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And You Want to Travel With Her
The past few days have been filled with music and words, sacred lyrics and meanings, which are emerging from the soil that has lain dormant for the past few years.
Maybe, this idea of dormancy is just with me, in my personal experience of slipping down into the pandemic in a strange new city, before I could ever even find the names of people or places around me.
And, maybe this awakening from dormancy is with everyone around the globe, all of us who have endured and survived the pall which fell upon humanity beginning in March of 2020.
Not all of the planet suffered: without the rampant, ceaseless and nauseous flow of automobiles, factory exhausts and emissions, and general noise that humans must make everywhere we go – honking horns, shooting weapons, driving jackhammers to dig up what was only last week paved, and blowing up mountains to extract ore and push in new highways – the other forms of life living on the planet had room and time and space to emerge, fly, swim, flock, procreate, and take up space.
Did we notice, though?
Most of us were busy using our brains to harness technology so that we could learn to order everything we need online and have our social lives and children’s schooling take place entirely that way. Being creatures who value tangibles such as grades and report cards, we did not factor in the much more important part of school than reading ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic: developing age-appropriate social skills.
But, here we are. We have vaccinated ourselves so that we can once again emerge from hiding from one another and go back to work, school, and caregiving. We bump into each other awkwardly, now in 3D, where we can’t just text or emoji our ideas and feelings to a differently coloured bubble on a screen and engage with non-verbal physical cues. You know, those social and interpersonal communication skills we learned in grade school, which, as pointed out above, our children missed out on.
And the birds and fish and polar ice caps and clean air and quiet that filled in while we were hiding away from each other, are being again overcome with the sound and the fury of human beings emerging, just as noisy and dangerous as we were before March of 2020, with noise and dirt and just as ignorant to the opportunities to listen and learn, as ever.
Instead, I see one big Temper Tantrum happening on this planet. We want it, and we want it now: the revenge travel, the revenge oppression of the oppressors, to cancel culture and overthrow governments, and abolish the the holy books and their millennia of accrued wisdom of the human condition. And why? Because nothing works anymore, and nothing is the way we want it.
It’s true, nothing is the way anyone wants it. We can’t stroll downtown and find the same lively scenes of arts and culture and shopping and commerce and restaurants and green spaces, because no one went down there to work and become culturally enriched for almost three years. Now, civic centres and universities are sites of social unrest, protests, confrontation, and homelessness. Offices are vacant, pedestrians and cyclists are struck by careless drivers, and there just aren’t enough social service resources to address all this anger and discontent and flaunting of established laws that only a few short years ago meant something. Now, everyone is a victim. Or a perpetrator.
This is so sad. Here, humanity has had a once in a millennium opportunity to emerge with a clean slate, only rivalled by the Great Flood that so many cultures have written about in their origin stories. In which everything that was known or understood was wiped out, everyone sheltered in place until it was over, and then slowly, tentatively, emerged.
Perhaps we are at the stage when the dove that the Biblical Noach sent out is coming back, because there is not yet any dry land with a tree for it to perch upon. Perhaps we are at one step before that, where anger and ignorance of the earth and its creatures had not yet fully been drowned out by the risen waters.
I think of Leonard Cohen’s poetic song, ‘Suzanne’. I think of the lyrics,
Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey on our Lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirrorDo you see Suzanne?
I do.
She is there, like us all, going out for the day to pick among the angry workers, selfish drivers, desperate people cutting each other off; to protesters telling us what to think or do, to the banning of library books, and the making of conversations where no one is listening, and no one is right, and everyone is wrong – and she is also finding flowers.
Suzanne shows you where to look among this mix of garbage and flowers, because there really are heroes amongst us who carry on with pride and honour despite harms and pettiness; and our children do go out in the morning.
You can see them – they are those of us who find ways to go about the day with love in our hearts, the children whose glad eyes gaze up to the morning sky and still know the sun and birds and subtle inspirations – there will always be people like this, and I feel safe and inspired and comforted.
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Inspired with Pride
It’s June and in many, many communities around the world it is also Pride Month. So I thought I would take time today to share some insights, inspired by what it means to have LGBTQ2S+ Pride.
