You are sitting in Dr. Merling’s office waiting – surprised your weight has stayed consistent and your blood pressure is 115/64 which is good, or so you think. No food taken as you assume you will have blood drawn today. Difficult for you to focus on Ezekiel or anything else while waiting on the doctor.
Sometimes I can, but today is not one of those days. Carol wants me to ask about my arthritic toes, which are worse this year, but I never expected them to get better. Joint arthritis from Grandma Schick and toe arthritis from the Orndorff’s. Price of age and gravity I suppose. Just want it to stay away from my fingers. What would I do without my use of fingers on a keyboard. I did have my blood work done at Tri-Health right next door, a short walk along the covered porch to the new office – which with five doctors (from three) and more staff, Montgomery Family Medicine has taken on the look and the feel of a small modern clinic. In 1972 Dr. Thinnis had himself in an office on Montgomery Road in Montgomery, right next to the hilly and windy Sleepy Hollow Road that dropped down into Indian Hill where he and his family lived. I had two of his daughters in my Brit lit class at Indian Hill and his wife volunteered in our English Department. John Jameson joined him in the 1990’s – I had him in Brit lit too, and his younger brother and two sisters. Lois Velander was John’s nurse and I had her and her sister in class too, about the same time as John. John moved his practice in North Carolina in 2001 and Lois stayed on until a couple of years ago when she retired. Montgomery Family Medicine was family. John’s replacement, Jeff Merling, has a good warm personality and is in his early forties but the place is not so close as it used to be as almost all the staff is more and new.
Mid-afternoon. Late leisurely lunch at Chipotle/Panera with a child’s dish of Graeter’s for dessert. Stopped on rainy afternoon at Home Depot for outdoor chair floor protectors, cold enough for long pants and a sweatshirt in addition to beret and sandals, of course.
Late dreary and continued wet afternoon and you are upstairs backing up your computer on your external T drive and thinking about reading the rest of the July/August Discover magazine. However, deeper in the recesses of brain and mind you are thinking about Ezekiel.
I found the names of the shamans in the dance and Meir was from Israel. I don’t have a description but he is male and “Meir” means or meant “Light”.
Let’s look for someone we can use as a base model from online.
While searching I found “Teachings of the Ecokosher Rebbef: Jewish Shamanism” at home.earthlink.net. I never heard of such a thing. The document is 5,350 words with the following bibliography:
Bibliography:
*Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism, by Gershon Winkler (North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA: 2002)
*Meditation and Kabbalah by Aryeh Kaplan (Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, ME:1988)
*Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, translation and commentary by Aryeh Kaplan (Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, ME:1997)
*The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI:1990)
*Kabbalah: New Perspectives, by Moshe Idel (Yale University Press:1988)
*Hasidim: Between Ecstasy and Magic, by Moshe Idel (State University of NY Press: 1995)
*The Crucified Jew, by Dr. David Cohn-Sherbock (William B. Eardmans Publishing Co. in association with American Interfaith Inst. and the World
Alliance of Interfaith Organizations: 1997)
*Witchcraze by Anne Lewellyn Barstow (HarperCollins: 1995)
** **
About time for the national news, boy. Post. – Amorella.
I have marked the information from the above web source to be included in the notes for reference to the Jewish shaman character, Meir. You need authenticity for the realism whether it is well written or not. Here are the selected notes from “Jewish Shamanism”.
** **
1. A Rebbe should be the equivalent Jewish version of what a Native American Indian shaman-medicine person is, a Blesser, a Healer, and a Spiritual Guide.
The Shamanic path is a path of healing, guidance and service. He/she is a person who passes on the TRADITION to the next generations, and offers services to salve the soul of the present generation.
2. Jewish shamanism is as ancient and as rich as most any other shamanic tradition, sharing in common with many of them the belief that all of creation is alive, not just fauna and flora, but that the planets, the stones, the sun and moon, too, are living conscious beings replete with wisdom and soul (e.g. Psalms 8:7-8; 145:10; 148:3-4 and 7-11; Isaiah 55:12; Job 12:7-8; Midrash Heichalot Rabati 24:3).
