Healing Original Pain Work in Progress--Writing Up a Storm
ALEPH KALLAH JOURNAL
Healing Original Pain Work in Progress--
Writing Up a Storm
Date: 7/4/2011 11:50:48 AM ( 13 y ) ... viewed 41912 times
THIS PLANT YOUR DREAM
BLOG IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
LESLIE ON SACRED FOODS
God made a rainbow covenant
in the heavens with each of us.
How is it that there are so
many rainbow colors
on earth reflected
in all our flowers,
fruits, herbs, and vegetables?
Our health and happiness
comes out of partaking
in the full rainbow
of flowers and foods.
This fulfills our part
in the covenant.
Leslie Goldman
Your Enchanted Gardener
INTRO
I just came out of going to get some meat
at Hani's Mid- East Market. I was not going
to take my camera. I was exhausted.
My spirit said take the camera and
record some Sacred Food things in the
store. They have food from all over the
Mid East in there. Stepping in is like
entering a different world. Hani
was born in Bethlehem. We had a
good talk. I made some videos.
I want to help him increase business
through my allies.
We had a meaningful talk.
Then when I stepped out.
There was this tremendous rainbow
in the sky. It was a powerful rainbow.
I attributed it to the writing below
and some responses I started to get
from those who were started to seee
the Video I made,
This was written during the middle
of the night, July 5, early in the morning.
It is as I first wrote it, filled with typos
and incompletes.
I will do more to edit later...
Leslie
12:11 am
July 6, 2011
QUOTE FROM MARCIA
Wonderful, Leslie!
18 hours ago on Facebook
QUOTE FROM R'GOLDIE
On Jul 5, 2011, at 7:02 PM, Goldie Milgram wrote:
Dear Leslie:
Just saw the video and your blog re Kallah.
I deeply admire your approach to healing.
The honest way you spoke your truth and points of wounding
with Jewish renewal in the past.
When you told me about your "planting dreams" work
with the school students, I recognized our friendship
would blossom with the years.
That is the kind of supportive education
that is so needed. Tears flow as I reflect we would not have met
if not for our courage to come and confront, discuss,
connect and reconnect. Your gifts are
so timely for Jewish renewal and all peoples.
I look forward to future connections.
FROM SHARON ALEXANDER DREYYFUS
On Jul 5, 2011, at 11:04 PM, Sharon Alexander
Dreyfus wrote:
Leslie, I am so touched that you remembered me
and that I inspired you
and that you would go so far
as to create this sweet video tribute.
I hope our paths will cross again soon.
I'll be in the States until Aug 17.
In LA from Aug 1.
Sharon
FROM SALLY PIONE
ALEPH KALLAH ORGANIZER
On Jul 6, 2011, at 8:16 AM, wrote:
It was beautiful and made me tear up. Thank you so much!
Sally
MAIN THEMES:
HEALING ORIGINAL PAIN WORK IN PROGRESS
My original pain work--the issues I came in to grow beyond--
occurred in the context of a Jewish setting. It only took attending
three Kallahs--between 1993 and 1997--to feel I had enough.
The first, in 1993 was my honeymoon.
No one knew who I was at three major conferences I attended that summer of 1993, but my will, life mission,
and purpose was so strong that in each of those three conferences
I was a player in the Closing Ceremony,
reading a poem,
speaking, or organizing the event.
At the Association for Humanistic Psychology Conference
near my house in San Diego,
I read a Declaration of Interdependence I had written.
I read it right before before the keynote speaker, George Leonard.
At the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC) event,
I organized the Closing Ceremony at Evergreen College
in Olympia, Washington;
and then, then, there was the Kallah in Berkeley,
the happened in July, right before the 4th.
As was the case with the other two events, I arrived on site
unknown to any of the organizers who had spent months
meticulously planning.
In Berkeley, a friend in route to Israel drives me up.
I had already a very strong relationship with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach who was still in the body at the time.
Although I live in San Diego, Stan Levy,
of B'nai Horin is already my home Jewish Renewal community
up in L.A., the city of my birth.
Stan had not yet been officially given Smicha, official Rabbiness.
He was basically a self appointed Rabbi at a time when ALEPH,
the Alliance forJewish Renewal, was still a dream.
What we had was P'nai Or, of Philadelphia, the Freedom City,
and I believe Reb Zalman,
Susan Saxe, and Marcia Prager were already on board, as was
numbers of the leaders who are still mainstays of the Kallahs.
