Last night I was getting ready to start writing my final papers for school.
I was setting up my DVR for the night, making sure I won’t miss anything worth watching, when I decided to watch Tuesday’s recording of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart featuring special guest: Arizona Senator John McCain.
And it was amazing.
First time I hear someone questioning the governmental decisions related to the war in Iraq to someone that is NOT a Democrat but still a government representative, asking THE questions and making clear and obvious that questioning the government is not antipatriotic or anti-troops –which has been the way the government has been making its case up to this point- but exactly the opposite.
I am not pro Democrats or anti Republicans.
I don’t trust many members of the Democratic party either, especially those engaged in that same practice but instead of using the ‘anti-patriotic’ line, they use the ‘guiltracist’ trip (notice I joined two words together because they use them interchangeably)
What I am talking about is the intention –of the government from all things- of not allowing people to question ‘what is’ because that goes against personal interests or visions of the world.
And I repeat: PERSONAL.
“What is good for me inherently must be good for you and don’t even dare to question otherwise because that means that you want my destruction which is yours too. If you do question me you may destroy (huh?) me/us which means that you are like a suicide bomber that is ready to kill himself and destroy everything around him, or a misanthropist racist…in other words, you are a terrorist. And before you say anything else let me enroll everybody against you because you are dangerous”
WOW!
OK, so the Daily Show ended and I was back to cable checking the programming when I read “Bill Moyers’ Journal”…uhm, Bill Moyers? I was watching his interview with Joseph Campbell for my Symbolism class and I was wondering about him! Is it an old program or a new one?
Turned out it was a brand new one, “Buying the war”, about how journalist corp in the White House tacitly allowed President Bush to invade Iraq. How the government made such a wonderful case and used the media so perfectly in their favor.
A Harvard case-study of political propaganda.
Nobody, at least no editor or journalist of the main media conglomerates (CNN, NBC, ABC, WSJ, NYT, etc, etc, etc) ever questioned the government affirmations about WMD’s, Hussein’s alleged links with Al Qaeda or the actual plans of war.
Nobody took the effort to go to ‘the source’: Iraq, the bureaucrats, the experts, the people in the field, the diplomats in the Middle East and ask them: is that true? What is going on?
Fox News became the flag ship of the government propaganda, and the use of ‘American values’ and September 11’s tragedy made it an implicit but effective bully able to move masses against anyone who would dare to question the government affirmations.
I remember the first time I heard that Hussein had links with Al Qaeda.
I was stunned.
What? Hussein, a secular tyrant, that has been scared to death by anyone that shows sings of been able to recruit its people against him in any imaginable ways, a lunatic that had been completely isolated since before the first Gulf War, a coward that governs with a stern fit over opposing groups, that mistrusts Iran, Syria and especially Afghanistan and the Arab Emirates….in touch with Al Qaeda?
Says who?
I thought that someone here, Thomas Friedman or Ted Koppel maybe, will show the American public that that was almost impossible.
I mean, Americans are not that good at geography, let alone politics in the Mead East besides knowing that Israelis and Palestinians fight against each other all the time and that countries out there have a lot of oil, but Friedman, Koppel and others have been there and talk and write about it so they may be able to explain how those ideas were just not, well, real.
And what about the WMDs?
Given the restrictions and controls over the Iraqi military from the U.N, Russia, France and even China, that was not possible either.
Besides, if they did have a strong military they were more focused on ‘checking up’ on the potential opposition in Bagdad than planning a war with anyone else.
Chemical weapons?
Well, that was a certain possibility given their low cost and easy manufacturing, but not in a massive scale mainly because of the restrictive international regulations concerning Iraq at the time and how much it was plagued with spies from all over the world.
One little indication that a group of more than 5 people were gathering somewhere in a daily basis and were handling chemicals and working non-stop would have Israel, Turkey and Iran (not to mention the Kurdish community all over the world) screaming foul in seconds.
I remember my confusion when I heard agents of the government saying that Iraq was sort of an ‘easy going’ group of Muslims; the war would be so easy, everyone will love Americans and take them as their saviors. Besides Sadam Hussein there were no problems, all Iraqis ‘were the same’.
No mention of its complicated social and political web Turkish, Sunnis, Shias..nothing
Wait a minute
How do I know about all that?
Do you really want to know?
I read the news!
Yes, I lived in Israel for a while and yes I started Political Sciences at the University of Tel Aviv with an emphasis in Arab studies, but that was right before the Perestroika and the Gulf War and one thing I learned from living there is: things are in constant change, you can’t relate to the same issue in the same way for more than 3 weeks, let alone 15 years or more!
And nothing, n o t h i n g, is never the way it seems.
In any case, I learned about the complicated social structure of Iraq in 2002 when Bush was making his case by clicking on: ‘Naked Planet Iraq’ or something of that sort, nothing official but ‘credible’ that would give me some information about the life in Iraq and what did it look like.
All the information was over the Internet for anyone to see.
Typing ‘Kurdish in Iraq’ or ‘UN and chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq’ and something might show up…for anyone interested.
