Sirûş. Revelation.

Rabbi Shim’on son of Rabbi Yehotsadak asked Rabbi Shemu’el son of Nahman, “How did the blessed Holy One create the light?” He replied, “He wrapped Himself in a white tallit, and the world shone from His light.” He said this to him in a whisper. [Rabbi Shim’on] said, “Isn’t that stated explicitly in the Bible: Wrapped in light like a cloak (Psalms 104:2)? [I’m surprised that you whispered it.]” [Rabbi Shemu’el] replied, “ As I received it in a whisper, so I told it to you in a whisper. ” The Book of Splendor, Sefer Ha Zohar, Daniel Matt (trans.) Image: Eduardo Klingman, Abrazo Is there anything we learn, really learn, outside of personal relationship? I am not sure. I know that we can memorize and apply information from abstractions, to a certain degree. But I am not sure we can fully learn anything at a cellular level, in the depths of the psyche, without a sense of belonging to knowledge, of having community with it, of relating to it. I am not sure at all. The other options make me s...

 This blog is a neglected space in my life and I am considering reinventing it, taking it considerably further than just reflections on ethnography. In part, I need to do that because I am no longer mainly an ethnographer by profession, in the academy, but a student of social and clinical psychology who also has a practice as a systemic constellation facilitator. I am a scholar-healer, which is what my calling has always been. What has been on this blog so far really belongs to a past era, in many ways, although I do intend to bring forward these ways of knowing, in so far as they are actually practicable and helpful in the world of the psyche, the soul, and human life as it is lived. I don't express that to denigrate theory in any way. I just cannot remain as fixedly in that place as I have in the past, which has kept me completely stuck and feeling stuck under very difficult circumstances in which it was very important for me to find my way in a world bigger than the academy. Muc...