The Miracle of light

As the world has fun with Thanksgivukkah (chanukah starts tonight at sunset), I find myself inundated with misinterpretations of one of the minor holidays. So...let me start the season by clearing up a few things.

 Chanukah is NOT a Jewish Christmas.
Chanukah has only one spelling in Hebrew. All the different the English spellings are variation of transliteration.
Chanukah always starts on the same date on the Jewish calendar, which is a moon calendar, and as such does not alight with the Gregorian sun calendar. 
We do not get or give a gift for each night. 
There is no such thing as a Chanukah bush.
AND.....wait for it....this is NOT the celebration of light over darkness....except in a very metaphorical sense. 

This is a holiday celebrating a small war that was won by a small group of Jews who refused to assimilate. We celebrate it by commemorating the miracle of faith. If you don't know the story, after the war, the Maccabees cleaned the temple which had been desecrated by the Seleucid Empire. The final task was to light the holy lamp that burned 24 a day with the purified olive oil. There was only enough oil for one day, but the lamp burned for seven, giving the people enough time to purify more.

So...we light one candle on the first night, and add another one each subsequent night, to celebrate this miracle of oil. Which is also why we eat fried food.

BUT....I think that the real miracle happened when people rejected the force of assimilation, when they chose to align with an inner compass, and when a lamp was lit with the faith that the fire would burn...even with all evidence suggesting these were ridiculous choices.

In some way, this holiday is about our choices to be more than we think we can be. We are not destined to follow the majority. We are not doomed to absorbed into the predominate mind set, or to be governed by the interpretations of others.

We can all go beyond our skills and capabilities. We can always reach further and climb higher. We are more than out titles and our history and our assumptions and our old nightmares.

So yes...in some ways this is a festival of light over darkness...but it is so very much more. 

NOTE: pictures of the wedding dress lighting candles tonight!!!

Back to the past

I do know that the planet Mercury has gone direct. In fact, I know for a fact that it never moved backwards, it just appeared to do so in the night sky and in my astrological chart. So why is my life still in retrograde? 

This past month I was suddenly contacted by a few of the (now) women from elementary school. They started a facebook page, posted class pictures, listed all the names, and are planning a reunion. They posted pictures with my fat frizzy haired likeness standing in the top row. Pictures that I tossed when I found them in my mother's move mess...the boxes that came back from the mojave desert. She would never know and I would never have to see them again. 

Trust me....when we were packing I was tempted, but I did not toss any of the photos. But then there were those two days of sorting through boxes in the storage unit...and all those all pictures of the young me. In the heat and dirt of the day the pictures looked even worse than I remembered...and they hit the trash.

But now, they appear on facebook. And the women who used to tease the chubby frizzy me, want a reunion to celebrate friendship. Hmm. Must be a retrograde. In all the years that I visited my Mom in the house that I grew up in, I NEVER ran into anyone from my K-12 years. EVER. The weekend before we moved her I connected with my best friend from high school who I had not seen since I was 18. And now women I have not seen since middle school when I skipped a grade. 

I am no longer that awkward child who felt deeply, craved madly, and who found no outlet of expression, who found no solace at school and wished to be someone her heart told her she could be. What saved her? Her piano and her books on spirituality and the stories she wrote. So maybe this is not an invasion from the past, but an invitation to visit what was deep within me....to be continued. 

And no...I will not post those pictures...only pictures of who I have become.

Live at the edge of possibility...and wear your "special" clothes

There is a novella I have been working on that starts with Mercury going permanently retrograde. My mother's move, and everything connected with it, seems to be caught in that type of loop, with the most recent episode the trip to LA canceled due to the shooter. 

So there MUST be some message, or series of messages, in something so profoundly escher-like. Three steps up....two steps down...and then the staircase flips. After being trapped in this craziness since July, I sank into the situation.

So what are some lesson? First...WEAR YOUR SPECIAL CLOTHES NOW! When I was packing my Mom's clothes I found itens with the tags still on them. Somewhere in the Mojave desert these brand new pants and shirts and jackets are creating Christo and Jeanne Claude like effects for the viewing pleasure of the local wildlife. 

