Today we enter the sixth day of Sukkot, a week-long festival where we are instructed to dwell in temporary huts. Sukkot has many names, including ‘Time of our Joy’, Zman Simchateinu/ זְמַן שִׂמְחָתֵנוּ. In these days between the beginning and end of the holiday, we greet one another with the words ‘Moadim L’Simcha'/מועדים לשמחה.

I’m struggling with the idea of this time as a season of joy, because of what is happening in the world and also in my life.  These days of Sukkot have brought me to unexpected turns, activities and places, including caring for a beloved family member who has been critically ill.  In this season I also observe the yahrzeit of my beloved mother, who left this world during Sukkot, and of one of my beloved pets, who left us just after this holiday last year. 

Sunday night we embodied the essence of 'return' in our Elul Dance circle. We focused upon our structures and our soft bodies as we released inward (p'nimiyut/פְּנִימִיוּת) to our embodied knowing at the center of our beings.  We danced as the sun set and watched the full moon of Elul rise over the trees, accompanied by the changing light of the sky, the arriving stars, and the sounds of the rushing creek below.

We are in the time on the Hebrew Calendar between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av.  On the 17th of Tammuz, the walls of the temple in Jersualem were breached, and on the 9th of Av both the first and second the temples were destroyed.  These weeks on the calendar are a time of designated mourning.  As we approached the 17th of Tammuz earlier this month, I took myself to nature and breached the temple walls of my grief so that I could enter the holy of holies - my heart.

Last month I had the great privilege and blessing to travel to co-create sacred community as we studied, prayed, practiced, danced, laughed, cried and deepened our connections to one another, to nature, and to the Divine Presence at our annual Torah Yoga Retreat.  
 

The chance to be together on retreat, held by nature and the rhythm of the Hebrew calendar, was exquisitely delicious.  Swimming in the warm lake at Isabella Freedman and a warm Atlantic ocean afterwards (very different from the Pacific) infused my being with joy and appreciation for the amazing natural world that continues to persevere, even alongside the horrific actions that we humans continue to take.