My thoughts go to the joys of relationship, and to the primary reason G_d created a partner for the first human, Adam (whose name is also the Hebrew word for Earth) so that he would not be alone. The instruction to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ comes later in Torah. Because having a mate precedes procreation, ending loneliness precedes procreation in importance. In other words, a close reading of Torah allows us to celebrate a domestic partnership or marriage, without any mention of the partners’ genders.
The reason for Pride Month goes back to 1969, when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The police roughly cleared out the bar, which in turn led to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement, and eventually served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Over the millennia, gays have been tortured and murdered as abominates, seen as violating religious or social contracts among other reasons. At the Stonewall Inn, the persecuted men prevailed, and to honour their victory and to encourage all Queer (LGBTQ2S+) people to have Pride in their gender diversity, communities removed the barriers and opened themselves up to the vast intellectual, financial, and cultural richness that was already taking place by closeted Queer people. Now, parades, flags, and welcoming signs on businesses and from politicians are institutionalized by the annual Pride Month observances.
Today, I honour and celebrate domestic partnership in all of its varied forms. I want to elevate the divinely inspired imperative to have a mate, regardless of gender.
Relationships of any sort require work. To be in love and have a partner or spouse is the most wonderful thing, but being in love or marriage is a beginning, and not a complete relationship.
Members of a pair also need to know how to be individuals and how to disagree. This takes thought and work, and a willingness to disclose or accept uncomfortable information and behaviours from an intimate partner. We aren’t usually directly taught how to do this when we are growing up; and for many, our families of origin did not provide good role models to learn from. I want to encourage you to consider doing this hard work of navigation in relationship. Certainly for yourself, and hopefully your partner will be willing to learn, too.
Another potential outcome of relationship, unfortunately, may be that it goes beyond disagreement in a harmful manner. This brings up the uncomfortable but important topic of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). The potential for, or signs of, IPV are not often mentioned when we learn about domestic partnering and intimacy, and especially so for same-sex couples.
I went online to search for same-sex IPV resources, and found quite a few for straight and Queer relationships. Few of these made connections to spiritual values, though. I looked for examples of IPV in Torah. Some pointed to the Gen:21 story of Hagar, who was certainly a victim of domestic violence. I don’t know that this was intimate partner violence between Sarai and Hagar. But certainly domestic violence within a household and between same-sex members who were intimate partners with the same man, Abraham.
Then we have heterosexual intimate partner violence, and that would be the Gen:34 story of Dinah, who was raped by her suitor, and then avenged by her brothers. And then we have other stories, such as about the Sotah, in which a man could impose an ordeal upon a wife by claiming that he felt she was being unfaithful, although the Sotah test was never given to an unfaithful husband. That ordeal is described in detail in the recent Torah portion, Nasso (Num:4).
In the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), especially in Psalms and Prophets, there is quite a bit of imagery of violence against women, who are characterized as ‘unfaithful’ wives. The prophets were not speaking literally about human women, but are using commonly accepted beliefs about wives and women as metaphors to illustrate how a vengeful (male) G_d could perpetrate punishments on the unfaithful people of His covenant, recognizable as a husband and a wife scenario. It was commonplace for people to understand a dynamic of a husband taking out his anger on his female domestic partner. Sometimes a re-reading of familiar texts with eyes and minds open to new information, can be helpful in understanding how pervasive a cultural acceptance of IPV may be.
When we’re experiencing conflict or harm in our own household, for privacy, we often won’t want to speak about it with others: especially if it is acceptable in of our sacred texts and liturgies. The canons may be espoused from the lecterns in our spiritual community, thus also making it complicated to separate faith from personal experience.
Let’s look as well, then, at same-sex IPV, in the best of wishes that this knowledge will empower your celebrations of safe and lasting love during Pride month.
As it is said, knowledge is power. Now this column is not strictly for those who are in same-sex partnerships. This column is for everyone. You may not be in a same-sex relationship and may have identify as a straight, cis-male or cis-female person. However, almost everyone knows others, whether a co-worker or a friend or a family member, who is not.
Same-sex IPV is as common as straight IPV, but research shows that it is historically under-reported, in part due to stigmatization by those who are responsible for providing support, or by pressure from a community to not go outside of it for help. For example, in the past, IPV in some Jewish communities was under-reported due to pressures to not disclose to or reach outside the community.
