When the same word floats up from the most disparate-seeming characters. My yoga teacher. My poetry mentor. A black hat rabbi. The list would be disparate enough without Baudelaire \u2013 but the dark prince poet was at the forefront in demanding we slough off our lazy habits that inure us to precision and keep us from paying \u2013 drum roll please \u2013 Attention! Attention \u2013 the practice my yoga teacher, poetry mentor and rabbi insist we devote ourselves to rather than allow slothful addiction to routine to cloud perception of what is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason I think about it is that this weekend: Shofar! The curly ram\u2019s horn provocateur is regularly blown on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. One prayer: May the cry of the shofar chatter our complacency. Another: May the cry elicit the response, hineini, I\u2019m in the moment. As Maimonides said, \u201cAwake, O you sleepers, awake from your sleep! O you slumberers, awake from your slumber.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there\u2019s the fact that this Saturday, the shofar took a Shabbat rest; the routine that breaks routine was broken. The rabbi compared us to attendees to John Cage\u2019s 4:33, walking into the hall expecting a blast \u2013 and instead we hear silence.\u00a0Or non-silence: coughs, shoes, heavy breath, pulse of the universe.\u00a0\u00a0Dereglement of the senses.\u00a0\u00a0Music\/life in the white space.\u00a0\u00a0Or rather, music\/life is the white space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the same word floats up from the most disparate-seeming characters. My yoga teacher. My poetry mentor. A black hat rabbi. The list would be disparate enough without Baudelaire \u2013 but the dark prince poet was at the forefront in demanding … Continue reading