RELATIONSHIP WITH SHLOMO
My relationship with Shlomo Carlebach went back to
to the early 80's, I was the person who organized the Closing
Ceremony for a show at the time called the Whole Life Expo.
The WLE began a few years after an event called the World Symposium
in Humanity that occurred in 1980 ambitiously in three cities--
Los Angeles, Toronto, and London. The plan was to connect
the tree cities via internet, but that broke down.
Shlomo, Reb Zalman, and every other New Age Star was
at that event as was a little known Trance Medium who later
would play himself in a film called "Out on a Limb"
and was to be made famous by Shirley MacLaine.
On TV, he spoke no less than the voice of John,
Son of Zebedee, one of the sons of Thunder, the favorite of the
twelve of Jesus, the character who in later life wrote
the Book of Revelation.
When I met that trance medium, or Trance Channel, as these
characters came to be later identified, the very words "Trance Channel,"
or "Channeling" did not exist.
Dianne Harbin, still a friend, came back into my life a few years ago.
She reminds me that I was in the room when those identifying words
"Trance Channel" came into usage. It was a team of Bill Byerley,
Dianne and myself, who came up with the words. We all lived
in San Diego at the time, a burgeoning New Age city in 1978.
There have been numbers of other incidents in my life
where I have been a part of historic moments.
I was with Byerley when he changed his name. He became
known as Aura, and then William Aura, the originator
of a new genre of music called Smooth Jazz. We had a band
in San Diego at the time called Heartspace, and then William
went on to be very well known as well as part of a group called
Third Force. I felt left behind, as I did when that channel
became well known and very communicated again
unless I made a valiant attempt to catch in on rare appearances.
he never fully acknowledged I had helped with his launch.
His launch all came through Essene Soul Group Activity,
but that is another story.
It was through another in our Whole Life Expo circle,
a songwriter named Stephen Longfellow Fiske, one of the greatest
songwriters of our age in my opinion, that I came to know Stan Levy.
Stan was Fiske's music attorney, and on the side had a self-grown community in LA called Children of Freedom--B'nai Horin.
Fiske, Aura, and I traveled the L.A. New Age circuit. Fiske
was married to Nikki, who was Jewish. He had been telling me
about Stan for numbers of years. At that time, I was so divorced
from my Jewish roots, I would not touch anything to do with
my own religion with a broomstick.
A bloomstick, by the way, was how I got around turning
on the TV on Shabath in our Orthodox home. TV had just
come on the scene when I was a kid. Our first set was black
and white, which could be said about my relationship to
Orthodox Judaism. It was just too much for me, too black and white,
too restrictive.
BORN IN BOYLE HEIGHTS
I was born in Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles in 1947, when the
Jews owned the place. The Shrere Synagogue, next to my birth home
at 2505 East Second Street was about ten feet from
my bedroom. Had it not been for a few plants in between me,
the driveway, and it, there would never have been anything
to block out the the prayers that would filter into my head three times a day.
From my earliest memories, Orthodox Judaism, my father's brand,
was a noose around my freedom loving neck.
It was the something that keep me away from the Saturday matinee
on Brooklyn Street, where the less orthodox kids at the Los Angeles
Jewish Academy would go to be introduced to Lon Chaney or Bela Lugosi
as the Vampire.
For Vampirism of my own blood, I had no further to look
that the fingers of the men who prayed with my father, the Shamas
at the next door shule. I was the son of my father, and from the earliest
age, had my cheeks pinched by the old men for how cute I was.
In the early days, I would go up with my father to the Bima, the
place where he would lead the service. I remember singing with him
on the high holidays. My father, dressed in white and with his
white cap was a beautiful sight. When he sang or blew the shofar,
all the women would real over over for God.
The centerpiece of my life back then was my mother, Anne Rose, who
kept our home a Jewish home. Our home was was the center of
the Jewish community. Her baked goods were so prized
that Beverly, who worked for the Raskin's Bakery on FIrst Street,
came to our house when she wanted Mandlebread.
Much of this story is told in Rekindling of Faith,
my autobiography that I redo about every ten years.
JUDAISM WAS THE COMPETITION
FOR MY FATHER's TIME
Judaism for me was a competitor for my father's time.
I never knew the man other than as a loud ragaholic who
was constantly giving me rules and standing between me and
Mighty Mouse cartoons on Saturday morning T.V.
