“I feel the winds of the west
out breath
letting go of my leaves
all I do not need
Into the darkness of a fall sunset
I release
receive
getting ready for the
silence.”
-Ayla Nereo
Filmed in Inverness, CA
Sung with my roommate Sasha
california
We Cry Out to Mama For Her Lovin’
A couple months ago I had the deep blessing of co-creating this video for my brother Mikey Pauker‘s new single “Sages” as a dancer. Mikey was inspired by Bereshit, the Torah’s creation story. Our filming process embodied a birthing ritual that empowered each of us to bring our true selves a little deeper into the world. Thank you, Mikey!
This Too We Shall PassOver
This weekend I committed a crime.
I packed a backpack with water, a bit of food, layers of clothing, a first aid kit, The Tao of Physics, a journal, a flashlight, a camera and a sleeping bag.
I left The Magic Mobile by the side of a dirt road.
I hiked five miles along the seashore, through forest and meadow, to a waterfall cascading into the Pacific Ocean.
As the sun went down and the other humans headed toward their built homes, I stayed.
Clouds descended over me and I entered a portal
These last moments of Pesach (Passover)
of sunlight
of Shabbat
We are at the shores of the sea.
The ego, the attachments, the false identifications…the seductive security of the familiar are chasing us.
The only way we know
is behind us.
Can we really leave it?
Pesach/Passover 5775: Forever Being Born
We reached the entrance. Why were these women just standing there with scared eyes cast toward the ground? Why were they waiting for a man to come and open the door? Their skin was pale and blemished. No signs of thriving or empowerment. They all looked the same…and a bit like me.
“Are you serious? Basic bitches,” I muttered as I pushed them aside and strode to the doors. One appeared easy enough to enter, perhaps a cellar door. The other, a tiiny keyhole shaped opening, looked impossible. I almost reached for the cellar door before I saw some of my spirit allies on the other side. Ha! I got this.
I knelt down at the opening, which didn’t appear to be wide enough for my shoulders. The narrow walls hugged my body and allowed my bones to spread them wider. I relaxed my entire body, then squirmed my way forward, just a few inches at a time. My allies watched with wide eyes and bated breath. As I made my way through what I quickly became aware of as a birth canal, I realized I was dying. I was truly entering a new world, a new life, a new dimension. I was birthing myself, letting go of everything I’d known before. With this realization, I slowed down. I allowed myself to feel the process, the death, the transformation. I let out a deep moan of mourning and pleasure.
It wasn’t until mid-chant that I remembered this dream. Shekhinah, el shaddai, imah illa’ah tzimtzemai WHOA.
My being is raw from this birth. My body is so new. I want to protect her. And yet there are those people whose Presence dissolves the walls in sweet caress. They know. They see. Their eyes are open in this moment as they swim beside me in these waters. The ones who feel the world a little ‘too deeply’, who refuse to silence and numb, to pretend.
Daniel is one of these people for me. We met at the Kohenet Passover Seder on Saturday and when he asked to stay with me for a few days, I felt the yes. When I shared my dream with him that morning, I had no idea what could be unleashed with his witness.
Him, on rattle and drum/guitar. Me, didgeridoo and drum. Tear-stained face. Deep sigh. Thanking creator for the release of this grief that spans everything from my own lost loves to the way we are violating our mother Gaia. Casual pre-work ritual…
Meanwhile, Anna woke on her first day back in the Bay after time in Costa Rica studying yoga and permaculture. The moment I saw her with her drum on her back at the New Year’s Eve party, hours after I left Mount Shasta in a whirlwind of chaos and surrender, I knew she was my sister. We felt some sadness that she was about to leave for what we thought would be many months…and now, after only three, she was back! And as Spirit would have it, she and Daniel had been together in Costa Rica and are now planning a Permaculture Action Tour together.
The next morning was Spirit Team Rivka Restoration Round 2. I am forever grateful for their presence and encouragement as I released pain that is not mine to carry. As Daniel said while checking in later, “We don’t make it until we all make it.”
I’m holding both renewed appreciation for the power of love, and a release of the idea of “making it” as getting somewhere else, somewhere higher. In my dream of this dream, there’s nowhere to go but more fully here. Sometimes I sit in the center of awareness of the Tao. Sometimes it feels like a mirage just out of sight. One cannot be better than the other. There is no hierarchy of moments, only an endless loop where darkness leads to light and light leads to darkness and we travel as the One.
These words wrap up my week before a much-needed Shabbat on unpaved earth. The Magic Mobile awaits to take me and brother Mitchel to camp along madre mar on the land that now lives and loves with the host of the New Years party where I met both Mitchel and Anna (insha’allah). Such strings of circumstance are far beyond my orchestration.
Soon the portal of Pesach, this time of liberation and rebirth, will close…or will it? As I spiral deeper with seeds planted three months ago, five months ago, and surely long before we can yet remember, I let go of the striving toward that freedom. I witnessed a certain desperation in the preparation toward Passover. PLEASE, FREEDOM, PLEASE. Yearning for some “lost” peace and awareness as if this is THE chance. Afraid of getting left behind as my tribe journeys to the Promised Land.
