. What makes words so delightful? The phenomenon of language itself is such a profound mystery. What is this awesome capacity humans have to breathe out sounds (or form symbols) to express our thoughts and feelings – often with the intention of influencing others to think, feel, and act? It is tempting to argue that words are “just words,” and that they don’t have the power to wound or influence us unless we choose to let them – which may be true some or even most of the time –  but it does seem that there are some hateful, blood-soaked words that convey the very real threat of physical violence. Aside from those few powerful words, though, might it be possibl

I love the classic “how are you” question of nonviolent communication (NVC), first formulated by Marshall Rosenberg (may his memory be a blessing): What is alive in you? It is a question intended to elicit reflection on our immediate body/heart/mind experience. Part of what I love about this question is that it implicitly corrects our misperception that intense inner experiences are a problem in need of fixing. In the world of NVC, our feelings and judgements – no matter how uncomfortable in the moment – are understood to be expressions of our life energy, pointing us in the direction of our deepest needs. An inner guidance system. A gift, really. So inquiring into what is alive in us is also a practice of gratitude. What is alive in me this morning? The high-pitched inner whine of a headache, a judgement that somehow it is wrong to have this headache, a need for tranquility and ease... and a sense of joy in connecting with a friend through a series of silly text messages. What is ali

The ultimate test of a daily morning writing practice: power tools in the neighborhood, at close range. The mind scrambles for cover. Maybe headphones with loud Mozart? Maybe give it up and try to write later? But wait – how is this any different from sitting and listening to the birds this morning? The opportunity to observe the mind is the same. Notice that the sounds are followed by very different mind/body responses: Birds –> delight. Power tools –> distress. Can I play with the possibility of powerful tools –> delight? Or that both birds and power tools simply are , without emotional response? I have to stop writing and be very still.

An early morning thought in my sleep felt insistent enough that I woke up, grabbed my phone, and dictated it to a text note (something I never do): When my father died, I inherited the idea that there was somewhere else you could go to get away. Then I fell back asleep. And now, downstairs and reasonably awake, the question arises: Huh? Is this something meaningful, or just the random detritus of a fitful sleep? For the sake of contemplation, I will choose to find it meaningful. And then a long-dormant memory surfaces, from about 20 years ago: Not long after my father received his pancreatic cancer diagnosis, he confided to me that he wanted to leave my mother and move away, alone. Somewhere, anywhere. To start a new life, unburdened. The recollection of his desperate imaginings, this last futile gesture at asserting his own needs, moves me to tears this morning. And now I hear my dream thought as a pandemic message: Watch for that fantasy that it is possible to get away from your sor

Uncharted emotional territory in this new pandemic reality: a rapidly oscillating sense of longing and dread, both generated by the same object – being together with people in person. I am experiencing both a longing to connect with people, and a dread of connecting with people because of the health risk. I know this is hitting a nerve in me, because lately when I hear of or see a social media post of people getting together – at parties, demonstrations, vacation spots, workplaces – I feel tears rising. Longing and dread... and the related emotions of envy and anger. And there’s something else I’m feeling in my gut today which I am having trouble articulating. It’s something about division, separation – along lines of race, class, and now age too. The flip side of the privilege that permits Alan and me to protect our health by staying home is that we are increasingly separated from those who do not have this privilege – while we are simultaneously even more dependent on those people in

Before there was an internet, I had a little red plaid notebook. Into this little red plaid notebook, I copied – by hand, in pen – quotes from other people; I kept up this practice roughly from 1974 through 1984. Poems, sayings, passages from novels or nonfiction, snippets of song lyrics. Usually in English, occasionally in French (which apparently I once understood). Tennyson, Paul Simon, my best friend Ruth, Dickens, Virginia Woolf, T. H. White... a wondrous jumble of voices. Walt Whitman, A.A. Milne, Jefferson Starship, Simone de Beauvoir, Lord Byron, Erica Jong. I marvel now at the range of my literary tastes back then (as I am simultaneously aware of how narrowly Eurocentric it was). But what I really want to say is that there is something about reading it all in my own handwriting, the sense of intimacy, the sense that these are my accumulated treasures, that keeps me returning to this little red plaid notebook year after year. Here’s the first quote in the notebook: “Man is a my

Little White Lie. I talked about this film for many months after seeing it at the Coolidge Corner theater when it came out around five years ago. Little White Lie is filmmaker Lacey Schwartz’s story of how she grew up in a white Jewish family in Woodstock NY, in which everyone colluded not to name the physically obvious: that her biological father had been a Black man. The film includes her probing interviews with family members about how and why this happened, and the evolution of her identity in young adulthood. To me the film was a multi-dimensional puzzle, raising a tangle of questions about betrayal, forgiveness, identity, race, family, storytelling. And now it flashes into my mind this morning, and I don’t know why. And now I wonder: Wouldn’t an investigative documentary about any of our families end up raising the same tangle of questions?

I wonder who lives in that coop apartment now, the one my family lived in until I entered 3rd grade in the mid-1960s. Through the miracle of Google Maps, I can see it clearly from all angles, confirming my memories of a vast sprawl of identical four-unit brick apartment buildings arranged to create a network of inner courtyards. I am impressed now by the neighborhood design, viewing it in satellite mode. I remember the sense of freedom, the opportunities for unsupervised play without ever having to cross a street. I remember feeling at ease entering someone else’s apartment (without knocking) because I needed to use the bathroom; I imagine we had the vague sense that apartments (and mothers) were basically interchangeable. I thought this post was going to be about systemic racism and white flight, about how the GI bill allowed my father to buy a modest house in another town just as Black families were able to afford the coop neighborhood. But what is unexpectedly hitting me right now i

In 2018, I was challenged by a Black friend (as part of a weekly anti-racism practice) to take the implicit bias test on the Harvard University website . After warming up with another test, and discovering that I have a moderate automatic preference for Judaism over other religions (wink), I took the race test and scored “your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African Americans over European Americans.” Huh, really? I had assumed that this test would uncover lurking, unconscious bias against Black people, learned early in life and impossible to uproot. Concerned that I might have somehow gamed the system, I took the test again. The second time, I scored “your data suggest no automatic preference between black people and white people.” Like measuring your blood pressure more than once – slight variation, but basically similar. At the time, I generated an optimistic conjecture as to why I scored this way: that the effort I had been making for several years – to become aware

Re-reading my pre-teen diaries, I glimpse a stream of thoughts that were never shared with anyone at the time. Certainly not with my parents; but apparently not even with my friends. A bubbling stream of anxious, sometimes obsessive thoughts. One obsession in particular – about an older boy who was so obviously mean-spirited and callous – took me down a rabbit hole of confusion for years . I can only imagine what it might have meant to that anxious girl if someone had listened to her with compassion. I know there were occasional moments of caring from insightful adults... but not nearly enough. See Advice for my 17-year-old self , posted Aug 3, 2014 – the list still rings true. Know anyone who could benefit from posting it on their mirror? I think I might.

Take away the judgemental label, the epithet, the charged noun and adjective that elicit defensiveness and denial. What is left? A bare observation: the systems in our culture (government, schooling, business, banking, real estate, policing and incarceration, religion, entertainment, sports) have for hundreds of years perpetuated inequity. It is an observation of a historical reality; not an opinion, nor an accusation directed at individuals. Are there exceptions at the individual level? Sure, but that doesn’t change the historical reality. American systems are fundamentally, profoundly rooted in assumptions of white male christian superiority. Are we perhaps at last able to face it and get real about the violence that has been committed in the name of this phantom superiority and the compulsive capitalist hoarding that goes with it? Some of us have long dreamed of a culture based on a different set of values.

I just finished reading through my recently unearthed childhood diary from 1971. My bat mitzvah was in late June of that year. I turned 13 that November. I am struck by two observations, both painful: First and most obvious, there was so much sorrow about feeling left out, not being liked, not being in the right crowd, etc. Almost daily fretting about who-likes-who, and parties I’m not being invited to, and feeling left out even at the parties I do get invited to. (Like the basement party where, dressed in my beloved navy pinstripe bell bottoms and frilly white blouse, I sat alone and on the edge of tears until it was time to go home.) Oh, poor sweetie. And then there is something else I am noticing in this childhood diary: the occasional nasty judgements of other people. Words like “scuz,” “ugly,” “hood,” “fake,” “pig.” And worse. Often accompanied by dramatic, oversized exclamation points. I am almost embarrassed even to admit this here, except that my compassionate heart understands