Downtown L.A. at the time was the clothing district. My dad was
not only the Shamas, the man who took care of the Shule,
and its cantor, but a maker of garments. His fingers would
come home bleeding from the toxins they used
in making suits. He was called a presser, who made
his money by the piece. He knew how much
money he made by the number of tickets he brought home.
I was the one who counted the tickets.
The poor man had no day off,
other than the Shabbath, but even on that day he
was the workhorse of the prayer services.
I lost my father to the Cemetary every Sunday
of my life. He would pray for families, I never had
a father. I lost him to God.
My saving grace of family life were the nearby Catholics.
Through them I discovered family. My mom, the center of our home,
was also a big PTA queen. Her I lost to the Parent Teacher's Association.
All these feelings are recorded in poems in my book
"Rekindling of Faith."
MORE ON RABBI SHLOMO CARLEBACH
Shlomo I met through the Closing Ceremonies at the Whole Life
Expo. He was some kind of double agent. He seemed to have
two roles, introducing the New Age runaways like myself to some
user friendly kind of Judaism, as well as introducing the Blackhats,
who showed up to hear him, to Carrot juice and New Age thinking.
Shlomo for me lived in both worlds, He had a habit of naming things.
He once said, that when the Messiah came, I would be his M.C.
He called me the World's Greatest Jew,
which was something that he said to everybody I later learned.
I thought he was speaking personally to me,
and those words drew me close to him.
ENTER REB ZALMAN,
ZEDDE OF THE JEWISH RENEWAL MOVEMENT
Reb Zalman rubbed me the wrong way the first time I met him.
We were in Orange County at an event called The Harmunia Mundi.
I got there because I knew an organizer. I also had press credentials.
This was a multi track event that featured folks from every religion.
Reb Zalman was teaching with Jonathan Oberman,
something about Jewish Meditation perhaps.
I stayed to the end of the class, and expressed a bit of my pain
to Reb Zalman. He had no time for me in that moment, and seemed
to be brushing me off, but said something like I will see you
at another time. That was just one more Jewish experience
I did not need. I had already been brushed off enough.
DALAI LAMA
Historically, that was the meeting where Zalman first connected
with the Dalai Lama. It was at that conference where it was announced
that the Dalai Lama was to be given the Nobel Peace Prize.
I was in the room when the Press Conference was called with my
camera in hand. By then, I already sensed I was born to record
a History of Peace on Earth through my lens. I have always
ended up in historic places and named them.
MAKING PEACE WITH JUDAISM
It was through Shlomo that I first started to make peace
with Judaism. He had a way with kids, and my inner kid was
suffering for any kind of Jewish love. That was around 1980
when we met. By 1980-83, I felt I could
have run for New Age Mayor of San Diego and won. The Whole
Life Expo's started around 1984. My New Age relationship began
to sour in the early 90's, and by 1992, when I met Stan, I was
starving for new places to read my poetry.
Stan was an impressario who recognized talent, and so
I fit right in when I showed up for HIgh Holiday Services
at Brandeis Bardin's Temple of The Book.
Peggi Sturm, his exec director, had been a Whole Life Expo director.
I already knew her when I called for a scholarship.
It was threw Stan Levy that I met Reb Zalman as well
as Rabbi David Zeller, who also came out of Los Angeles.
Some of the most famous of my photos of Reb Zalman were taken
at the meeting when Reb Zalman came to give Stan Smicha, his
rabbihood.
There is a picture where Reb Zalman has its hands held high.
He was sick with near pneumonia at the time. You would never
kbow from the photo that he was not at the peak of health.
It was threw Shlomo, that I came
to meet Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Rabbi Sam Penner, and Sheba
Penner. It was Sheba, who was the mother of Eve Ilsen, who later
married Reb Zalman.
My or my, what web God weaves.
I warmed up to Reb Zalman through my connection to Stan.
We both had connections at Rancho La Puerta, a destination
Spa in Tecate that had originally been called the Essene School of Life.
I was by 1978, an Essene Minister, a branch of
of earth loving Jews in the good olden days.
Zalman had Essene soul origins as well, it seemed to me.
I also sense, as I got to know the leaders of the
ALEPH, that many also had Essene Soul Past Lives.
When word came about this gathering called the Kallah,
Reb Zalman wanted to have me go. He took money out of his
own pocket to pay in part my fees.
That same high holiday, he was speaking for the first time
at UCLA with Makom Ohr Shalom.
