On this first day of Rosh Hashonah, ushering in the Jewish New Year of 5774, I am profoundly grateful for the life I have had and the promise of a new year to come. I reflect on my path for this year and that which I am called upon to offer. I pray for healing and guidance that I can express my best self in this both blessed and troubled world.
I realize that, out of my own healing, I have been on a path of restoring connection. In the Family Constellation work, my private psychotherapeutic practice, and in my Ministry, I endeavor to restore the breaches that have occurred in individuals, families, tribes and countries. Bert Hellinger tells us that “peace begins in the soul” and in all my work, the goal is soul guidance and consciousness.
Through my own soul connection I have had many wise women as teachers, models and guides. Today I honor them with gratitude for having shown me what I could become. Of the many, the closest have been the following. The first was my dear maternal grandmother, Tillie Bobier. Tillie provided for me the unconditional loving presence that every child needs in order to thrive in life. She modeled health, devotion to spirit, and a trust in the mysteries of the unknown. The second was Marianne Skura who entered my life in my late 20’s at the time of my first adult spiritual awakening. Already in her 80’s, she was my first therapist and gave me a hint of how a woman can exist on her own terms. She was courageous, independent, self-contained and generous in heart and spirit. I wish I had taken the opportunity to ask the right questions that I might have known her better. Third, my second adult spiritual awakening came under the tutelage of Aminah Raheem, founder of Soul Lightening and Process Acupressure. At the age of 80, Aminah continues to inspire.
These three wonderful wise women have demonstrated the beauty, value and contributions available for a woman at later stages of life. Having come of age in the time of the “youth culture”, now that I am approaching the age of 70, I am especially grateful and appreciative of these beautiful, elegant and impassioned women who have demonstrated their gifts and services throughout their long lives. I pray that I too may continue to advance the trails that they have blazed and to forge new ones of my own. I pray, too, to inspire other women that they, too, may express the best of what they may be.