Second: USE YOUR CHINA! Eat off of your pretty plates and drink from your wonderful crystal. I was packing my Mom's china which had not been out of the safe storage packs for years and asked her why she did not just use them. Her response was that she might break one, and then she would not be able to set a table for twelve. So they sat unused...and then they were broken in the move.

Third:  EVERYDAY IS A GREAT DAY! Everyday has a blessing buried in it somewhere. It might be difficult to find, but the blessing is there. We can wear our special clothes, use our beautiful things, laugh with a friend, or give thanks that the sun rose and the world is still full of possibilities and opportunities and wonders. 

So choose today to laugh with a friend. Choose today to see some miracle. Choose today to live on the edge of possibility. Choose today to have fun conversations with anyone you deal with on the phone. Choose today to walk down a different street or take a small adventure by wearing something wonderful. Choose today. 

Canceled flights, LAX shooting, Mercury retrograde, and a wedding dress

Last weekend the wedding dress and I tried to take my Mom to LA for visit...something I promised to do when she moved here. We spent weeks making the arrangements and then Mercury went retrograde in Scorpio. As we passed through security in Denver someone started reading the news to us about a shooter at LAX in terminal three, where we were scheduled to land. Within an hour our flight was reported as delayed, and fifteen minutes later we were told that all flights to LAX were canceled. 

We had been watching the bedlam taking place at LAX. People were trying to walk in and out of terminals, planes were on the tarmac waiting to unload (some people waited for 4 hours or more), and the roads were in long-term gridlock. 

Something about this day seemed familiar...and then I remembered. The last time my Mom and I flew together was four years prior on Rosh Hashanah on an emergency trip to Tulsa to see my brother before he died. We were delayed leaving Denver, and then trapped in Tulsa for a night on our return. To top it off, the fire alarm went off twice at the hotel resulting in a sleepless night.

Back in Denver, Ric picked us up in the same place he had dropped us off three hours prior and we headed home. We filled some hours having pedicures, had a lovely Shabbat dinner and went to bed....and  then around midnight the fire alarm started beeping, reminding me every 15 minutes that it was time to change the battery. My Mom and Ric slept through it, but even with my head buried in a pillow it kept me from a deep sleep. Beyond coincidence....beyond Mercury retrograde...beyond belief. Clearly there is some connection between these two trip.

So, if everything is a gift from HaShem...no matter how crazy...what is the message buried in this one? How are these two trips connected?

Perhaps there is a connection between the first day of November and the High Holy days. I checked. November 1st 2014 was Cheshvan 28th in the Jewish calendar, the day tradition tells us after the flood ended and Noah left the ark and offered thanks for surviving a rather rough journey.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe there is a message in the reading for the day. I checked. It is the parsha in which Issac blesses the younger son Jacob rather than the older son Esau, all of which was orchestrated by Rebecca. OK...so add sibling challenges, and confusing family dynamics to giving thanks for wild journey's. 

So what can I do with all this? With a few twists...perfectly permitted when creating a Jewish "drash"....I come up with this.

Maybe we need to realize that everyday is connected to Rosh Hashanah because everyday and any day is a holy day full of miracles and reasons to give thanks. Everyday holds a piece of life's story, the world's story, and my story.  Everyday, without our knowing it,  we are saved from being stuck on the tarmac, saved from a flood or from crossing paths with danger.

Every day is an opportunity to be holy...to be better...to become more of who I dream I can be. Everyday I have a chance to be beautiful, inside and out, to wear a wedding dress and celebrate like a bride. Not just on Rosh Hashanah or on my wedding day.

And maybe other is one more connection.  Perhaps when I am open to see beauty and miracles around me, I am surrounded by beautiful miracles. 

We will try this trip again, and maybe this time we will fly easily to LA with the wedding dress. Either way, whatever happens, I know it will be a blessing.