Somehow truth is born from illusion. I relax my body. I move forward. I moan and release.
I am forever being born
to Source
to the edge
as Source
as the edge.
I Make Friends By Hitting Their Cars
And in many other bizarre ways…
including offering someone waiting for the bus at the Berkeley Marina a ride home a few weeks ago, which turned into them taking me to dinner. I was muy cansada by the time we left the cafe, and scraped up against the car parallel-parked in front of me. Ugh. The Magic Mobile looks a bit beaten up, and their bumper needed a paint job. Trusting my financial fears to Source, I left a note with my contact info.
The sweet owners were so touched by my note and email correspondence that they decided to pay half of the repair! When I asked to treat them to dinner they invited me to eat at the Salvadoran restaurant they own…
Tonight it was time to meet these beautiful souls. I took a break from cleaning in preparation for Passover to walk around the block in my new neighborhood, and met some of my neighbors. After a little more cleaning, I headed over to Platano for dinner.
I walked in and saw the neighbors I had just met, with more of my neighbors! They invited me to eat with them and sang me songs about the drought. I think I shook them up a bit during a conversation about IUD’s when I said that I love and care about my natural moon cycle. All of a sudden, it got awkward. I didn’t bring even bring up my Diva cup or offering blood to the earth! I forget that other people don’t necessarily talk about bodies and queerness and ecofeminism all the time…
After dinner I savored a plantain dessert at the bar and talked with a young Salvadoran man who began working at Platano as soon as he moved here last June. Jose looked off into the distance with wide eyes as he reflected on the challenges of coming to a new place. Everything is different, even though he is blessed to live with his family here. Using another language is especially challenging; I can empathize…though I was able to get around with my limited Hebrew and English while I lived in Israel, I remember the embarrassing misunderstandings and the frustrating inability to express myself and connect with people. Jose’s English is much better than my Hebrew! We were able to have a nice conversation until Nicolas arrived. I wrote him a check and he gave me his friend’s card for auto body work in case I decide to repair The Magic Mobile. Mostly we just smiled at each other and thanked each other for being wonderful.
I’m grateful to have been raised by an ELL teacher who taught me that immigrants are resilient, courageous, and kind. Grateful for new friends of all shapes and colors and abilities and perspectives and traditions and interests…Grateful for whole interactions and sweet community…Grateful.
Ritual Revolution
It’s been an interesting week.
I held ceremony in the streets of San Francisco.
I travelled to Harbin Hot Springs to have a dream about truth, boundaries and the merkava.
I got to do Priestess work at my day job.
I had sleeping and waking moments of sleeping and waking dreams.
Things are different now.
There’s no going back.
I don’t know how it will come together,
and I know what’s true for me will guide
the way forward:
Ritual Revolution.
I’m undergoing a fundamental shift in my core beliefs, lifestyle, essentially my personal culture.
And because the core of this shift is interconnectedness,
integration of my authentic self, embodiment of my essence
are undeniable.
I am a Priestess of the Present, wherever I go.
On my 2-mile walk to work,
in my apartment,
on BART,
I am here to hold space for connection.
To reflect the sacred light within all life.
My inner guide is my supervisor
and my breath is my paycheck.
I promise,
I’m doing my best.
Thank you for being.
Thank you for Being with me.
Six Hands > Six Figures
Follow the sunlight
and the groaning of
hungry hearts
Find a patch of concrete
to sit and Praise Oneness
Beats interwoven
Names exchanged
Drums traded
In that order
We put out a container
for the three of us to share
But it’s not about the money
This is about love
This is healing
This is a radical proclamation
of all that is Sacred
YOU who work a 9-5 at the bank
YOU who sleep under its awning
YOU who pass this spot every day
and start to feel, something’s different
Come dance with us!
You are safe in the sound waves
of the Mother Gaia’s heartbeat
You are loved in ancient words
sung to Creator
You are home
and we are family
and YES, I know, it feels
so
good
to remember.
In a time when it is “safer” to work in
sales
than ceremony
We will not bow down
to your corporate idols.
Six figures
have nothing
on
six drumming hands.
B’rucha At Shekhina, who grounds me.
Dear Ones,
I write to you
from
MY BED.
In a room I can stay in as long as G!ddess wills it
In an apartment where I pay rent
with a paycheck I receive
in a holistic workplace.
BRUCHA HASHEKHINA! G!ddess is gracious!
I moved to Berkeley yesterday, two blocks from my community acupuncture clinic, six blocks from the friends with whom I’m co-creating a California chapter of our beloved MN nonprofit Face Forward, seven blocks from Berkeley Bowl, and within a mile of many of my other friends. It’s really happening!
It’s interesting to watch the impulse to attach and to go right into ego mode: mine, mine, mine! Control, control, control! I have many dreams for my new space. I’m also cultivating patience, presencing as often as I remember to that sweet spaciousness that says: You have all the time you need. Always. And, as great as it is to have a space to ground/replenish/explore/express, my four months of traveling taught me that these things (jobs, houses, routines) are not ultimately us.
