The Zenith

Summer solstice. Feeling the length of day. Feeling the length of lives that have recently passed. Dear Ones who blessed me while they lived and whose weight gives me solace in their deaths.

Tensile Time

The days are stretching long as we reach for the summer solstice and its expansive length of light only weeks away. Then the sun will be at its zenith only to slowly retreat all summer that is coming. It is about space and shape, and time: the ultimate improvisation of the cosmos.
LOVED 'From the Horse's Mouth', the Abrons Art Center's presentation of Alwin Nikolais alums. What a discovery!
Sadly discovery is also learning the vicious and insidious nature of the oil soon to be arriving on my summer beach via the Gulf stream.

Lag B'Omer

Counting. Counting the days of the week, counting the hours of sleep, the hours until sleep, counting the hours I worked, counted the time of my practice (and how it counted to me). Counting who counts. My teachers count in unmeasurable ways and I am blessed by my remarkable teachers. I lost one this week, a woman of valor in every way. We'll count 82 years for her. She was as strong minded as she was small; as tough talking as the delicacy of her frame and affection. She was a teacher: everything tumbled into perspective and context, encased in the humor of her quips. Goodbye, my dear friend and teacher.
Sunday we are at the 33rd day of counting the Omer, the 33rd day, the fifth day of the fifth week - a Splendor within the week of Splendor. This was the week my daughter was born. And I count her 23 years like I count nothing else.

In Between

Saw RED. Eddie Redmayne is thrilling: a brilliant performance full of Brando-like physicality. The play is hardly a 'drama', more a kind of abstract exegesis on art.
Tricia Brown dancers at Baryshnikov Art Center were sublime while challenging. Her work is hugely provocative. And finally got around to see Eastern Promises. I hope there will be a sequel. Hard as parts of it were to watch (I actually plugged my ears and lay on my stomach away from the screen in one scene) Viggo Mortensen is mesmerizing; the film is packed with colorful and authentic individuals and there was artful suspense and then what twists unfolded!
One night with the Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully (hate the acoustics but the wood is pretty to look at and imagine as the trees they once were). The program included Ligeti and I finally 'got it' - think 2001:A Space Odyssey - even after years and years of Christopher Wheeldon's ballets. Thank you Alan Gilbert. And all the passionate musicians, young and enthusiastic!
Pain is life’s chaperone. The pain of being born;arthritis pain;heartbreak;growing pains. Pain is the utter bell ringer, calling us while it is warning us away.
I want to be sensitive - responsive and alive - which means being fragile and vulnerable.
The struggle is to create sinews of awareness and remain open while letting in and letting out. Breathing in and breathing out. The Iceland Volcano is breathing out.

Revelation

Secret things belong to God but what is revealed belongs to us (it is our responsibility) and belongs to our children (and is their responsibility) forever; that we may apply all the provisions of this teaching:
Revelation does not deal with the mystery of God, but with a person’s life, as it should be lived in the presence of that mystery. And this teaching is not beyond reach. It is not in heaven, that we should say, “Who among us can go up to heaven and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may do it?” No, the word is very close to us, in our mouth and in our heart to do it. (Deuteronomy 29:28/30:11-14)
As I count the days to the Law I remember the reasons for being 'kosher' - a clean tongue so as not to commit lashon hara for it is forbidden to speak disparagingly of one's "chaveir" (lit. friend)
Also so that we remember we are not meant to taste everything.

Skeletons

We've crossed through the Sea of Reeds. I want to be a thinking reed. A reed produces sound. The combination of our breath and one reed in a single wind instrument makes music. Enough reeds and we can comb our hair and, look, the reed expressing itself out of marshes, from water, to bend in the wind and yet remain 'rooted'.
Our skeletons are like reeds. Our bones may seem like stone, but they are alive. “In many ways, bones are more animate than the muscles and fat draped over them or the quivering visceral organs they protectively encage.” NY Times Science Times April 28, 2009 – Bone, A Masterpiece of Elastic Strength. Like reeds.
What roots ourselves, our skeletons, in the marshes is awareness. Awareness is the absolute anchor. It is the lynchpin, the mainstay, and the foundation. It is portable. It can be brought along without baggage.
The most magical places are in our own minds. Not able to return yet to Cambodia, Bali, I let my imagination loose and dream. I dream to be a thinking reed.

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

The full moon is here and so is plentiful spring rain. Family comes together to break the bread of affliction and to rejoice in each other’s love and survival. What do we need to ‘survive’, to endure and live on?
Perseverance.
Tenacity, determination, purposefulness.
I am going to practice now. Practice does not make perfect but there is endurance, dedication, commitment. It is hard and it nourishes me like the rain nourishes the earth.

Renewal

Oh, Pesach. Pascal. Passover. Eggs and greens Pesach or Easter each with the Pascal lamb. I observe the moon waxing full harkening us to remember. To remember we were all slaves once. And we are all still enslaved in so many ways. We must cultivate imagination. Transformation occurs in practice, with creativity, compassion and receptivity.
Going to see the Buddhas at The Asia Society and the young dancers at the Juilliard. At this time of year all is budding: young graduates in performance and everywhere else we pause long enough to observe. Think music: the pauses between the notes are as important as the notes.

Spring Equinox

A time to rebalance now that we've had a day of equal light and dark – the Spring equinox having just occurred – days lengthen as the Sun (my ruling ‘planet’) rises to its zenith. The sun is truly a star giving light and warmth and the impetus for growth – seen and unseen.
Reading ‘My Father’s Paradise’ by Ariel Sabar. It is a remarkable telling of his family's roots - 2700 years - in a remote corner of the world - an enclave of Jews in Kurdish Iraq who still spoke Aramaic.
Watching “The Stoning of Saroya M” – a powerful Iranian film
Listening to Sade and Andras Schiff.
Seeing the Wooster Street production of North Atlantic and The Bridgeman Packer Dance Troupe at the Barishnikov Art Center.