Am I A Candy Or Am I A Breath Mint?

I've been working simultaneously (I guess because of all the Gemini transits) on both my professional web site Lorelai Kude and also on my Astrology web site "AstroloJew." Although it feels perfectly normal to me to have two (at least!) super-developed areas of competency, because they're so diversely different it's clearly "brand confusion." Am I a media mogul or an astrologer? Am I a candy or a breath mint?

Like Certs, I'm two, two, two things in one. I'm a candy AND a breath mint, I'm a media mogul AND an astrologer. Because I contain "a sparkling drop of Retsin" (yes I do, Retsin spelled backwards is Nister, which can be read as a translation of the Hebrew word Nistar which means mystery).

My Brain Has Been Taken Over By TV

It's an unwired world, Paul Allen! finally, after 55 years of TV watching, it's really taken over my brain. Entirely unplugged.

Ever since the horrible Boston Marathon tragedy last week which turned out to be a terrorist bombing, the identification of two Russian brothers from Chechnya as the suspects, the shootout death of one and the capture of the other has hit the news, my brain has gone on overtime script-writing mode, calling out for Jack Bauer ("24") or Carrie Mathison ("Homeland") to jump in and DEAL with it! 

For some reason I've yet to identify, my brain has grabbed on to these events and is calculating every possible scenario so I can figure out what happens next - and it hasn't even happened yet. I feel like I'm watching a TV show on the American news (from right here in Israel, which by itself is weird enough!) and the show is going too slow AND the writers are leaving obvious holes in the script!!!

What I'm most concerned with at this point is the possibility (and in my opinion, probability) of the captured suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev being G*d forbid murdered in the hospital where he's currently in serious condition after his capture. Of course the TV script writer me is already imagining CIA agents dressed as nurses giving him a lethal dose (Insulin overdose)? to prevent him from talking.

Already today they've announced he has some kind of "throat injury" that prevents him from speaking.

I know Jack Bauer wouldn't let that get in his way, neither would Carrie. 

Were these brothers double agents? Were they patsies and did the real terrorists get whisked away? What's the Saudi connection, was it political at all or was it completely personal/pathological as is being suggested by the uncle of the young men? Did the older one recruit the younger one? Was the older brother an Islamic "baal tshuva" on a mission and did the younger one go along for the ride, perhaps to try to save his brother? Did they have absolutely nothing to do with it and are being framed?

My other "this may happen any minute" scenario is that one of the bereaved family members is manipulated by a CIA operative to assasinate Dzhokar Tzarnaev in the hospital - what a "Jack Ruby" move that would be, nobody would question the emotions of a grief-crazed family member to see if the CIA was behind it.

And then there's the KGB, which is a whole other level of hurt. How do I know all this? NOT just from TV, I can assure you. My own brushes with the Mafia (most notably the Chinese Mafia in 1999 and the Georgian Russian Mafia in 2007) give me a lot of background in this subject matter.

Chechnya is a fucking scary place. My former KGB operative friend told me that in all the places and situations he's ever been in his life where danger lurks, Chechnya is the only place that made him shit his pants - perhaps even literally.

So - please G*d let this man live to be interrogated (and please don't let them be STUPID enough NOT to read him his Miranda Rights, as is currently at this moment in the media whirl being suggested) and please G*d let the real TRUTH somehow come out - even though the odds are against it. AND it's taking WAY too long!!!!

Shabbos is Over, G*d's Back on Facebook

I guess the dam has finally burst, or at least a really good leak has sprung. This Shabbos I actually got to read/learn from not just one but two texts, and not surprisingly even with my "Pick-a-Page-Pickup" method of "what should I read now" divination, the subject matters aligned.

From "Apples from the Orchard," distillations of the Arizal on the Parsha, and Rebbe Nachman's "Likutey Moharan" the subject matter of male/female relationships, sexuality, rectifications and blatant misunderstanding arising from our tendency to anthropomorphize just about anything we humans can.

Liliths, demons of distorted sexuality, the destruction of worlds, the shattering of lives and the generations of consequences that each and every thought, word, and act that we permit ourselves has wrought. By "us" of course I mean the human race, and there's enough examples of all of the above in the so-called "secular" world to fill oceans of tears.

But in the "religious" world, how much worse - how much more a person's trust is shattered when done in the name of "G*d" (l'havdil!!!) and how possible it is for someone to be just a little bit mad at G*d for letting something like this happen ....

Well, I haven't exactly been MAD at G*d, after all He's taken tremendous care of me throughout this ordeal, but I HAVE wondered why G*d hasn't de-friended my Ex Husband from His FB page. After all G*d, how can You be FB Friends with BOTH of us?  Especially since we've both BLOCKED each other on FB, I can't see if You "like" his posts and he can't see if You "like" mine.

OK, just kidding, sort of.

Today during Shabbos for the first time since "all this" has happened, I remembered that even though a certain person is a dangerously narcissistic, delusional control freak with a messianic complex and a 12-string guitar he STILL is a Jew, and because of that one tiny but true fact alone, I have to stop forever, once and for all, all thoughts that end in "Why is he still walking around on this earth?"

Because, it's NONE OF MY BUSINESS anymore.  Baruch HaShem. Even more important, it's important for me to remember that it's my  wildly insulted outraged self talking, and she would DELETE him if she could.

I guess I'll know if I've moved on to another, more mature and spiritually developed, emotionally mature level when I'm walking down the street here in Tzfat and I see him coming in the other direction and immediately my stomach does NOT turn violently painful, making me want to double over and retch. Because that's what usually happens. So when that stops happening, I'll know I've been elevated.

Until then - OK G*d, I understand Your awesome love and compassion, it's ok with me if You are FB friends with him and whomever else You like.

