My morning hike was a symphony of yellow, gold and green in a cacophony of silence so lovely it evoked the prayer, “silence is praise for you” from my lips. Summer is reluctantly giving way to the beauty of fall, the season of clarity and reflection. In the Jewish tradition this is the season t’shuvah, of returning our soul to wholeness.
This is not a journey based on guilt or blame, but rather one that invites self awareness and a re-tuning the strings of our heart to the music of our source. We do not try to explain or defend, rather we embrace our own brokenness, finding ways to re-connect and re-imagine our beautiful shards into works of art and messages of hope. We know that our attempts have often missed the mark that our intentions were at times misled and our energy misused. During this Jewish holy season the gates to the world of wholeness are open, yet it is up to us to choose to walk through them.
This has been a year of blessings and wonder, that danced in wild spirals with fears and confusion. I have cried and tripped and stumbled and re-gained my balance, finding my way through the dark nights by following a path hope and courage. I can only trust that this road leads toward a deeper inner wisdom and a connection with my soul’s journey, perhaps one that profoundly touches yours.
May this turn of the season find you surrounded by kindness, filled with hope and courage, and a return to your own at-one-ness with the universe.
I love this description of t’shuvah. Shana tova!
Yes. Fond memories of my childhood experience in which one day out of the year my parents would take my young self and my brothers and sister out of school. We would drive a couple of hours away to the Blue Ridge Mountains, west of our Virginian-based Washington D.C. home. The goal was to just slowly drive around the many-curved roads, regularly stopping at scenic overlooks to see the changing colors of the leaves, then stopping to have a picnic lunch. We would then continue our sojourn through the fragile beauty of that day when all was bursting in colors. My parents definitely were not rule breakers, so their decision to bend a rule (missing school) one day out of the year was, in hindsight, a striking symbol of the appreciation of beauty in a particular moment. moments like that need to be remembered.