Birken-Au
The awe-full Beauty of the Birches'Oasis
"Au" in German means both: "beautiful meadow" and the shriek of pain "Au!" ["Oi!" in Yiddish and Hebrew].

Hermann Hesse Regenbogengedicht, Zauber aus sterbendem Licht, Glück wie Musik zerronnen, Schmerz im Madonnengesicht, Daseins bittere Wonnen .... Blüten vom Sturm gefegt, Kränze auf Gräber gelegt, Heiterkeit ohne Dauer, Stern, der ins Dunkel fällt: Schleier von Schönheit und Trauer Über dem Abgrund der Welt

Rainer Maria Rilke Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit, als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten; sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde. Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit. Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt. Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen. Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

An angel came to me today.
Wrinkled and worn, tall and strong,
carrying her 72 years with grace and dignity
her battle scars doorways to realms of knowing,
she has learned from life,
turned sorrow into song
pain into poetry
rejection and loss into a dynamite website.

I thanked her for coming to visit.
"No thanks due me.
You drew me here.
It was your power, your unconscious that called me.
I am just a sounding box, resonating your voice,
a reflection of yourself."

Yes, we are so alike.
Strong, wild, willful women of fiery dreams and desires.
Daughters of the Holocaust,
we yearn to heal the world
when we must first heal ourselves.
We want to give so much
we overwhelm with our passion
and are left standing alone
clenching our bag of gifts.

Oh, Christa Rachel,
my beautiful German goddess.
We met at Auschwitz,
what a place for a first date.


Standing with a group of Zen meditators,
very well behaved,
in a moment of silence at the execution wall
a wailing sound breaks the grave quiet.
Louder and louder, it grew more insistent.
"No more silence," you cried.
"Enough silence there was.
It is time to SOUND OUR PAIN.
Wail, scream. Express your anguish.
Release the outrage, bewilderment, shock.
Don't just stand there, do something!
Move, cry, dance."
See this "incident" in "Sounding-not Silent",

You howled. Over and over.
A shofar of channelled suffering.
Appreciation shifted into discomfort
when the shofar kept blowing on and on,
and the meditators struggled to return to their program.
Only you could upset Buddhists at Auschwitz!

My role model!

Now you've come again into my life,
7 years and one child later.
Your hair is shorn,
the long white black forest braids are gone.
But your smile is radiant and wide as ever.
Your energy is calmer,
you sit deeper in your center
snuggled in your bowl.
Seclusion becomes you,
finding comfort in your womb.
You have learned to limit
what and to whom you give,
You have learned to receive
from the bag of your own gifts.

And today you share
your well-earned wisdom with me.
As I suffer and struggle against myself,
not knowing what to do with all my energy,
how to channel myself in a limited form,
one talent at a time
through (the constraints of) time and space.
I want to do it all, all at once.
I want so much to heal the world
but my wound bleeds "not good enough"
and my perfection compulsion clots the flow.

Must accomplish something,
you can DO better!
Save the world! Save yourself! One 'tikkun' at a time.
So much pressure I cannot enjoy the simple things.
Breath, air, smiles, children's cuddles,
true love from a wonderful man.

ADD - A difficult Daddy.
Oh he was hard to please.
Hard on me.
But really it all begins with MOTHER.

I think I was a normal baby for the first few minutes.
I had ordinary baby needs,
but they were denied satisfaction
and my wants became yearnings
my desires, demands.

I wanted to suckle at my mother's breast
to return to her body, to reconnect.

But instead of a soft fleshy nipple,
a cold plastic bottle was inserted into my waiting wanting mouth.
Playtex parted my tender lips,
still wet with amniotic fluid
while a nurse, her white uniform blindingly professional,
glowed against the dim green hospital walls.

All I can make out in the blurry world of my newborn eyes
are busy figures bustling efficiently
about their routine
in the sterile, chilly halls of the birthing room.

My mother is out cold.
She's sleeping off the anesthesia
and I am alone. Alone. ALONE.
Moooottthhherrrrr, I wish I could scream.
I want to return to you.
To be enclosed again in your body.
Enveloped in your warmth.
Safe, protected.

Find me. Hold me.
Be with me.

From Gita's Play Scene VII [about Tsfat-Safed]

The journey to Tsfat became the journey to the feminine,
to the realm of deep knowing, of sensing, feeling.
Without words, beyond his-tory.
A place of being, of connection, containing everything and its' opposite.

Tsfat, home to our most masterful mystics,
is a place of Kabbalah, of receiving.
We (humans) were created to receive, but not for ourselves alone,
to receive in order to give, to share. [the same in Hebrew]
The feminine receives.
She is the vessel, the ground
from which the will -masculine energy- can spring.

