Elul III: Shanah
1.
I have been thinking a lot about cycles lately
about going and returning
about spiralic time
about the way that life is non-linear
no matter how much we try to force it to be
We want to move forward
We want to push ahead
We want to Go
GO
GO!
But we find ourselves returning
again and again
to whatever we thought we had already
come through
The themes of our lives come back to us
We spiral down and back up
In and back Out
Or maybe it’s Out
and back In?
Away to There and then to Here, again,
We return
2.
The year doesn’t Start and End
it cycles through
it repeats
The calendar replicates – only one little number changes
in all the calendar numbers for the whole year.
while the rest are static.
One to thirty.
One to thirty-one.
Over and Over
The calendar barely changes
but we change
We come back to dates we recognize
they are mapped into our memories
and our traumas
our celebrations look forward to them
but because we have been changing
since the last time we came to this date
we find it not the same
we experience it differently
sometimes imperceptibly so
and sometimes in ways we can’t avoid noticing.
The last time I climbed these steps,
I don’t remember my back aching
I don’t think my knee twinged
I was holding someone’s hand and this time
I am climbing alone
or the reverse
The last time I was alone
The last time this was harder
This time something has eased
I notice. I am grateful.
3.
It is Elul and the year is about to
Change
that one tiny, last digit,
which signifies so very much
just a five to a six
just a rounding of the top
a closing of a circle
Yet those small adjustments
wipe the slate clean
if I’ve done the work of the season
and now there is a full year ahead
sparkling with opportunity
the six turning to seven seems impossibly far
a distance I can fill with all my growth and learning
I spiral away from five
toward six
toward newness
toward dates I’ve already traversed 40-plus times
I know their names but not what they hold
That is yet to be discovered
I can’t see around the bend
I can only embrace the path
as time cycles me round again.
Writing Prompt: On the one hand, shanah (Sh.N.H.) indicates a repetition or a cycle. On the other, these same letters are indicative of change. If the perennial issues we encounter in Elul are encapsulated in the aspect of repetition, the annual issues can be found within the side of shanah that is about to change.
