Living in Twilight
A study in impermanence. Living in twilight, I am neither here nor there— unrooted, uprooted, by chance or by fate. Gravity insists my feet return to the earth, even when my heart is suspended between worlds. I have been living this way for nearly ten years— through diagnoses and death, through endings that became beginnings, […]
What has been, Already is.
by Melanie Gruenwald “What has been, already is; and what will be has already been.”— Ecclesiastes The sages wrestled with this verse. How can what will be already exist? Rabbi Yehuda offers a curious image: If a person says to you: Is it possible that the entire world was once water, and that the world’s […]
Day 36: Lovingkindness within Foundation
Connecting to the love and generosity that flows to us from the Mystery.Opening ourselves to the Sourceso our actions are filled with kindness and grace.— Rabbi Yael Levy, Journey Through the Wilderness Tonight we mark the 36th day of the Omer, aligned in the mystical tradition with Chesed sheb’Yesod—Lovingkindness within Foundation. Chesed is expansive, overflowing […]
Dancing Across the Sea
by Melanie Gruenwald We begin our Time: Present Moment Awareness course with the question- A fish is to water, as a person is to what…? How can it be, we are swimming through time, without even paying attention to it? The days pass, the years pass, we age (if we’re lucky), but how are we […]
Sometimes there are good funerals
In loving memory of Avi Halzel Sometimes there are good funerals.The kind where a person has lived a long, full life and dies peacefully, surrounded by the people they love. And then there are funerals you wish didn’t exist. The ones for young people. Good people. People whose presence alone made the world better. Today […]
Seeing Through the Glass: Perception, Choice, and the Light We Carry
by Melanie Gruenwald “Ordinarily a person sees what is familiar to her experience… Her eyes are at the center of her universe.” — Allen Afterman, Kabbalah and Consciousness What we see is never neutral. We see through the lenses of our own stories—our time, place, assumptions, wounds, and hopes. Ordinary perception, as Allen Afterman suggests, […]
Every New Beginning
Every new beginning comes from another beginning’s end. I’ve quoted that line many times over the years, but lately it has stopped being a lyric and started being a lived experience. Life is full of transition, beginnings and endings. Sometimes we get to choose, and sometimes we don’t. There are moments in life […]
Noticing the Good
At the moment, my mom, sister and law, niece and nephew are in the kitchen. Uncle Joel came in with fresh bread from Whole Foods. My house is full of baking smells and people I love. Hakarat haTov, recognizing the good.This is a day to recognize and appreciate the good in the large and small […]
The Season of Becoming: Finding Light in the Unfolding
by Melanie Gruenwald As I watch the leaves shift from green to gold to crimson, I am reminded that change is the only constant. Each leaf that loosens its hold and drifts to the ground feels like a small teaching — a whisper that everything is in motion, that life is always unfolding. This autumn, […]
Metaphorically Speaking
by Melanie Gruenwald The concept of metaphor keeps showing up in my classes this month—and, also, in my own life. Metaphor is how I make sense of the things that can’t be explained directly. It’s how I teach, how I learn, how I sit with both joy and grief. When we talk about the Divine, […]