Tsfat is a city that beckons you to stop, surrender.
As you get lost in the maze of her circular streets, you are found.
She takes you up and down stone staircases that never seem to end,
like an ancient stairmaster,
past huddling houses clinging to the slopesof the mountain,
with no street signs,
but turquoise gates to mark the waylike fairy tale breadcrumbs.
She leaves you no choice but to wander,
discover her from the inside
,make friends with locals who, with Gd's help, will point the way.
I come from NY.
A city of vertical steel towers straining to scrape the sky.
Grids of crisscrossing streets and avenues.
Linear. Masculine. Ambitious.
A city of doers, striving for success.
Tsfat is about slowing down.
Stop rushing through life.
No distractions here.
No movie theaters, no clubs, nor malls;
but neighbors, community, God. I and thou.
An experience of presence.
Tsfat is embraced by the curving slopes of Mt. Meron
which rise and fall like 2 breasts, folding us in to her heart.
Around her, the green hills of the Galilee,
their deep wadis sheltering precious flowers
and springs ancient mikvahs
peeking through the wild brushgraves of tzadikim dotting the landscapes
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their shining domes like upside down chalices,
holding the prayers of tearful pilgrims,
a reservoir of hope and longing.
Tsfat's rhythms are of a different time.
The stone alleyways haven't changed in decades
stores still close for siesta between 2 & 4.
Tsfat is a resting place
Just as Shabbat is a resting time
Tzfat is the Shabbat of modern day Israel.
It's not surprising that the most famous Shabbat prayer,
in fact, the entire Kabbalat Shabbat service,
sung in every synagogue in the world on Friday night,
was composed in Tzfat.
(Sings):

The Holy Ari would sing this song
as he and his disciples, dressed in white,
would go to the woods at the edge of town
to greet the Shekina, the Goddess, the Shabbat bride.
Ah.. Shabbat in tsfat - the holiest of holies.
The last hours of the afternoon,
you can already feel her standing at the door.
All the shops have closed.
The streets are deserted.
The smells of cooking waft down the alley:
from my Tunisian neighbor
the scent of couscous bubbling in the juice of chicken and kurkum.
From my Hungarian neighbor- goulash,
and from my California neighbor,
the delicate aroma of an organic quinoa-pesto dish.
There are many former hippies in Tsfat.
Berkley folk who became religious and now wear socks with their Birkentocks and make tofu chulent.
We have converts from every corner of the world,
a Zulu prince from South Africa who became a Torah scholar,
a bald Chi Kong master
who delivered her babies under the grapevine in her courtyard,
and even a Shiite from Lebanon,
who is raising his seven children in Tsfat as orthodox Jews.
A mosaic of seekers.
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The smells of freshly cleaned houses, of warm halot.
The mad rush in the last moments before Shabbat descends,
to put away all the reminders of hol.
Covering the computer, unplugging the phone,  putting away the pens, emptying pockets of change,  leaving on certain lights,  turning others off, setting the Shabbos clocks,  filling the hot water urn,
pre-cutting the toilet paper!
The energy builds, the frenzy of those final moments ...
and then it all stops.
The Shabbat siren sounds, signaling the end of the workday week.
A huge collective AHHHHHHH goes up to the heavens.
For 25 hours we shift from human doings to human beings.
Nothing to accomplish.
No pressure to create.
Just enjoy what is.
The gift of life, the gift of breath. neshimah feeds our neshamah [breath - soul] God breathes us into life, and we witness it with gratitude.
As the Shabbat services begin,
sounds of tefilah from the many houses of prayer float up,
join together and dance around me on my roof.
The sun is setting over Mt. Meron.
Glorious crimson colors the sky.
Bands of rainbow colors wrap themselves around the moutaintops.
I close my eyes.
Sacred time, sacred space.
Fully present in the holiness.
Taking in the gentle brea(d)th of sky and earth.
I become a vessel expanded with She-khi-nah.
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Scene VIII

And then I really expanded ... I was pregnant!
This wandering Jew (ish princess)
was finally ready to settle down(into her castle).
We found ourselves a beautiful old house with domed ceilings,
whose curves and arches come together like hands clasped in prayer.
A womb of stone.
I felt safe, secure and loved.
That is... until a warm July day, 2 summers ago,
when Hezbollah shattered our illusions.........
...............
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Page 22 Scene IX - BEING

