NOTHING
“out there”...
but a lonely silence
a universe of power, brute force,
colliding bodies in motion
Einsteinʼs nightmare
middas haDin without sweetening.
Yet as a 13 year old
I would sit on that familiar wooden park bench
Finchley common, by the brook,
where the city lights could not obscure
the brilliant night sky...
myriads of silent lights
in the dark firmament.
and wonder about my life
...and death,
and inconsequential being
in the face of eternity.
And recently once again I am fascinated by the science programs
describing the origin and death of our galaxy
the 7 billion planets
the other galaxies
the time when our sun will become a white star
and explode,
or a meteor might just hit us,
or the sun might send a magnetic radiating arc
that might penetrate out protective atmosphere
and once again nothing.
Nothing.
inside in this microcosm I call myself
feeling nothing this last year.
The kabbalists call it “mochin dekatnus”
but in its wake lie all the fears obsessions hurt and resentments
with no tools to sweep clean
no spiritual dialysis to the rescue
for all has lost meaning.
In this space of nothing
one must find the reshimu
they say
some residue of all that work
all those texts
all that inner work of the past
all those experiences
to latch onto, to carry one...
no?
Surely in this wasteland of empty claims and promises
I can find SOME-THING?
And slowly it emerges
not in the texts
not in the rituals
the sacraments
the claims
the fathers
even the Rebbes
but in the space of no-thing
an intimation
a ray
a movement
a tear welling up from the broken soul deep inside.
Of course the mind immediately goes to work,
the inner Litvak dissects,
the left hemisphere works overtime
and the doubting Thomas pokes his finger
in the fleshy painful wound in the chest.
Yet despite that
in the mild morning freshness
the unseasonably moist air
reminding me of a London wet mist
on the Heath,
I am moved once again
to immerse
in the waters
of the mikveh
that silent friendly baptismal pool of acceptance
whose waters wash away all inner dirt
and lose myself in the nothingness surrounding me.
And in this washing of the soul
I emerge once again
as if this is the only ritual left
that sustained me through all of these ups and downs
under attack
under the fears
the self-doubt
the panic
In these warm waters
there is comfort
not yet hope mind you
no fooling of the self,
just reality as it is...
Surrounded by nothing
emerging from nothing
ending with nothing
is this what they meant by ayin?
Holy Nothingness?
the darkness must always come first?
“and it was evening, and it was morning”
a paradigm for all beginnings
the universe out there
in its silent darkness
and the ani, the sacred I-ness within.
A semantic rearrangements of the letters
but a universe of difference.
In the space between Ayin and Ani
I hover
powerless and motionless
waiting.