And ALL the reports about Hussein since the Gulf War –by anyone who met him- depicted him as a loner whose only visible supporter was Hugo Chavez, the only international leader who visited him since 1991!
All that information was ignored in favor of a propaganda machine that was about to overtake and change hundreds of thousands of lives for ever.
No journalist took the effort on t r a v e l l i n g to Iraq, or anywhere around there, and find out…why waste that money when you have all those pundits that will give you a “pro-American” opinion for freeeeee!
In the US everyone was sold to the war once Colin Powell exposed the Iraqi threat at the UN Security Council: how would Mr Powell lie? Not possible! Especially not at the UN He knows!
But I remember reading the opinion of international diplomats and personalities: Are you sure he’s the Secretary of State of the US? Of the US? Really? Then where did he get ‘that’ from? Why my government never heard about that before?
The position of American media? Who are ‘them’ to question American politics?
As a journalist my first thought was: wait a second!
What if ‘they’ were right? Who else besides the American and British government said that it was right?
Mind me: what are journalists for if not to dig up and find out what the source of the matter really is especially when there are talks of war!?
For me the shadow of the Holocaust was too present to be ignored: people were dying in Europe, they were persecuted and killed in a systematic and horrific death machine but almost no information was published in the US media about the camps and that horror.
Most people here knew about it because of their family members fighting out there….
I thought: “here we were again, taking sides and not looking around before making a decision”
It’s nice when the reality-check is about Africa and the poverty and AIDS problems, it feels so far away and so awful that people kind of put it in their cubicles and savescreens or their charity contributions but it’s not really ‘present’…so there is no real threat.
A war of international proportions on the other hand, the US getting involved in the Middle East, talking about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, that’s another story..
And what American journalists did? Nothing!
They gave all their trust and professional principles away to avoid being signaled out and called traitors.
I remember feeling so obfuscated but I could not say anything because: who am I to question my host’s politics?
All that lack-of-truthful-information that was going back and forth between what could be seen as a monolithic source of information (the government) and a powerful conglomerate of the willing (the media) made me think:
If you don’t want to see the truth or take care of it OK; but what about the people?
What about those who were going to have bombs and foreign military running around in their backyard and flying over their heads? What did they think about all this?
We know what happened during the invasion thanks to a now very famous blogger, but what was there before that? Who else was out there speaking out and telling their truth?
But then again: who would listen anyways…
Then I think: why the US hasn’t got into a war with Iran? What had changed since?
They obviously have the intention, they are looking really hard to make their case but seemingly not many people are listening anymore?
Why?
What is different -if anything- within the American people that is making it hard for the government to use the same ‘trust me I know what I’m saying so if you are not with me you are a traitor’ card anymore?
My answer: Blogs
I watched a Ted Koppel special this past November about life in Iran.
He actually traveled to Iran and spent some time there checking facts and learning about their culture and politics. Just enough to show who Iranians are, how do they look like, what do they do, what do they think about themselves and the world around them and especially about the American way of doing politics…and during that special Koppel said something like: people in Iran use blogs as personal journals and as a way to connect with others, especially with their families overseas, particularly with their families in the US.
Even tho the government installed softwares in their Internet servers that shut down any website containing words censored by the regime (like “women”, “woman” is OK but the plural is not because it implies an assembly of women which is something prohibited by the strict regime), “they still find their way ‘out’. Blogs is the new frontier of information and social interaction”.
I was remembering Koppel’s special while watching Moyers’ program and I recalled that now journalist and pundits ‘excuse’ themselves when mentioning Iranians, ‘they are Persians really not exactly the same as Iranians, you know’ and they sometimes even make a side note to remind the audience that Iranians while predominantly Muslims are not really Arabs ‘but the story is to long to be told here’ and they keep talking about whatever new stupidity Ahmadinejad came up with.
That makes me wonder: why they didn’t make those side-notes about Iraq 5 years ago? What had changed since the invasion in Iraq?
My answer: Blogs.
Blog IS the new frontier. Blogs are the media that people are using to fill the gaps or find out more about news.
If something happened, sure enough there might be plenty of people who have an opinion about it. All we need to do is type the words and we will find it.
And it’s not a depersonalized, market-driven source, it is an individual. The points of views and experiences of an individual that most probably than not is in touch with the news (those who are not ‘there’ are immediately rejected).
Blogs are the new ‘go to’ primary source of information about the outside world.
Suffice to see the thousands of blogs that showcased first-hand the war between Hezbollah and Israel this past summer and how they were used by the media as part of their account for what happened that day.
As a journalist I find it scary and awesome at the same time.
It’s scary that an opinion is now a source of news, but I love the fact that that opinion has to be supported on proven facts: just because you say so doesn’t mean it happened; show me, prove me what happened for me to have my own ideas about what you are talking about, otherwise your account has the potential to fizzle sooner or later and nobody wants to be called the supporter of lies anymore.
The best part is that no bunch of media companies or governments are the omnipotent gatekeepers and owners of the information anymore.