The insidious, serpent-like inner whispering: Not Enough. It sneaks up on me on a quiet summer afternoon. You haven’t done enough. You aren’t doing enough. You will never do enough. It almost had me this time, almost had me giving up and shutting up and going back to sleep. But wake up! – the whisper of “not enough” comes from the culture, not from the soul. It comes from the culture of hierarchy and put-down and smack-down, the culture of never strong enough, never attractive enough, never rich enough, the culture of white supremacy. The progressive version whispers with a different vocabulary – never active enough, never anti-racist enough, never woke enough – but the insidious, soul-crushing effect is similar. Don’t bother trying, it whispers. Give it up. People better than you are doing the real work. But having recognized its voice yet again, I can choose to listen to another voice. Yesterday it was the voice of a friend, suggesting that I simply take another step forward tod

Heartfelt connection brings joy. To share what is alive in us, with candor and empathy, brings joy. For me even just the thought of connection, just the remembrance of it, brings joy. Communing with a friend while walking in the cold rain with soaking wet feet, arms aching from holding the umbrella against the wind – joyful. Crying with a friend on the phone – joyful. Even speaking with a stranger on Zoom, if the intention is to be present for one another with empathy – joyful. And suddenly I am remembering that colorful little book from my son's childhood: More More More, Said the Baby. Yes – more more more – please.

Waking early to meditate outside on the back deck. Sitting at the kitchen table with my breakfast bowl and glass of water or cup of tea, writing. The rest of the day: emails, Zoom calls, planning, conversations with my husband, walking or working out, eating, more Zoom calls, reading or writing in the evening, washing dishes. There is a sweetness, a comfort, in having a daily routine. And then, lying in bed, the mind rebels against sleep: That’s it? That’s what you did today? That was too much like yesterday, and it was over too soon. A restless stirring of not-enough, battling with the weary body’s need to let go. The mind ups the ante: Is this how it will be from now on, the sense of connection with real, touchable human beings slipping further and further out of reach? What if this is it, what if there never will be any going back to “normal”? And then I’m asleep, and then it is morning, and I am waking early to meditate outside on the back deck. Gam zeh ya’avor / this too will p

Our schooling system is based on mistrust. Our schooling system is based on the belief that children - all people in fact, but especially children - cannot be trusted to know what is best for them. Cannot be trusted to know how to behave “well,” cannot be trusted to know what is important to learn, cannot be trusted to learn and grow without constant “guidance” and correction and judgement and ranking. Even in the most benevolent-seeming school systems, these assumptions are so foundational that they are invisible. And the adults perpetuating the system themselves grew up in it and were shaped by it, as were their parents, down through several hundred years of generations. But this is a created system; this is not “normal” or “natural.” Can you guess who created the system, and whose hands still hold down the lid of revolution against it? The parallels between the schooling system and the prison system in this country are chilling. And those few of us who see it feel that we are spitti

Since quarantine my dreams are all in Zoom, no shutting down nor way to click delete. The brain re-wired, it's all a breakout room of tangled thoughts and rest left incomplete. The weary body begs for screen-less sleep; but like the doctor's monster broken free the brain is lurching onward through the deep yet shallow 2-D dramas. Is this me? But wait -- I am aware, though dim my sight, and there's the torture of the thing, my friend: Awake enough to sense the monster's flight yet too unconscious still to seek its end. I reach in vain with frozen hand to find a way at last to power down the mind.

In the world of mindful communication, there is a shorthand expression which I find both nerdy and useful: Listening, looping, and dipping. Looping refers to the empathic feedback between us, and dipping means checking into my inner experience in the moment. Listening, looping, and dipping describe the entire process of a mindful conversation. Notice that the process is not listening, looping, dipping, and checking the mirror to see how your hair looks. Who has a face-to-face conversation while also looking at themselves?? It would be unnatural and distracting, and exacerbate our culturally-perpetuated insecurities about appearance; but that’s exactly what everyone is experiencing now on Zoom and other video-conferencing apps. And that’s why “Hide self view,” the last option in the little blue drop-down menu, is my favorite Zoom feature. Click on hide self view and you won’t see yourself; you’ll only see the other people. I have such gratitude for the anonymous geeks who added this fea