The home birth of my son is one of my greatest treasures.
Pleasures ... eh.
It was after reading "The Red Tent"
that I was inspired to return to the old ways
and have my 3rd baby at home with a midwife.
Birth is such an important rite of passage for women.
I wanted to share and celebrate it with my friends.
I invited a group of amazing women to join me,
to reclaim "birth" as a feminine ritual.
I wanted to embrace the experience.
All of it. The pain, the fear, the joy.
Birth in the primal state.
As Havah. Khavayah. Experience.
(inserts pillow under dress)The labor progressed quickly.
By the time my friends arrived there was only one hour of birthing left.
I didn’t get to do half the activities I planned!
Never got to the belly dancing or the shamanic drumming.
The contractions were coming so close together I couldn’t speak anymore.
(For those who know me that's a first).
I could only cry out to Gd. Yaaahh, Yaaahhh.
The pain was overwhelming.
I couldn’t hold any thoughts in my head. Except for one:
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this myself.”
"Yes," cried my holy friend Adina.
"Now you understand. Just surrender."
I let go, and my ego, my mind, retreated.
For the first time in my life I was fully in the present moment.
I was a channel, a vessel for the life force moving through me.
I had prepared a CD of music for the birth.
In the final moments, as the baby was crowning and I was pushing,
a song from Tehilim encouraged me:
(sings) Ivdu Ivdu Ivdu et hashem besimha. Serve the Lord in Joy!
I was doing Hava’s tikkun, birthing in pain.
I stopped struggling.
And sang:(sings) Ivdu, ivdu et hashem b’simcha. Bo’u l’fanav bir’nana. (2x)Come into the Presence with joyous song.
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Joy, pain.
It’s a world of tikkun.
We are co-fixers with Gd.
I am co-creating.
Co-fixing.
It's not perfect.
It's not pain-free.
It’s a process.
Pain is the gateway.
Birth-death-rebirth.
Creator-destroyer-sustainer.
I love you Gd.
I am one with you Gd.
Adir Yahel slid from my womb into a pool of water,
surrounded by joyous women and one pretty stunned man.
Murphy and his law had arranged
for 40 women from the Cincinnati Federationto
be dining with us that night.
We didn't cancel.
The beauty of a home birth.
Rony prepared dinner downstairs while I got the baby ready upstairs.
When Adir hit the final stretch I sent one of my girlfriends down to get him and Rony made it just in time to catch the baby.
He cut the umbilical chord,
washed his hands
and went back to chopping vegetables for the salad.
Ten minutes later, the ladies arrived.
Leaving the womb is like being expelled from Eden
- a time, a place, where all our needs were met.
Birth mirrors the hero’s journey:
It starts with being warm and snug in a safe place
then comes a signal that it is time to leave.
Staying beyond your time is stagnation,
Without the tearing and the pain, there is no new life
.I was at a summit in my hero’s journey
and my new baby was just beginning his.
After the high of Adir’s birth,
it was inevitable that I would meet up with my old friend void.
I understood why so many new mothers suffer from post partum depression. I was facing the void on so many levels.
I looked down at my empty belly.
There was a physical void in my body.
A vacated space where the baby had been.
My midwife advised me to keep my torso tightly wrapped
so my internal organs wouldn’t slip out of place.
There was an emotional void.
I was no longer one with my baby.
Sure I could rock him in my arms, hold him close.
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But he was a separate being now.
I was facing a kind of aloneness again.
The tzimtzum.
The empty space.
I longed to return to the state of wholeness, when my baby and I were one. Like before creation, when there was no separation from the Creator.
But really there is no separation.
There is nothing but Gd.'

aekhad is the gematria of ahavah.
Each one's numerical value is 13,
and "one" and "love" add up to G-d: YHWH
- the holiest name of the creator. 26.
The date of Adir's birth: The 26th of Adar.
Adar is the Hebrew month of joy - of Purim. The happy Holiday.
The sages say that the only way to reach Gd is through simcha, joy.
Anger, sadness, block us from unity with Gd.
I have been haunted by the Holocaust long enough,
despairing of the darkness.
kh-sh-ck can also be written as sh-kh-kh
.
Darkness is forgetting.
[I, Christa-Rachel, would add - denial!!!]
Forgetting that we are holy, that we are love, we are one.
One divine creation.
One Adam/atom splintered into billions of individual beings.
I am even one with my enemy.
Rebbe Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl would say:
"no matter how dark it seems or how far from God you feel,
all you have to do is tune in to your life force and say:
"Am I not alive! And who is this Aliveness that I am? Is it not God?"
And you will see the light in the darkness
and experience God's ever-presence
right where you are.
"Sing: Ay.. li lee liy lee liy lee liy, I am alive (3x)
And who is this aliveness I am? (3x)
It is the holy blessed one.
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