The people hold the key and the possibility to say their truth to whomever wants to hear it…as long as they make the effort to type the words on their Internet browsers…
One sided news?
No more, no thanks!
Now if only I could cut and paste this three times for each of my final papers…
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Netzach, the primal growth
According to the Jewish calendar we are in the weeks between Liberation (Passover) and Action (Simcha Tora, receiving the Torah from Mount Sinai).
Between the decision of getting rid of all that which chains us and stops us from moving forward in our lives (Passover) and the moment when we compromise ourselves in a style of living and principles that can help us achieve a better life for the greater good (Simcha Torah) there is a period of time that we need to understand where we are, what we want, and where we want to be.
And if we already know what that is we can use that time to be sure we are ready, really willing and able to receive it, do it, and be it.
That’s the time of Contemplation or Omer.
It is a period of 7 weeks, each week is devoted to a different lumination of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
The luminations are 10: the first 3 –or upper emanations – are Crown (Infinite will of God and the Ethereal Idea of what Is), Wisdom (The energy of Synchronicity, Intuition and Life beyond time and space) and Understanding (The energy of Time, Discipline and Creation), all related to the idea of Self, which is beyond us as individuals.
The 7 lower luminations are Mercy, Severity (judgment and analysis), Beauty (love and balance), Eternity (relationships, Mother Nature,repetition and pleasure), Splendor (communication and magic), Foundation (death and transformation) and Kingdom (the material world), related to the experiences of the Ego which is what we experience as humans and therefore it’s what we need to tame and understand if we want to achieve what we want.
In addition, according to the Hebrew calendar we are in the month of Iyar, the month of Taurus which Kabbalisticaly is the month of healing given that it is the month imbued with more Light than any other.
Paradoxically the time of Omer is a time where according to Kabbalah there is no energy in the Cosmos: if we are meant to spend some time reflecting about our lives and ourselves why would we need energy at all? Why would we need to move and do and create anything?
So during Omer we restrain from traveling, engaging in new activities –unless we had planned it before Omer, moving to another house, another city or country; marry, invest in new projects or sign important contracts of all kind, and sex.
All we do is work hard, reflect a lot and enjoy the every day of life.
We are now in the week of Eternity.
I’ll quote my astrologer and author Gahl Sasson: “Eternity in Hebrew is ‘Netzach’ that has the letters of the word “tzanach” which means ‘to drop’…serves to transport all the airy intellectual and fiery emotional axioms of the Tree of Life down Earth. It grounds us in natural physical processes that maintain our existence”
“Eternity yields all internal action, it proliferates through replication, it is the most practical energy in the right column of the Tree”
In other words: get your stuff together because your emotions, analysis and theories about “whatev” will be put to work ASAP! In the most unusual and unexpected ways, because if you think you know and you believe you know then you may have no problem in proving that is so, right?…oh well, doesn’t matter, the Cosmos will check it up BIG TIME.
And so here we are, starting the week of our finals and finishing a round of theoretical learning.
I started this blog talking about Fertility and how excited I was in learning about Indra. Later in my research I left Indra in favor of Vajrapani one of it’s later ‘encarnations’ for very selfish reasons: I needed a role model and a mythological guide to keep my hopes up and give my hard work an ‘it’s hard but it’s naturally good and worth doing it’ value.
Then right at the nick of time Indra came back to the forefront with a bang!
At the chat room with my friend Pia, we were talking about the wonders of our respective myths. She then commented that Indra could destroy worlds in the blink of an eye at his will and that was like if Indra had thrown one of his thunderbolts right into my head!
Really? Indra could destroy words at will?
No wonder the Buddhist didn’t like him!
You go man!(?)
And then I was watching a DVD for another class, an interview with Joseph Campbell and he mentioned Indra’s nest.
I’ve heard about it before, in fact at the beginning of my Internet research when I typed Indra lots of Internet, software and computer companies showed up in my results, but I never paid attention to it because I was focused in knowing his origins and the reason why those companies chose his name.
But Campbell’s words resonated deep inside and I lost the rest of the program looking for the story of Indra’s nest over the Internet…
It is about interconnection and how life is about ‘apparent’ random circumstances and people we meet out of nowhere that once we look back we go: OH! So that’s what it was all about!
Like studying at Pacifica, or more specifically, studying this term at Pacifica.
Right at the end of the rope I find myself questioning my stay.
What I thought would be a great and fulfilling learning experience is turning out to become a dreadful academical nightmare.
I’ve been fighting the feeling of obligation from overtaking my relationship with my classes, trying to maintain the sense of wonder and discovery but the load of work and the grading parameters are making the task a challenging chore of its own.
Not only that, I’m also questioning my staying in the U.S.
I’ve been literally struggling to have a life in this country.
It has been as productive as planting a living dove -yes a dove- in the desert, waiting for it to grow rose-colored pears in its beak, and expect it not to die -minimum, from boredom.
I’ve been in so many countries in the world, and nothing compares to this.
Nothing.