The second-century Rabbi Me'ir used to call the sun "My brother" (Midrash B'reishis Rabbah 92:6), "All the trees," taught the ancient rabbis, "converse with one another and with all living beings" (Midrash B'reishis Rabbah 13:2). The planets and stars even have their own songs (Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 1, folio 231b).
3. Ask the animals and they shall teach you; and the birds of the sky, and they shall inform you. Or speak to the earth and she shall show you; and the fishes of the sea shall declare to you.
-- Book of Job 12:7-9
The Israelite does not distinguish between a living and a lifeless nature
The Israelites do not acknowledge the distinction between the psychic and the corporeal. Earth and stones are alive, imbued with a soul
-- Israel: Its Life and Culture, by Johannes Pederson [Oxford University Press: 1959], pp. 55 and 479
The physical reality is seen as but an intermediate phase in the ever-spiraling evolution of the fruition of the Creator's imagination or will (Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 3, folio 61b).
4. Jewish shamanism requires the awareness that every human being is comprised of the qualities of every other being on the planet. That we are not made solely in the "Image of God" but just as much in the image of all that surrounds us, stones, plants, animals, the galactic beings, and so on (Midrash HaNe'elam 1:16b; Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 4, folio 118b), that when the Creator is quoted in the Hebrew scriptures as declaring, "Let us make the human in our image" (Genesis 1:26), the Creator was addressing all of what had been created up to that point in the creation story.
This implies that the Creator addressed all of creation before making the human, meaning that in creating the human, the Infinite One incorporated all of the attributes of all the animals and plants and minerals and so on that had been created up to this point. In each of us, then, are the powers of all the creatures of the earth.
-- 17th-century Rabbi Moshe Cordovero in Shi'ur HaKomah, torah, Ch. 4
5. In the original Hebrew, the wording is "In the image of Elo'heem." Elo'heem is the God Name that describes the dynamics of the Creator stirring creation into being. It is therefore a plural word connoting "Forces" or "Powers" (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayyim 5:1).
Thus, to the Jewish shaman the human is comprised of the chaotic whirlwind of Primeval Creation, of the divine forces dancing spirit into matter, matter into form, and form into action (18th-century Rabbi Chayyim of Volozhin in Nefesh HaChayyim, Ch. 1).
Jewish shamanism assigns enormous importance to the four directions, calling them ar'ba ru'chot, or "four winds," also Hebrew for "four spirits," stressing the organic, living nature of the four directions (Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 4, folio 118b).
6. The shaman is most often approached for healing ceremonies, whether for physical or emotional, or spiritual crises. In performing healing rites, the Jewish shaman will first chant various permutations of the Hebrew letters of the Infinity Name of the Creator.
The shaman then becomes an invited sojourner in the realms beyond the par'gawd, or Veil of Illusion, that separates -- in illusion only -- the realm of spirit from the realm of matter. Having transcended the illusory boundaries between the known and the unknown, the fruit and the seed, the shaman invokes the energies channeled by various spirit beings toward the needed healing.
7. The less the life commitment, the less the soul becomes manifested in the body, and the more vulnerable the body then becomes to death, toward which illness is believed to be a momentum (Likutei HaMaHaRaN No. 268).
8. All trees rejoice in God's Resonance. And all plants dance in God's Rejoicing.
-- Midrash Heichalot Rabatti 24:3
How good and how beautiful is it when one is able to hear the song of the grasses.
-- 18th-century Rabbi Nachmon of Breslav, in Likutei HaMaHaRan, p. 306
Shamans often journey to other realms through deep meditation induced through drumming and chanting (Exodus 15:20; 1 Samuel 10:5;
9. The initiation of the shaman requires a meditative journey akin to a Native American "vision quest." The initiate sits for seven days in the wilderness dressed only in the m'il haTsedakah, or Garment of Balance.