That event was the same summer of 1993, the year
of my first honeymoon Kallah. The newspaper used my photo
of Reb Zalman to promote and write about this brand of
Judaism called Jewish renewal. I was quoted in the story.
Reb Zalman was sick that year and never made it to the
1993 Kallah. That created an energy imbalance.
He was scheduled to lead the Rabbi training post Kallah.
Rabbi Marcia Prager had to rise to the occasion.
Somehow, in the energy confusion of leadership, not only did I do the Closing Ceremony, but Marcia was heading up the Rabbi training that followed.
She had helped with the Closing Ceremony at the 1993 Kallah. I did not remember a word of Hebrew, so she tropped in.
It seemed natural to want more Jewishness in the moment,
so I asked to be part of that Rabbi gathering. It seemed natural.
It was there I met David Zaslow and the others.
My favorite rabbi at the 1993Kallah was Rabbi Aryeh Hirshfield.
He made me cry and really want to be "in."
Shefa Gold did that Grace After Meals,
and that sealed the deal.
Barry Barkan also attended. I already knew from
Shlomo Circles. In one of the Kallah circles on a Shabbat,
I reached over and touched
his back. He recognized me as a healer.
THAT SUMMER OF 1993
That summer of 1993, I was dropped off
in Berkeley by my girlfriend at the time. She was heading
for Isreal. She landed in the company of Shlomo and David Zeller
in Israel. Something happened to her. She became both more Jewish,
as well as wounded. She never talked about what happened.
That was the end of our relationship. I was either too Jewish
or not enough Jewish, I don't know. Later she dropped out of
the whole Jewish thing, gave me two of her Jewish dishes,
and went East spiritually to India.
I found it strange, the Shlomo was never a part of that
Kallah. He was already my ally, and I sensed that many
their had been his devotees or played music with him.
BY THE SUMMER OF 1995
By the summer of 1995, the time of the first
Kallah in Fort Collins, home of Cindy and Jack Gabriel.
Shlomo had died. Zalman showed up at that event.
I don't know what happened to me.
At the Kallah, I was doing photos, was part of the shuk,
and felt in part I was channeling John, Son of Zebedee,
my Essene Teacher; Shlomo Carlebach, and Saint Frances.
I made a mess of things.
I had this sense there was not enough nature expression
at the Kallah. I commandeered a table in the cafeteria in sheer Shutzpa
and set up an Altar of plants and my own personal five day Shuk
at a time when the Shuk was only Thursdays for four hours.
One late night, we had a cabaret.
It was in honor of Shlomo, who died in 1994.
All the rabbi were singing his songs, including
Rabbi Aryeh Hirshfield.
Every one seemed to have top billing and had
played with Shlomo, or knew that I as well had
been on stage with him numbers of times.
No one knew me from Adam that night,
but when I came to the mike late in the evening,
the gathering was about to disperse. I read a poem
I had written. I had been on stage enough with Shlomo
as had the others, to know how he electrified a group.
I had the same skill, and did that.
I began with saying Give me "harmony!"
That was something he would say.
I called everyone into one sound, and quieted the late
night room calling in Shlomo's spirit.
The room was spellbound and went to heaven.
The next day the word got back to Cindy Gabriel
and she was complementary.
Some liked what I was doing at the Kallah. Some did not.
The leaders did not, but didn't say anything until
after the Kallah, weeks later. There was something
going on about selling, as well as having that table.
What I did was absurd. I basically set up an altar
in the dining room, a whole table!
Reb Zalman appeared to like what I was doing. He sat down with me one afternoon at the table, and offically gave me smicha as Maggid of the Enchanted Garden. The Enchanted Garden, as I teach it,
is a name for Eden that comes to us as we regain wisdom through
regaining our Plant Your Dream connection.
Reb Zalman knew from a soul point of view,
where I was coming from. He told me then
to create an Eco Rituals tied in with Judaism.
I was already doing that, and stepped up growing
my own Omer seeds among other projects.
ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE
POST KALLAH '95
All hell broke loose post Kallah '95.
MY CREDENTIALS
I was already Maggid of the Enchanted Garden post
Kallah, but no one knew that. I was officially an Essene Minister
since 1977, one of the last ordained by Edmond
Bordeaux Szekely, the 20th Century Essene Renaissance
prophet. I had already met with Reb Zalman at Rancho
La Puerta, the original Essene School of LIfe site
that became the destination spa called Rancho La Puerta.
In the ancient times, the Essenes were
the prophet wing among the Jews, but these were the
Pharisee wing that became the Rabbis.
