Between worlds

And he said to himself

in a sunken morning moon

between two pines,

between lost gold and lingering green:

I believe I will count up my worlds.

-from, "Between Worlds," by Carl Sandburg


Transitional times in our lives -- sunken morning moons -- what can we make of them?

As times of loss and leaving, they have the potential to bring deep pain, as well as new growth. They are also times in which we can take stock of what we do have, and ask ourselves if that is enough.

I'm reminded of a song at the Passover seder called "Dayeinu," a holiday event every Spring marking the exodus from Egypt. Pesach, the Hebrew word for Passover, means "crossing over." The purpose of the song is to affirm that had the transition of the Jewish people from slavery to freedom been harder with fewer blessings, it would have been enough.

The truth is that wandering for 40 years in the desert was often "not enough" for those wanting to reach the Promised Land. The subtext to the song is that "Dayeinu" is an ideal rather than a reality.

In ancient Egypt and Palestine, liminal places like doorways were considered spiritually powerful -- and were often inscribed with magical spells in order to protect the person walking through them. That might be the origin of the tradition of hanging the mezuzah, which is a parchment with verses from the book of Deuteronomy encased in a decorative covering and nailed to the doorposts of Jewish homes, synagogues and other buildings. For observant Jews, it is common to touch a mezuzah when walking into a house and then kiss the fingers that touched it as a way of increasing one's awareness of God's love.

Mezuzah at the Google office in Tel Aviv

A ritual verbal counting takes place on each of the 49 days between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot (the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai). Symbolically it is a time for self-reflection as well as semi-mourning to remember the plague that killed the students of Rabbi Akiva. As a transitional time in the calendar leading up to the monumental event of the giving of the Torah, it has an air of solemnity.

There may be an ancient anxiety in the tradition of counting the omer. It is as if to say... OK, we will count, but can we really count on anything?

Not confined to Judaism, in-between times like solstices, births and deaths are heavy with ritual and prayer in religious traditions because they are reminders of our vulnerability and that, as the Buddha said, "Everything is impermanent."  

Zen Buddhist masters try to get their students to become aware that there is nothing in this existence that one can rely on -- not even language, meaning or sanity. In such a context, with everything stripped away, what is enough?

Walt Whitman had an answer:

"That you are here." 

That may not satisfy a Zen Buddhist master, but I'll take it... for now. :)