Saturday, April 2, 2022. This morning’s bitter cold seemed more winterlike than what we might expect for the month of Nissan. We bundled in our winter layers, and our fingers ached anyway. And yet: birds were singing, and buds are starting to show. A Great Lakes spring is on its way, reluctant as usual, as Lake Erie’s ice cover slowly dissipates.
The month of Nissan, we note every year, is the month of Passover, a celebration of the Israelites’ freedom from bondage in Egypt. We imagine every year that we personally were freed from slavery, and we talk of modern-day and personal manifestations of slavery and freedom: our own habits and expectations for ourselves and others, and those in the world who still are in bondage literally or figuratively, physically or mentally, or by lack of opportunity.
This morning we considered that the entire month of Nissan has embodied within it divine emanation, encouraging us to ask ourselves what our “boxes” are, and to “think outside the box” in bringing newness to our world. One of our members talked of the “box” that is our language, locking us into seeing trees, rocks, and creatures as “things” instead of “persons”, by calling them “it”, in comparison to native American languages, which refer to them as “who”.[1] What would it take for us to think outside this box, to imagine a world in which the perspective is changed, and we share it with others, who have as much right as we do to live in peace and health and freedom? What other paradigm boxes do we live within – and isn’t this month, of this year, an auspicious time to question them?
Wishing everyone a peaceful, meaningful and “out of the box” holiday! —Kirby
The next Rosh Chodesh walking meditation will be for the month of Iyyar, on Monday, May 2, 7:30 am. Rain or snow or shine! Contact us for location.
[1] Referencing Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions.
Rosh Chodesh Cleveland 