It was at that First Colorado kallah, that I got
to asked Reb Zalman about the Essene origins
within Jewish Renewal. He told me
that the original model was set up along some
of the Essene principles.
I had a sense, that I on some level
was equal in training to the Rabbi's
and had much to give them,
but then I also had all my childhood issues
going as well.
Post Kallah, Rabbi Marcia Prager
was now officially in charge of the Rabbi Training.
I asked her if I could attend.
She could not decide. She was caught in the memory
that I was part of the last Rabbi Training in Berkeley two years
before.
She did not say yes.
She did not say no. She had her hands
full and other things on her mind.
I ended up in the room with the other Rabbis
and took a seat.
Marcia was in the front of the room starting to teach.
No decision had been made
about my being there.
Shaya Isenberg, who I knew from Berkeley,
came up to me, looked me in the eye, and said,
"You do not belong here. Leave." That was all I needed.
I was back at 2505 East Second Street, the house of my birth
with one of the old prayer partners of my dad
squeezing my cheeks, only this time there was no feeling
of love intended.
I got up to leave, and felt shamed, if not worse.
I stumbled out the door, in the hot Colorado Sun.
The chariot that rescued me was a car that drove up
in that moment. Moshe Halfon was late
to the Rabbi gathering. He already seemed to have tinges
of being a black sheep as well among the Jewish Renewal Rabbis.
He gave me a lift to the house in the neighborhood where
I was staying.
I filled my days until I was due to leave Fort Collins.
Curiously, The shuttle that picked me up went to campus
as well. Moshe was also on that shuttle. How is that for timing?
I knew I left that Kallah on bad terms and with bad feelings.
I hadn't really attended too many classes. I was busy
making a montage of photos, and I wanted some of the
tape. I wanted them to be a gift.
Some part of me felt I done great service,
although unappreciated.
IONS
A few days later, I was back in San Diego,
feeling quite wounded.
There was an event that showed up on my screen,
an IONS conference at the Town and Country Convention
Center. I called up and asked if I could do a display,
pretty much the same kind I did at the Kallah.
They said yes.
The Town and Country is a special place for me.
That was where I did my first Enchanted Garden Installation
in 1984. That was where I was given a U.N. Peace Medal
for the work I would do in my life.
The moment I came into the large Opening door.
There was a big yell from across the room of acknowledgement!!!
Wow! Wow! Wow!! I needed that!
It turned out there was a beautiful woman who I had
given aromatic herbs to in Colorado a few days before who was
doing the Conference Recording for Sound's True.
They had recorded the Kallah as well and now they
were in San Diego.
She had had a very powerful healing herbal experience
with me in Colorado.
She filled me with her love
in a moment when I was running on empty
and heart broken.
Amazingly, when I asked for the tapes from the Kallah,
she gave them to me.
EMAIL
It was a couple weeks following that I got an email
from Susan Saxe, who was executive director of Aleph.
She basically communicated that if I ever showed up
at a Kallah and broke the rules that I had done.
I would be escorted off campus by the police.
I was docked among other things for selling out
of Shuk time.
1997
I was still in my love affair with Judaism, and so I gave
it one more chance.
CIndy was again in charge of the Kallah in 1997,
I was to teach a workshop, and this was part of the program.
Some other stuff must have come up that I do not remember,
but the time the Kallah was near, I called Susan.
She yelled at me for not being like eveyone else and
just following the procedures. I was scheduled to do a workshop.
She read me the riot act over something.
Can I still do my workshop? I asked.
She did not know I was on the program. The workshop was taken
away. I was told to come and play by the rules.
I decided to come and be a nice Jewish boy.
I came and did photos and made a montage to attempt
to make ends meet. I ended up pretty much playing
by the rules, doing photos, and making peace.
By the closing, I made some peace with Susan Sax.
That was good. After the closing, Cindy came up
and thanked me for fitting in so well.
In other words, in my own head, she was thanking me
for shutting up.
MY FATHER TOLD ME TO SHUT UP
AND I DID; THAT'S WHEN I BEGAN
TO DEVELOP WHAT WOULD BECOME
ARTHRITIS
My father once told me to do the same thing.
I was back in high school.
My mother died when I was 12, a year before my
Bat Mitzvah.
I father remarried a former woman army leader.
Great.
She moved into our apartment.
She was a split personality.
Every time she would yell at me,
I would yell back. I grew up in a family of screamers
and highly charged emotional beings.
