The Jewish Month of Adar: Make a Decision: Increase Joy!

Sometimes we need bitter times for the real joy to emerge.

Adar, is basically the Jewish month to party hard. Purim, the holiday of blurred lines and getting down and dirty falls in Adar. There’s a teaching that you’re supposed to get so drunk you can’t tell the difference between right or wrong. Honestly, there’s something very bitter about this to me. As a Capricorn I have a tendency towards control (that’s putting it lightly) so it’s daunting (and often calculated) when I let go.

This year I will be in a prison on Purim. For the last nine months I’ve been participating in a restorative justice circle for survivors of sexual abuse/harm (another root to my control issues). The facilitators of our group are running a similar group in a prison with perpetrators and survivors of sexual abuse/harm. Mid-March we will be spending a couple days in the prison with them doing healing work.

It’s been a huge process for me to be a part of this group and enormously healing. It feels very in line with Purim. Purim is a story of restoring justice. The Jews are threatened to be killed and a new queen, Esther, comes out as Jewish and saves them (with the help of her uncle). That’s a very pared down version. But basically Esther turns a shitty-ass situation into something beautiful but listening to the deepest part of herself and taking an enormous risk (like she could have gotten killed too when she came out as Jewish). But Esther had to make a decision, she could have stayed in the closet as a goy. But then all the Jews would have died and I guess she decided that would, be horrible.

That decision can be the most difficult part. Lemon blossom flower essence is good for this. It can help you relax mentally leading to more clarity and balance.

So I ask you: What are you going to do with your lemons?

My blessing for you: Tall glasses of lemonade.

California has always been mythical in my imagination. I guess it is for many people. Growing up it was the place my grandparents had lived and it held a spark in my dad’s eye. If my father, the conjurer of all things magic in the world held a soft spot for California, then it must be made of dreams.

Now, I live on this land. I live on Ohlone territory in Berkeley, California. Down the street from where I live is a sacred Ohlone site, a shellmound that was a burial site (among many other things). Currently it is a parking lot but it’s been bought by a developer. If it’s built on the likelihood of it returning to what the Ohlone would like is very slim. A wonderful resistance has been building to interrupt the construction and honor the vision of what the Ohlone would have it be. (Find out more about how to support this movement and Indigenous women- led organizing.)

This local action is an example of aligning collective and individual dreams. They may look different from our childhood dreams but when we feel into our essence, the real dream that all humans are actually looking for, is liberation. We want to surpass the confines of illusion and experience a collective liberation. No body is free until every body is free. Real magic happens when we embrace this and work to make it happen.