What’s your ultimate Truth?

Throughout our travels and our interviews, Marcos and I asked the question

What’s one thing you know to be true?

Though we asked people of different backgrounds, locations, ages, professions, and perspectives, most answers are different expressions of the same thing.

On this first snowy day in Mount Shasta, California, my winter art cave, I’m reviewing footage of our interview with artist and musician Chances R Good. Here’s his reflection of Truth:

“Everything that we see is inside the heart of G!d, always has been and forever will be. There’s no outside to it. There is only one illusion: that there are many things and that we’re one more soul within it. That is the only illusion, that is the only source of suffering, and the only cause of fear. So the one thing I hold true is that if one is to surrender all thought of who and what their morsel is, then they merge back into their natural primordial state. They feel that love, that connection, that Oneness, and they know that all of it has always been an illusion, a great Shakespeare, a roller coaster of beautiful colors and emotions, and nothing more.”

Stay tuned for more updates on the forthcoming film that features him and other insightful souls speaking about the transformation and integration we are all contributing to as we come together for tikkun olam, repairing and nurturing the world!

Houseless Fairy Seeks 1 Night Shelter

Yesterday’s Torah portion was Vayetze.
Jacob our forefather
teaches me faith.
One dream, one glimpse of the Divine Reality,
and he follows the goddess on a journey to a strange land,
works for 20 years, being tricked and cheated by his employer/father-in-law.
Still trusts G!d.
And asks for what he needs!

Today I woke with a mind full of thoughts.
After two months of nomadic life,
one more day.
one more uncertain night
where will I sleep?
The car wouldn’t be so bad…
So I’ll spend the day embodying goddess
and celebrating the wild ride she’s guided me on.
My kavanah: strength, faith.

One more day
one more opportunity
to live little dreams I dreamt in Minnesota…
like busking!

Thank you MaMuse for “Chico Gospel”–
You brought me my first dollar
and the next
and the next

Thank you Shekhina
You brought Joshua
whose name and deed affirms your grace:
“Yahweh is salvation.”

I am deeply humbled
and joyfully dancing
I asked and you heard me
I laid down my pride and my hat
and you have filled me overflowing
with Love for all creation.

When I left two months ago
I had hopes
fears
dreams
and a trust in the calling I felt in my body,
my soul’s stirring.

I started walking.
I kept going.
I got scared sometimes,
wanted to stop
rest
ground.
You kept me safe
healthy
connected.

Let every breath I take be in praise of the One
May I repay the kindness shown to me tenfold
May my life contribute to the happiness and freedom of all beings everywhere.

In deep love and gratitude,

Rivka

A Glimpse of Chico, CA

Dear ones,

I’m in Chico, CA this week at the GRUB cooperative. I have a few connections to this place, direct and indirect. It’s a huge gift to be here, especially for Thanksgiving! Not knowing where I’d be for the holiday made me feel a little sad, and I set the intention that wherever I ended up, I would spend the day in gratitude and connection with the land, surrounded by family in some sense. I feel blessed to be invited to join the community’s celebration and share yummy food in deep connection with its source.

My intention is to spend the weekend in Ashland, Oregon; my partner’s lease in Mount Shasta opens on MONDAY!!! The day I unpack my car and settle into a space is in sight…

For now, I’m enjoying the opportunity to slow down and learn from the people, animals and earth around me. I’m staying in a yurt and each night I get better at making fires in the wood stove for warmth. There are no trash cans here. We use compost toilets and an outdoor shower. The ‘big house’ isn’t heated, with the exception of “The Warm Room” where I write to you now. A resident adds wood to the fire while another naps on the floor next to the stove.

I’ve been able to help out by farming, cooking and cleaning. It can be tricky to find my place in such an established and complex system/group dynamic, but people have been very welcoming.

Whew, 10pm! Late! Better go start the fire in the yurt 🙂

Love and magic,

Rivka

Truthfully

Today was the first time I felt homesick on this journey.
The old story tells me I’m unemployed and homeless.
I step into the power of living at home in my body and giving and receiving in Divine grace.
I falter.
I forget.
I get up again.

Cycles

When we drop the illusion of constancy

the structures that give our lives a sense of meaning

dependability

comforting familiarity

all that remains are cycles

Inhale, exhale.

