A quick mini-retreat: Take a moment now to put things down, relax, and take a deep breath. Let the world fade away as you bring to mind a moment that felt particularly awesome, or when some kind of curtain slipped away between you and the bigger picture of Life. What did your senses grasp and what did your emotions feel?
What was your moment? Was it in nature, during a life cycle event, while traveling? Or just out of the blue?
My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Reb Zalman), used to teach that we all have those spiritual moments, those flashes of transcendence. But too often they slip away from memory because we don’t have a container for them. By which I think he meant that we don’t have practices or language to keep them alive within us.
Not that you can capture your pristine spiritual state forever. We are all bound to (and must) come down the mountain from our spiritual highs. But we can come down with a postcard to remind us of what we experienced.
After I returned from a particularly powerful spiritual retreat, another of my spiritual teachers, Rabbi Miles Krassen, told me that each spiritual experience can become a deposit into our inner soul “bank account” to draw on later in challenging times, or to prime our pump when we feel creatively dry.
Those spiritual deposit boxes are going to take different forms for different folks, of course. Here’s a menu of ways I like to store up spiritual treasures, and I’d love to hear from you about yours.
Meaningful Objects
Just like pilgrims take a sacred object from a shrine, we can find an object that reminds us of that special time, like a seashell that recalls a sunrise at the shore, a pinecone that brings us back to a spectacular forest hike, a symbolic piece of jewelry, a crystal or a prism that recalls how our soul sparkled. We can carry it with us, or it can go on our desk, bedside table, personal altar, or near our prayer or meditation spot.
Journaling
For many years, journaling has been one of my favorite ways to store up my spiritual gems. I have kept small gratitude journals and dream journals by my bedside, and larger, beautiful Spiritual Journals that were dedicated to recording insights or special moments. To be honest, the gratitude and dream records have switched to digital form – I dictate them into my phone notes at bedtime or wake up. But for those profound experiences that I want to honor, I still like to put pen to paper in a bound journal. Such writing, done reflectively, can become its own spiritual moment.
Art
Another way to keep spiritual moments alive is to express them artistically. If you paint, collage, compose, write poetry, or do needlework, those can be your treasure chests. You don’t have to be a great artist, just to create something that triggers your memories or helps you to tell your story.
For me, photography connects me to my spiritual life and moments of awe in nature. Each time that I look at a photo, it takes me right back to the moment of that direct experience. I love to share my nature photos to invite other people into those moments (Find them here: Inspired Images.) You don’t have to be a serious photographer for this purpose and you can do a lot with a phone camera to put together an album of your most spiritual moments in nature.
Rituals and Deeds
Another way to record your experiences is in the language of ritual, either by creating your own rituals, or by connecting a ritual that you already practice in your own tradition with your personal experiences. For example, I like to say certain Jewish blessings for special moments in nature. This helps me to focus on being present and recognizing that life is a divine gift.
Spiritual Language
As you explore a spiritual tradition, you gain language to hold your own experiences. Not to say language can fully capture ineffable moments, but words and concepts that have been passed down for generations can be honored containers for the sacred. For example, I may describe having an experience of the Shechinah, a sense of the divine immanent within nature. I hope to share more of those from my own tradition as time goes by.
Sharing with others in a supportive environment is also a powerful way to keep our spiritual experiences going and to inspire one another.
Please comment if you use any of these or other ways to hold your own transcendent or spiritual moments in your heart.
Shalom! At Wellsprings of Wisdom, I aspire to help readers connect to the soul by connecting to the beauty of the natural world and Jewish and world wisdom about nature. Just as the earth has her seas, gardens, rivers, and mountains, inside each of us is our sea of the unconscious, our garden of toil and pleasure, our streams of flow, and our peak experiences. Our inner world is a reflection of the planet and of ancient teachings left for us by our ancestors. I’m passionate about sharing my love of nature and wisdom in all kinds of formats. You can now you can also find me on substack as “GPS for Your Inner Landscape.” I’m publishing a short newsletter about once a week, and other short inspirational notes. Subscribe now for free!
As this New Year 5785 takes flight, may we care for our environment, spread love and compassion, and most of all, seek peace. Sending you blessings for a good and sweet new year, fill with excellent health and abundant happiness, and may your heart’s prayers be fulfilled for good.
Snowy Egrets in Flight at Bombay Hook National Wildlife refuge, photo Julie Danan
L’Shanah Tovah, Tikateyvu! May you be inscribed for a good and sweet New Year! We are about to embark on the Jewish New Year 5785, a day also known as the “birthday of the World,” and so a day to contemplate how to honor and steward our natural environment and all its creatures. Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, is a great time to get outside and connect with nature, letting her be your guide. I share here a class that I taught on this subject back in 2021 (approaching Rosh Hashanah 5782). We discuss sauntering in nature and learning from its creatures and living symbols. There are lots of nature photos and questions to ponder, to inspire your own nature connection in the New Year.
