Tishrei - Carry It
לֹא אֶת־אֲבֹתֵינוּ כָּרַת ה׳ אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת כִּי אִתָּנוּ אֲנַחְנוּ אֵלֶּה פֹה הַיּוֹם כֻּלָּנוּ חַיִּים׃
It was not with our ancestors that the Infinite made this covenant, but with us, the living, every one of us who is here today.
I have stopped putting too much thought or effort into creating an intention for myself before a journey. There is so much that one can do to prepare one’s mindset—journaling, dreaming, spending time in nature, settling into the mind and body with embodied practice—that an intention, what I’m hoping for or wish to get out of my experience, seems to put undue expectations upon myself, the medicine, or what is about to transpire within my consciousness. People often confuse an “intentions” with “wishes,” as if they are hoping for either a miracle or an oracle, and receiving neither, wonder if their experience was worth all of the time and effort in the first place. While there is some preliminary data that suggests that setting an intention can contribute to feelings of overall preparedness before a psychedelic journey, it is not clear that having one can be predictive of a positive outcome. The best I can describe to someone who is seeking support before their own journey is that setting an intention is a bit like exploring the depths of the ocean by celestial navigation. We do our best to have a sense of where we’d like to get to, but know that once we dip below the horizon, we are entering into the mystery. For this reason, my preferred, consistent main intention has been “May I be present and engaged with whatever the medicine is showing me.” It never lets me down—am I present, or have I entered a mind game to take me away from the moment? Am I engaged in the content of my journey, or have I lost myself to trying to figure something that exists in my waking consciousness? Can I be with this joy or this terror? With these overwhelming body sensations or confusion, even just this song that I am not particularly interested in. Can I be with it?
In the spirit of this intention, I want to share a blessing for the coming year, embedded within the acronym for the Hebrew year, תשפ״ה—5785, itself.
תהא שנת ״פה היום״—Let it be a year of “here, now”
As I write this, Iranian missiles are begin to fly and land over all of Israel. Whole roads and towns I traveled on and toward in Western North Carolina have been wiped away in a matter of hours. Every senseless loss of life, every crisis, every systematic loss of human dignity and negation of God’s image, sometimes just within a day. I can’t stop this alone—psychedelic work can’t stop this alone. What I hope I can do in this intensely sad time is actually be with it, to not turn away from it, to feel it in all of its dimensions within reality, and to grow my capacity to feel if I cannot.
I will share one last piece of Torah for this year, a story from Rabbi Asher Freund, a revolutionary in tzedakah and providing for the needs of families facing food insecurity in Jerusalem. In a powerful collection of sixty-eight very short stories, Rav Asher elucidated many aspects of the human condition with piercing and pithy insight, Hasidic koans par excellence. I leave you, and 5784, with #37.
“Once someone had a stone in their heart and it bothered them greatly. They wanted to get rid of it, but didn’t know how. They tried different strategies, yet nothing worked. They asked others who gave them all sorts of common, but unhelpful advice. It hurt even more, making them wonder what they could have done to deserve being burdened with a stone like this. How would they ever get rid of it? They went to a sage and asked how to remove it from their heart. “Don’t remove it,” the sage replied. “Carry it.”
Thank you for carrying this year with me, with us, with our growing Shefa community. May the new year and its blessings commence.
With love and gratitude for a shnat Shefa,
Z