My father, sister, and I were all capable of
screaming when we felt stepped upon.
When I would raise my voice, my step mother would shut
up and run away. This was too much for my father
to take. He basically yelled at me and told me
to shut up and not yell at his new wife.
He told me that I was ruining his marriage.
I started to shut down and shut up.
It was then I began to develop was was to later,
ten years later, be identified with the Western name
of arthritis.
I knew how to shut up,
but Cindy thanking me for fitting in
and breaking no rules, was all I needed to
make that my last Kallah.
These straws that broke the Camel's back
also stuck in my energy field.
That 1997 Kallah, I was in need of a lot of ears
and friendly allies.
JACK GABRIEL
I attempted to speak to Jack Gabriel, the husband
of Cindy one day.
He felt cornered.
He told me, that I was a spiritual teacher for him.
He said he learned from me that he did not have
to give everyone who asked his time, his attention.
Great. Just what I needed to take in.
I just filed that energy in my bones someplace.
CLEARING WITH MARCIA
I also attempted to clear with Rabbi Marcia Prager
who by 1997, was the establshed leader of the Rabbi program.
She may have bought one of my montages.
That was my main service at the Kallah,
but I was extremely cautious about not selling outside
the Shuk.
One day I came up to Marcia who had been a major
ally in 1993, and a friend in 95.
I wanted to talk about my feelings and the hurt
I had felt. She couldn't hear me. She could not
remember anything from the past or
why I was still dinged by an incident
that happened two years before.
She had moved on. I had not.
In the final hours of the Kallah,
I watched Marcia making up her own rules.
I had been dinged for selling outside the Shuk.
In those days, you were only allowed to sell
within the guidelines.
Marcia, in the final hours, was selling iittle amulets
she would make. She was doing, exactly what I had
been busted for doing.
I felt angry but said nothing.
Just another thing to store in my bones.
CLEARING WITH SHIYA
I never cleared that year with Shiya over
what happened two years before.
Again, I just kept my mouth shut.
Aryeh never showed up in 1997.
Zalman did, but he was push and pull,
giving his official non official final talks.
His legacy project began to focus around then.
INATS IN DENVER
in 1995, one of the gifts of attending the Kallah in Denver
was that I discovered the International New Age Trade Show
(INATS) in Denver.
RUNNING INTO REB ZALMAN
AT THE DENVER AIRPORT
I came back to be part of that in 1997 and a few years
following. One year, when I arrived at the Denver airport,
among the thousands of people, who could pass by.
Reb Zalman passed me by. What are the chances of that?
Another time, I was in Boulder, the city where he lives.
I wanted to see him and called and spoke to his secretary.
He was not available.
I came for the New Age Trade Show. I was in Wild
Oats. I have a habit of eating food before I buy it.
I dropped some blueberries to the floor and went
down to pick them up. All of a sudden, I heard a voice
in back of me. I thought I was being reprimanded
for eating food without first paying for it.
I thought it was a store clerk.
It was a guest of Reb Zalman. He was sitting
after lunch and a meeting. He wanted to say hello.
I was growning some wheat seeds to make a challah
for the orthodox rabbi in my neighborhood.
He liked my idea about growing our own Omer
and clarified that Barley comes in before the wheat crop.
THE END OF MY KALLAH JOURNEY
In the years that followed, I never felt inclined
to want to return to the Kallah. I missed one after
another. One year, I started to hear my spirit asking
me to go back, as my relationship to my ministry
and successes teaching the kids at B'nai Horin progressed.
Stan pretty much still made a place for me,
even in the years when Debbie Friedman
was part of our High Holidays.
DEBBIE FRIEDMAN
Debbie was part of our B'nai Horin family, but never part
of the Kallah clique.
Again, through Stan I got to know Debbie,
and she got to know the work I was dong with seeds.
It was a natural match when she wrote
the Song "So in Tears. Reap in Joy!" I grew
a seed called Job's Tears.
TO GO OR NOT TO GO?
There were number of years that I felt my spirit
urging me to go to the Kallah in the last six years,
but I always missed the deadlines for teaching apps
that are around the Christmas time.
##
to be continued...
4:47 am
Sharon alexander...
"SOW IN TEARS
REAP IN JOY"
Debbie Friedman makes it to the
Aleph Kallah 2011. This song,
one of my favorites, was in the Closing Ceremony,
July 3, 2011
Healing Original Pain Work in Progress--
Writing Up a Storm
LESLIE GOLDMAN
YOUR ENCHANTED GARDENER
PHOTOS FROM THE ALEPH KALLAH 2011
WHERE THEY CAN BE FOUND
(add in here)
SOW IN TEARS. REAP IN JOY.