Full moon, new moon.

Expansion, contraction.

High, low.

Light, darkness.

It’s all taking place Now. We see in cycles because we adhere to the concept of Time.
As we move through the night, stepping tenderly or with abandon past our familiarity, all we experience exists also in a higher octave

illuminated

to the one who remembers themselves

as Light

Grasping for the high from a low

brings suffering

Hold your breath too long on an inhale

and you suffocate

Peace comes as we embrace cycles

and harmonize our lives

to sweetly sing along

Happy birthday world!

I like to wish myself and others happy birthday every day, remembering that each day and actually each breath we are recreated. Each day we have the opportunity to look at the world with new eyes and receive the gifts all around us.

This morning a gentle rain awoke me just before dawn. Snuggled on the forest floor in my sleeping bag, I may not have noticed if my new friend Steve hadn’t called over to me and asked for my thoughts. Stirring from a dream, I looked up through the peep hole of my sleeping bag cocoon at the redwoods standing tall overhead. Sprinkling raindrops mixed with the scent of the trees suggested we stay and enjoy for a while. After a few minutes the rains began to pick up and we headed inside with Steve’s sweet 13-year-old dog, Sally, who’d been sleeping next to us.

I met Steve, a friendly giant/forest elf/architect/inventor in his mid-sixties, at Harbin Hot Springs last week. Though I’d been naked in warm pools outside in the mountains with a bunch of people all evening and morning, I hadn’t really met anyone. A couple hours before I headed back to San Francisco, I overheard a conversation in the kitchen that I had to interrupt.

When you hear someone sitting behind you describe very clearly the dream you had the previous night, I feel like that’s a pretty strong cue to join the conversation. That’s how I met Steve. We only spoke for about 15 minutes, but that was enough time to make plans for me to camp on his land in Boulder Creek this week and check out his natural architecture work. More to share on all this later.

I’m receiving the gift of this day even more than usual, in large part because it is the “actual” birthday of my partner! As I drove through the mountains on my way to wish him a happy birthday in the flesh, I pulled over to record a song I wrote him on the beach in Santa Monica this weekend. I asked G!d for someone to help me record it, and almost instantly a park employee drove by. I flagged her over and asked if she had a few minutes to help me out, and she graciously obliged. Here’s what we got…

Happy birthday Natan, happy birthday all of us!

Love and magic,

Rivka

Endings and Beginnings

Dear ones,

I write to you from Far Leaves Tea, a Japanese teahouse on the edge of Berkeley and Oakland. There is a very calm and warm energy here, from the lighting to the wi-fi password: Be Here Now. Outside it’s the first rainy day since I arrived last Thursday night, not ideal for Halloween but nice all the same.

A couple hours ago I packed up all my things at my friend Lizzy’s apartment in the Mission District and took Marcos to the BART station, sending him on his way back to Minneapolis. Now that I think of it, I have never spent so much time with one person…maybe ever. For the entire month of October, we traveled, ate, worked, played, and rested together. We took on some of each other’s mannerisms, taught each other tons, had running jokes that only made sense to us, drove each other a little crazy at times, and bonded deeply. Our film project became a little world of its own, a field vibrating around us as we journeyed, dancing with so many creatures along the way. Now we each take it with us into our individual lives, collaborating on the editing process from across the country.

When I left Minneapolis, I imagined that when this day came I would continue up to Chico, CA and Ashland, OR, visiting friends and seeing if Ashland is a place I could call home. As fun as it was to travel with a partner, I also love traveling alone and being with myself so intensely through the ups and downs. I love the freedom of flowing where I’m led. Now that I’m here in the Bay, however…I’m playing with the idea of landing. I have two job interviews next week that I’m excited about, both in Berkeley. Two or three days in Berkeley in January were enough to make me feel at home here. It’s been fantastic staying with my friend Lizzy this past week. Now I feel a pull to the East Bay, away from the chaos of the city.