After work today I lay on the floor of my new bedroom and spoke to my mentor on speakerphone. We investigated my relationship with anger and boundaries, and she reminded me that I’ve been in an intense playground of boundaries as I’ve co-habited others’ spaces. She reflected that without a space over which I have sovereignty, I’ve had to really ground in myself, and I did so with beautiful imperfect grace. There were days in the past few months that I felt incredibly alive and authentic. There were days I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. I’m learning to recognize and honor my desires…it’s a delicious, exciting, and surprisingly terrifying journey.
Why is it so scary to know what I want and ask for it?
Is it because I have this Buddhist-influenced mental loop playing that says “Desires?? Suffering! Bad!”?
Is it that I learned from my adult role models that to be in harmony with those around me, I must ignore what I feel and want?
Is it a layer of internalized oppression from a misogynistic, heteronormative, conformity-encouraging society?
Is it my Pisces martyrdom and self-sacrifice?
Is it a piece of the puzzle of human re-membrance, a confrontation we all make with the self as we evolve spiritually?
I can tell myself whatever story I want about the pain that lives in my connective tissues, the tightly held animal self so often found in fetal position, shivering and flinching at the touch of the world. Ultimately she is mine to approach, to offer my hand in love and reverence, and to coax as she allows me. In the act of showing up to meet myself with true love and respect, I embody shekhinah. I allow the divine presence in the physical world to flow through me and know herself, cycling in infinite spiral time between everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere.
Words get tangled and lose their source. I’ve wrapped the threads of my life in a ball so I could take it with me at a moment’s notice. I’m thankful for the space to unwind, to trace back, to spread myself out and see the patterns my spirit weaves. For now, I’ll trust my dreams to undress these layers.
With love and strength,
Rivka
Emergency Forest Aid
This week has been one of deep joy, panic, miracles, doubt, and blessing throughout. One of the miracles of the week that inspires me onward: I’ve been hired in the dream part-time job I applied for before I went to Mount Shasta! I reluctantly withdrew my application, following my intuition to go to Shasta, and was called back to the Bay Area the same day my employer returned from Turkey with the position still open!! I am the Assistant to the Provost of the Starr King School of the Ministry in Berkeley, a school for spiritual leadership for social change. I start Monday, with boundless gratitude and excitement!
By the grace of goddess I was able to sublet a room in the house of my mentor, Kohenet Taya Shere, and the opportunities to process and be supported and witnessed by her were a huge gift. Still, fears crept in, ‘where will I stay after this ends on Thursday? How will ‘I make it’ in this crazy expensive place? Will I be able to meet my basic needs?’ These things feel very real, and ultimately, they are not…one of the deep teachings I learned from Mount Shasta was to recognize the waking dream, to become lucid and explore from my center, knowing everything external to be a reflection/projection of the internal. Just as in a lucid sleeping dream, this opens me to conscious creation of my reality as if it were like Play-doh.
In that moment, the truth was that I was staying in a safe, beautiful space and had nutritious food to eat. I had all I needed and more. Taya suggested I make a compromise with my fears, giving them a space to be heard but with a limit. Perhaps 80% gratitude, 20% fear. One of my tools to shift from fear is to write the medicine song I am needing. These chants become a part of me, a mantra that surfaces as I’m going about my day and especially in times of need. I share them in hopes that they may bring peace to a part in you that also struggles. It’s clear that we are going through this together, this incredible turning in our evolution. All that we can’t take with us into a new paradigm of connection, healing, empowerment and Love is falling away now, and the process can be painful. It brings us face to face with our fears. We look around and see widespread violence, perverted national priorities, subtle and blatant oppression, hunger, homelessness, climate disaster, and essentially destruction of all that is familiar.
What are we creating in its place?
As we explore our personal experience of shadow, we’re challenged to ask (as Shefa Gold suggests, interpreting the story of Rivka/Rebecca and the wrestling of the twins in her pregnant belly): What am I birthing?
I am birthing a self that lives and embodies her spiritual knowing, trusting deeply in shekhina and accessing an inner strength that could only be discovered through the challenges I face. I’m birthing a more compassionate self, aware of suffering and dedicated to learning and sharing self-healing and self-empowerment. I’m birthing a new layer of confidence in myself and the medicine I’m here to share.
I’m co-creating a world of abundance, reverence for all life, and connection to our Source. A world of collaboration, intimacy, and respect. Unconditional love, harmony and justice. A world where we embrace one another for the medicines and gifts we each bring, working together to heal our planet, our society, our bodies and our relationships.
What are you birthing? What are you co-creating?
In love and solidarity,
Rivka
A Brief Hibernation Update
Grounding.
Recharging.
Rooting in Love,
offering myself in Service.
Grateful to the mountain for calling me in to heal.
Will be sharing meditations and yoga sequences as soon as I can charge my camera 🙂
Blessings from the silence <3,
Rivka
Witnessing Spirit 