The Path to a Healing Heart

Shavuot today Receiving Counting Moving forward Moving up Gifts, bounty, knowledge wisdom and understanding in gratitude offered First fruits I try to remember how it was in my childhood, this holiday it doesn't come to me Not even a flash Complete segments wiped clean from the recesses I know that I felt profound sadness this morning as I prayed. And just kept crying About the morning, a complete day without Jesse. My heart is filled with sorrow being in this position of burying him, being here, fixing my family's generational trauma and the weight of it all just so heavy on my shoulders. Probably too, the gifts would be heavy too, and too much for one person to carry by herself. When did the bough break When did it stop being good and easy and fun and joyous? At which juncture in life did it happen? What wrong turn? I miss Jesse. There is a void. Buried under the pomegranate Facing Jerusalem. I would like to know how is soul is faring. For so much suffering surely there has b

ברוך אתה ה' א‑לוהינו מלך העולם, דיין האמת. ‏ Transliteration: Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, dayan ha-emet. Translation: "Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, the True Judge."

Maybe the worst night of my life. The electricity suddenly went off at 11 The fan dying with it The heat unbearable In uninsulated walls and ceiling No movement Candles lit Attempts to sleep in black Hot and unmoving hard to do I twist – run for water Douse Go to refrigerator Eat Lie down once again Count the moments till Morning Then the emissions begin From the various burning Stations around this area Which is it this time? The garbage dump across the street? The petrochemical plants in Ashdod? The chemical plant in Beer Sheva? The bio-tech research places dotted Along the highway going south? Or maybe the ones going north? Maybe it’s the Bedouins looking for An easy way to make money And kill us all slowly at the same Time? Whichever – the processes of burning Begin – first acrid Then nauseating. Then dense. Then thicker. My mouth Lungs Psyche Fill with toxins At 4 am electricity returns With my fan sputtering up Into existance. I attempt to sleep Sleep doesn’t come Awake at 8 some

Thank you. To my angels. I can't do this Without you. May Hashem bless you Keep you Shelter you Shine his countenance upon you. All ways. Always. Thank you.

I have been living here in the Northern Negev for the past year and a half. The weeds and thorns now are very high. There is barely a place to enter through. Since moving here I have been honored with stoning, having TNT thrown at me broken limbs, viral pneumonia, a concussion caused by hitting my head due to heat exhaustion and missile attacks from Gaza which is across the fields. I have endured this only with God and his angels who come in various guises. There is a reason for this suffering. Know. There is a reason. And through the knowing there will come understanding and through the understanding there will come wisdom and through wisdom will come forgiveness. And rivers of joy will flow once more.

One of the rare photographs of my *youth* taken by my father as he visited me in Israel - this taken in Jerusalem near the giant menorah. At this point, I am clinically depressed, having gone through numerous molestations by various individuals, daily emotional and verbal abuses at home, living in poverty, dropped out of school in the 9th grade and my life as a runaway begun. This is before going back to the States where I ran away big time across America at 15 when I was captured and forced to go back to Israel. My father then saw me off at JFK crying and telling me how sorry he was. I arrived, 16 back to my mother who promptly told me she didn't want me. I began then to focus on dying. I spent a year doing that in all forms imaginable till I was hospitalized weighing 80 pounds with anorexia. Intervention 6 months later, after truth serum injections left me black and blue, mother released me from children's hospital with threats against the hospital for using me as a human exp

Only son, 4 daughters. Rageaholic father, martyr mother. Valedectorian, semi-genius. Streak of sadism. Did his duty, was honor bound. A foot surgeon, moon watcher snapper of lenses, dark room dweller, ham radio buff, josher with his patients, estranged from his children, divorced from his past, clung to a witch ever after, literally. Long story. He died very badly with gangrene in his spine. He did tell me I was beautiful as he laid in Kings County Hospital when I came to say goodbye.

Held. Backyard of house on Long Island. Merrick Road. This is a time of crazy making. First she loves me. Then she hates me. There is no where to turn. Except inwards. So, I do.

My sister took this photo in Brooklyn behind the apartment house on East 18th Street. The stairs, heavy iron painted red. Shoes red. I am displaced without solace or comfort and the toll is being taken. I have become the family scapegoat and am going down with an implosion that is rocking the complacency of don't tell, don't speak, children to be seen not heard. I hoard food at this point. I regress to infant-like behavior with baby food and bottle. The words *she is being emotionally traumatized* first uttered by those around me. I am taken to my first psychiatrist around this time. Age 8 The psychiatrist conveys to my mother that a dog would be therapeutic after so many losses. Mother takes me to animal shelter where Corky my Border collie is obtained. Later he would be run over while my mother takes him for a rare walk. Injured, he would limp with a lame leg for the rest of his life. It was hard to trust anything or anyone after that.

My sister's bat-mitzvah - we are family. The generations of women My grandmother mother myself and sister. I do not know why I am there and why I am with these people. I do not belong yet am asked to perform in front of the camera time after time again.

Captured. A moment in time. Touched my father's instamatic camera then smacked for it. Hard. In the background it lies as I lied crying. I remember my heart feeling like it was bursting. My parents were divorcing. Mother hospitalized. Brother left home. Sister wafting in and out. I am left most of the time with stuffed animals a black baby sitter and a dog and cat who were shortly thereafter gotten rid of. Yes. Father was a camera aficionado. He loved the technology of capturing time. And I am still captured.

My mother loves me. I know she does. She expresses it in her own special way. Like how she screams I love you through the facade of her shattered lens of perceiving Like the way she calls ambulances to come and take me away because she loves me and worries so much that I'm in pain. I used to be jealous of how she loved my sister and how she once called the police to taker her away because of her high fever Now I know we're on even scales she and I - loved equally. I know my mother loves me for all the times she cursed me and gave me the silent treatment in between her ragings she loved me through her food and riddled nurturings when I lied dying of whichever ailment it was at the time blood poisoning boils broken back anorexia or just plain wanting to die. She showed up with lemons and tea and if we were rich that month some honey. I love my mother like a rock like a martyr like a soldier like a renegade bittersweet and deadly belladonna style dare to venture and prepared to di

The Jewish Star of David symbol also referred to as Magen David, contains all 24 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. There is no such thing in any other language. From Marlies Creative Universe

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; Kohelet - Ecclesiastes - Chapter 3

Just lying like a cabbage Folded within my layers Sandwiched between cats and black wires, Need reprieve in some form bottle joint infusion remedy to take me through over and above to another dimension, So sick of this plane Detention Held back Wings clipped gravity inherited Enough paid dues. I've sunken I've bled I've hit my head I've died once and returned to raise a kid You've seen my stumbles and my blood run like wine You've seen me in ruins cut from neck to spine It's enough - I'm just biding time holding hands with pomegranate trees and shtupping ear plugs and caving in at the knees take me I'm surely done Makom All bets are off, all jobs done Beam me up Bring me Home.

Main Entry: 1in·val·id Pronunciation: \(ˌ)in-ˈva-ləd\ Function: adjective : not valid: a: being without foundation or force in fact, truth, or law invalid assumption> invalid> b: logically inconsequent — in·val·id·ly \-lē\ adverb Function: noun : one who is sickly or disabled