What kept me here up until now is the feeling that I have to stay for some reason unknown to me at this point, and that every step I’ve taken in my life have always showed up before me first…if no other place had showed up in my radar then I assumed that it meant I had no other place to go because, literally, I can’t go back to my home country (I mean, I can, but I value been alive enought for me not to do that) and going back with my parents wouldn’t change much of my present circumstances: it’s still the US and worst, is part of the US I never liked since the first time I went there when I was 10 and my dad’s health is deteriorating and I can’t do what I used to do back overseas to help: get hold of thousands of resources of all kind –whatever was in my mind or I deemed as useful I just grabbed and got it- here, ‘we’ as new immigrants in this ‘new’ post Sept 11 America are nobody and ‘I’ haven’t been able to get hold of any effective resource even for my own survival anyways.
And so Indra comes back to the rescue, to keep my hopes up, or at least trying to: it is easy to destroy worlds at will, but every random decision we take can have ripple effects (the Eternity character of the kabbalistic lumination of this week, the lesson of Indra’s net) beyond what we see.
I may now be in automatic, passing by my days as low-key but satisfying as possible fulfilling many of my academical requirements without really meaning it, which for me it’s already a great loss.
Nevertheless I’m doing my best to follow Vajrapani’s fierce will towards good, fighting against the illusion that is negativity and pessimism, looking up for the power of fertile creation and harmonious survival I have in my hands, like Indra, and stay still, experiencing the wonder of Light of this month of Iyar, learning, practicing and honoring in contemplative awe the 7 luminous emanations of the Tree of Life until the time of revelation finally comes through, and my goals’d move on and show up right in my front door…. Because I say so!
Reference: Sasson, G. & Weinstein, S. (2003). A wish can change your life: How to use the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah to make your dreams come true. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Between the decision of getting rid of all that which chains us and stops us from moving forward in our lives (Passover) and the moment when we compromise ourselves in a style of living and principles that can help us achieve a better life for the greater good (Simcha Torah) there is a period of time that we need to understand where we are, what we want, and where we want to be.
And if we already know what that is we can use that time to be sure we are ready, really willing and able to receive it, do it, and be it.
That’s the time of Contemplation or Omer.
It is a period of 7 weeks, each week is devoted to a different lumination of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
The luminations are 10: the first 3 –or upper emanations – are Crown (Infinite will of God and the Ethereal Idea of what Is), Wisdom (The energy of Synchronicity, Intuition and Life beyond time and space) and Understanding (The energy of Time, Discipline and Creation), all related to the idea of Self, which is beyond us as individuals.
The 7 lower luminations are Mercy, Severity (judgment and analysis), Beauty (love and balance), Eternity (relationships, Mother Nature,repetition and pleasure), Splendor (communication and magic), Foundation (death and transformation) and Kingdom (the material world), related to the experiences of the Ego which is what we experience as humans and therefore it’s what we need to tame and understand if we want to achieve what we want.
In addition, according to the Hebrew calendar we are in the month of Iyar, the month of Taurus which Kabbalisticaly is the month of healing given that it is the month imbued with more Light than any other.
Paradoxically the time of Omer is a time where according to Kabbalah there is no energy in the Cosmos: if we are meant to spend some time reflecting about our lives and ourselves why would we need energy at all? Why would we need to move and do and create anything?
So during Omer we restrain from traveling, engaging in new activities –unless we had planned it before Omer, moving to another house, another city or country; marry, invest in new projects or sign important contracts of all kind, and sex.
All we do is work hard, reflect a lot and enjoy the every day of life.
We are now in the week of Eternity.
I’ll quote my astrologer and author Gahl Sasson: “Eternity in Hebrew is ‘Netzach’ that has the letters of the word “tzanach” which means ‘to drop’…serves to transport all the airy intellectual and fiery emotional axioms of the Tree of Life down Earth. It grounds us in natural physical processes that maintain our existence”
“Eternity yields all internal action, it proliferates through replication, it is the most practical energy in the right column of the Tree”
In other words: get your stuff together because your emotions, analysis and theories about “whatev” will be put to work ASAP! In the most unusual and unexpected ways, because if you think you know and you believe you know then you may have no problem in proving that is so, right?…oh well, doesn’t matter, the Cosmos will check it up BIG TIME.
And so here we are, starting the week of our finals and finishing a round of theoretical learning.
I started this blog talking about Fertility and how excited I was in learning about Indra. Later in my research I left Indra in favor of Vajrapani one of it’s later ‘encarnations’ for very selfish reasons: I needed a role model and a mythological guide to keep my hopes up and give my hard work an ‘it’s hard but it’s naturally good and worth doing it’ value.
Then right at the nick of time Indra came back to the forefront with a bang!
At the chat room with my friend Pia, we were talking about the wonders of our respective myths. She then commented that Indra could destroy worlds in the blink of an eye at his will and that was like if Indra had thrown one of his thunderbolts right into my head!
Really? Indra could destroy words at will?
No wonder the Buddhist didn’t like him!
