Rejoice, Rejoice
I guess it was because of Rosh Ha’shanah that I got to thinking of this really neat Israeli-gospel-folk-rock I downloaded the other day, but I was playing it earlier on the iPod, and bouncing and clapping to it as I sat here working because it is just that kind of music, and then the wind started streaming in over my shoulder and blowing my hair around, and it was a northwest wind with its charged-up ions and everything and that always charges me up even more.
But it all seemed somehow of a piece, and it sent my mood up to one of those toweringly exultant moments when you are so glad of the joy of creation, and Creation, that you just want to get up and fling back your head and dance with the world, and dance love to the world. I am exalted by those moments when they come: you can put yourself in the way of them, and even teach yourself to reach them at will, but you can’t really plan for them, they just happen for you. And they are more wonderful by far when they just come like that, out of nowhere, like a great wind out of Aldebaran.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Christian or a Pagan or whatever, the joy all comes from the same place, the same Power. And everything you do becomes prayer and praise to that Power, and you can call the Power Adonai or the Goddess, or even not believe in it at all, but it is the real and undivided Power no matter what people think. And people are foolish to try to separate it out the way they do, or to deny it, to selfishly hug their little crumbs of it to themselves when really they could have the whole cake if only they tried sharing for once.
I often start thinking like this around this time of the year, as the sun heads south again and the days begin to draw in and the air gets chilly and the leaves start to turn. It fills me with joy that never grows old or any the lesser, because I know that it will always be there and always be like that.
Because it’s work that does it for me also. I am so lucky to have an art that is at my fingertips, as a friend reminded me recently. Her own art requires other people for its fulfillment, and she was thinking wistfully that it would be nice not to have to rely on the whim and will of others before she can perform it. I don’t have to worry about that. Sure, I like to have readers, and the more the better, and the smarter the better. But I would write even if I didn’t. I don’t write for them, or even for me, or even for my gods, though all those certainly figure into it. I write for the Power. I write for Creation.
And it’s THAT that makes me want to dance. You come dance too.
But it all seemed somehow of a piece, and it sent my mood up to one of those toweringly exultant moments when you are so glad of the joy of creation, and Creation, that you just want to get up and fling back your head and dance with the world, and dance love to the world. I am exalted by those moments when they come: you can put yourself in the way of them, and even teach yourself to reach them at will, but you can’t really plan for them, they just happen for you. And they are more wonderful by far when they just come like that, out of nowhere, like a great wind out of Aldebaran.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Christian or a Pagan or whatever, the joy all comes from the same place, the same Power. And everything you do becomes prayer and praise to that Power, and you can call the Power Adonai or the Goddess, or even not believe in it at all, but it is the real and undivided Power no matter what people think. And people are foolish to try to separate it out the way they do, or to deny it, to selfishly hug their little crumbs of it to themselves when really they could have the whole cake if only they tried sharing for once.
I often start thinking like this around this time of the year, as the sun heads south again and the days begin to draw in and the air gets chilly and the leaves start to turn. It fills me with joy that never grows old or any the lesser, because I know that it will always be there and always be like that.
Because it’s work that does it for me also. I am so lucky to have an art that is at my fingertips, as a friend reminded me recently. Her own art requires other people for its fulfillment, and she was thinking wistfully that it would be nice not to have to rely on the whim and will of others before she can perform it. I don’t have to worry about that. Sure, I like to have readers, and the more the better, and the smarter the better. But I would write even if I didn’t. I don’t write for them, or even for me, or even for my gods, though all those certainly figure into it. I write for the Power. I write for Creation.
And it’s THAT that makes me want to dance. You come dance too.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 1:03 AM
|
0 comments