It happened again. Another zoom meeting in which I was close to tears of frustration but didn’t say anything. Another zoom meeting where I eventually sank into a trance of disconnection. What’s going on? I have been here before. Beneath the torrent of internal judgements of my own and other people’s habitual behaviors are the unmet needs that are alive in me: for connection, mutuality, consideration, effectiveness, creativity, fun, a sense of purpose. How might those needs be met in a zoom meeting? Well, we could adopt norms and practices to counterbalance the tendency for extroverts to speak up faster (and more often, and for longer) than introverts. We could ask each other “hey, what do you think?” or “I’m wondering how you are reacting to what I just said,” or “can we just check in about how everyone is feeling right now before we move on?” We could take turns. We could all take responsibility for the well being of the group as well as the agenda. We could lean in rather than check

Fifth grade, 1968-69. My friend pushes me down the stairs at school and the next day starts pulling my hair and punching me in the stomach. Another friend comes over and hugs me, shielding me from the punches by taking them on her back. I am white. Both of my friends are black. The friend who punches me is angry because our white teacher treats me better. I have told this story many times. I have told this story until I imagine that I understand it. But I have always focused the lens of the story on the friend who hit me, not on the other friend who hugged me. Remembering her today, I am moved to tears. When a friend - a young black man - speaks of putting our bodies on the line for one another, I react with uneasiness. Me, put this 61-year-old body on the line for him, or for anyone? It hardly seems likely that I would ever be in a position to do that in any meaningful way, or have the courage to do so. And then up comes this memory, and the purity of that little girl’s intention blow

Sitting on the concrete retainer wall overlooking Nantasket beach at sunset, low tide. Hadn’t expected to encounter so many people at this hour, but it seems okay; only a few people are passing by here on the sidewalk at this end of the beach. Mesmerized by the couple dancing to music I can’t hear, the teenagers roaming in packs, the stunning woman posing for photos like a model, the two little girls in long dresses gathering stones in the backwater, the gulls circling low over them. Weary from sadness, glad to just be sitting quietly and breathing in the salty air. Someone is talking near me, and I realize that I am being addressed. A man is leaning against the railing, about 8 feet from me. It’s a beautiful night, he is telling me; actually it’s the perfect time to take pictures with this lighting isn’t it, and a paddle board would be so great right now but did you know how heavy they are to transport but there are actually inflatable ones that might be easier but man just go to Dick

The small memorial candle on the stove top flickers gently. Today is my mother’s yahrzeit, 2 Tammuz in the Jewish calendar. I had to check how many years it has been since she died; I do not hold it easily in my memory. It was 2013. Seven years. I sometimes joke that our relationship has gotten better and better since she died, but really it’s not a joke. My empathy for her feelings and needs - what was alive in her - continues to deepen. I sometimes recognize them alive in me too. Today I mourn that I did not have the skills to be present with her in a more actively compassionate way, when it might have made a difference for both of us. I have access to those skills now, and to honor her memory I intend to practice them at every possible opportunity. Love you Mom.

Did you notice this too? After Obama was elected President, I began to notice that more and more corporations were featuring photos in their marketing materials of beautiful smiling black people. Brochures, billboards, websites, catalogues. I remember being delighted by the changes. I only later learned that I was being duped. The capitalist system was merely shape-shifting, again. I came to understand, by reading the perspectives of black people, that the marketing phenomenon was a calculated move to profit from the perception of diversity and equality. Duh. Those photos of beautiful smiling black people subliminally led liberal white folks like me to believe that corporations (and universities, banks, medical institutions, etc.) were embracing our values. Those photos were intended to make us feel good, and imagine that systemic change had happened (when it hadn’t), and therefore be happy to spend our money on their products or support their institutions without questioning or invest

There’s a writing tool that I use again and again to shift from head to heart energy. I just write “what I really want to say is....” and it drops me down to a deeper place every time. Sometimes I have to write it in capital letters to get my attention. This morning I wrote a piece about the shape-shifting capacity of the capitalist system. It’s good; maybe I'll post it tomorrow. But what I really want to say is... I’m feeling an ache of loneliness today beneath the physical security of “sheltering at home.” I miss my son, I miss my brother, I miss my friends -- even though I can “see” anyone I want on a screen. Sadness is showing up and may be settling in for a long visit. And at the same time I am feeling deeply connected at the heart level to so many people, including people I don’t even know.

