☀️ Reflections on turning 70 and ringing in a new year.

One cannot avoid the loss, pain and suffering of life.

Of course, there is joy and celebration, but as time folds in on itself as we get older, all the pressure of all those “things” that will be undone…become louder. All the things that won’t be said. All the lost souls we can’t help while trying not to live in fear.

“Nothing provokes a human being more than feeling that it’s their obligation to move something immovable.” – Maciek Javik

Sarah Aziza wrote in a 2024 Jewish Currents essay that asks: “What does all this looking do” when we are confronted by a constant live-stream of humanity’s horrors?

Broken by what we see, we become rupture incarnate. To inhabit that rupture, to allow the wound to remain open, preserves a kind of possibility – things are not the way they must always be.

“The wound is essential. Into this wound, imagination may pour.”

Allow the warping pain of the world to open you and then, stay that way, avoiding madness or callousness, long enough to turn yourself into a vessel for imagination. ‘

“Make them all hear. Make this house echo.” – Electra

Last night, I dreamt I had a visit from the Pope. I sat across from him and when he began to speak, I looked into his crystal blue other-worldly godly eyes. I sat up straight. I felt a surge of joy and awe, just by his presence. He whispered to me. It was Francis, and I wish I could remember what he said.

Maybe try not to tune into the static.

Remember clouds and rain give away to magnificent rays, shadow and growth.