Which is one of the millions of reasons it's good that G*d is G*d, and I'm not! :)

Art Therapy

One of the major blessings of living in the Cave Womb is it's proximity to the art studio / glassblower's paradise / creative centrix of my friend Sheva Chaya. I'm watching her build the Yam Suf ("Red Sea") in her courtyard.

I'm being inspired and invited to make the mosaic-topped table that I've been dreaming of since 2006.

It could happen! Right here in Tzfat where courtyards, art supplies and supportive friends can be
found!

The evolving "Yam Suf" glass and mixed media installation in progress! April 2013 / Iyar 5773

Gangsta Glassblower and Artist Sheva Chaya www.shevachaya.com

Makin' Waves, waves of hand-blown glass - blues, speckled whites and a splash of green...

Better Living Through Chemestry

Our brain chemicals are amazing. Mine, for instance, are only just now beginning to recede from the tsunami of adrenaline and other hormones and enzymes that have flooded my brain and body since late November, 2012 when I arrived back home in Israel after six weeks in the USA visiting my family to find not just my less than a year-old marriage in ruins, but my now-ex husband facing a city-wide sex scandal and a police investigation as well.

Believe it or not - that's NOT the point. The point is that after five months of pre-and-post divorce drama it's only NOW, the last 24 hours or so, that I'm able to finally experience some of the incredibly painful feelings and narrate them to myself without the PTSD chemicals kicking in.

Wow, I have angry feelings about being betrayed, humiliated, manipulated and used! Big strong angry feelings - those feelings have been trapped in my body all of this time. Ouch!!! Must come out!

More than ever, I need a swimming pool. I need a safe and enveloping place where gravity isn't working against me so my body can release all of these feelings and I won't hurt myself or others!

I Read The Bible Today, Oh Boy...

Today I was able to pick up my TaNaCH and read several chapters of the Book of Nehemia.

It felt really good to read directly from the book, so good I actually cried. I have not been able to "learn Torah" (as we say here in this Torah World society in which I live) since divorcing my (alleged) "rabbi" ex-husband some 3 months ago, whose hypocrisy so triggered an allergic reaction on my part to anything resembling what we would call "learning" that I haven't been able to glance at a book in months.

Of course I've always had a semantic issue with what is called "learning" here. To me, something is not learned unless it can then be taught. When someone picks up a book and reads a few lines and then puts it away and calls that "learning," I call that "reading." But I digress!

I was struck with the great care and loving detail Nechemia Chapter 3 goes into in describing who exactly did what and where they did it in the rebuilding of the Walls of Jerusalem.

Somewhere around 50-ish (depeding on how you count) different individuals and groups are mentioned as taking part in the rebuilding of the Walls and their Gates. Out of all those people and groups, these stand out to me:

"Next to them the Tekoaites reinforced, but their dignitaries did not put their necks  to the  labor of their Lord." (Nehemiah 3:5) The Tekoaites were the only community mentioned whose leaders refused to participate in the labor itself, although individual men of Tekoa did work and were mentioned by name.

"Next to him, Shallum son of Hallohesh, the officer over half the district of Jerusalem, reinforced, he together with his daughters." (Nehemiah 3:12) This is the only mention of women participating in the building of the walls.

"After him, Baruch son of Zaccai enthusiastically reinforced a similar measure, from the corner up to the entrance  of the house of Eliashib's house." (Nehemiah 3:20) This is the only mention of any person or group "enthusiastically" doing the work.

"After him , Hananiah son of Shelemiah and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph, reinforced a similar measure" (Nehemiah 3:30) This is the only mention of someone's birth order (the 6th son) and the names of both mother and father.

The wonderful thing about the Book of Nehemiah is that it took place so relatively recently (around 445BCE or the Hebrew year 3316). The people mentioned aren't archetypal soul-root icons such as Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaacov, etc., they're much more up close and real in terms of their politics and personalities.

From the above distinctions I'd draw the conclusion (extrapolations 'r' us!) that to successfully build the Walls of Jerusalem (both literally and metaphorically) we don't tolerate lazy leadership, we  make opportunities to include women, we appreciate and encourage enthusiasm, and we are respectful of family ties.

Of course the Walls of Jerusalem are both within and without. Eternally there's no equivocation, we who have "pledged our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" to building and settling this Land of Israel must indeed literally build the walls of Jerusalem.

But within ourselves there are those walls that need to be built as well, fortifications for honor and for beauty, for protection and for containment, to treasure and preserve as well as to have and to hold.

Within myself I call upon my inner leader to stop hiding and shying away from the hard work of being both a light and a vessel.  I owe my Creator the chance to make full usage of how He made me.

Within myself I incorporate and honor my feminine soul in everything that I do. Integrity is being true to my self.

Within myself I vow to stop squelching enthusiasm with fear and doubt. Passion is what keeps my fires burning.

Within myself I remember I'm part of a larger entity, my family - the one I was born into, and the greater family of humankind as well. My words and actions affect others.


Back to the cave ..... and the books! :)

I Always Knew I'd Grow Up To Live In A Cave

After my divorce it seemed only natural that I should move into a cave. A cave on the side of a mountain, a cave located on the edge of a cliff leading to one of the oldest and holiest burial sites in Israel, the Tzfat Cemetary, where lies the Holy Arizel.  A cave directly across the lush, green Galilean valley from Meron, and the burial place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, student of Rabbi Akiva and author of the Zohar.

A cave where it seemed I had waited all my life to be living. A cave, in fact, that seems to have been specially designed with me in mind - a cave of healing, of dreams, of visions. And of course a cave I could completely make my own.

The original rock wall of the Womb Cave which looks to me a lot like a bear. Native Americans regard the bear as an animal symbol of the power to heal.