Domestic violence doesn’t pick and choose. No gender or sexual orientation group is free from this happening.
In addition, during the COVID-19 epidemic, IPV incidents escalated due to enforced social isolation or continuous contact between people who would normally be out most of the day at work or school during the lock-downs. A positive outcome of this escalation, if there can be one, is that the reporting and support services for victims of IPV have increased.
Previously, for a victim of IPV in a same-sex relationship, the support resources were often more harmful than staying the relationship, due to stigmatization, or anti-gay sentiments of the service providers. That led to the types of situations that a same sex partner in IPV will stay in or tolerate being much different than those of a straight person seeking help. Great strides have been taken to reduce this problem, yet IPV resources remain different for Queer people. For example, in same-sex relationships, an abuser might weaponize existing homophobic and transphobic systems of stigma, discrimination, and lack of education around LGBTQ+ people to perpetuate their control over and outing their partner at work, school, or to family. For more detail, see the LGBTQ+ Power and Control Wheel, developed by Roe & Jagodinsky, and 16 Myths about Abusive Partners.
Here are a few more examples from the Battered Women’s Support Services of signs that may indicate a toxic or abusive relationship, whether same-sex or straight:
Controlling Behavior
- Monitoring and restricting activities.
- Isolation from friends and family, such as through alienating them away.
- Making decisions without consulting the partner.
Emotional Manipulation
- Guilt-tripping to control behavior.
- Playing the victim to garner sympathy.
- Emotional outbursts to manipulate outcomes.
Gaslighting
- Manipulative tactics to make the victim doubt their reality.
- Denying or trivializing concerns and feelings.
- Creating confusion and undermining self-confidence.
I thank you for having a look at this important but difficult information about relationships. Hopefully, you’re in a healthy relationship and these things may not apply to you; or you may recognize some of these in a way that shows room for improving communication with your partner.
You also may be shocked at seeing some of the items on these lists, too, if you recognize them and have been underplaying their impact in your relationship with somebody.
Control is very subtle but can become a serious form of harm. Is somebody controlling all of the finances, without your consent, to the point where you have no access to funds or even know where or how much there is? Is your partner causing your social circle to shrink, such as by limiting when and how you can leave the home, the use of transportation or money to go out, or are they driving away your family, friends, or colleagues? Victims of IPV may not lose their job, but instead may suffer because of inappropriate boundaries by their partner towards friends, family or colleagues.
Now, please notice your feelings as you peruse the items on the lists I’ve provided. Do some of them resonate with you, or apply to someone you know, who are undervaluing or dismissing such scenarios as okay or normal or enduring them because they are too hard to fix alone? recognize that with this new information comes the power to make changes, through valuing your insights and knowledge.
The brave men of Stonewall stopped rationalizing away the acts against them and prevailed. We celebrate their outrage and courage and how it has created safe spaces for people of all genders and sexual orientations. Everyone deserves a good life, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Take Pride in who you are as an individual and who you are as part of a domestic relationship.
I’m Wishing You All the Best for this Pride Month!
Please enjoy the above resources with links; and may you be blessed with the ability to see what may have been hidden, what has been brought up from below the surface to the light of day.
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Can Morality be Erotic?
One of the most important books I read during my chaplaincy training was Linda Holler’s Erotic Morality: the role of touch in moral agency. The course was titled after a recent film, “Opening the Hurt Locker”, and it was about what lies inside of us when we experience trauma, and how we decide to respond. In order to appreciate this book, though, my understanding of the word ‘Erotic’ needed some adjusting, even more so the phrase, ‘Erotic Morality’, as a text for a seminary course!
