May 2, 2021 on Zoom
V’nahar yotzei me-eden l’hashkot et ha-gan. (Genesis 2:10)
Our ancient text illuminates the ongoing mystery of Creation. Our holy book tells us, There is a river that flows from Eden, the source of delight, that waters, seeds, nurtures and grows the garden of this earthly realm, the garden of our lives. That river is always flowing. It is God — pouring herself out to us….
My own encounter with psychedelics (about 47 years ago) showed me what it was like to open to that Divine flow.
That river is always flowing.
It was my conditioning, my training in what is deemed normal, my constraining of perception, my buy-in to the particular values and habits of a particular time and culture that limited my receptivity to that flow and removed me from God’s transforming touch. Under the influence of psychedelics, I was given a profound glimpse of a larger Reality. In that glimpse I was touched, seen, and undone.
The Song of Songs describes that “undoing” when it says, Libavtini, achoti challah (Song of Songs 4:9). You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride… with one glance of your eyes. Just one glance.
And then what? What happened next?
I returned to the smaller Reality and became profoundly doubtful of all those limiting ideas and narrow perceptions that had been foisted upon me by a world that pretended it was all there is. That glimpse of a larger Reality sent me on a journey of discovery, healing, adventure, and the possibility of an ongoing moment to moment direct experience of Creation, Liberation and Revelation.
And then Judaism gave me a path and a language and stories that I might re-interpret in the light of that glance. It showed me that my ancestors also had glimpses of a larger Reality and they also struggled to reconcile a mind-blowing experience of the Divine flow with the limiting cultural norms of their times.
Libavtini! Through psychedelics I learned to surrender my illusion of control and let my heart be ravished. In the ashes of my small self, a vision of my larger Self could emerge. And then the holy work (without drugs) could begin- the work of keeping my heart open; the work of creating practices from the raw ingredients of my inheritance that help me to stay open to the Divine flow, turning my receptivity into generosity; the work of becoming a clear channel for God’s love to flow through in the forms of kindness and justice.
Libavtini, achoti challah. You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have pierced my heart with a beauty that dissolves my defenses, clears away every artifice, and opens me to blessing.
We come together to honor a vision, to let the glimpse send us to healing, to the exploration of the vastness of ever-expanding consciousness, and to the transforming embrace of ahavah rabah, The Great Love.
I pray that this gathering will focus not on the high or the chemical substance, but on the doorway that we might pass through into Unity consciousness. How will we live in the light of this extraordinary experience? How can a Jewish spiritual path support that journey of Love?
Libavtini, achoti challah
At the end of the invocation, Shefa chanted Ravished Heart (Libavtini).
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