You go man!(?)
And then I was watching a DVD for another class, an interview with Joseph Campbell and he mentioned Indra’s nest.
I’ve heard about it before, in fact at the beginning of my Internet research when I typed Indra lots of Internet, software and computer companies showed up in my results, but I never paid attention to it because I was focused in knowing his origins and the reason why those companies chose his name.
But Campbell’s words resonated deep inside and I lost the rest of the program looking for the story of Indra’s nest over the Internet…
It is about interconnection and how life is about ‘apparent’ random circumstances and people we meet out of nowhere that once we look back we go: OH! So that’s what it was all about!
Like studying at Pacifica, or more specifically, studying this term at Pacifica.
Right at the end of the rope I find myself questioning my stay.
What I thought would be a great and fulfilling learning experience is turning out to become a dreadful academical nightmare.
I’ve been fighting the feeling of obligation from overtaking my relationship with my classes, trying to maintain the sense of wonder and discovery but the load of work and the grading parameters are making the task a challenging chore of its own.
Not only that, I’m also questioning my staying in the U.S.
I’ve been literally struggling to have a life in this country.
It has been as productive as planting a living dove -yes a dove- in the desert, waiting for it to grow rose-colored pears in its beak, and expect it not to die -minimum, from boredom.
I’ve been in so many countries in the world, and nothing compares to this.
Nothing.
What kept me here up until now is the feeling that I have to stay for some reason unknown to me at this point, and that every step I’ve taken in my life have always showed up before me first…if no other place had showed up in my radar then I assumed that it meant I had no other place to go because, literally, I can’t go back to my home country (I mean, I can, but I value been alive enought for me not to do that) and going back with my parents wouldn’t change much of my present circumstances: it’s still the US and worst, is part of the US I never liked since the first time I went there when I was 10 and my dad’s health is deteriorating and I can’t do what I used to do back overseas to help: get hold of thousands of resources of all kind –whatever was in my mind or I deemed as useful I just grabbed and got it- here, ‘we’ as new immigrants in this ‘new’ post Sept 11 America are nobody and ‘I’ haven’t been able to get hold of any effective resource even for my own survival anyways.
And so Indra comes back to the rescue, to keep my hopes up, or at least trying to: it is easy to destroy worlds at will, but every random decision we take can have ripple effects (the Eternity character of the kabbalistic lumination of this week, the lesson of Indra’s net) beyond what we see.
I may now be in automatic, passing by my days as low-key but satisfying as possible fulfilling many of my academical requirements without really meaning it, which for me it’s already a great loss.
Nevertheless I’m doing my best to follow Vajrapani’s fierce will towards good, fighting against the illusion that is negativity and pessimism, looking up for the power of fertile creation and harmonious survival I have in my hands, like Indra, and stay still, experiencing the wonder of Light of this month of Iyar, learning, practicing and honoring in contemplative awe the 7 luminous emanations of the Tree of Life until the time of revelation finally comes through, and my goals’d move on and show up right in my front door…. Because I say so!
Reference: Sasson, G. & Weinstein, S. (2003). A wish can change your life: How to use the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah to make your dreams come true. New York: Simon & Schuster.
A Little Ode to Me!
According to the Hebrew calendar we are in the month of Iyar, the month of Taurus which Kabbalisticaly is the month of healing given that it is the month imbued with more Light than any other.
A light that has the potential of making everything look at its best and a light that can be channeled to heal mind, body and soul, because everything shows up on its true colors and intentions and the darkness disappear
Those born in the month of Taurus can see beyond the material, they FEEL it and their sensual relationship with their surrounding is less utilitarian and more divine because they experience the Light in everything in a deep existential way.
The downside is that there is so much in that Light that Tauruses see very little beyond that beacon that is directed at them non-stop and that makes them see no reason why making any effort in looking for the Light if they have it around them and inside them all the time anyways?…What you don’t have it? How is that possible?
Another downsize of it is: who wants to see the truth of it all 24/7? Who wants to be that intrinsically deep all the time?
I was born in the month of Iyar, the 5th of Iyar to be more precise.
The day of my birth was the 20th day of Omer, the sixth day of the week of Beauty (3rd week of Omer).
This was the first time in a loooooong time that both my birthday in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendar coincided in the same day!
Yooohoooooooo!
They say that sometimes when we receive Light , it is so much and so heavy that we feel lost, ‘down’ and as if we were living everything in slow motion.
It is a very different feeling from being tired or depressed.
I’ve had that experience a few years ago in my first Kabbalistic Rosh Hashana…and again this past week and especially this Monday…in my B-day!
That makes me think that there are plenty of wonderful things about to come…at it’s right time, in the right place for my wonderful enjoyment and growth for the greater good of all…so be it!
A light that has the potential of making everything look at its best and a light that can be channeled to heal mind, body and soul, because everything shows up on its true colors and intentions and the darkness disappear
Those born in the month of Taurus can see beyond the material, they FEEL it and their sensual relationship with their surrounding is less utilitarian and more divine because they experience the Light in everything in a deep existential way.