This garment is a hooded, sleeveless deerskin decorated with various mystical symbols and God Names. At sundown on the seventh day, the initiate goes to a body of water and chants various prayers and incantations to call forth the spirits who channel the divine energies of creation. If the initiate then sees a reddish glow emerging from the water, the ceremony is successful and complete. If the emerging glow is green, however, the process is incomplete and must be repeated (Sefer HaMalbush vTikun Meel Ha Tsedakah, MS. British Museum, Margoliouth ed. 752, folio 92-93).
10. The recent re-introduction of Jewish shamanism represents a restoration of ancient and early medieval Jewish mystery wisdom harvested from Hebrew and Aramaic texts that reflect thousands of years of scriptural and oral teachings and ceremonies.
This vast body of esoteric knowledge and practice introduces us to myriad parallel as well as alternate realities where herbs wield magical powers over demonic energies (Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 2, folio 80a-b); spirits guard the passageways to underground earth realms (Midrash Heichalot Rabati); spirit-doubles serve as vehicles for shamanic journeying (Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 3, folio 104b); canyon walls encrypt mystical resonances that are awakened through the echo of human and rhythmic sounds (Sefer HaZohar, Vol. 3, folio 168b); lovemaking is the act of unifying Creator with Creation (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 17a and Ketuvot 62a); and good and evil engage one another in a concerted dance of divine mystery (Sefer Yetzirah 6:4; Sefer Ha'Zohar, Vol. 2, folio 69a-b).
** **
The numbering system is my own for your reference. You are genuinely amazed in reading the words. – Amorella.
I have never heard of Jewish Shamanism and here it is, a coincidence that the setting of scene nine is similar to number eight above:
“8. All trees rejoice in God's Resonance. And all plants dance in God's Rejoicing.
-- Midrash Heichalot Rabatti 24:3
How good and how beautiful is it when one is able to hear the song of the grasses.
-- 18th-century Rabbi Nachmon of Breslav, in Likutei HaMaHaRan, p. 306 . . .”
And, in the first two paragraphs of scene nine:
Ezekiel sat contentedly in a lone stretch of meadow surrounded by forearm tall pink and yellow flowers with velvety leaves. Nothing foremost lit on his present winged mindedness.
A gentle breeze uplifted and stirred the colorful petals brightening to a slight westerly bent and he glanced upward to gaze the blue between the puffy white clouds. . . .
. . . He returned his eyes across the flowers wonderful. This fair meadowland is a therapeutic presence for me. I may be resting on the healing breast of Raphael and not to know it. Not to know is a joy unto itself and makes me, at times, as free as the surrounding and passing air I do not breathe.
** **
These incidents happen from time to time and when I am conscious of them I report it in my notes. At times I ‘feel’ the shaman-likeness but I am not Jewish nor am I a shaman. My mind says “coincidence” it almost always says “coincidence”; but now that I see the soul and heart as separate I do not know their responses. Intuition tells me my heart is undecided; but my soul hints that “there is more to this (blog and books) than meets the eye, but much less than you can imagine.”
Well read, orndorff, I agree. Post. – Amorella
That does not mean any of the three ‘parts’ is correct.
You are better off thinking: “I cannot know for sure on any of the three.” Doubt keeps you honest, boy. And, you are an agnostic through and through. – Amorella.
I cannot help what I am.
Not without being honest.
I have no choice here.
We have this in common. - Amorella.
You have spent more time searching through photos and paintings of shaman. You could find no photo or representation of a Jewish shaman. I did see one, and although the representation is a painted statue I like the rawness and unwieldiness in his facial structure. It appears as though a shaman actually created the likeness. Remember we are talking first shamans of perhaps fourteen to eighteen thousand years ago, or longer. This photo will do. - Amorella.
I think the human sized sculpture looks somewhat unreal and the fixed eyes have a madness to them. Weird representation to me.
My call, boy, unless you can come up with something better to meet my tastes. Post. – Amorella.
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