I wrote a sonnet yesterday. A classic format, 14-line rhyming sonnet. I mention this not for your admiration (although it is pretty cool), but because it points to an insidious aspect of American (read: white) culture. I wrote a sonnet because I am reading a book about understanding poetry. The author says that the best way to understand a form is to imitate it, so that is what I have been attempting. The rhythmic bounce of a sonnet’s iambic pentameter (daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM) slips easily into my bloodstream, bringing back memories of immersion in 18th and 19th century British literature as a novice writer in college. But now, its hypnotic pulse also makes me uneasy. How is it that in the 21st century we are still being taught centuries-old British literary forms as the “classic” forms? Why have generations and generations of American immigrants been taught to revere - and identify with - all things Anglo-Saxon/British, from their accents to their absurd system of royalty? You

Black Swan = a statistical term for an occurrence which is unexpected, unpredictable, and carries an extreme impact* We are in black swan country now. (And yes, that sounds ironic now.) No one could have predicted the current tsunami of racial justice protests and responses. What’s happening now - particularly the confluence of pandemic and protest - is unexpected, unpredictable, and extremely impactful. Ahz mah, so what then? Learning to recognize black swans is a practice in humility. In black swan country, WE DON’T KNOW. We cannot assume anything based on past experiences, although that is our natural inclination. For example, white people went back to privileged sleep after the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s; will that happen again this time? The cynical voice in me whispers yes; but we’re in black swan country now. I am also aware that the extreme impact of a black swan can be either positive or negative. So for all the optimism about this wave of protests and r

Every path forward in the evolution of consciousness seems predicated on mindfulness: the practice of bringing a gentle awareness to the experiences of the mind/body, moment by moment. Anti-racist consciousness and activism seem predicated on mindfulness. So does the practice of nonviolent communication (NVC), a global movement of which I am a humble part. So does conscious parenting. So does learning (as distinct from schooling). There’s a paradox here: that forward motion does not exist without the potential for stillness. It’s one of the polarities expressed in the kabbalistic tree of life, the tension between accepting what is and striding forward to create something that is not-yet. I am aware that I am writing these cool words partly in an effort to ease the heat of agitation and sadness that I feel when the thought arises that Important Things are happening Out There, as I continue to shelter in the serenity of my home.

I distilled my understanding of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist into a note on my refrigerator door for daily reflection:           Anti-racism = Anti-hierarchy Take it in. Take it all the way in. This empire, our entire culture, is built on the foundation of hierarchy: the concept of better-than. But it’s a concept - an invention of the human mind. Concepts seem real because we tacitly agree to accept them as real - but concepts can always be examined, discarded, replaced. It has happened throughout human history, and it will continue to happen. Seeing hierarchy clearly as an empty concept -- oh, it’s like the child calling out the emperor's nakedness! Only now the emperor has a military force protecting him; but he's still naked.

Empathically tapping into the unmet needs beneath our judgements can provide a path to deeper connection with ourselves and with one another.... ...AND racist policies can be dismantled by imperfect humans filled with inner judgements and unmet needs who are not deeply connected with themselves or others! Both statements are true -- which reminds me of our unconscious tendency to view reality with an either/or lens. Either/or is baked into our culture, down to the smallest details of life. At age three, our son was asked in pre-school: What’s your favorite color? He felt compelled in that moment to choose one. And so it goes throughout life in this patriarchal racist capitalist christian empire. The preference-ing, the creation of hierarchy, seeps down into the smallest daily decisions and bubbles up into the biggest policy decisions; yet upon investigation such preferences are revealed to be empty, insubstantial, mere breath.

"Every judgement is the tragic expression of an unmet need." (Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Nonviolent Communication movement) This teaching comes to mind as I hear the many judgements we in progressive circles are mercilessly expressing about one another and about ourselves. We’re judging whose anti-racism is too bookish, or too late, or just too white. We’re judging how people are expressing their caring. We’re judging who is justified in their anger, or their exhaustion, or who has earned sufficient creds to be listened to. What are the needs being tragically expressed by all these judgements? Here are just a few possibilities: safety, consideration, appreciation, integrity, respect, belonging. Empathically tapping into the unmet needs beneath our judgements can provide a path to deeper connection with ourselves and with one another.