ALEPH KALLAH 2011 HARVEST
Watch this video for a sense of the project
of healing I envision that will influence
Sacred Foods at the ALEPH Kallah and for
the Jewish People.
YOUTUBE NOTES
Spending time writing Plant Your Dream Blogs looking at my return visit to the ALEPH Kallah 2011. ALEPH is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; Kallah means gathering. The ALEPH Kallah in the international Gathering of the Alliance for Jewish Renewal Communities held every two years. The last time I was at an ALEPH Kallah was in 1997. Tremendous healing happening inside within a few days of this marvelous test tube for growth and community building within a Jewish setting. I highly recommend the ALEPH Kallah and the richness of the Jewish Renewal Communities in the US and around the world as a place to regain our roots in Judiasm and its healthy future. My continued dream is that Sacred Foods, Organic Food Growing, and ALEPH become one. --Your Enchanted Gardener, Leslie Goldman. To share in my
personal journey bringing Sacred Foods to the Kallah and Jewish people,
Google: Going from Yelling "Help!" to saying "Wow!" in Less than 48 hours at the ALEPH Kallah 2011
"Leslie, thank you so much for making this precious little video and for your dedication and your life's work to bring awareness of healthy foods to our community. So glad you came again to Kallah and that we reconnected. May you be blessed."
This is a photo with Debra Kolodny, the new Rabbi at the Jewish
Renewal community in Portland She is moving on from being
the executive director of ALEPH. I met her through the work
she was doing years ago on the Sacred Foods Project through ALEPH.
This photo was taken on July 3 at the Closing Ceremony.
THE FARM?
ARRIVING IN THE PROMISED LAND
I went with AriellaShira Lewis And Gloria Krasno
twp ALEPH Kallah veterans.
I heard upon arrival at the University of Redlands,
through talking to the staff in the kitchen how they supported
Organic food, a cornerstone of Sacred Foods.
They bought local organic foods
from farmers. They had a farm right off campus
where the students grew organic food that the kitchen would
buy. It took determination to find the Farm. For future reference,
This treasure called the University of Redlands Sustainability Farm (URSF)
is located behind the Brockton Avenue Apartments
at the back far end of a fenced gate
within view of the Soccer Field.
The Brochton Avenue Apartments are located at the corner
of Grove Street and Blockton Avenue north of the
soccer field (307) on this map.
Sunday morning, July 3, 2011.
It was difficult to find, but I persevered.
I went looking three times.
When I finally found it later in the day,
People on campus said the Gate would be locked,
but I found it open although no one was there
but we who entered.
FROM R'GOLDIE
"Let's embroider the farm into a kallah should it be held at the same site. environmental care and sacred foods is so important and actual central in Jewish renewal, Recon, etc."
July 6, 2011
WORK IN PROGRESS
ORGANIC OUTREACH TO THE UNIVERSITY
OF REDLANDS
Summary of work done thusfar.
Seed Dreams for this school as a model
for other Universities. Remarkable progress
toward Organic and Sacred Foods are being made
here!! They are to be congratulated!
My spirit is asking that I rejuvenate the Sacred Food Project
This was on my list of intentions when I attended the final
couple days of the Kallah.
I knew that to make progress I would have to step through
some Original Pain Work reflected in a handful of relationships
I left uncooked at the Kallah back in 1997.
At the Kallah I saw a new generation of youth
that need to be supported now.
I made some new allies.
I am willing to do the Soul Growth
that I might continue to serve my purpose.
QUOTE FROM R'GOLDIE
On Jul 5, 2011, at 7:02 PM, Goldie Milgram wrote:
Dear Leslie:
Just saw the video and your blog re Kallah.
I deeply admire your approach to healing.
The honest way you spoke your truth and points of wounding
with Jewish renewal in the past.
When you told me about your "planting dreams" work
with the school students, I recognized our friendship
would blossom with the years.
That is the kind of supportive education
that is so needed. Tears flow as I reflect we would not have met
if not for our courage to come and confront, discuss,
connect and reconnect. Your gifts are
so timely for Jewish renewal and all peoples.
I look forward to future connections."
God made a rainbow covenant
in the heavens with each of us.
