word | word | word | word | word | word |
Intention | Tension | Gossip | Audit | Love | Intention |
Class 2, lesson 6 was about our words. The table above shows some of the words uttered by the class instructors and spoken about as a group.
I am left thinking about the modern exclamation that I have been asking my children about for years. Simply word!
Word can mean okay or just to communicate that you heard them. “I'll be there in 5 minutes.” “Word.” “I'm going to the store, I'll be back later.” "Word." From RealLife English, August 3, 2012
Maybe we should stick with "word" when we don't know what to say, we don't know how we feel, and we are tempted by reactivity or even gossip.
The Kabbalah teachers spoke about the importance of taking the time to set our intention at the beginning of our day rather than rushing to turn on the news and drink coffee. Joni said that we could periodically reset our intention throughout the day. Che said tension can bring us back to the present. The teacher David Ghiyam said we sometimes have to put the tensions away for an audit at the end of the day. I have noticed over and over again that nighttime words transform into morning words. Perhaps this is something to pay attention to.
Negativity can be transformed by love:
Here's a poem written by Yitzi Gittelsohn
Each curse is a blessing waiting to be transformed
Take the peach tree
Cursed by blight
Producing but a few wrinkled hard fruit
Year after year
But somehow, in spite of its curse
It persists
Year after year
Managing a few beautiful blossoms
A few fruits all the more sweet
For the fact they came from darkness, from dis-ease
Take the words
Cursed by ill-will
That came from my mouth last night
Like the fruit of my inner photosynthesis
Yet the light must have sat too long inside me
Fermenting into something foul and musty
So when they came forth into the world as the fruit of speech
They tasted stale on my tongue, made my mouth dry, parched for some water to cleanse it
Spit those cursed words out, man
Find a clean spring, though all you see is mud
Let the harsh cold liquid burn your poisoned throat
And drip down into your blackened heart
Feel the agent of pure sight, of clarity
Painfully transform your stewing soul into a vessel for love
Bit by bit
Season by season
Year after year
Persist like the cursed peach tree
And wrestle out a few beautiful blossoms
A few wrinkled fruits
For the whole admiring world to see
Yes, indeed each curse is a blessing waiting to be transformed
Like a fallen angel who flaps its wings and sings, “I was holy, I was high!”
And in doing so causes earthquakes, causes tidal waves
Like a fallen angel who is tired, scared, and in a strange land
Who has nothing left to do but to curl up like a baby and ask the great earth it has fallen on to hold it, comfort it, love it
Like a fallen angel who, in its sweet repose after a long hard night, dreams not that it is lifted back to its lofty heights
But that God Herself bends down
To kiss that sleeping fallen angel goodnight
And now, upon waking, remembering that all is one, the angel sees the most brilliant sunrise
And though it has not moved, not budged one inch
Like the cursed peach tree
Like me and you in our stewing
It now sees the blessing of this strange land it has fallen to
It now sees it’s still an angel and it’s in a new sort of heaven:
A peculiar heaven where every curse, like a fallen angel,
Is a blessing waiting to be transformed
Word
Our next meeting will be hybrid meaning in-person at my house and on Zoom. June 6, 6:00-8:00 beginning with a cooperative meal of maybe tacos. I will send out a reminder and meal organizer 5 days before the meeting.
Comments