beauty plus beauty tiferet plus

        Last night I put my Dad to bed as usual. My husband and I take care of him. He has the northwest bedroom in the house. It is wallpapered in a deep terracotta color. His books fill the room, as do his clothes. I help him get ready for bed every night. He needed a shirt change so I reached into the drawer and pulled out a tee shirt. It happened to be his Kabbalah tee shirt which I helped him put on. He took out his teeth, put on a new diaper, put on pajama bottom's and a night shirt. I tucked him in under two big quilts and there he drifted with the Tree of Life Kabbalah across his chest...ready to sleep almost through the night. I sleep near him downstairs..on a simple pallet. At night when he awakens I get up to help him pee...or change his diaper as needs be. 'This has gone on for several months. It is not easy, but I do it with love, sometimes impatience..but mostly love and sense of humility as I bear witness to his dementia, his humor, his unrelenting aging process and the challenges that face him. It is not easy..
He says.  " I wish Old Age would go pick on someone else.!"
           

    Earlier last night I went to a mystical Kabbalah event hosted by two lively rabbi's who bring humor and depth to the esoteric study of Kabbalah. We paid close attention to what the old rabbi's said about studying Torah day and night...how by day we study it and by night as well...thus to be unified with the subtle inner light of night and it's  hidden moonlit wisdom and then to study during the day..


hmmmmmmm I think to myself...so perhaps when i get up at night to help  Dad, it really is a holy task....that thought has crossed my mind as I ponder my thoughts and fail to fall right back to sleep at
4:30 in the morning..or 2 am or 5 am...whenever........so I enter the night with a watchful inner eye open....and I remember the chant we did about being asleep but allowing our heart to open.....open ..we chanted that for a while before the teaching began..


   and so  dad sleeps....with the mystical teeshirt of Kabbalah on his chest and after a while i go to bed too...


and later he awakes..I help him .........this most mundane task does not feel very upliftedl....but as I lay there I think...hey I really should study some Torah.l.so I find my tAnach and find my little blue flashlight on my key chain...it takes effort to keep it lit but the arc of light skims over the passages of tazria and metzora......all about the effects of leprosy and how to detect it and what to do..the high priest who makes the decisions seems more like an MD...it is gruesome reading...and not very uplifting...

 I get the feeling I am not exactly connecting with the Shekina in the way I am supposed to..or could in some sublime way...the torah reading feels as mundane as having to get up to help
Dad pee...it is all about bodily functions..and to be honest...I get pretty sick of  dealing with other people's bodily functions...and to be honest...I have wondered where my courage and strength have come through all these long months since my mother died over 15 months ago.......



and yes through all this a sense of wonder and sweetness...and courage wells up from hidden sources
and mysteries abound..

perhaps this is what the kabbalists were saying..and pointing the way too..


there at night upon my pallet..I awake and have some kind of courage to assist my dear father..


day break
sunshine and tulips
sitting out here now musing on all  of these moments...I can see my reflection in the laptop screen...the neighbors fountain bubbles ...and watery beauty of sound fills me..blotting out the sound of traffic....the tulips close now for the night...which is reaching towards us...

soon

this evening I will go over to the old puppet theater once more to work on a batik sail of constellations

but for now I sit in the yard...the sky reflected behind me...my feet in the grass...

and behind me...the old cedar tree holds up it's arms.....embracing the mystery and the night to come.