WE ARE LIKE THE MOON - WE CAN BECOME NEW AGAIN

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The text below and the music
above are both about a Jewish
 ceremony called Birkat Halevana. 

 Debbie Friedman sings the song about

the matter from a Carnegie Hall concert.

It makes interesting background music

for the read.

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From WE PLAN, GOD LAUGHS

by Sherre Hirsch

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"CELEBRATING YOU"

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Each month, Jews host a party for the moon.

The Jewish year is based on a lunar calendar,
 and every month we take note of the passage of time
 through the ritual of Birkat HaLevanah,
the blessing and celebration of the new moon. 
 What is surprising is when this ritual takes place.

You would think we would celebrate the full moon,

the night of romance.  We don't.  Instead we celebrate when

the moon is just a sliver in the sky and hardly noticeable.

Most times we need a flashlight even to see the blessing

on the page.

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We bless the sliver because it expresses our faith in the future.

We are blessing what the moon can become. 
 It is a prayer of hope and belief and renewal. 
 Though we know that each month the moon
will wax and wane, the real purpose of this ceremony

is to remind us that we are like the moon. 

We can become new again.

We can uncover more potential and find even more

of our beauty.  As it says in the prayer,

"Blessed are you, God, who says to the moon each month,

you will be new again just like my children."

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Your potential is unlimited.  Each day, God revels in you.

From the day you were born until the day you die,

God is celebrating you.

God is not celebrating how much money you have made.

God is not celebrating your job title or your house.

God is celebrating each day that you are in his world.

Each day you have the potential to imitate him:

to create, to better, to discover, to build, to repair, and to laugh.

That is God's party, a joyous celebration of each one of

his creatures discovering her or his divine purpose.

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God does not stop celebrating when you are thirteen,

fifty-three, or even ninety-three.  Just like my mom never

stopped celebrating my birthday.  She still makes it a big deal,

even now.  We are God's children.  Just like we celebrate our

children and see all that they can become.  God thinks that our

best selves are always in front of us.  Whether it is your second

birthday or your seventy-second,
 God is hoping you will discover more
 about your incredible soul with each passing year.

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HOPI KACHINAS

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Kachinas are supernatural beings,
who during periods when their dances are held,
are believed to visit the Hopi.
When this season is over,
they withdraw to their homes in the
San Francisco Mountains or elsewhere.

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They are represented in the dances
by men who are masked and painted to
correspond to the traditional conception of
the appearance of each Kachina.
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Small wooden images, carved, painted,
and decorated with feathers, are also used
to represent them.
After the ceremonial dances are held
these dolls are given to the children
to play with.

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From a Santa Fe Railway brochure, 1948

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From the Introduction to Masked Gods by
 Frank Waters
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They began dancing.

Shaking their rattles at the cringing children.
Glaring at the stolid missionary.

Crying at the pipe-chewing trader.
Dancing back and forth before the rapt boy

seeing them for the first time.
No longer man nor beast nor bird,

but embodied forces of earth and sky
swirling across the sea of snow from the

blue montains on the horizon,
shaking this remote and rocky island,

stiring awake the archaic wonder and
mystery and pristine purity of man's

apperception of his cosmic role.
Dancing as gods have always danced before

their people. Masked by the grotesque,

but commanding that comprehension of the heart
which alone recognizes the beauty within. .
Suddenly it was over.
"Humph!" muttered Bruce, the trader. "Let's go."
The boy silently followed him down the trail

to the wagon. The missionary mounted his grey nag.

They plodded homeward to the trading post

and Bruce put on a pot of coffee.

The missionary stood in front of a shelf

looking at a row of small figures carved out of
cottonwood and painted to resemble the dancers.
"Idols," he said disapprovingly, new to the country.
"Dolls!" muttered Bruce tersely.
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The boy still held his tongue.

This was the first time he had
ever seen a kachina dance, and it still

held him in a strange spell he

could not shake off.
"You say these carved wooden idols

or dolls are called kachina,"
persisted the missionary.

"But you called those masked dancers kachinas too.
Now I can understand that all these images

represent a pagan anthropomorphic
god called Kachina.

But when an ethnologist tells me

the spirits of the dead, of mountains, clouds,

trees, and animals are all kachina,
I'm confused. I simply don't understand."
"Why the the hell should you?"

demanded Bruce, gruffly.
I don't know anything about Indians,

even after forty years."
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The remarks about the kachinas

were confusing to the boy.
It did not matter. For, as years of comprehension

slowly crept upon him, he began to understand.

Life is a mystery play. It's players are cosmic principles
wearing the mortal masks of mountain and man.

We have only to lift the masks which cloak us

to find at last the immortal gods who

walk in our image across the stage.

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JEWISH RENEWAL BY IMMERSION

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Meditations Before Entering Mikveh

Now, as I immerse myself. I begin a new cycle,
a cycle of rebirth and renewal
of Your world and Your people Israel.
I prepare for my new life
and for the sanctification of that life
through the ritual of immersion.

Our mothers Rebecca and Rachel were betrothed and began new lives
at the gently flowing water of the well.
Our mother Yocheved gave life to her child Moses
in the ever-flowing waters of the Nile.
Our sister Miriam danced for the saving of lives
beside the overflowing water of the Sea of Reeds.

Water is God's gift to living souls,
to cleanse us, to purify us,
to sustain and renew us.

As Moses and Aaron and the priests of Israel
washed with cleansing waters before attending to God's service at the altar,
so I now cleanse myself -- before your altar of sanctification.

I am now prepared to link my life with the life of the people of Israel,
and with the God of Israel,
to become a partner in sharing the joys of Jewish living,
to learn and to celebrate the rhythms of a Jewish life.
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From beliefnet.com

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