LAKE WATERS REFRESHING AND CLEANSING

Spending weekends and Shabbats on a seashore, watching peaceful calm water lake waves flow in on a sandy beach, sitting in warm sand, watching each wave one and then another, listening in Shema to each wave as it hums like a hummingbird, singing songs to you, chanting in a brushing low tone, waters singing tropes, cooing you to sleep like a baby, or in windier weather exciting you into stimulation, an excitement of seagulls and whipping waves, sinking deeper and deeper into the sand, like being at an orchestration of a symphony, each wave like another flute, another violin, another clap of the hands, warmer and warmer in the sun, singing to you, a voice that is greater than anyone's, a voice of HASHEM as He sings with the water, each sand grain dancing to the beat.

Sitting and enjoying it all, taking it all in, one deep breath after the other of a fresh sea water breeze, windiness that causes celebration and rejoicing, glad to be alive, so very glad to be at the beach.

Warmer weather on its way, bathing and swimming in warmer waters, jumping into waves as they splash upon your body, it is called a Great Lake and it is great because of its purity, purifying you, as the natural waters cleanse and coat you with an absence of hatred, having love in every drop of water, mineral water, waters that refresh, waters that cause you to love yourself and those around you. 

WATERDOGS PLAYING ON THE BEACH

Still a tough winter, not yet March, but with global warming on the beaches, winds whipping like the tails of dogs as they come up to lick your face, sitting on the sandy beaches with dogs everywhere, frolicking into the waters and getting wet: waterdogs.

Fighting dogs without a reason to bite, throwing him a bone, he will eat it and then not bite his owner. Smaller dogs wagging and jumping stretching leashes to break them, to have freedom, biting into the leather band as it surrounds their neck, chewing it, ripping it open, freedom, being home for dinner.

Dogs biting chew bones exercising their jaws like sharks they file their teeth sharper, thrown another bone, a toy, a time to play, to grip someone with sharper teeth.

Teeth filed still sharper, gripping bone toys, gripping his hand as he hands him his bone. Dogs pounding on sand and jumping into the lake to find a shark, gripping with his teeth, a dog's tooth and a shark's tooth, filed to a stony point.

Smiling whiter teeth and counting new teeth as they grow in your mouth, not missing a tooth, teeth sharp enough to bite and leave a hole, gaping, widely.

The joys of sitting in the sand to watch the dogs play and the sharks bite. A bullfight, gladiators, boxing, wrestling, football, a way to let off steam and to blow it all off on the beach in the sands while the wind blows on your head, not wearing a hat.

THE BEAUTY OF GOD REFLECTED IN LAKE WATER

Large open spaces rooms with large long walls and slicked varnished long slatted wooden floors, huge windows letting in lots of light beaming and brightening reflecting and lightening the soul and uplifting the heart, laughing chuckling drinking pitchers of iced water smeared on the lips never to eat the grapes of someone else's vineyard, getting the grapes that fall to the side, someone picking the grapes for you, always to be in grapes, never to be without. Purple and green, blue and white, crimson red that is not blood. Bloodless meats circulating through the body pumping the heart and tingling the muscles, unsalted potato chips, sweetness of a smile and not using chocolate. Being in the know even though you do not want to know, hearing someone laugh and being happy that they are happy.

Steadily eating another grape and turning purple as others turn green but not with envy. Using their greenness to grow more grapes and to bake more pies. Tapping a foot to the rhythm of a loom that is threading all the colors of the rainbow, having the rainbow in your backyard when its pot of gold accumulates and you do not need to spend it. Donating gold to the filling of her teeth as they fall out. Smiling larger and bigger as her teeth corrode and yours light up the lives of people who do not have light.

Lighting up a smile with a flame on a candle as you close your eyes and become surprised, having the lightness when others do not and showing it to them. Appreciating every tinge and warming your cold hands. Wishing, but not having wishes come true, because G-d calls the chips, tossing another coin in the well and wetting your lips with drinking water as you watch lake waves get rockier and wetter, hoping that everyone can take a dip and enjoy a swim.

Another Shabbat at the beach with the awe of G-d everywhere as He reflects His beauty in great lake water.

SOUNDING SEAS SWEETLY SMILING SINGING

Waves splashing, singing, shouting, seriously slapping wetter ferociously wildly in the wilderness. Dune grasses and mounds of sand stirred up like sloppy stone soup, sucking and sipping.

Supping on furious fishes from fast white water rapids, while catfish are becoming scarce and extinct.

Rolling, rocking on a boat, holding on securely, spitting up silver onto a shoreline, spending money you do not need.

Feeding fondly on fruit and fish deeply in your belly, unbuckling your belt and brushing up onto the beach.

Pirates lashing swords in black boots wringing necks of sea monsters, slashing out with forked tongues, bending, breaking, piercing, whispering words of wishful wonderment.

Dark green opaque sunglasses, hiding, mirrored lenses reflecting, secretly withholding eyes.

