SHVAT 5782 / January 2022
Welcome to the month of Shvat and 2022!
Shvat is the month when life begins to stir deep underground and the trees are dreaming about the blossoms and fruit to come. This month, on the full moon, we observe the holiday of Tu BiShvat, the birthday or new year of the trees.
I want to write about the joy of the growing light, but I am mostly feeling existential weirdness right now. Today, I noticed tiny fingers of crocuses poking up out of the soil, which usually at this time of year is frozen solid and covered in snow. I am often filled with a kind of Aries anticipation and total horny 4 flowers ecstacy at the sight of these green pokey bits, but seeing them in mid-winter in the midst of a pandemic surge – I haven’t quite formed the feelings into words yet, but I know I’m not alone with the dissonant thing that is happening in my heart and body.
I write these missives as love letters, to share some thoughts about the themes for the months, to throw out a little silk line to the web we’re in like the fancy gay aging spider that I am, and to keep myself in a kind of collective rhythm of the seasons with all of you. I love receiving your notes back about what made you cry, what made you laugh, which songs your cats like on the playlists, what rituals you are doing to get by right now. Thank you. Since time is a spiralic mystery/capitalist construct/psychedelic mushroom journey and we’re all like wtf is even happening right now and I’m trying to spend less time on my computer and more time with trees, I’m sharing a remix of some words from last Shvat, some new things, a playlist, and some other little offerings.
As we enter this new moon and this month of Shvat, I’m reaching for all the things that help me stay connected to life, to purpose, to the north star of liberation and healing for everyone. In this moment of unravel, nestled in a wider time field of collapse, I also find it harder to hold onto the practices that steady me, while knowing this is when I need them the most. How do we show up right now? How to start a new year, a new month or even a new day? How do we resource ourselves for the work that is being asked of us?
The deepening and widening and strengthening of networks of collective care is one of the things that keeps me buoyed in this time. When I begin to fall into a pit of despair, overwhelm or fear, touching into these practices and work recenters me, makes me feel my right size and the right amount of vulnerability in the spinning world, and invites me not just back into the present, but connects me to a long history of mutual aid, this bountiful life giving river of collective healing. I find that participating in (or even sometimes just hearing about) radical networks of care gives me real joy, makes me glad to be alive, and helps me love humans again. I’m not just talking about big deal projects, I’m also/especially talking about the life saving magic of friendship, text threads/meal sharing/wisdom webs between sick and disabled folks, networks of care and support for trans asylum seekers, spontaneous minyans and virtual Kaddish calls when a friend dies, people working to get books and resources to incarcerated folks, intergalactic childcare collectives. Holy holy holy, these miracles we make with each other.
For the past year, I’ve been diving into learning more about historical practices of Jewish mutual aid mostly in Europe. I don’t want to romanticize the past or “retroject” as Jessica Rosenberg calls it, but I’m feeling so inspired and moved as I learn about community sick care, burial societies, midwifery practices, and gemach (community lending libraries for ritual objects, furniture, and clothing). These practices were born out of necessity by and for people with little to no structural/state support or care and learning more about them feels particularly salient and poignant in this time of collapse we are living through. I’m collaborating on a workshop to share about some of these ancestral practices that we hope to offer later this year!
Trees are some of the greatest teachers of interdependence and collective care, and really good friends. The Talmudic sages knew this: “All trees converse with one another; all trees converse with humankind. All trees were created for human companionship.” (Breishit Rabbah 13:2) Science sages also says this: trees talk to each other and share resources, creating generous flow from the trees with abundant resources to the saplings or sick trees who are less resourced. Trees speak in the language of sap and sugar, through mycorrhizal networks, sharing underground stories about what they are experiencing (drought, insects, disease) so their tree friends can respond and protect themselves. Trees also teach us about staying connected and respecting each other’s boundaries (here’s more about “crown-shyness”) and all the beautiful ways we can keep each other safe (here’s a video about plant defense).
Jewish tradition is a tree tradition: our cosmology is mapped onto the body of a tree, one of our names for G-d is “Holy Apple Orchard”, and we call the Torah “a Tree of Life.” In the Zohar, G-d is a tree, we are the apples, G-d is also an orchard and we are the trees, They are a horticulturist, and we, the trees. Like trees, we are earth bound being arching towards mystery.
For in truth a person is called “a tree of the field,” as it is written, “the tree of the field is human,” except that the human is an upside-down tree. For a tree’s root is sunk below in the earth, but a person’s root is above, for the soul is their root, and that is from Heaven. And the hands are the branches of the tree, the legs are branches on branches, the body is the trunk. (Netzach Yisrael 8:27)
The deep connection with trees in Jewish imagination may have roots in the worship of Asherah, an ancient Canaanite goddexx. Tree theology sings throughout Jewish tradition – in rabbinic text, folklore, healing practices, and liturgy.
