written by Dori Midnight & Randy Furash- Stewart
with Una Aya Osato, Tourmaline, Shoshana Akua Brown, Binya Koatz, Hadar Cohen, Jhos Singer, Satya Zamudio, adrienne maree brown, Morgan Bassichis, Koach Baruch Frazier, Michi Ilona Osato, Dori Midnight, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Nomy Lamm, Chani Nicholas
Editing by Aleksei Wagner
Music by Batya Levine
ABOUT QUEER MORNING BLESSINGS
I am grateful my ancestors thought to create a prayer to bless the transition from sleep into waking – the Birkot haShachar (Blessings of the Dawn). In the Talmud, it is said that sleep is 1/60th of death, and there is an idea that our soul wanders all night while we sleep and is restored to us upon awakening. If you have ever spent time with a toddler you really know that transitions are hard for humans, but many times, we just rush through them or dissociate or pretend they aren’t happening or act out. I know when I start my day with even one moment of acknowledging this tender moment, which is akin to being born again, it blesses the rest of my day. I love this ancestral gift we were given: here is how to greet the dawn and stretch out your limbs in gratitude.
The traditional text is also painful and problematic – full of ableism, chosen-peopleness, and exclusion of femmes, non-binary, and trans people. I am also grateful for the long practice of re-translating, re-working, re-weaving liturgy; I have found it to be a profoundly liberatory practice that helps me remember that I do know how to pray, sometimes I just needs words that burst like pomegranate seeds on my tongue and prayers that are as wide and deep as the ocean.
Last year, while planning Nishmat Shoom high holy day services, my friend and co-leader, Randy Furash-Stewart shared his queer morning blessings with me, which he had written many years earlier for a queer interfaith service. I was so inspired by his beautiful liturgy and asked if I could adapt it and add new blessings; the result is the piece below and shared in the video. (If you are moved to translate it into Hebrew, Ladino, Spanish or any other language, please do, and please share with us!) Each of these names of the Divine is a translation or interpretation based on the attributes of the Divine in Jewish tradition.
In the past many years of doing healing work, a common thread for almost everyone I talk to is a deep longing for a morning practice – something to ground us, hold us, delight us, center us, awaken us to the miracle of life, something that will remind us that we are alive, that being in a body is a gift, that will be a resource for the rest of the day, no matter what we must face. I have also heard a collective moan of disappointment and frustration of the challenge of maintaining a practice- so much self-sabotage! and so much self-criticism when we can’t keep it up! How many of us start our day scrolling through our phone, waking with dread or ambivalence, making circles around the thing that will be actually nourishing and grounding? As someone raised in a religious tradition that is primarily communal (and as an extroverted hermit), I think it is really challenging to maintain solo spiritual practices. Sometimes, we need the rhythm of other bodies in prayer and practice, we need a routine that is held collectively.
And so I was moved to offer this collective morning practice, which you are joyfully invited into. You can be on your phone! You can listen! You can watch! You can follow along! You don’t need to be Jewish! You don’t need to be queer! You can greet the dawn (or whenever you wake up or really whenever you want) and become present to the miracle that is this life, that is YOU, every day, in the company of these beloveds. These are rough times, and more than ever, we need practices that reconnect us with ourselves, with Source and with each other.
QUEER MORNING BLESSINGS / birkot hashachar
Dori Midnight & Randy Furash -Stewart
(caress your eyes)
Blessed are you, AWAKENER, life of all worlds, who removes sleep from my eyes and slumber from my eyelids.
(feel your feet upon the solid ground)
Blessed are you, GENEROUS CREATRIX, who stretches forth the earth upon the waters.
(receive light, take in your surroundings)
Blessed are you, SACRED FLAME, who illuminates and shines upon everyone and everything.
(dust off your shoulders, run your hands across your limbs, touch the fabrics touching you)
Blessed are you, HOLY FASHION DESIGNER, who delights in the way we dress ourselves as altars.
(move from tightness to stretching wide)
Blessed are you, LIBERATION WORKER, who moves us to stretch and expand towards freedom.
(feel yourself)
Blessed are You, DIVINE APPLE ORCHARD, who delights in my delight and is praised by my pleasure.
(touch your heart)
Blessed are you, NAMELESS AND INFINITE, who made us in your image and reminds us that all bodies are sacred and holy.
(place a crown upon your head and lift your chin)
Blessed are You, WINGS OF GOLD, who crowns my people, all people, with splendor.
(Take a breath that fills your whole body, hold it for a moment, and let it out)
Blessed are you, HOLY BREATH, who fills me with this gift every day.
(open your palms in front of you)
Blessed are you, ABUNDANCE, who helps me remember I have everything I need.
(let your body move as it wants to move)
Blessed are you, THE WAY, who meets me where I am.
(close your eyes and rest)
Blessed are you, SOURCE OF LIFE, who I draw on for strength and who reminds me that rest is a sacred act.
(embrace yourself )
Blessed are you, FABULOUS ONE, who loves me just as I am.
(place your hand somewhere that needs extra love)
Blessed are you, WEAVER OF BEING, who shaped the human being with wisdom, making for us all the openings and vessels of the body. It is known that we are miracles and all bodies are miracles.
Blessed are You, YOU OF MANY NAMES, for revealing infinite paths of healing.
