BONDED DEATH NUMBS - day 41 YESOD sh b’YESOD

PSALMS OF MY SOUL
Kabbalistic Sephirat HaOmer - day 41, 5 weeks and 6 days of the Omer
YESOD sh b’YESOD  ספירת העומר

BONDING and DEATH 
© Joy Krauthammer

Matilija Poppy 

Dance of Life and Death

© Joy Krauthammer 

YESOD sh b'YESOD / Bonding Within Bonding, Connecting, Foundation, Community, Intimacy

True connection is about having bonding while remaining true to our own sense of self with a solid foundation. We may still need help from others but not be dependent. 

As a potter, I needed to 'center' my wheel thrown clay pieces with healthy foundation before I could play and alter them and connect them.

I share this earlier memory now on YESOD sh b'YESOD, OMER DAY 41.

For a couple days I had shut down my feelings because the grief had become so great with a dozen losses in less than this last year. 

Initially the following were my thoughts shared with Friends on Feb. 14th, 2017 when my young cousin Richard was killed in a car crash. This followed a dozen other deaths of some mamash long and deep bonded friendships. With the closest current friendships that went back a full 50 years, I cried in grief about where my shared history had gone. Who would hold my life's concerns? Who could cry and laugh with me? Remember my stories? Who would celebrate with me, as I celebrate them? These were friends in joy and in tears.

How do clergy hold their own HEARTS when so many people die in their communities? Sunday evening a young adult cousin of mine, obm, was killed in car in Georgia. His father, z"l, my caring first cousin, died from heart attack 6 months ago. Three amazing friends, z"l, passed over within last two weeks. Two distant cousins, z"l, died in Israel 2 months ago from cancer including a 13 year old. Mamash, a couple beloved best friends, z"l, died this last summer. A few more shul friends, z"l, in last half year passed over. Older precious cousin, z"l, died a few months ago. May their memories be for blesSings. may they have high Aliyahs to Heaven. I've again spent this morning sharing condolences, the obituary with family and making changes on family tree that I maintain for all. HaShem must be needing good neshamahs in Shmayim for holy work.

Friends, I'm used to 'working' with one death at a time, but not over a dozen personal losses in only months. I felt this week that I was NUMB, and could not share compassion with mourners. --This is what deeply concerned me. (I'm OK now. This morning I'm able again to be comforter to mother who lost her son, my cousin, this week.)

As you all did-- a dear shul friend responded to me last night with more grieving WISDOM. (She was present for me when my own husband, z"l, died 11 years ago.) "Grief has a mind of it’s own. All we can do is show up and meet it in whatever form it makes itself known. Temporary numbness is a shock absorber."

I do understand those thoughts, and now I am grateful for especially the last 'shock absorber' phrase in holding my own heart. Or knowing that my Lev/heart is being held.

You know it is a bit mind boggling to say Kaddish for so many at the same time, feel heart, see their faces, the ones I’ve loved, and recently miss. And knowing that for some, there are no others saying Kaddish.

And then to say MiSheberach prayer and be aware that so many names, loved ones, people in community, are no longer on personal healing list because they have died. In that moment, that realization is rather stark, and the prayer is recited.

P.S.  2.16.17

Grateful to say that I have broken the 'knot of the heart', hRRidaya-granthi in Sanskrit. It needs to be broken for self-knowledge to take place. Maybe my comprehension of the Sanskrit is lacking but it is how I feel, nevertheless.

"The context was that, in order to attain enlightenment, it was not simply to do with gaining knowledge, or some key experience, but to do with breaking down some sort of emotional or psychological barrier." (For me, it was the numbness.)

"Ramana explains in ‘Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi’ (extract 97): “the heart is not physical; it is spiritual. hRRidayam = hRRit + ayam = This is the center. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and they shape the universe. The heart is the centre of all.”

A commenter, Charles, to the above said, “Cutting the heart knot” must entail a complete cessation of emotions, passions, etc." According to this quote, it is what I had to do to get past my numbness, because my sadness in losing my preciousYesod /bonds had gone so deep.

As Maya Angelou says (in her short clip I've included on FB), "Be a BlesSing to somebody. Be a rainbow in someone's cloud." I'd lost that for a few days and that lack of compassion concerned me, so I wrote. trying to get help. 

Yesod is when we can reach out in connection.

Answers to heal myself I'd found during the couple 'numb' days including from:

PURIM by Rabbi Mordecai Finley on NUMBING SELF

"I was asked, what is the meaning of the book of Esther? One answer - Esther is an archetype. Sometimes our only response to life's outrages - the "outrageous slings of fate and fortune" - is to numb ourselves, selectively numbing ourselves so that we can go on to the greater meaning and purpose in our lives. If we did not numb ourselves at times, we would come apart with anger, resentment, grief and despair.

"On Purim, we try to push aside, for a moment, the inevitable pain and suffering that life delivers, and celebrate instead the wondrous and miraculous deliverances that give meaning and joy to our lives."

TANYA  Likutei Amarim, Chapter 26, middle

וקרבת ה‘ היא ביתר שאת ומעלה לאין ק’ בעלמא דאתכסיא, כי שם חביון עוזו, ויושב בסתר עליון

"Now, the nearness to G‑d is infinitely greater and more sublime in the “hidden world,” for 9 “there the concealment of His power is lodged”; and it is also written, 10 “The Most High abides in secrecy.”

"Both these verses indicate that the “hidden world” contains a higher aspect of G‑dliness than the “revealed world.” Since the “hidden world” is the source of seeming affliction, he who loves G‑d rejoices in it, for it represents a greater nearness to G‑d than revealed good, which derives from the “revealed world.”

In Omer cleansing how do I process all the loss and grief that I have from deep connections? 

How do you?

For awhile I had shut down my feelings because the grief had become so great with a dozen losses in less than a year. 

How in YESOD, a place of connection and relationship, do we return to self while on the mourning path, and continue to have healthy connections with all?

Baruch Dayan HaEmet ~ IN MEMORY OF

Dear closest friends who died within last year: 
Suzanne Roth, Irwin Ziment, Judy Guth, and dear cousins Bruce, Scott, Richard, Mark and daughter Shaked (both from cancer), and more shul friends-- Linda Rubin, Judy Baumbach, Stan Silverberg, Bill Belilove, Bobbie Japka, Michael Goldberg, Z"L.

May their neshamahs have holy Aliyahs to Heaven.

May we all be comforted by the Compassionate One.

See also  http://sephirathaomer.blogspot.com/2015/03/broken-heart-day-41-yesod-sh-b-yesod.html