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Coming Snowstorm (and Heyam Dukham Anagatam)
As I think about whether I will be able to get up to Willow Street to teach my last classes of the session, how much shoveling I will need to do , whether the next forecast storm (middle of next week) might create challenges for my planned trip to NY, etc, etc, my favorite (well, in the top 10) sutra of Patanjali, sprang to mind: heyam dukham anagatam, 2.16, which means roughly: the pain that has yet to come can be avoided.
I have several translations/commentaries of the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras in my library. All have a different spin on what this means in practice. What I know is that it is at least partly about being in the present and taking things as they come. One should still practice and plan. By practicing and planning, we are better prepared for inevitable pains and challenges. (For those of you who are giddy with excitement with the thought of a “white Christmas,” this Sutra still helps. Part of the pain that can be avoided is disappointment when expectations are not realized the way we hoped they would be realized.) Once we have prepared in a healthy way, though, there is no point in agonizing about what might come, in being in pain in the present because of the possibility (or even inevitability) of a future pain.
The snow seems inevitable. I am charging my camera battery. I’m picking what is probably the last of the chard and the baby leeks from the garden, and I am getting ready for Serenity Saturday restoratives. As long as I can walk to the studio — eight inches is just plain fun, not impassable — I’ll be there with a warm and full offering. In the meantime, I am enjoying my day instead of worrying about the potential barriers to enjoyment.
Shacharit for Peace and Mourning
On Monday morning, I joined in the first two hours of the day of prayer (Shacharit are morning prayers) and action led by #RabbisForCeasefire on the National Mall. They gathered and prayed and then spoke to all their members of Congress know that their’s is a religion that privileges peace and freedom for all beings over retribution. I would have stayed longer—I felt right at home—and taking care of my biological needs took precedence.
They brought their own temple and articles of worship. Centuries of practice.
What do you see in your philosophies? Your holy works?

Torah is a source of life not death. National Mall, Monday, November 13 The neighborhood is full of churches and temples and other places of devotion. Sometimes I look at them more closely than others.

Sign outside the “Religious Family of the Incarnate Word” “Just a little green…”
A neighbor who lives in the top floor of the building across the street, and thus has a spectacular view of the maples in front of my house writes:
“The buds on your tree are more numerous than yesterday, and more visibly that color that Joni Mitchell sang about: “just a little green, like the color when the spring is born...” And we’re getting a good, soaking rain. Happy Spring!”
I have heard the song so many times, I do not need to look it up, except to share both with those for whom it is not part of an intimate map of a long ago period and with those for whom it is and who will have, by just seeing the words (and even more so by listening), some upsurge of memories and a revelation of the miraculous play of consciousness.



