Looking for light

It's October, and the shorter days have made us hungrier,
depriving us of light and forcing us to look for it in other people.

         Billy-Ray Belcourt, Coexistence: Stories

 

 

 

 

 

What did you expect?

People generally see what they look for,
         and hear what they listen for.

                Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

 

 

 

 

 

Yes or No

I have come to believe that there are really two religions in the world:
Those people in religions who say ‘yes’ to life and
those people in religions who say ‘no’ to life.
And I think people who share the ‘yes’ to life in different religions
have more in common with each other than they do with people
in their own culture or specific religious tradition who say ‘no’ to life.

                    Rabbi Arnie Belzer, 1944-2025 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Prayer for Tashlich

Here I am again
ready to let go of my mistakes.

Help me to release myself
from all the ways I've missed the mark.

Help me to stop carrying
the karmic baggage of my poor choices.

As I cast this bread upon the waters
Lift my troubles off my shoulders.

Help me to know that last year is over,
washed away like crumbs in the current.

Open my heart to blessing and gratitude
Renew my soul as the dew renews the grasses.

And we say together:
Amen.
             

                        Rachel Barenblat 

Proper balance

It occurs to me that there is a proper balance
between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.
It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression.
Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement,
there is no spur even to get the dishes washed.
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

        May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Don't give up

 Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up.

        W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads And Savoy Songs

Yom Kippur

Should I not atone for the sins I have committed,
All that I have ever said will be a lie.

        Milarepa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa