Flowers. Vespas. Colors. Scents. Ring In The Spring.

http://www.saltshaker.net/20130119/a-fish-or-eight-less-common

Vicky Bensinger: layered sushi gefilte fish

Even though I have been permanently hardwired by the rabbis against strange meditations, Zazen has been very successful in getting me to feel bettah. I am sure I am not meditating – however, I am using my associative thinking and memory flow with the full approval of my Vietnamese Zen nun.

I have reduced that state of being hardwired to the impressions of locks - on the bridges des Artes and de l'Archevêché. Which is such a positive social-driven art statement. The locks have been cut off again, I hear.

I reconnect to the emotions of the French replay of my honeymoon, with Naama, as well as with my husband, which is the unforgettable Autumn 2012. And I feel better.

A sense of relief and wisdom – understanding how much of life energies I have wasted on primitive competitions and anxieties. Due to the closed world of religious schooling I took on the unreasonable jealousy towards Sfardi girls, assuming they make the most passionate and pretty wives, when it was they who try to become the Ashkenozi ballerinas, - me - to no avail. I tried very hard to be Biblically nice to my in-laws. Only last week I was deathly afraid of ex-husbands taking away my kiddies. Now all of those silly tribal stuff went away – so easily, effortlessly, to the sound of the bell of Vietnamese Zen.

So they removed all these locks. We put our lock right next to the J'Adore! Some of the Vespas and scooters like that are getting pink paint jobs. This is the wine I am going to have after this baby, which is inside the huge yellow belly in the reflecto glimpse. The roses are somewhat cheap, and they have the real rose fragrance. Flowers are everywhere.

My husband has made full recovery and is being eyed for a political appointment. He is so excited at all the changes - mine too - and my confidence reassures my daughter, and suddenly she is ready for whatever adventure I may cook up for all of us, but I try not to do anything wild, because I have learned the platonic aspect of the flowers, to play monotonically meaningful notes on the Zen pot bell. Saw some poultry and cattle industry videos - and how they make hot dogs - I'll stick to veggies and fish.
I have had lawts of fun last year, and accumulated lawtsa sentimental things. I am cleaning up my laptop. Some more pictorials are on order.

A Bell For The Holiday

I think I would miss Shvuos the way they celebrate it, non-religiously, in Tel Aviv. People visit each other, exchange baked things and eat dairy, and enjoy flowers, gardens and new fruits. Loquats and peaches show up at the markets this time of year. That I say is a very positive experience, as opposed to the religious one, where observance is defined by robotized grumpy men being unsociable, stay up all night trying not fall asleep and chant verses just not to fall asleep, only to be even grumpier in the morning, then scamper off back home to sleep the rest of the holiday. The women left to discuss the clean up amongst themselves. Grim. And that was supposed to be a festive occasion to mark the receiving of Torah.
Of course I would prefer Shvuos in Tel Aviv.

As a rebbetzin i could interpret it so many ways, beside all the obvious entertainment value of the dog helping the rabbi blow the shofar.

The charismatic-mystic movements might say the dog is the reincarnation of someone who could not/was not allowed/ blow the shofar when he really wanted; it was the reincarnation of someone who blew the shofar incorrectly and everyone was just let it go out of fear of Judgment of Rosh Hashono, or even Yom Kippur.

Now I am free of the fantasies. I have found a way and a place for my inner spirituality, and it is free of dogma - the dog-ma pun unintentional - it is minimalist - minimum of futuristic promises, and scary rituals, and stiffly formulated prayers, all wound into a loop of compulsions ad obsessions.

The woman at the Zen center sent me a Zen nun, a Vietnamese siren, soft spoken, multilingual, fragrant with hints of sandalwood and exotic flowers, so in sync with aroma of the straw mats at the Zen center, and her head is smooth shaven.

Vietnamese Zen is Japanese Zen, where in addition to a perfectly polished and clean floor is a must, idyllic cleanliness, ironed mats, the smell of exotic grasses drying, - they add a bell. She brought a cooking pot in a bag of crudely woven jute, and the pot turned out to be a Vietnamese upside bell, a lacqered, finely metal-worked bowl really. The dough roller wrapped in stiff leather turned out to be a bell toller in English, but certainly not a bell striker - because it's all about peace, even in language.

I could not really meditate, still firmly conditioned to my Hebrew-woman's-chanting habits, thinking that any strange effects of inner thought process should be stopped,

Most languages irritated me, distracting me with wild sensations couples to memories, and that's where the Oriental words which were totally meaningless to me, were most soothing,

A Vietnamese word for now is the best, because I know zero of the language. I know maybe 10-20 words of Japanese, as any westerner, more of Chinese, but Vietnamese is totally free of graphic associations, even the written Vietnamese for me – is helplessly unfathomable, the Latin letters festooned with caps, spikes, tails and ticks.

I learned how to relate to a woman in a new way of sensuality, I guess I'd call it the sensuality of sharing the calm. I figure, I can always trust a woman with a shaved head, and she was there to help me relax and clear my mind of silly anxieties and fears, which Hassidic women with shaved heads covered with wigs and ridiculous hats, instilled into me during all those wifely activities.

And of course the minimalism of sounds, objects, and cleanliness in both hygiene, order, sight and sound. i stopped eating meat some time ago, when anything fatty made me feel nauseous. Though I daydream of greasy pizzas. But that brawny baby boy is taking up lawtsa space under my stomach.

How do I break it to my daughter that we'll have to pack up and go back to Israel again? How do I handle the father of my twins seeing that they are growing up non-religious? How do I relate to my parents and siblings who want to spend time within the religious ambiance?

The non-dogmatic solution is simple. Just empty my mind of the anxiety-prone negative, anticipative worries. The baby will come and rightfully be the source of positive emotions. Just gain confidence in my own forge-ahead tactic. My children are mine. See clearly the fine line between pains emotional and physical. I never had a clue that the sound of a Vietnamese bell amid the barren and Zen, spotlessly clean room would work better than the convoluted rhetoric of rabbis.