How is it that there are so
many rainbow colors
on earth reflected
in all our flowers,
fruits, herbs, and vegetables?
Our health and happiness
comes out of partaking
in the full rainbow
of flowers and foods.
This fulfills our part
in the covenant.
Started July 6, early in the morning.
Healing proceeding through completing
the video. There was a tremendous rainbow
in the sky July 6, an hour after I finished
the Video. I wrote more on this Blog today.
"Dear Leslie,
You have always been one of those folks
out there on the fragile growing edge of things,
sniffing way ahead of most of us.
And you have had the courage to be quirky and insistent,
and to proceed even when you weren't understood.
I choose to believe that what you have already planted in this world
---in the earth, or in people's hearts--will quietly take root,
and perhaps go unnoticed for long enough to really dig in
without provoking opposition, and therefore acquire depth
and strength to burgeon forth. Thank you for your generosity,
for all you do, and for persevering even when it's been lonely.
You have been seen and appreciated;
please forgive me for not letting you know sooner.
Warmly,
Eve
DANNA ASHBAKER, SOUS CHEF
AT THE U OF REDLAND'S TALKS
ORGANIC FOODS WITH LESLIE GOLDMAN
YOUR ENCHANTED GARDEN
Saturday morning, July 2, 2011
in the U of Redland's Kitchen
Silk, a product in the NON GMO Verified Project,
is one of the foods I found already served at the
U of Redlands. I see and seed using my Organic Trade
Association Resources to suggest and develop more.
READ THIS PLANT YOUR DREAM BLOG HERE
Organic Support for the University of Redlands Kitchen
PHIL BELL
Head Cheerleader
from my alma mater, Fairfax High School,
1960.
A GREAT INTERFAITH MINISTRY
IS DESCRIBED HERE IN RABBI ARYEH HIRSHFIELD
I felt the presence of Rabbi Aryeh Hirshfield, the former rabbi of Portland with me during my journey
to the Kallah. I took his CD with me. He was one of my favorite
Jewish Renewal rabbis, and died in the Ocean in January 2009.
I have permission of Beth Hirshfield to use music of
Aryeh in an upcoming video I have in mind.
This is a remedy I have been using to work with bioenergetic patterns
carried from generation to generation in the bloodstream.
It was recommended to me by Richard Katz of the Flower Essence Society
last March.
I highly recommend this to all who wish to work with their
own bioenergetic patterns embedded in our Jewish experience.
ARE YOU DRAWN TO THE
ESSENCE OF JOSHUA TREE ESSENCE TOO?
QUALITIES OF THE JOSHUA TREE FLOWER ESSENCE
Yucca breviflora
Joshua Tree
Positive qualities:
Individuation of soul forces through conscious transformation
of family patterns and related cultural conditioning;
enhanced freedom and compassionate insight
for family and culture of origin
Patterns of imbalance:
Generational karma which shackles the soul's potential; inability to break free from family or cultural patterns of dysfunction, such as alcoholism, addiction, depression, violence or hereditary illnesses; loss of individual identity and freedom due to lack of insight regarding familial and cultural influences
I am a full time blogger.
I see and seed setting up a budget
to include reinvigoration a Sacred Food
project within the ALEPH KALLAH
and ongoing for the Jewish People.
I am requesting support through
memberships in the Enchanted Garden Club.
Please Join the Beet Keepers
to support this work, or make
contributions in any amount.
I also want an budget that include
expenses and tuition to attend the
2013 Kallah, as well a a
scholarship I want to give for another
deserving person.
HELPING THE WORLD TO GET BIOSMART
WINTER 2011
HELPING THE WORLD
GET BIO SMART
through using BioSmart
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Made From 100% Natural Sugar Cane.
Bagasse is a by-product of sugar cane
production.
ANTHONY RUSSO BIOSMART
100 % SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING SOLUTIONS
PLEASE VISIT THE NEW BIOSMART SITE.
TELL VENDORS WHO USE STYROFOAM
AND OTHER GREEN PACKAGING PRODUCTD
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PLEASE VISIT THE PLANT YOUR DREAM
PUBLIC WEBSITE TO VIEW STORIES
ABOUT THE SEED DREAMS WE SUPPORT
AND THAT SPONSOR BEET KEEPERS, RETURN! Http://www.plantyourdream.net
FES REMEDIES
more info here
about Joshua Tree Flower Essence Research
for freeing ourselves of generational emotional
enslavements carried in the bioenergetic bloodstream
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