Shalom! My latest blog post was announcing class that I taught on Spirituality at the Seashore. I taught the class twice: for ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal and for Seaside Jewish Community. Here’s a video of the latter, combining nature photography, ancient sources, guided meditaiton, and ideas for action. (posted here August, 2024)
In a sense, this whole site is about your inner landscape, how you are a part of nature, not apart from nature. I’m grateful that ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal has invited me to teach on the subject. And since I now live near the seashore, that will be my topic for this very interactive and visually enaging class. Here’s the information:
DATE: Monday, June 24, 2024 TIME: 7:30pm ET / 4:30pm PT LOCATION: Zoom
Join Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan to connect to your soul by connecting to the beauty of the natural world and Jewish wisdom about nature. Just as the earth has her seas, gardens, rivers, and mountains, inside each of us is our sea of the unconscious, our garden of toil and pleasure, our streams of flow, and our peak experiences. Our inner world is a reflection of the planet and of ancient teachings left for us by our ancestors.
In this interactive class, we will explore “the shore” in nature, Jewish wisdom, and your own life: from sea caves to sand, seashells, and life on the edge of mystery. We will experience media including stunning original nature photography, text discussion, ritual, guided meditation and mitzvah ideas. The practices we will learn may lead not only to a richer inner life and a heightened sense of awe, but to a deepened commitment to stewardship of the Earth and its inhabitants as the dwelling place of Shechinah.
Shalom! Due to a transition in my website management, several of my posts over the holiday season, plus one about recent events in Israel, have disappeared. Sorry for the inconvenience and I plan to update soon!
I just reposted “Be a Lighthouse,” an invocation that I gave for Maritime Day in Lewes, Delware this May (the post was lost when my site went off line for a few weeks.) You can find it right here!
Learn more about Jewish lore and lessons of the Sea in the Gateway of the Sea.
I’m sharing the Invocation that I offered at Maritime Day 2023 in Lewes, Delaware. The Overfalls is a historic lightship lovingly restored by a large crew of volunteers, that has become a celebrated Delaware landmark. Lightships were like floating lighthouses that kept other ships safe by use of lights, horns and eventually radar. Read more about the amazing history here.
Here’s my invocation:
The creation story of Genesis begins in a state of chaos: “Darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.”
This Hebrew word for “the deep,” Tehom, is used many times throughout the Hebrew Bible to represent the depths of the Sea, as well as the primeval forces of chaos hovering at the edges of human civilization. Tehom can also represents the great and awesome mysteries of existence beyond our knowledge or control.
Much of the time our lives are like a stroll on the beach, concerned with the things of everyday, like the seashells that catch our eye or the ephemeral sandcastles we built as children. But every now and then we look out in awe and sense the vastness of the ocean just beyond, recognizing all along that we have been dwelling on the edge of a powerful mystery.
To walk the coast, to venture out onto the water or to dive beneath its surface nurtures our spirituality because it puts us in touch with that sense of awe, reminding us that the world is so much bigger than us and yet we are blessed to be a tiny part of it. Spirituality occurs when we sense the deeper dimension that is always there on the edge of our existence. Some people tend to be spiritual in nature because they embrace that mystery, they even seek to enter it.
But if spirituality is like that love and awe of the sea, faith is something else again. Faith is more like a lightship. We who are here today have different beliefs, but faith is not just identical with belief.
The Hebrew word for faith, Emunah, is basically synonymous with faithfulness. The lightships were humble vessels built to faithfully serve others. The restoration of The Overfalls by committed volunteers was itself an amazing example of faithful action. A life of faith, like service on the light ships, requires commitment, dedication, and even a willingness for self-sacrifice for the greater good.
The crews of the Overfalls and the other lightships represent a life that few of us could attain, one that we can only honor today. Yet we in our daily lives have the opportunity to be lightships out in the world, serving as a beacon for those lost in the fog of confusion or caught in a storm of life. We have the sacred opportunity to be present, to offer guidance, and to accompany others when their encounters with the Tehom of life have threatened to overpower them.
As in the words of Psalm 42:
“When deep (Tehom) calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls–I’m going to venture my own translation here –the roar of your Overfalls…when all Your breakers and billows have swept over us,”
When those challenging times arise, faith is the lightship. Faith is staying the course and knowing what keeps you anchored in a storm. Whether you place your faith in God, in your heritage, in humanity – you can make the choice to be a lightship, to illuminate a path for others, to see them back to the harbor, back to home.
In the words of Psalm 107:
Those who go down to the sea in ships,
ply their trade in the mighty waters;
they have seen the works of the Eternal
and God’s wonders in the deep.
A Prayer:
Source of Life, Author of all creation: your voice is above the thunder of ocean waters but also speaks to us from the still small voice within. May we be blessed to find wonder and spirituality in the mystery of the Sea. May we derive inspiration from those who served on this ship and many others like it, who dedicated their lives to keeping others safe from harm. And may all of us, in stormy and challenging times, find our own faithful way to be the lightship that sees one another home. And let us say, Amen.
Wellsprings of Wisdom site has been down for a few weeks due to the presence of malware. Thanks to Shaun Leber (my web designer), it’s now cleaned up and back online. However, in the process, the site lost all posts and updates since March. I can’t replace them all but will be adding some new things soon. Stay tuned!
Wellsprings of Wisdom site has been down for a few weeks due to the presence of malware. Thanks to Shaun Leber (my web designer), it’s now cleaned up and back online. However, in the process, the site lost all posts and updates since March. I can’t replace them all but will be adding some new things soon. Stay tuned!
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