The Ides of March

To Hershy

To those of us humbled?

No longer an intellectual quest,

No longer an academician's point of interest, the quiet

library of discourse,

To those of us humbled

By the power of this -other side?

By its sheer uncanniness, its cunning,

Its control over our lives

Be it illness, dis-ability, pain or addiction

We, who have been humbled,

Have a different -knowing?

We know instinctively, in the body

Some innate sensor, like a cat when danger is at hand

Though the body wreaks its havoc

The battlefield of lain corpses

In this body, the wasteland of past desire.

Stumbling, faultily, we hobble home from the lost war, in

the broken trenches

Whose only recompense is this wise knowing

The knowledge of the flesh

An ironic reminder of a primordial gnosis

In-the-flesh, whereupon waking

Those ancient parents felt only shame

Soon to be clothed in rags-of-guilt

Even God was called in as a tailor

For only God could hide this shame, yet

Even God could not, would not remove this shame.

We do not need Mel Gibson to tell us of Passion

We too have our flesh whipped and torn

We too run the gauntlet of Prussian then Russian soldiers

The snake beating us into submission

We too have had illness inscribed into our flesh

As carriers for our past, our families our ethnic groups

Even our nation.

Too much violence out there

Too many centuries of torture now inscribed in the chosen

ones

In pain, in illness, a new cross, a new nailing, new

stigmata.

To those of us humbled, nailed to the cross of illusion and

desire

Waiting for God to remove our shame

No longer satisfied with mere covering

Refusing the tailor albeit divine

We say?

Surrender!

Resist this game

Be taken prisoner

Prisoner -of-war

You warriors-of-the-flesh

You’ve won already

Because of your burning flesh

You have "the knowledge" you know the secret, you have

the gnosis

Inscribed in you

Without even thinking

In your stigmata the secret is revealed

No longer an ideos

In the head

No longer a mind-game

You radiate it in your broken flesh

Your pain and your anguish

You, we are the prophets of today.

Sienna Racine Retreat

The Middle Ages showed a renewed interest in labyrinths

and a design more complex than the classical seven circuit

labyrinth became popular.

This was an eleven-circuit design divided into four

quadrants. It was often found in Gothic Cathedrals but

over time many of these eleven-circuit designs were

destroyed or intentionally removed.

The most famous of these remaining labyrinths is at

Chartres Cathedral near Paris, France.

Yehuda Leib and Mark play together, guitars, on the

Labyrinth here Sunday December 1st anno domini 2003

A strange spectacle: two Russian exiles, singing Hassidic

music on a Dominican mat in a convent!

This was to be my substitute pilgrimage to Jerusalem this

sunny Sunday in Wisconsin.

The labyrinth at Chartres was built around 1200 and is

laid into the floor in a style sometimes referred to as a

pavement maze. The original center piece has been

removed and other areas of the labyrinth have been

restored.

This labyrinth was meant to be walked but is reported to

be infrequently used today. In the past it could be walked

as a pilgrimage and/or for repentance. As a pilgrimage it

was a questing, searching journey with the hope of

becoming closer to God. When used for repentance the

pilgrims would walk on their knees. Sometimes this

eleven-circuit labyrinth would serve as a substitute for an

actual pilgrimage to Jerusalem and as a result came to be

called the "Chemin de Jerusalem" or Road of Jerusalem.

In walking the Chartres style labyrinth the walker

meanders through each of the four quadrants several

times before reaching the goal. An expectancy is created

as to when the center will be reached. At the center is a

rosette design which has a rich symbolic value including

that of enlightenment. The four arms of the cross are

readily visible and provide significant Christian

But the music moves me to stand and dance

I am dancing with the Lord

Like David

A rapture

Fills my heart

My legs are at one with the tempo

Now high notes and I tiptoe

Now low ones and I thump like a Cossack.

I am dancing with You Lord

I open my arms wide to embrace you

Then raise them

In praise

Of Your world

The green grass outside

The wind on the bluff

The lake and the whiffs of cloud

Paralleled like the paths of the labyrinth

The water laps up slowly and rhythmically

The patterns of nature

Below as above

Gone are the worries

The surgicenter

The powerlessness

Now all is warm sun through the cloud

The sun as begun to set slowly

So mincha faces another direction. Away

As if after High Noon no longer do we pray in her direction

For she is dying too

And our worship must face East

To life

And Jerusalem

And the future

The lake the bluff the green the blue sky

The setting sun

My life

My words

My embededdness in the world

Away from home

Here-Right now- I am

Alive.

This labyrinth is the very key

For each obstacle standing on the path from the periphery

to the center

Looks as if it forces one away from the center

Forcing one to take a right angel or even 180 degrees...

Yes if one perseveres and sees this as part of the very

nature of this path

Then eventually, but only eventually

One will arrive at the center.

Ye, you may ask why the bother...

Why such a tortuous path...

But then at the center it forces you once again to turn

There is no stopping

And once again you twist and turn at every obstacle

Only to find yourself at the periphery once again

Where you began.

Yet looking back you slowly realize that the purpose was

never to merely reach the center

Never to have gotten there as soon as possible

In the shortest distance possible

No

Far from it

The real goal was to have covered the entire map of the

circle

To have trodden the entire field of the circle

Leaving nothing out

As if everything on the circle was equally important

As if you had to have visited every inch of this area.

My dancing was circular

Like a dervish

And my field was my life

And the goals I thought I had in place initially some 30

years ago

I met with only gates and fences and high wired obstacles.

Each step along the way I met resistance

And only now so much later

Do I realize?

In this dance

The obstacles were my truest friends and spirit guides

That in the very obstacles and traumas

The rejections and the failures

I was forced to make about face turns some 90 degrees

and some 180 degrees

So that by now I have covered most of the field

The light and darker side of my soul

And that this was my greatest gift.

Do Not Become a Professional Patient

My dear patient

Do not become a professional patient.

Do not become dependent on doctors.

Do not turn into a doctor hopper.

Let me not be just another doctor along the way

To some mythical cure you are seeking

Another physician along a string of opinions.

Not for my sake

I will continue to heal, as I best know

Whether you come back or not

(God willing)

But for your sake.

Let not your expectations be your source of frustration.

Open yourself to the possibility that this time

Both you and I will work together

To hold your suffering and healing.

This time let your expectation slowly dissolve

Open yourself to new possibilities

And resist the temptation to become dependent yet again

On me or anyone else but your own

Inner healer.

Allow us to validate your pain and suffering

And strengthen your inner power for healing

Your own ability to stop the hopping

Office to office

And finally rest here

With us

As we help you take charge of your health

Once and for all.

Thanks.