Today Elohim

by Judith Felsen, Ph.D.

Today I spent an hour with You
a treat, a prayer, a meditation
I heard you speak
hum in silence
consonant with the wind
air has a language of its own
the universe, green kingdom
intertwined within and out
all substance of one cell
nature spoke for You, Elohim
messaging the Shema
in truth and experience
we are one/One

in peace


Judith Felsen, Ph.D. is a poetess, Clinical Psychologist, coach, 2nd generation holocaust survivor, hiker, dancer, walker, volunteer, lover of nature, gardens, wilderness, beach, ocean and mountains. Her work addresses issues of recovery, 2nd generation survivors, the natural world, gardens and harvests, life cycle issues, spiritual questing, social issues, community issues and personal requests. Her poems have been published and widely distributed in national and specific publications. She is a New York native and resident of new Hampshire. She frequents Long Beach and lives with her husband and two large rescue dogs at their camp in the White Mountains of N.H. and house near the ocean in Long Beach. She actively studies the mystical and esoteric aspects of Judaism and is a member of the board of the Bethlehem Hebrew Congregation and the Chavurah of Mount Washington Valley. She writes often and offers consultation upon request.

Geologic Love

by Jonathan Billig

What does a glacier say?
Let the mice declare, “striation! striation!”
Geologists and the keepers of the holy names.
Glaciers proclaim hilltops
With impossibly slow song,
Glaciers sing rivers,
Fjords and moraines,
Million-year cycles repeating refrains.

Listen, O children of your own creation,
The cosmos is our body, the cosmos is
Wounded here at home,
Where squirrels lie open in the roadways,
Children of our parkways,
Heavy with oaks but few foxes,
And flowing with rivers of cars.

What is the sound of a glacier not coming?
What is the sound of a glacier of flesh?

Pebbles in my hand
Weighty and cool as the hand of a loved one is warm-
Billions of years,
Nebulas flaring and spreading.
Coagulation in space from a dust cloud of rocks.
Water condensing on turbulent volcanic surface,
Until somewhere in the oceans lived
A smattering of molecules-
The world decided harmony.

Oh rocks whose name is breakdown layer transform,
Oh elements holding my hands up and down,
Oh cosmos, oh God, oh fellow humans,
Will we avert our harsh decree?
How does a human glacier learn to love?

Jonathan Billig is a connection educator, exploring diverse fields as mutually reinforcing play-grounds for who we are and could become. He has worked as an education coordinator for public gardens and synagogues, taught aboard a sailboat and at outdoor education centers, and spearheaded the design of the volunteer program on Mount Monadnock, the most climbed mountain in the United States. He currently works as a consultant in Jewish, outdoor, science, and mindfulness education. He is committed to the ongoing process of seeing and transforming systemic societal injustice, while diligently practicing love of people and the more-than-human world.