Going back to the course’s theme of ‘trauma’ now. It is important to understand that everyone has a different experience of trauma, and of situations, in general. Thus, no one-size-fits-all therapeutics can adequately predict or create an outcome for those who experience trauma. What is traumatizing for one person may not be for another: for example, I am terrified of horror films, pictures of monsters, and even have to leave the room when ads for these come on the TV. A good friend of mine is the same way, and when we go to the movies and ads for any horror films come on, we cover our ears and dive down behind the seats in front of us. Yes, two adults scared out of their wits over a film trailer! I have considered petitioning the film industry to rate horror film trailers and TV ads the same way that adult films are rated, to protect those of us who cannot tolerate them…
However, a vast number of people, especially adolescents, love this horror genre. In fact, it can be considered a part of developing resilience, to experience terror in a controlled manner (such as in a movie theatre) and stay for the end when it all turns out okay. This is one way we learn to endure fearful situations, and find resolution.
So, why do some people love horror films and others cringe? Experiencing a film is one way of being touched, but not by hands or fingers or toes. Filmmakers know this. Actors know this. But, when I searched for a photo to illustrate ‘touch’ for my newsletter, all of them but two showed humans in some way using their hands and fingers to touch someone or something. Portraying touch this way reinforces a limiting concept of what touch is. I chose two animals communing, instead.
We need to restore our innate, pre-verbal, sense of touch. The way we learned about the world from not only by tactile means, but by sensing love, hurt, relationship, and the eminences of plants, animals, and the energy fields we live in.
What I learned from Holler’s book was very affirming for me as a sensitive person: that my way of touching and being touched is not limited to hands and fingers and toes, but is of an ephemeral nature. When I enter a space, I have an immediate reaction to it that may at times be so strong that it will affect whether I stay in it or not.
In an everyday example, my sensitivity could be an eye-roller when I was uncomfortable or attracted to something that meant nothing to others. Yet, I was used as a gauge of sorts by my family when deciding whether to eat at a new restaurant based upon how I reacted when we entered the establishment. They had observed in their way, that my history of reactions before being seated were close to 100% of being accurate as to whether this was a going to be a good place to eat, or not.
In a professional context, my sensitivity has allowed me to make immediate connections with people and their inner processes in spiritual care counselling, with Nature as a biologist, with others’ physical abilities and limitations as a Tai Chi Chu’an instructor, as a musician when playing in ensemble, and with patterns in world-wide events as a writer.
We name this sort of attunement in various ways: intuition, psychic power, ESP, paranormal abilities, perceptiveness, or as a pathology. My job as a person is to stick with what I experience and disregard the labelling by others.
The beauty of Holler’s book is that it explains, with examples, what is going on when we pay attention to what we are touching or are touched by, at numerous levels. My belief is that we all have these ‘psychic’ powers, but have learned to choose to ignore all but what is tangible and before our eyes or tactile with hands, fingers, and toes.
I invite you to reflect upon your experiences of being touched. You can restore your abilities by various means, such as mentorship with an intuitive guide, or learning mindfulness techniques, for example. There are many modalities for re-learning how to touch and be touched.
The more of us who return to valuing the subtler experiences, the more we are able to appreciate the lives and beliefs of others, and are able to share ourselves and our wisdom with one another.
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Pausing of the Waters
The building I live in has a water problem. I moved in two years ago, and at the time saw how efficiently the staff and maintenance people attended to a leak in the ceiling in the lobby. Their work ethic and commitment to keeping the building operating impressed me, and also the attentive manner with which the manager engaged with residents coming into her office also felt reassuring.
Meanwhile, I signed the lease and moved in. Leaks continued to plague the building, springing from ceilings, running down walls, and causing them to have to open up the wall behind the sink and toilet of my newly renovated bathroom – twice. This was alarming to me, my nicely plastered walls were now a bit lumpy-bumpy the charm of the upgraded apartment was dissolving into concern about what might come next with regard to repairs.
Our water was shut off time and again, now to stop a burst pipe in the apartments upstairs, and again to stop a catastrophic flood in the sub-basement parking garage, and again to replace the boilers. The building is over 60 years old, and has the ambience and look of a nicely appointed Old World style hotel, with statues and figurines and chandeliers and fountains leaping in the lobby. But, eventually, even with the greatest attentiveness and care, things wear out.
Long time residents tell me that the leaks and water problems have been going on for years, my estimate from averaging the varying time frames they report, about maybe 4 years now. The building has so many nice features, because it is old. The walls between apartments are thick and so it is quiet with little disturbance from neighbours; it is very low tech with no electrified walls or wiring beyond fire safety alarm codes; everyone has a spacious balcony; and as mentioned, the staff have an old fashioned commitment to attending to residents’ needs.
