Tishrei - The Intensity of Forgiveness
When I began wondering about applying Jewish spiritual practice and traditions in psychedelic terms, I was put in touch with a person who guides medicine work for others and utilizes certain stories, teachings, and archetypes from a number of spiritual lineages as helpful ballasts of experience with expanded consciousness. When I entered their home, I immediately noticed the large figurine of a fierce dragon being ridden by a graceful, young woman. “I see you’d like to meet Quan Yin,” the guide said, knowingly.
Quan Yin, a story first told in China as early as the 1st Century of the Common Era, was born a princess named Miao Shan to an angry and selfish ruler. Throughout her life, she desired a life of meditation and service, and time and again, her father manipulated her life to be as unpleasant and unforgiving as possible, just so she would break. When she was confronted with conditions her father considered inhospitable to spiritual life, even there she thrived and humbly cared for the young and the wounded. What her father did not understand was that her desire to serve was only outshadowed by her ability to forgive. When the king became gravely ill, he was sent medicine from a healer in the mountains, and when he went to seek them out to thank them, it was Miao Shan herself! How could he have been so terrible to her all these years, and how could she have been so kind and caring, nevertheless? While some could interpret this story to honor self-effacement in the face of patriarchal abuse, Mirabai Starr, in her book Wild Mercy, sees transgressive revolution. Starr writes, “Do not be fooled. Miao Shan’s humility was not compliant; it was subversive! Quan Yin’s compassion is not indulgent; it is subversive! It invites us to lay down our weapons and open our hearts. The tender attributes of the feminine do not render her weak and ineffectual. They glorify her. Our vulnerability is our strength. Our capacity to forgive is our superpower.”
“When I introduce Quan Yin to my clients,” the guide told me, “it offers a model of working with intensity, both in seeing ourselves as sitting effortlessly atop chaos, but also in seeing our dragon-nature, as well. She can only ride the dragon because she brings forgiveness to that aspect of herself, as well.”
There could be no greater Jewish medicine for working with both intensity and forgiveness than the High Holidays. For those who have wished to derive the most potent benefit out of the end of this year have dedicated the past month to reawakening themselves to their true/new nature with enhanced commitment to their practice, to enlivening study, to making peace. Over the past four weeks, over 200 people have joined our High Holiday Beit Midrash, Awakening Consciousness, learning that connecting their own desire for embodied and ethical refinement can heighten their Jewish and psychedelic journeys. Just today, we’ve published “Return to One: A Shefa High Holiday Companion,” our first resource bringing together ancient and contemporary mystical teachings and meditations to deepen our experience of working with the intensity of teshuvah during this time of year, and throughout the year. When people reach out to us looking for Jewish psychedelic support, they most often need help integrating the sometimes overwhelming nature of their experiences and how to reconcile their intuitions to move toward some kind of wholeness in relationships, even painful or abusive ones. And to help integrate that intense awareness of what our community needs after these holidays pass, we are running our first community survey through the end of Yom Kippur to inform our first strategic plan and offerings for the year to come. When we learn to deepen and strengthen our attention and concentration, the quality of our connection, our compassion for ourselves and others as we are in this moment, we become aware of their presence and availability all throughout the year, not just a few intense weeks in the Fall.
Thank you to everyone who has made this such a sweet year for Shefa, through your support and companionship. May this 5783 be a year of mokhin d’gadlus--of expanded awareness.
L’shana tovah,
Z