With the constant flux of traveling, holidays seem to pop up out of context. How is it Halloween??? And not snowing?! Preposterous. I don’t have a costume yet, nor do I have definite plans. I’m here in the East Bay to celebrate Shabbat and “Challahween” at Urban Adamah, a Jewish farm. After that I may meet up with a friend I met in Arizona last March at a Shamanic Herbalism retreat, a sister I knew I’d see again before long. She’s just moved to Oakland! Another reason to stay…

My parking meter is about to expire, so I’ll keep it short and relatively plot-oriented for now. I’d love to spend a week or more relaxing, reflecting, flowing and opening the gates for a flood of creative expression. I’ll say it once more: there is so much I want to share! For now, I give thanks for an incredible journey and the beauty of coming to closure on the first stage of a dream. I remind myself to take a deep breath, lift my palms and surrender to what I’m being shown. Nearly a month ago, the image of G!d as a soft earthen path came to me during Yom Kippur services in Boulder. Now more than ever, I intend to continue on that path. Distractions and distortions glitter along the way. As often as I can, I choose the deeper joy of making undefended, intimate contact with the earth beneath me and the spirit around me. I trust that I am guided.

Today and every day, I love you.

With gratitude and wonder,

Rivka

The Moment of Trust

The sun’s gone down and here we are in Santa Barbara/Isla Vista, stretching both our manifestation and surrender muscles to open up to receive a place to rest tonight.

I’ve been here before, watching my optimism fade as the moon rises and the air chills. Checking my email compulsively to see if anyone has replied to my last-minute couch request post on CouchSurfing. Smiling at each passing stranger and imagining the circumstances that could lead us into sharing the night (totally nonsexually….I mean unless that’s what we were into..).

These moments bring me into deeper contact with myself and the world, stirring up all kinds of questions:

What do I really need to survive?
What are my main fears? What would happen if the scenarios I fear (ex. sleeping on the street) actually played out?
Am I putting undue stress on the situation? At what point am I just being stubborn?
What does it mean for me to navigate this as a person with many privileges that make it somewhat safe for me, while so many people face homelessness with additional challenges?

I’ve seen these moments play out a few ways, including spending a night on the street in Florence with a couple young Mexican women I met at the train station. That ended up being one of my favorite nights of my travels in Europe, and seeing that even without shelter I was provided for in many ways was liberating. I have a pretty good feeling about tonight. We’re in a college town and people seem pretty friendly and open. We did post on CouchSurfing, and if that fails we met a nomadic couple that have some space where they’re RV camping at a nearby state park and we’d only have to pay $10 to park our car.

This morning we awoke in or near Beverly Hills (I don’t understand LA) at my friend David’s house. David and I traveled through Israel together when we were 17 on a program called Nesiya, and hadn’t seen each other since. Pretty wild! We just passed through LA to interview Rabbi Mike Comins, creator of TorahTrek Jewish Wilderness programs. It was great to meet him and receive his wisdom and perspective! After seeing very little of LA, we continued on up Highway 1 (along the coast) and figured we’d keep driving short today and camp on the beach along the way. And if not on the beach, there are national forests closeby where we could camp for cheap or free. Once we got to Santa Barbara and checked it out, it became clear that the tiiiiimes they are a chaaangin. These California residents aren’t too keen on the beach bums and RV-ers strolling through and trying to live on the land, and much of the area has become strictly privatized. Even if we could get to the beach somewhere and evade the patrol, where would we park? The streets are private roads! No doubt if we’d arrived earlier or done some more scouting, we could probably have found a place. As it stands, we feel more inclined to take our luck with other humans. 

We’re sending out the intention to share space with someone who could use some hope, love and inspiration in their lives. Participating in this mutual *sparking* gives us such joy, each encounter building our trust in the lifestyle of interbeing. Our travels so far have affirmed our belief that we can be gifts to one another and support each other in a natural, symbiotic way. 

So, I’m coming to know these moments as beautiful opportunities. I can go into a fear and self-pity spiral, or I can recognize that this is where it gets FUN–what a chance to experiment with manifestation and engage in dialogue with Source! If I can stay aware (read: STAY CALM and present), I can conduct little experiments and try to observe their effects:

Setting intentions: How can I get really clear about what I’m asking Source to provide? What happens if I shift the focus from fulfilling something I think I need to something that could help others?

As always, this is followed by noticing how it impacts my external reality and my experience in my body.

Shifting my energetic state: What’s the feeling I want to have? Do I really need something external to feel that way or can I embody it simply by choosing to attune to that state? When I decide to feel calm, for instance, I attract that principle into my energetic field. Now I’m bathing in a frequency of calm, and I’m also emanating it to others. How does this impact my experience of life?