Having scrolls of ancient history highly hung overhead, interpreting age old print, hands pointed and fingers not touching the precious parchment.

Sea monsters' songs sprung from cesspools drowning him out because he tried to drown you. The Song of the Sea changes lives, wanting, wishing to live forever, swimming safely away.

Spreading pages of books, burning, as you are breathing, minds becoming heavier and heavier, thinking, brainstorming, thunder storming.

Writing on a page in your own book in a novel with a story of a war that you have won.

Hearing the sounds of clapping, clanging cymbals! Trumpets shrilly shouting! Becoming bugles, audible to all types of audiences.

Teaching toe touching, dance stepping. Tongues waggling, wiggling, singing songs soundly.

Punishing pain pushing away, vanishing, the broken becoming mended.

Mysterious music of the sea smiling at me, as beautiful today as she did yesterday.

THE POLISHED STONES ALONG THE SEASHORE

The awesomeness of great waves, easy going, one wave after the other, each wave letting a wave go before it, showing courtesy, one wave before and then one wave following, like an army of waves, causing soothing-ness coolness predictability, no one wave much bigger than the other, each wave basically the same, regularity, nothing upsetting the apple cart, no one wave to cause worry, each wave like the other in equality.

Each wave containing water, bringing up algae, to rejoice in these waves, to skip stones, to perfect a skill of skipping them, watching a stone smooth and polished skip several times over the waves before it dunks in the water and we lose it. There are more stones, more polished and more smooth stones, more opportunities to skip them and to perfect our skill even more.

Skipping stones everyday, skills becoming more and more perfected, more and more stones provided, larger and larger body of water, sunny days, greater more expansive amounts of grainy sandy shore, more and more time to have to devote to skipping stones, people watching as you skip them, cheering you on as your stone takes more skips than the stone you threw before, a game of skipping stones, becoming a livelihood of skipping stones. David skipping a stone into the forehead of Goliath, a stone that was only a pebble, changing history, a stone that was aimed in the right direction, and toppled a giant. A stone that saved a life and took a life.

Stone Soup, a soup made of stones, stones that are tossed into a soup pot and cooked up. Stones we eat and stones we throw into the sea, stones that are bricks of buildings as shelters, building homes out of stones. Stones for everything, stones for enjoyment and recreation, stones that teach us, stones that form our homes, stones in soup pots that we eat.

Having stones and therefore having it all.

NOT DROWNING IN A SEA OF FALSE FLATTERY

Flattery, false compliments urging, bringing out of oneself, laughing aloud not peaceably whispering, talking not listening, not learning, knowing nothing new, controlling conversations, speaking instead of learning instead of listening, inviting argumentation.

Opening up your suite of armor and attracting the entrance of a spear the splitting of an arrow. A discussion becoming a debate, what was good turning bad, saying things you do not mean, defending yourself, saying words attracting negative attention, not being agreed with, not having them on your side, being in a room with natural enemies, saying they are your friends, trying to cut down walls and open doors, doors slammed shut and walls not falling, no one agreeing, being with a team that does not work together, trying to say the last word, no one heard.

Thinking you have powers to split the sea instead getting wet and drowning. Watching the sea spilt by itself, not the one to split it, G-d doing the undoable. Talking to natural enemies and make them your friends, having the fear of spiritual awe, the almighty power of peace. Scaring the Egyptians into drowning in a sea when they thought they could swim, warriors whose bullets bounced back on themselves.

A state of flattery to encourage you to jump into waters that are higher than your head, knowing the fierceness of the waves and deepness of the sea, staying afloat in a boat as it peacefully passes the shoreline, not swimming against waves, against adversity, safe and swimming without diving, without breaking your neck.

Making the entire body of water your home and your friend, not giving up what you have, not being guided by a misleading shepherd, not being a sheep who is sheepish, causing a fish out of water, basking in the shade without needing a tree, water waves pouring in freely without causing a hole in the sand, not falling into up to your neck, not believing in someone's false flattery.

Keeping your sails firmly up against the wind and not being blown over, traveling in the boat around the world, not sinking, not flooding.

WINNING A FIGHT NEVER FOUGHT

"Anger will kill a fool."
- Job 5:2

Ferocious roaring sea water waves, crashing into rocks on a sandy shore wearing down the crags smoothing them, cushiony chairs to sit on these rocks becoming stone. An angry sea, one of fierce argument, adversity, waves like warriors, once was a splitting sea when each wave flew up forming a wall, swiftly, allowing us to pass between them unharmed, to drown the Egyptians as they were on the offense, to kill, to bring the Hebrews to freedom to the Promised Land. Each Egyptian warrior drowned in the caving in of the walls of the great green sea. An angry sea that killed them as fools.

Hollering, yelling, screaming, fighting, charging head on like a bull after a red cape, the heaving of one's chest full force frontal into a fight, slashing swinging swords, splitting narrow arrows from bending bows, intensely targeting another as an opposition, an apparent opponent.

