Reconnecting with Our Roots

This past week, my partner Aidan & I explored Washington State & the magic that is Olympic National Park.

To say that we fell in love with the moss-covered ancient growth forests, glacial lakes, & majestic mountains would be an understatement.

The felt sense of deep connection with Mother Earth & subsequently ourselves was palpable.

These ancient trees are masters of regeneration— living in constant cycles of life-death-life.

They are the epitome of what it means to plant deep roots.

We live in a world— or rather, an over-culture— that has celebrated severance from the rooted existence humanity has known for tens of thousands of years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that I get to experience the full spectrum of cultures, cuisines, languages, & people in the world.

I love that I live in a time where I can get incredible, authentic Thai, Greek, Indian, Malaysian, Italian, & Japanese food within a 10-minute radius of my apartment.

I, a half Russo-Ukrainian Ashkenazi Jew & half white Anglo-saxon American, would not exist if it were not for the increasingly globalized nature of humanity.

But there is something so sacred about where our roots are deeply entangled within our Mother Earth beneath our feet.

And I think somewhere, somehow, our own ethno-cultural traditions & native ecologies beckon us to know them deeper.

There are songs our souls remember how to sing.

We must remember how to hear them & to allow them to move through us.

Coming Home to My Roots

For the past few months, I have been deep in the practice of studying Kabbalah, the spiritual core & soul of Jewish mysticism.

Something about it feels like a coming home.

A warm, knowing embrace from my ancestors.

Fitting that I started this newsletter/writing experiment (on a whim) on L’ag B’Omer. The 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer ritual, considered one of the most holy spiritual/ mystic days in the Jewish calendar. This year it fell on May 8th, 2023.

A day for contemplating & celebrating the multidimensional forms that spirit/G-d/creation takes.

That WE take in our day-to-day lives.

Empty Bone — River Banks — Open Channel

I’ve always had a deep love for mystic traditions across cultures.

Netzach (נֶצַח) — one of ten Kabbalistic sefirot, or divine emanations that are used to understand consciousness — can be roughly translated as our core essence, the part of us that is everlasting, enduring when all other layers fall away.

While we each belong to our unique cultures & ecologies, there are so many forms that are expressing the same core truth.

In Indigenous wisdom traditions from across Turtle Island (North America), there is a concept of becoming an empty bone so that the universe / great spirit / mystery can flow through you.

A year or so ago, I went for a walk to clear my very busy head. The thoughts were ceaseless. I was stuck in a whirlpool of constant rumination. Feel familiar?

Out of nowhere, a hollowed out bone— & not a small one at that— flies out of a tree & lands at my feet.

I couldn’t help but to laugh— sometimes the universe is subtle, other times, she could not be clearer in her directions.

Growing up studying Kundalini yoga from a young age— which draws upon themes & teachings prevalent in Hinduism, Sikhism, & Buddhism— I recall often hearing that we practice kundalini yoga to open up ourselves as a channel so that energy can flow through us & our chakras.

(Fun fact: the morning of my Bat Mitzvah, a Jewish rite of passage at 13 years old, I frantically exclaimed “I don’t want to get bat mitzvah’d, I’m a Buddhist!” If you know me, it makes all the sense in the world.)

And now, while immersing myself in my culture’s mystical traditions through Kabbalah, I am learning about how the same ethos is being presented in the relationship between the sefirot of Chesed & Gevurah— boundless love & boundaried form.

Water takes the shape of the container it is in.

A river is not a river until it has riverbanks. 

It cannot flow if it is full of miscellaneous shit.

And I guess, neither can we.

When our minds are crowded with aforementioned miscellaneous shit, how in the world do we expect to allow energy (let alone adequate blood flow) to move from our root to our crown?

All through winter & spring, I felt like I was flirting with the line between total burn out, exhaustion, & lethargy.

Giving myself grace, my plate has been full & I’ve been trying to get my body’s various chronic conditions to calm down.

As my partner, Aidan, lovingly put it… what if I had been feeling stuck because I wasn’t creating?

And that really struck a chord.

So often, I pour from an empty cup.

For so many of us, no matter how exhausted or how much we’re dealing with, our default is to show up for others.

I’ve never known it any other way.

So the thought of pouring my energy into creating while I could barely work a full 8-hour day without brain fog taking over felt exhausting.

But here I am, writing my wee little heart out… & DAMN it feels good. He loves hearing this, so I’ll throw him a bone (now a much more empty one), “you’re right”.

So what does rooting have to do with any of this?

After studying many wisdom traditions & cultures over the years, there is something so sacred about coming home to my own ancestral traditions through Kabbalah.

My roots feel like they are exhaling & unfurling deep into a corner of my soul that was waiting to be reactivated.

Spiritually, I am reconnecting with something that my ancestors (as recent as my mom & grandparents living in Kyiv in what was then Soviet Russia) would have been persecuted for.

Ecologically, every time I step foot outside, I am interacting with the living world in & around me.

Dissolving the boundary that exists between us & nature, coming home into the eternal truth of interconnection.

Reclaiming. Remembering. Rooting. Rewilding.

FOOD for THOUGHT…

Reflective questions:

1. What cultural traditions, practices, teachings, or life-ways do you feel most connected to? What about them creates a sense of resonance for you?

2. What places, people, or experiences provide you with a sense of inner spaciousness & help you tap into flow states?

3. In this next moon cycle, what do you want to try to connect or reconnect to?

Seeds: books, podcasts, articles, music & more that spark inspiration:

1. “Filled With Wonder Once Again” by Bill Fay… this is a feel good song that frankly feels like a warm hug. We heard it while in an herbal apothecary in Washington and immediately looked it up. Instant warm & fuzzy classic.

2. “The Infinite Wisdom of The Kabbalah with Rabbi Mordecai Finley”, Episode #321 of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast This podcast episode is what initially sparked my interest in Kabbalah about two years ago. Great introduction to the ethos of it!

3. “The Ten Sefirot” by Hadar Cohen This article, written by my Kabbalah teacher is a great introductory article into the ten sefirot (divine emanations) if you want to learn more. Whether or not you have Jewish roots, it’s a really beautiful framework for exploring consciousness & I hope it sparks reflection for you!

Thanks for reading! Happy full moon 🌕♡