Opening up to my environment: Are there any numbers that keep coming up, symbols I’m drawn to, people I keep running into, etc.? Where do I feel drawn? If I smile at people, who meets my gaze? Is there someone I feel compelled to speak to?

Appealing to other entities: What allies can I call upon? Are there plants I have relationship with that might help me by inspiring courage, love, strength, etc.? Rosemary is my primary plant ally, so I chose to write this post in a booth under its name at Silver Greens (couldn’t hurt!). We can also always ask our ancestors, spirit guides, angels, etc. for support.

Teach me to open my heart and trust, Rosemary!

Those are some of my main tools I’m playing with these days. Do you have any experiments of your own? Leave a comment! The more we know…

But seriously, the more we can trust ourselves and others and remain calm in the face of challenge, the more we can cooperate and help each other rather than spinning off into fear and self-preservation at the expense of others (who are pieces of us!).

No matter what Great Spirit brings us tonight, I know it’ll be just what we need. We’re also fortunate that if things really did get unsafe, we could find a motel. As it stands, we’d rather hold out for a chance to share light with others and inspire each other in a mutual cycle of nourishment. Weeee shall seeeeeeee…

With so much love,

Rivka

Return to Tucson, Return to Center

Friday night

10pm

Tucson, AZ

Greetings from Tucson, family!

I’m here at our Couchsurf host Nick’s apartment, noshing on dried fruit and watching Parenthood, enjoying myself thoroughly. Marcos has gone out with Nick for a U of A pub event, where it’s rumored there’s a reggae band playing. Normally, I am so very down. Tonight, however, mamacita needs some time to herself.

It was a low week; I spent most of it in a fog with sinus pressure and congestion. I was beyond exhausted (and see how my dramatic side comes out and makes matters even WORSE??!!)

😉

Anywho, I’ve been cranky this week. This corresponded with a challenge I expected to face: being around other people so much as an introvert. Particularly, traveling with one friend (especially one of the opposite sex whom l’m not sleeping with) for an extended period of time. I forget that it’s normal to get on each other’s nerves, the little quirks that seemed funny the first week starting to wear themselves into a nauseating pattern. The little hassles the other causes with their particular flair of forgetfulness (because we all have areas of our lives in which we’re less and more aware) begin to pile into a depressing picture. What’s happening?? Are we forgetting how to love?

Probably, yeah, temporarily! What is the other person mirroring for us? Our issues with each other point out our resistance to some aspect of ourselves. When Marcos seems careless to me in the way that only 20-something boys can be, my choice of irritation says way more about me than it does about him. How am I not caring for myself? Why am I reacting defensively—drawing myself inward—right now? How do I not feel completely safe?

Coming back to myself, taking accountability for my projections and understanding where I’m at mentally/emotionally/physically/spiritually changes the whole external. Recognizing the areas I’m impatient with others and myself and releasing the burden feels soo good. I’m feeling pretty excellent about staying in right now and looking forward to very soon chugging a glass of water, turning out the lights, and falling asleep giving myself Reiki. Tomorrow I plan to spend Shabbat on the mountain my family visited all the time when I lived here (birth to age five). Mount Lemmon. Hoping to take some time to journal, play didgeridoo, and replenish/balance my internal energies.

Today we hiked to Superstition Mountain in Mesa to see Native American hieroglyphs. It was absolutely gorgeous. It also served as another reminder that as much as I sympathize with the native cause, I am wildly ignorant. I have this underlying sense of sorrow when I pass through a reservation, for I feel a weight of what’s being oppressed/surpressed. Yet I know so little about what’s happened and continues to happen.

Ahh, Pisces the peacemaker. Very sensitive, feeling so many parts of myself –the One Self (vulnerable to others’ energy), wanting all the pieces to fit together, to be loved and at peace. Sometimes I forget that this has a shadow, and that acting a certain way that makes total sense for the function I personally serve, is nothing to be ashamed of.