Challenging, turning a discussion into a debate, throwing sticks and stones to hit a tense target, kicking jumping up and down, shifting and shouting and banging one's fists wildly against a wall, pounding against a table, unstable.

Glaring staring eyes meeting the eyes of another not giving up, zeroing in on the enemy, making a staunch statement, trying to win by causing him to lose, gambling but without luck.

But, so they say "Anger will kill a fool."

Slowing down one's heartbeat, walking the other way, turning around giving him your back, not responding to the challenge, holding your sense of peace deeply within yourself, averting your eyes looking down looking away.

Not yelling back, bridling your mouth, holding your arms from taking a swing, not forcing yourself, saying nothing in return, holding your own, whispering an internal mantra, skipping freely away happily, merrily.

Not getting entangled. Forgiving and forgetting. Not holding a grudge, feeling the tension in your chest escaping, breathing hot air out, diffusing, being a large full tight balloon losing air in a fizzle, fists unwinding, hands flowing freely to one's side.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt. One less enemy, one less battle, removing your suite of amour, hitting and bouncing off your shield.

Now putting your sword back in its sheathe.

Not angered, not killed, not a fool. Won a fight because it was never fought.

HAPPY SABBATH ON THE SEA

Shabbat at sunset approaching like a boat from the horizon of the lake, a Shabbat of "simcha" which is a special Shabbat of joyousness and comforting rest.

Watching the boats sail in towards the dock getting closer and closer as the sun makes its rounds and soon will be lower in the sky and becoming a purple, pink, and orange star, brightly burning like a Shabbat candle flame, flickering in the sea breeze, warming ice cold hands and bringing hope to me as I watch the flame burn down the wax, lower and lower, as the sun sets lower and lower.

Then, as if in a miracle, when there is no more light, no more candlelight or sunlight, my body lowers in reverence as it faces to the east, and I take a full bow to welcome the Shabbat Bride.

Welcoming Shabbat and its joyousness and great restful sensations as G-d's seventh day, a Day of Rest, a day when we stop creating, a day of prayer, a day when we are surrounded in a tallit of happiness and worship, a day made for me as a gift, a gift from G-d.

Happy Sabbath.

MIKVAH IN THE DEEP SEAS

Gusting out sweet song, spilling out words of Hebrew chesed [loving-kindness] as waves of water wash wonderfully onto the shore, smelling the algae and fish, filling up your lungs with the scent of the sea, whispering and then shouting, calling the seagulls to listen, seeing a wave with white froth slowly approaching and coming towards you, white bubbles like frosting on a cake, the coolness and the sweetness of the yellow butter tickling the tongue, a reward for a job well done.

Dancing as a surfer upon the waves, in a circular dance holding hands as each wave comes in and drowns your bare feet, as a ballet dancer avoiding the wetness, being submerged as you jump a Russian dance jump kick like a fiddler on the roof into the sea and submerge yourself into the depths of it.

Wetting all of one's body, saturating the skin and under the skin, getting wet between the toes, cleanness and pureness, sweet waters sugared with a block of wood, wood being paper, a scroll, a Torah inside the waters as a way to achieve respectfulness of all religions, to live and let live, to try to understand the differences, like different fish in the sea, all of sanctified separation, some with fins and some without, catfish to be thrown back into the sea, fish as foods, fish that cannot be eaten.

Riding high waves on surfboards, avoiding a splash, showing honor to all the fish of the sea as you glide on by, not in adversity, not to rock the boat.

Being pure in thoughts as well as actions as well as words. Having the gift of a mikvah to cure oneself of all ills.

A BOTTLE WITH A MESSAGE THROWN INTO THE SEA

Having pleasant memories of deceased loved ones before they die. A message scrunched and folded into a bottle and thrown into a deep green sea, seeing it floating but no one reaching out to pick it up.

Light green colored waters becoming blue as the day goes by and the sun sets. An Israeli blue and white flag flying half mast, remembering our loved ones now before they are dead, blowing them a kiss in the breeze over miles of sea water, sending them a message in a bottle.

Giving a helping hand, offering an elder a ride, pushing a wheelchair, singing out a song of sympathy to an elder who would rather be dead. Asking of her where will she be after death, and she replies "in your pocket always near to you always at your side."

As we bow low before our ancestors, always having them moments away in life or in death, a father or mother who never dies. A child who grows up with her mother and father always next to her by her side, on her side, fighting with her, with her side against all other sides, against all odds.

Not having a loss even when a loss is eminent, calling always to your guardian angel to sweeten your bitter waters, hoping she finds your message in a bottle, a bottle afloat to sweeten the seas with words as sweet as wine, with words of hope and words of love to those the deceased has left behind.

Floating, always floating, never adrift without a purpose, having a purpose to keep your deceased parents' love for your family alive.

Learning to swim, then learning to yacht, then finding an island in the seas where you can bask lazily in the sun, warm your skin and think thoughts of love for your loved ones whether in life or in death, a place to receive your message in your bottle and to read it aloud.

A message in a bottle that says "I love you always, whether in death or in life."