Sometimes we just slow down and stop. And that’s it. We’re done. That’s what happened today at Funston, heading back from the cliffside trail. This woman’s dogs were going just nuts as she tried to protect one between her legs who was just plain done. It was like she was paralyzed there, not paying attention…
Author: mira
Mira Z. Amiras is Professor of Comparative Religious Studies and founder of the Middle East Studies Program at San Jose State University. She is past-president of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, and has served on the Executive Council of the American Anthropological Association. She is co-founder, with Ovid Jacob, of Beit Malkhut, a study group in Jewish sacred text. She's most attached to the creatures of her body and her household — first and foremost, her kids, of course: Michael and Rayna — and then the other folks large and small of various species, including Roshi and Vlad, a whole lot of hummingbirds, the old parrot who lives next door, and a beautiful garden that does what it will.
a kaddish for Caprica
Something was bound to go wrong on the Tzaddik’s first Yahrtzeit. It was a day I had hoped to bring my mother to the cemetery for the first time — for she herself had been too gravely ill to understand at the time that he had actually died. In the next room. In her house….
a kaddish for eichmann
Has anyone ever said kaddish for Eichmann? I had this argument tonight. Rh insisted that someone somewhere has mourned him. But that’s not what I meant. I did not mean just a Mourner’s Prayer. I meant a real live authentic kaddish. Maybe even with a minyan. And my thought was no. That it was very…
kaddish in two-part harmony
I’ve been challenged to a kaddish a day — for an entire year. That year starts today, right now in fact. On this very line. I’m not sure this is a healthy thing to do, but maybe it’s exactly the right way to work it through. Bibbo tells me of the baths his babalawo prescribes….
what is it about musicians?
I was at the bookstore at the airport, and you know how much selection they have there, don’t you. Close to nothing at all. Couldn’t believe I was traveling without a book in my bag. But then again, the whole point of the trip was to go collect books, so it also made sense not…
war stories
We were holding kabbalah study group tonight at Beit Malkhut, and I don’t know how it came up. But you know how study groups go — one topic leads to another. We started with the Kaddish — the Mourner’s Prayer — since all of us had something to mourn, and it was time to explore…
yahrtzeit for the tzaddik
Do I still get to cry? The first year ends, and I’ve been living the dying over and over. Actually, it all started two years ago with her. And I just couldn’t get over it, and then, wham — the tzaddik is ill, the tzaddik is terminal, the tzaddik is gone. I think it’s time…
misunderstanding pessimism: a manifesto of sorts
The NYT has run a number of articles lately on optimism and pessimism, including one entitled, “Is your Dog an Optimist or a Pessimist.” Which was an incredibly depressing article. Another, which ran today (but disappeared before I could find it again) spent a lot of time explaining why optimists live longer. Go figure. Actually,…
missing her as I do — new orleans revisited
Maybe I don’t have any right to miss her as I do. Maybe the missing is reserved for what people conventionally call ‘family.’ For kin related by blood or marriage. And I am neither. She is ‘family’ in that other sense. The sense of what we call family. My home was her home. Her home…
zipping through the life cycle — a sufi parable
Nothing like your firstborn’s wedding to put the reality principle front and center, life cycle-wise. Ten seconds ago I was giving birth. Ten seconds from now I’ll be under a pile of dirt, or small particles blowing in the wind. Pop! We appear. Poof! We’re gone. This, says Tylor (that would be Sir Edward) is…