Elul 5780 אלול

Friday, August 21, 2020.  This balmy morning, warm and bright, amid rose-mallows pink and white in the marsh, we began the month of Elul with the sound of the shofar.  Linda’s thoughtful dvar helped us begin the important work of this month –  as we approach Slichot and the High Holy Days, we try to look back at our year, and look inward, evaluating our personal weaknesses and mistakes, in a way that allows us to do better in the coming year. “Teshuvah”, the return of our focus to becoming our best selves, is part of this process. Acknowledging the topsy-turvy nature of our lives amid pandemic and upheaval, Linda reminded us to judge ourselves for good, and remember to care for ourselves in the self-evaluation.

And she brought us some helpful word from our source Alan Lew (z”l):

So while we are conducting spiritual inventory during Elul, we might begin by asking ourselves, What are the loose ends in my life? How is my mind torn? Where are the places my mind keeps wanting to go?  What is the unfinished business in my life? What have I lefty undone? When we look out at the world through a torn mind, our experience of the world is torn.

In some cases we might decide that it’s just time to let go – to recognize that we are distracted by something that will never be completed – and in some cases, we might decide the the only cure is in fact completion; that there’s nothing for it but to tie up that loose end, no way to keep our energy and focus from constantly draining away from the present-tense reality of our actual experience except to finish that which remains unfinished. …..

Better to simply strip … desires of their romance and then watch them for a month before acting on them, before taking them to yourself.  And what better time to do this than the month of Elul, the month we are supposed to devote to the regular cultivation of self-awareness, the month in which we being the process of Teshuvah by shifting our gaze from the world outside to the consciousness through which we view that world.  Certainly desire is a significant component of that consciousness, perhaps the most significant component.

So this is something else we can do during the month of Elul.  We can devote a bit of time each day to locating our own particular belle dame sans merci, to identifying whatever desire has distorted our lives, the beautiful delusion for which we’re thrown everything away, or for which we stand ready to do so, in any case.[1]

May we all find some steadiness in the cycle of the seasons this year, the return of Elul and the High Holy Days as they have returned for millennia, and as they will return next year – and may we be kind to ourselves and others as we turn inward in a topsy-turvy world. — Linda and Kirby

We will honor the Full Moon of Elul on Wednesday morning, September 2.  Our next Rosh Chodesh walking meditation will be Rosh Chodesh Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, Saturday morning, September 19. Both meetups are at 7:30 am.  Social distancing will be observed.  Contact us for location.

[1] Alan Lew, This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared, pp 80 and 91.  See “Sources” tab for full citation.