The Next Morning

Shabbat shalom! Ahhhh feels so good to come back into some clarity and peace. I was able to practice yoga for an hour first thing this morning and had a pumpkin tamale for breakfast! Marcos and I shared about our nights and we read through my astrophysical birth chart a bit. Man, it’s helpful to witness objectively the light and dark aspects of make-up and accept myself as I am. One of the lines in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is “THUS THEY NEED SUFFICIENT TIME EACH DAY TO BE ALONE, WHILE THEY BUILD BACK THEIR FLUCTUATING ENERGIES”. Ha! Yep.

If you’re interested in having your astrophysical birth chart done, check out D. M’Chelle’s offerings. She lives in Minnesota at the moment but can do yours from anywhere as long as you send her your birth time/place information, etc. I’m finding mine to be a good resource to come back to.

Okay! Time to go journey on the mountain for a bit! Then we’re off to Windspirit Community in the Sonoran Desert to visit friends I met while on a Shamanic Herbalism retreat there in March and to help them cook for a retreat they’re hosting this weekend. We’re going to do a bit of filming too 🙂 Back to Tucson tomorrow night.

Thanks for ‘listening’ to my ramblings and witnessing my light and dark!

Love and blessings,

Rivka

Behind the Scenes: the Halfway Point

Hello dear ones,

I write to you from Phoenix, AZ where Marcos and I have been staying with my cousin Jennie and her husband Brody. It’s been such a blessing to have a place to stay with family, as I rode the extreme high of an adventure in the Grand Canyon straight into the low of physical illness. I felt so clear and connected in the canyon, and it was frustrating to be congested and contracted. I did my best to make it a meditation, to resist the urge for medication to numb my symptoms and instead to be compassionately present with the pain in my body. Thankfully, I’m feeling much better today. Grateful for another opportunity to practice loving it all! (Not to say that yesterday I didn’t feel like a bag of poop…I really noticed my thought patterns when sick and tried to counter each “I feel awful” with “My body is amazing!”)

This marks the halfway point of Marcos’s and my journey together, and it’s been quite a couple weeks. We’ve learned about partnership, transformation, change, death, nurture, coherence, expanded perspective, trust, and the external as reflection of the internal. It’s been rewarding to explore our partnership, and we’ve found it amusing that so many people assume we’re a [very cute] couple. We recognize that people put love into categories they can understand. This is new territory for us as well, to be in this intense of a non-“romantic” partnership. It’s a great teacher!

Some of the highlights since I last wrote…

-Finding soul family in Santa Fe, a Saturday night where everyone is ready to go to sleep at 9:30pm but we stay up four more hours singing and laughing

-Standing for Peace (20 minutes silent standing) in gorgoues Jemez Springs and meeting with Rabbi Shefa Gold and her partner Rachmiel at their mountain home for chanting, quiche and an awesome interview

-Pitching a tent in a sukkah in Flagstaff after our last-minute CouchSurf host fell through

-Falling to the earth in the Grand Canyon and crying because I could feel the depths of motherly love, the devotion to nurturing another being and the complexity of letting it have its own journey, letting go…calling my own mother to tell her through my tears how much I love and appreciate her, while gazing out at this great womb of the world in the land of my physical birth

I’m hoping to spend at least a couple weeks, if not a month+, reflecting and creating after this adventure. I’ve gathered so much information, inspiration, and love that it feels overwhelming at times. I know that the footage and ideas I’m collecting will inspire projects and continued learning far beyond this year, and I find peace in remembering that I have all the time I need, always. 

We’ll be in the Phoenix area for a couple more days, long enough to spend Simchat Torah with the Jewish Renewal congregation here. This is the holiday where we unroll the entire Torah and begin the cycle of its reading anew. That means that this week is the last portion of the Torah: Moses glimpses the Promised Land and dies ‘by the mouth of God’. Read Rabbi Shefa Gold’s interpretation of this here. Here’s a preview:

“Throughout our lives we receive the light, the blessing of Shekhina in flashes of terror or beauty. The light of the Infinite shines through this finite world. A veil is lifted. Our physical existence is unwrapped to reveal a splendor and brilliance that is the soul, the “innerness” of all things. These flashes awaken in us a yearning for Truth, an aching desire that tears our hearts open in surrender to the Beloved.”

This weekend we travel on to Tucson and the Sonoran Desert, where I spent the first five years of my life 🙂 Then on to California! As much as we’ve already experienced, there is so much more to come. Wow. Thank you for your ongoing support, blessings and inspiration!

With love and peace,

Rivka