The downside is that there is so much in that Light that Tauruses see very little beyond that beacon that is directed at them non-stop and that makes them see no reason why making any effort in looking for the Light if they have it around them and inside them all the time anyways?…What you don’t have it? How is that possible?
Another downsize of it is: who wants to see the truth of it all 24/7? Who wants to be that intrinsically deep all the time?
I was born in the month of Iyar, the 5th of Iyar to be more precise.
The day of my birth was the 20th day of Omer, the sixth day of the week of Beauty (3rd week of Omer).
This was the first time in a loooooong time that both my birthday in the Gregorian and Hebrew calendar coincided in the same day!
Yooohoooooooo!
They say that sometimes when we receive Light , it is so much and so heavy that we feel lost, ‘down’ and as if we were living everything in slow motion.
It is a very different feeling from being tired or depressed.
I’ve had that experience a few years ago in my first Kabbalistic Rosh Hashana…and again this past week and especially this Monday…in my B-day!
That makes me think that there are plenty of wonderful things about to come…at it’s right time, in the right place for my wonderful enjoyment and growth for the greater good of all…so be it!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Collages
My original intention was to make a big collage of three different elements but I could not find a way to put them together so I decided to keep them separated.
I wanted to relate to the main characteristics of Indra/Vajrapani that I identify with.
The first piece is the image of Vajrapani and Kali together in their most 'ugly' but known image, both are said to be originated from Indra. It's called "Wisdom" because they are gods of wisdom, inner strength, and determination. Life is not about been pretty or nice, it's about discovering and being what we are about with no fear and no second guessings.
The second piece is about the process to get to our truth: "Contemplation" it has a quote from Mark Twain that I relate to very deeply. Contemplation can happen anywhere, psychologist say that it can happen even when we sleep. That image has a lot of power: the reflection of the bed and the stillness of the water talk about the need to bound, discover and acknowledge one self and the exciting possibilities it can bring to all.
The third piece I wanted to find a picture of a busy street and a person who recieves Light that reflects inside and outside, instead I used the words and images of things we may dream or experience in our everyday life. It's called "Action" and it relates to the 'doing' part of our lives.
It shows the image of Indra in his prime, before he got cursed and relegated to the corners of heaven, Indra was known for been the hero that slain the dragon who stole the waters and cows of prosperity; the blue sky that we may not pay attention to but shows up every day and is part of our way to measure time, the lotus in the damp which is what we try to do sometimes: the best in the middle of the worst, and a couple that runs free and happy which implies communication, understanding and work...which at the same time bring bliss, growth and more energy to move forward.
I wanted to relate to the main characteristics of Indra/Vajrapani that I identify with.
The first piece is the image of Vajrapani and Kali together in their most 'ugly' but known image, both are said to be originated from Indra. It's called "Wisdom" because they are gods of wisdom, inner strength, and determination. Life is not about been pretty or nice, it's about discovering and being what we are about with no fear and no second guessings.
The second piece is about the process to get to our truth: "Contemplation" it has a quote from Mark Twain that I relate to very deeply. Contemplation can happen anywhere, psychologist say that it can happen even when we sleep. That image has a lot of power: the reflection of the bed and the stillness of the water talk about the need to bound, discover and acknowledge one self and the exciting possibilities it can bring to all.
The third piece I wanted to find a picture of a busy street and a person who recieves Light that reflects inside and outside, instead I used the words and images of things we may dream or experience in our everyday life. It's called "Action" and it relates to the 'doing' part of our lives.
It shows the image of Indra in his prime, before he got cursed and relegated to the corners of heaven, Indra was known for been the hero that slain the dragon who stole the waters and cows of prosperity; the blue sky that we may not pay attention to but shows up every day and is part of our way to measure time, the lotus in the damp which is what we try to do sometimes: the best in the middle of the worst, and a couple that runs free and happy which implies communication, understanding and work...which at the same time bring bliss, growth and more energy to move forward.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
How do you measure strength?
This week has been amazing.
Literally speaking.
I’ve been as busy as I never thought I would with school (and I don’t have a job or family to attend -yet- can’t imagine what my classmates who do have jobs and families might be going through)
But as you can imagine, class-work is not really an ‘amazing’ spice for anyone…or at least not for me, most of the time (ahem).
It all began two weeks ago when I got an amazing miracle:
Friday night I received a phone call for a last-minute invitation to the first Passover seder (that following Monday) with a bunch of Venezuelan Jews that live in the area.
It would have been my first Passover without anyone or anything to do in decades –I left my congregation last year and my family is far away- but I took it in stride planning on concentrating on school work and the mid-terms instead.
Not so much fun, but then things changed like out of nowhere…
I got the invite from a stranger that is not such a stranger because the meeting turned out to be a very funny ‘six degrees of separation’ kind of thing.
The Venezuelan Jewish community from Caracas is relatively small and we all have friends or relatives who studied or dated someone we know.
In this case, the woman who called me is the wife of the younger brother of a high-school classmate, the home owner where we had the seder is an older brother of another high-school classmate and the son of one of my doctors back there, and his wife is the niece of one of my mom’s best friends….and I haven’t even talk about the rest of the group but you get the idea….
Man I felt so weird!
I haven’t been with so many Venezuelan Jews in the same room since I left my country!
So cool!
Then a gal from my coaching workshops invited herself to a video-night at my place last Saturday and that’s when things started to turn to something really different! (if the last minute invite to the super-cool seder wasn’t ‘different’ enough)
We saw the fast-forwarded version of “Running with Scissors” (my bet, whatever Annette Bening is in I HAVE to watch it)
I actually loved the last 30 minutes of it, but I would not recommend it for only those 30 min.
It reminded me so much Pacifica Institute – ahem in a very weird way- but besides that, ahem, it was actually good intense stuff….still, not recommended for those final 30 min at all.
My friend was ‘out of it’, no idea what the heck was so interesting for me.
Seeing her boredom I put a DVR recording of last Friday’s episode of CBS ‘Ghost Whisperer’.
She freaked out.
Both her and I have ‘gifts’ similar to the main character of the series.
The difference between my friend and me is that for me that’s a daily thing I do, sort of like the character of the series, but not as ‘pronounced’: I turn on the switch that allows me to ‘see them’ whenever I want instead of seeing them all over the place (well, that happens often but not that often) like in the series.
My friend, on the other hand, is scared of it and doesn’t know what to do with it or how to handle it.
So I thought that given the tame and lame theme of that particular episode I could help her with a visual of what is that she could do. And how much good she can do with it.
20 minutes after a heated discussion, she agreed to watch it…and as expected, she loved it.
The recording was over and she was asking me questions and talking about this and that when I went into trance.
Just like that.
My trance is quite unique, given that I have been relating to that sphere for so long, and my exceptionally high level of sensitivity and empathic sense, I/they can be talking with you like if it was actually me while I’m cooking or walking down the street patting the neighbors’ dog or answering the phone or whatever.
Two in one.
What a treat!
So I was telling her whatever and two hours later I came back and she left very exhausted, shocked and upset (oops)
Two days later she emails me saying that she’s fine and planning for a next outing or something.
Next: this past Tuesday I get a phone call from Israel from an Uruguayan friend of mine that lives there and I haven’t seen in almost 20 years!
I met her when I was living in Israel and we lost contact before I left the country (gosh I am old, ahem, rather: who knew!!!).
We have been emailing sporadically for the past two years -she got my email from a common friend- and last month I sent her my phone number.
She is going through a really hard time: her divorce is horrible, she’s depressed and they found a cyst in her brain that nobody knows if it’s benign or not.
I didn’t get in trance but I really didn’t need it.
Two hours later she hang up tired, upset and disappointed.
In between I get a phone call from a classmate that is also having some difficult times.
That phone call lasted 20 minutes with more or less the same results.
And I find it all amazing.
Why?
Let me explain it with the assignment of the week.
We have to make a composition of images that represent what our myth means for us or what we have learned about it.
I had no idea what to do.
Then I recounted my whole week, including my visits to my healer(s), the emails from friends from around here and from far far away and all over the place, even my neighbors comments and then it hit me.
The common theme this week has been: ‘how strong and how my actions reflect how truth to myself I am’
The first two times I heard that I started to laugh like:
Me?
Strong?
Me?
Aren’t you strong too?
Yes, most are….but seems that not as strong as me.
I guess.
What’s the difference?
Maybe you and I are not that different but the main difference that my acquaintances, family and friends noted between us is….
Once I saw it, I started looking for images that express what I feel and learned from Indra, a.k.a Vajrapani, why I feel so connected to him: I wanted to transmit the energy of life that it embodies the energy of compassion, wisdom, inner-sight, action and total repulsion towards fear, flakiness and self-pity.
How to transmit life-force energy that doesn’t get scare in face of adversity and doesn’t need/want passivity to connect with the true Light inside and outside of ourselves? How to explain that miracles should be our daily living, happiness our normal state of been even when our lives are been turned upside-down and crushed into little pieces with no instructions on how to put it together again…if ever?
Not easy.
I wanted images of people walking and working in a busy street, and a picture of a siluhete of someone in there with the Light coming into their bodies while doing their stuff.
Yeah right, I’m going to find such a picture in a week-long Google search.
At the end I came up with something else, more sort of cliché, but kind of fun.
Now the challenge is to put them together in a way that I feel good about...
Talking about perfection!
Literally speaking.
I’ve been as busy as I never thought I would with school (and I don’t have a job or family to attend -yet- can’t imagine what my classmates who do have jobs and families might be going through)
But as you can imagine, class-work is not really an ‘amazing’ spice for anyone…or at least not for me, most of the time (ahem).
It all began two weeks ago when I got an amazing miracle:
Friday night I received a phone call for a last-minute invitation to the first Passover seder (that following Monday) with a bunch of Venezuelan Jews that live in the area.