One of the trees I’ve been thinking about a lot is the Alon Bachut, the Weeping Oak, also called the Tree of Lamentation. In Vayetzei, after Yaakov and his family safely arrive in the Land of Canaan, it is written: “Devora, Rivka’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Beit El; so it was named Alon Bachut (The Weeping Oak).” (Breisheet 35:8) Not much is known about Rivka’s nurse, Dvora (not the same Dvora who was a righteous judge who hung out with palm trees) and not much is written about the Weeping Oak, but I think about all the times I’ve cried in the arms of trees, all the ways trees stand as sacred witness, and how much we need public, collective sanctuaries for grieving. Imagine a holy tree we all gather around to weep, a place we can go to name and remember the dead, an orchard of public ritual for collective trauma. I also think about this story of Jakob Silberstein, who hid from the Nazis in a hollowed out stump of a birch tree and survived. I think about the birch forests of Eastern Europe, those luminous trees full of eyes, watching and holding the memory of genocide and trauma. Some even say the souls of the dead rest in these trees, their eyes placed on the trunks of the birch.
This month I plan on orienting to trees, in some way, daily. Practicing even 10 minutes a day of feeling myself as a tree, letting a tree hold me and my grief, talking and listening to the trees, learning about mutual aid and interdependence from trees, freaking out about how they do this miraculous thing of turning light into food, and just simply noticing the exchange of breath between us that keeps us all alive. In a time of so much loss, so much terror, and so much work to do, I’m rooting into radical tree love for deep connection and resource.
Below are more resources- practices, music, & writing for the month of Shvat, and upcoming stuff.
TREE WORK FOR SHVAT
Tree time ~ Be chosen by a tree near you, in a park, on your street, in your yard. Court this tree like you would a lover or friend- bring offerings, listen, spend time together, hold their tree hands, hug them. Feel for where the sap is beginning to flow in you. Lean your back against a tree. Bring some leaves or branches you find into your home and set them on your altar, hold them in your hands. Read about trees and people who love and fight for trees like Wangari Maathai and these QTs from Queer Nature. Go on a virtual trail walk in the forest from your bed or couch.
Breathe with trees ~ Trees breathe our breath, and we breathe theirs. This miraculous exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen literally gives us life. The psalmists say: Kol Haneshema t’halal Yah/Every living thing breathes and praises The One. Spend time simply exchanging breath with a tree and feel how just breathing is a form of praise.
Make a tree essence ~ making essences is a practice of radical intimacy, and one of my favorite ways to connect with a plant. Though many places in the world right now are still in deep winter, one can always make a tree essence. Here are some instructions for making an essence – there is a recording of me talking through essence making at the end.
Tree writing/thinking prompts ~ What am I rooting into? Are my connections mutually nourishing? How do I tend to myself while also staying connected and flexible? What supports do I need to grow and heal? How can my own healing nurture more connection and collective healing? Where do I feel sap flowing?
Tu BiShvat Seder ~ The Kabbalists found inspiration in the tax holiday of Tu Bishvat and dreamed up a decadent fruit-based ritual that moves us through four stages and four elements, represented by drinking different ratios of red and white wine/juice and eating symbolic fruits. You can learn more about creating your own Tu Bishvat seder here; and I imagine there are many online offerings from various communities.
Support ROOTING RESISTANCE in Palestine ~ There is a long, painful history connecting the holiday of Tu B’Shvat with zionism, occupation, and tree planting in Israel/occupied Palestine. Consider donating money to plant a tree in Palestine through Rooting Resistance/Palestine Fair Trade Association or through MECA/Stop the JNF.
HOLY ORCHARD: Jewish tree magic: I’ve been collaborating with artist Sol Yael Weiss on a Jewish tree magic poster series for Tu B’Shvat. The posters are full of beautiful illustrations and writing about 7 sacred Jewish trees. We’ll be sending out more info soon!
TREE SONGS FOR SHVAT : SHVAT PLAYLIST
Some more Tu b’Shvat songs:
- Alabar quiero a Dios (The flowers’ debate) ~ traditional Jewish Moroccan song for Tu BiShvat about flowers debating about how they praise the Divine, sung by Rina Benabu-Benarroch
- Yeranen ~ Iraqi song for Tu B’Shvat
- Di Verbe ~ a sweet Yiddish song about a willow tree
- Tree of Life ~ beautiful chant from Yael Illah
- Khamishar Asar ~ by Balkan Sephardic songwriter/singer Flory Jagoda, about the Yugoslavian tradition of collecting 15 kinds of fruit for Tu BiShvat
- Erez v’Ezov ~ a song about plants (by me!)
Sending love and big tree hugs through the lacy mycorrhizal networks deep below,
Dori