Yesterday, I came home from some errands to find that the water was shut off without notice for an emergency: the city is replacing the drainage system, which apparently has been the cause of all the water backups and pressure leaks inside the building. But, the city broke something and our water was shut off – again, and for an indeterminate amount of time.
Oy! it’s right before Shabbat, and right before Passover, and most of the residents of this building, like me, are Jewish and rushing around trying to get their apartments ready for festive meals and guests.
I was heading out for a Tai Chi class (at the Renge Dojo in Toronto), and got into the elevator. It was crowded with people going out for Shabbat and stopped on a couple of floors on the way down. I made a joke about how boring our building would be if we didn’t have these water shutoffs from time to time. Everyone chuckled and one gentleman laughed, and smiling at me, said he liked making a joke about it instead of a complaint
The truth is, though, they may never end. The other truth is, that we were all in the same boat (or elevator) and instead of staring at the doors or the floor counter on the wall, we were chatting and bonding with our complaint, and also having a laugh together.
Although our ride down to the lobby was brief, it changed something for us all. No longer stuck together in an elevator or in a leaky building, we got to know our neighbours a bit better, and got to step into a new way of looking at our situation, replacing angst and irritation with irony and humour.
Perhaps at this season of turnover, when it is traditional for Jews to read the passages in Torah about the exodus from Egypt, or Mitzrayim – the narrow place, we can find a new way of seeing challenges or barriers to our wellbeing. Part of leaving Egypt meant the Hebrews had to face the barrier of the Sea of Reeds (or Red Sea). Did they stand at the shore and complain? Some of them did! But then, one person, whose name in midrash is Nahshon, saw a way forward, and he put his foot into the water, and the waters withdrew.
Think about some narrow place you may be in, and how you react to that. And then, think about this man who stepped into the Reed Sea first and made a path for others, or even how my joke in the elevator brought change for some residents. Opening up to as many options as are available can liberate us from seemingly endless or hopeless bondage.
Have you tried this lately? write to me and tell me your story, too!
Wishing You a Peaceful Transition in this Season of Freedom Celebration.
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Full Eclipse
Today, I was fortunate to be living adjacent to the zone of full solar eclipse that passed through North America.
To be honest, I hadn’t made any plans for watching it until the last minute, despite the near deluge of information in almost all the media that crosses my inbox. Since sustaining a concussion at the end of last November, it has been imperative for me to triage all new activities, prioritizing them by need. Everything else then is put into a queue, and if any become obsolete, they are then deleted.
I liked the idea of watching the eclipse, and recalled friends who, in 2017, dashed north to Oregon to watch a solar eclipse there. Some of them also attached a great deal of cosmic significance to the event. This latter part caused me to move the eclipse lower on my to-do list: I’m too much of a pragmatic scientist and grounded intuitive to attach human interpretations to a natural event.
What did catch my interest was an invitation from the Toronto Zoo to the general public to come watch the behaviours of the zoo animals during the eclipse, for research purposes. There is a dearth of data on how different exotic species might change their habits during a full solar eclipse, and as a former zoologist myself, this was an added-on value for acquiring some funky solar eclipse glasses.
I drove to the zoo. As soon as my car merged onto the freeway, I saw flashing emergency vehicle lights on the other side. There was a huge pile up of cars going the other direction. It was only 11am, and the eclipse wasn’t going to start in Toronto until half-past 2pm. Panic was already setting in.
Along the way, overhead information beacons warned of a solar eclipse on 8 April, and to ‘Plan Ahead’. Actually, I had planned ahead, and bought my admission and parking tickets online, fearing that I would make the long schlepp to the zoo only to find no parking and the gates closed due to the thronging crowds filling the park to capacity.
But, I easily found a parking spot and strolled up to the entrance. I noticed a lot of people, mostly those with small children in wagons and adults in wheelchairs, exiting the park. It was only 11:45am.
I ran up to the table where eclipse glasses were being given away. Bling! I was a free agent now, able to watch anywhere and in any way I wanted to. I picked a pair with tiger stripes, for full zoo effect.
