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Pondering Prayer



I’ve never been particularly good or disciplined about formal prayer. Growing up in a Reform temple I was founder and song leader of my youth group, so I sang a lot of prayers. I felt the depth of my words when I sang in English, for example, Thou Shalt Love, the v’hafta in English by Debbie Friedman. That song/prayer followed me throughout my life and became kind of a theme song (to where some of my family were like, “enough already with that song!”) But it is hard to let that one go. It is the Shema after all.


I also feel a connection to my ancestors as joy and longing take over me somehow when singing a niggun in Chassidic style, arms raised, twirling my body, singing “lai, lai, lai” in a wordless melody or while chanting a Hebrew prayer.


Now, as an aspiring Adamic woman, I want to know more about how to pray. I know it is key to my awakening to this new level of ecstatic being. But how do I do it exactly?


In related writings to those on this site, it is suggested we place ourselves in a moving torus, a donut-like shape that surrounds our body, spinning, with a dynamic double-sided funnel in the middle. The prayer becomes an all-embodied experience in service of the Divine reunification of The Holy One and His Shekinah. It sounds amazing and I’ve tried it a few times. I’ve gotten a little taste of its power, but it will take practice. I can do it more naturally when I have music on and I am dancing! Can I combine all that? It looks like I can….


“What, from an esoteric Torah perspective, exactly is dance and music? Why does it naturally turn the archetypal Shulamite woman on, along with the women of the world, as she goes “around and around”?


The trick for me, I think, is staying in my body. I’ve had a habit of leaving my body because it was too painful to feel all the criticism and shame I was receiving (which I then turned on myself). I’ve come very far after years of peeling away those troublesome layers, but still, I could be a better loving advocate for myself. Would this be something to put into prayer? I am pretty sure it would be!


And then there is developing the straight light and curved light, the masculine and feminine energies within along with the two parts of Shekinah and having them merge so I can be less fragmented and more energized. Oy, I think this is a next big (and much needed) learning curve showing up!


I have to start somewhere. Dance and song, done consciously as prayer, may be a good place for me to start.


“According to Kabbalah, the secret of dance is that at its essence, it is the dance of the HuG, the expanding straight light of the masculine and the contracting, curved light of the feminine — the hasadim and the gevurot. Coming closer, moving further apart, coming closer, separating again, only to be followed by reunion.”


I’ve certainly been pondering the dance of HuG (hasadim and gevurot) and recognizing those forces in my life more often. The chapter Trance of Dance on this site is really helpful. Reading it, I was reminded of a powerful experience I had years ago during a weekend seminar in my Masters of Transpersonal Psychology degree.

"For eleven minutes, we closed our eyes and danced in silence, witnessed by a partner and paying close attention only to our own inner experience. In my mind, I saw flames rising from the ground, surrounding me with energy. My body moved with devotion and exuberance between the earth and the sky. I felt engulfed in a comforting and powerful force. I was one with my Essence, a powerful, feminine energy connecting earth and sky that I had not known before. My own Wild Woman Within."

Maybe this is prayer, or at least one way I can approach the merging of forces within me that feels really authentic and embodied. I am open and interested to hear more ways that prayer works for you as an aspiring Adamic Woman. Let’s learn together!


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