Aligning with Grace

I sit in meditation, mindful of all my Jewish friends, commemorating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on this beautiful and sunny fall day... I contemplate my sins - and give intent to cast them away - intending to do so with a ritual of Tashlich by the river, to follow my morning yoga class... I consider all the things within my soul that lay unforgiven. I consider all those that I need to forgive, and all those I need to be forgiven by as well... I even consider forgiving the unforgivable - unspeakable crimes such as those of the Holocaust, and those perpetrated in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, just to note a couple... I consider other examples of genocide and still other unspeakable crimes such as the rape of a child. There are others I do not wish to dwell on... After my class, I head down to the river with cracker crumbs in my pockets and empty them into the river where a swirling legion of tiny tadpoles circle around the crackers. I step into the river in my crocs as car...

I arise early on a very busy day. Part of my morning will be consumed with righting mistakes from my insurance company, which has managed to mess up the billing resulting from all the various medical procedures I underwent this summer. But instead of giving this task my immediate attention, the wonderful fog beckons, and with a cup of coffee in hand, I head down to the river... It is breathtakingly beautiful on this day of Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish Day of Atonement. It is a day set aside for casting off what does not serve, and forgiveness. It is also a day for expiation, and making amends... In the coolness of the morning, I drink in the visual feast of a sky that seamlessly merges with the water, partially cloaked by the density of the fog, and I cannot help but recall the day, three years ago, when I lost myself in the fog on Rosh Hashanah. I launched Grace, my kayak, and paddled into the void - losing myself in its embrace, as the Voice within chanted over and over again, t...