My plan had been to show up, have a snack of zoo junk food, and then stroll around. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. The zoo was re-developing the large area adjacent to the entrance and food concessions. Mega-loud generators gunned and ground a sonic wave of nausea right through my vulnerable brain and nervous system. I immediately lost the ability to finish a thought, but did know to duck into a large building to get away from the cacophony and decide what to do. It was not possible for me to stay in the park unless I could get far from this noise. Of course, no one else seemed to notice it at all: loud as it was, everyone else seemed to just ignore it.
I know, however, that their brains and bodies were hard at work blocking out the noise, coping with the stress and energy drain that it caused, and producing escalating irritability for seemingly ‘no reason’. I left the building and made a beeline to the far end of the zoo, hoping to evade the noise. This was tiring. There, all the food concessions were closed for the season. No food. And, there was more construction, in the form of jackhammers on cement.
I began to wonder how the zoo was going to separate the behaviours of its animals resulting from the solar eclipse with those caused by the effects of all that construction noise. Was anyone going to factor that into the data analysis?
Well, since no asked me, and I was starting to feel a bit like a Larry David, irked by this obvious oversight in the research promotion, I decided to leave. My balcony at home, I realized, was facing exactly the right direction to see the full eclipse, and I could have all the snacks I wanted: and, bonus – observe animal behaviour, of my cats, during the eclipse.
I still had plenty of time to get back home, it was only 1:30pm. Recalling the traffic pile-up scene on the freeway heading there, I took the side streets back. Surely, the panic on the freeways would have escalated exponentially by now, only minutes from the start of the solar event.
I got back home, wiped down my patio table and chairs, and sat with a lovely coca-cola on ice, my iPhone’s camera ready, and watched the whole event.
It was a cloudy day, the sky was overcast. Looking down, I saw that traffic was lighter than usual, but also that there was almost no one out on their balconies, as I was, or paying much attention. Perhaps they thought that, due to the cloud cover, there was nothing to see.
© Susan J Katz 2024 I sat patiently, anyway, knowing that small breaks of sky or thinner regions of cloud would reveal the sun, in its waning and waxing. And, sure enough, it did. I was so excited every time the river of clouds overhead thinned just enough to show some sun, like a Can Can dancer flipping her skirts up just enough to get a glimpse, and then keeping you at the ready for the next moment of revelation.
Meanwhile, down on the street, no one cared.
I’d had trouble understanding the apathetic or amused responses from several people when gaily told of my plans to watch the event. “I’ll watch it on TV”, they’d said: even people living right here in the path of eclipse. Maybe having the cloud cover instead of a fiercely bright sunny day felt like just another disappointment, another event that was ill-conceived or poorly staged, another gadget that didn’t work as advertised, or broke. They turned to the virtual version of the event, instead of the analog natural event going on right outside their doors.
Somehow, our electronic screens have replaced great and awesome natural events. The next such event will be here will be in 2144. I suppose an AI version could be created now, and save everyone from not being around for a sunnier day, 120 years into the future.
It is the disconnect from our natural environment that troubles me so. Yes, this is urban Toronto. Does that mean that only manufactured, ersatz natural events are real? With this realization, I now better understand how our modern disregard for the importance of things non-human has come about.
We debate publicly as to whether climate change is man-made or not. But, has anyone paid attention to what in their own backyard is also at stake? birdwatching has evolved into telephoto-lensed camera-lugging, to snap the most professional picture of a birds. Learning bird calls and silhouettes, and patiently watching for characteristic behaviours, has replaced by looking into a viewfinder or a smartphone screen. Outdoor appreciation activities have given way to beyond-ultimate skiing, ultimate mountain biking, ultimate rock climbing, complete with selfies or video recording.
Can anyone just ‘be’ in nature any more?
I took a few photo mementoes, between squeals of delight at seeing the crescent sun pop in and out of breaks in the clouds, from my balcony. The next opportunity would be 120 years from now.
© Susan J Katz 2024 By the way, my cats joined me for a while, bravely climbing onto my lap to peek over the balcony railings before decamping to their favourite spots on my bed.
As soon as the eclipse ended, just before 4:30pm, the clouds finished passing by and the sun came out, full and bright.