It would have been my first Passover without anyone or anything to do in decades –I left my congregation last year and my family is far away- but I took it in stride planning on concentrating on school work and the mid-terms instead.
Not so much fun, but then things changed like out of nowhere…
I got the invite from a stranger that is not such a stranger because the meeting turned out to be a very funny ‘six degrees of separation’ kind of thing.
The Venezuelan Jewish community from Caracas is relatively small and we all have friends or relatives who studied or dated someone we know.
In this case, the woman who called me is the wife of the younger brother of a high-school classmate, the home owner where we had the seder is an older brother of another high-school classmate and the son of one of my doctors back there, and his wife is the niece of one of my mom’s best friends….and I haven’t even talk about the rest of the group but you get the idea….
Man I felt so weird!
I haven’t been with so many Venezuelan Jews in the same room since I left my country!
So cool!
Then a gal from my coaching workshops invited herself to a video-night at my place last Saturday and that’s when things started to turn to something really different! (if the last minute invite to the super-cool seder wasn’t ‘different’ enough)
We saw the fast-forwarded version of “Running with Scissors” (my bet, whatever Annette Bening is in I HAVE to watch it)
I actually loved the last 30 minutes of it, but I would not recommend it for only those 30 min.
It reminded me so much Pacifica Institute – ahem in a very weird way- but besides that, ahem, it was actually good intense stuff….still, not recommended for those final 30 min at all.
My friend was ‘out of it’, no idea what the heck was so interesting for me.
Seeing her boredom I put a DVR recording of last Friday’s episode of CBS ‘Ghost Whisperer’.
She freaked out.
Both her and I have ‘gifts’ similar to the main character of the series.
The difference between my friend and me is that for me that’s a daily thing I do, sort of like the character of the series, but not as ‘pronounced’: I turn on the switch that allows me to ‘see them’ whenever I want instead of seeing them all over the place (well, that happens often but not that often) like in the series.
My friend, on the other hand, is scared of it and doesn’t know what to do with it or how to handle it.
So I thought that given the tame and lame theme of that particular episode I could help her with a visual of what is that she could do. And how much good she can do with it.
20 minutes after a heated discussion, she agreed to watch it…and as expected, she loved it.
The recording was over and she was asking me questions and talking about this and that when I went into trance.
Just like that.
My trance is quite unique, given that I have been relating to that sphere for so long, and my exceptionally high level of sensitivity and empathic sense, I/they can be talking with you like if it was actually me while I’m cooking or walking down the street patting the neighbors’ dog or answering the phone or whatever.
Two in one.
What a treat!
So I was telling her whatever and two hours later I came back and she left very exhausted, shocked and upset (oops)
Two days later she emails me saying that she’s fine and planning for a next outing or something.
Next: this past Tuesday I get a phone call from Israel from an Uruguayan friend of mine that lives there and I haven’t seen in almost 20 years!
I met her when I was living in Israel and we lost contact before I left the country (gosh I am old, ahem, rather: who knew!!!).
We have been emailing sporadically for the past two years -she got my email from a common friend- and last month I sent her my phone number.
She is going through a really hard time: her divorce is horrible, she’s depressed and they found a cyst in her brain that nobody knows if it’s benign or not.
I didn’t get in trance but I really didn’t need it.
Two hours later she hang up tired, upset and disappointed.
In between I get a phone call from a classmate that is also having some difficult times.
That phone call lasted 20 minutes with more or less the same results.
And I find it all amazing.
Why?
Let me explain it with the assignment of the week.
We have to make a composition of images that represent what our myth means for us or what we have learned about it.
I had no idea what to do.
Then I recounted my whole week, including my visits to my healer(s), the emails from friends from around here and from far far away and all over the place, even my neighbors comments and then it hit me.
The common theme this week has been: ‘how strong and how my actions reflect how truth to myself I am’
The first two times I heard that I started to laugh like:
Me?
Strong?
Me?
Aren’t you strong too?
Yes, most are….but seems that not as strong as me.
I guess.
What’s the difference?
Maybe you and I are not that different but the main difference that my acquaintances, family and friends noted between us is….
Once I saw it, I started looking for images that express what I feel and learned from Indra, a.k.a Vajrapani, why I feel so connected to him: I wanted to transmit the energy of life that it embodies the energy of compassion, wisdom, inner-sight, action and total repulsion towards fear, flakiness and self-pity.
How to transmit life-force energy that doesn’t get scare in face of adversity and doesn’t need/want passivity to connect with the true Light inside and outside of ourselves? How to explain that miracles should be our daily living, happiness our normal state of been even when our lives are been turned upside-down and crushed into little pieces with no instructions on how to put it together again…if ever?
Not easy.
I wanted images of people walking and working in a busy street, and a picture of a siluhete of someone in there with the Light coming into their bodies while doing their stuff.
Yeah right, I’m going to find such a picture in a week-long Google search.
At the end I came up with something else, more sort of cliché, but kind of fun.
Now the challenge is to put them together in a way that I feel good about...
Talking about perfection!
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