The Scent of a Rose

I love the fact that Judaism has a prayer for everything. A prayer for waking up, a prayer for going to sleep. A prayer for meals and a prayer for drink. A prayer, even for a snack. There are prayers for things, and prayers for feelings, for intangible things like events. And it's wonderful, because those are the times when your soul seems to want to say something, and you just wish you could put the words to it. Judaism has those words. But the odd or paradoxical thing about it is that the moment you go to say them - or at least for me - when I say the prayers, or do some ritual thing like eating an item off a seder plate, I am whelmed, perhaps under-whelmed at not the sacredness of the moment or a mystical feeling (which I might get, say, walking silently in a grove of trees) but rather at an almost banal, profane aspect of the moment. Suddenly, instead of focusing on what's inside, I am focused outside, on word, speech action. Maybe I'm not "doing it right." But I don't know that there is a "right" in Judaism. There is certainly "the way things are done." But ultimately, the way you do it, if you do something consciously, is right. This is the way it is for me. This is my experience. And I don't think it means the moment isn't sacred. Maybe it means that it is.

I just got back from my first Rosh Chodesh women's seder. I was invited by a friend that I met in San Francisco, but it was held in the East Bay, not too far from where I live. So I went, and there were about ten of us. I was thinking about prayer, because I was thinking about sacred space, and the space was sacred. At a few points during the seder, I wondered, what would an outside person, maybe a neighbor standing just outside the window, think, if they heard our mumbling in unison, with candles in front of us. It all seemed like, maybe from the outside, it was some mystical, cultish thing. But from the inside, it was just normal. We were just people, sitting around, with candles, saying things and sharing thoughts, stories, experiences.

The theme of the meeting was Tu B'Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, since that holiday is coming up next weekend. On the table were mandarin oranges, dates, strawberries, cinnamon sticks and a bowl of red rose petals. There were four sections, and at each section we would take in the scent of one of the items. The dates we ate afterward.

The rose petals were beautiful, bright, and velvety, but they had very little scent. Not at all like the rose that seemed to bloom just for me on the day that I left my little house in France. I clipped that rose and took it with me, but then I wished that I had left it. It looked so beautiful on the tree where it was. And of course it didn't bloom "for me." But it seemed to. It seemed to salute me. And when I saw it there, I buried my nose in it's petals and smelled the sweetest scent of rose I've ever smelt.

In the last section of our seder, we read a guided mediation, where we were supposed to be walking somewhere (wherever we went in our imagination), and were distracted by a scent. Then we would turn to see what the thing was giving off the scent, and were told that this was the scent of our soul. We were supposed to interact with it in various ways, and then finally leave the place and continue on our way. We were to first just take it in. Then find out what kind of "nourishment" it needed, and then ask it for a gift.

I was doing the reading, so it was hard to concentrate until I put the paper down and closed my eyes. In a hurry, I jumped right in and found myself on a dirt path in a forest of low trees, maybe pines. they were fairly dark. I was on a larger, gravel path, but a smaller dirt path opened up to my right. And even though I was supposed to be drawn by the scent, I saw first before I smelled that there was a bright red rose on the periphery of my vision. Before I turned, I thought, maybe this is a mistake, it's supposed to be something else. Maybe I'm just thinking of this because we just smelled rose petals. But even so, I decided that if that was the case, this was still what was coming to mind, so I was going to go with it. And the rose was very bright and deep, the color, and its petals still fairly tight, just starting to bloom.

It wasn't very far off the path, and it was growing in a clearing. What did it need? It needed what all plants need. It needed water. So I gave it some water. And it seemed to thank me. Then I realized that behind it was a stone well. The rose was growing right at the edge of it, with two long stems. One had the larger, opening rose, and the other, a little bit below, was a bud, red, but not open yet.

The well was the one that we used to play on in the church yard. I will never forget it. It was low, with a wide lip of stone, and cherubs carved on the outside. It was no longer functioning, and there was only a metal grate covering a gravel bottom on the inside, where we would go in and sit. But once it must have been a working well, because there was a rusted iron pulley above it on a wrought iron arch. My friend T. painted it once in one of his paintings.

In my vision, it was a working well, though. Even though I didn't look in, I knew that it was filled with water. I gave the rose, which was there to represent my "soul" some water, and it gave me the well in return. I didn't even have to ask. It just gave. It knew that was what I needed.

And so, I spent a few moments with the rose, and decided that I didn't want to leave. But after I thought that, I turned and left and walked back out to the main path.

Menses

I think, at first blush, it might appear that the Orthodox convention of not touching a woman during her menses because she is "impure" is a nasty, mysogynistic, patriarchal trope. But that's only looking at it from the man's side.

What about the women? Who asks the woman, do you want to be touched during your period? My feeling is, it may even be a highly reverential convention. In fact, I kind of like the idea. Because if you ask me, I would rather NOT be touched while I'm menstruating.

It is hard to explain some of the things that occur to a woman during her period. Quite possibly, there is no explanation, so it is futile trying. It is more a question of accepting a series of facts - something men find difficult, because they like the idea of having control over their immediate surroundings. The fact that they cannot (and nor can the women) control their periods then probably appears quite frightening for them. And disturbing, given the essential nature of the event.

But an essential fact, at least for me, is that I become quite sensitive at that time. Beforehand, it takes the form of emotional volatility, and after it begins, it becomes a physical sensitivity, wherein I do not want to be touched, because to be touched by anyone amounts to sensory overload, and what I need is sensory deprivation. It's like there is so much going on inside me, that I can't quite understand, and so it is unhelpful for people to try and make it better by putting their hands on me, because that would actually make it worse.

In general, I don't want to be asocial, but those first few days of menstruation almost always cause me to get the sense that I'd like to just crawl into a cave for a few days and not go anywhere.

So in that sense, I think the Biblical injunction for a man not to touch a woman during her period makes sense. MAYBE THE WOMEN DON'T WANT TO BE TOUCHED. But it's hard to get the men to "hands-off" with their hands-on propensities. Therefore psychological reasoning has to be employed. There is almost no way, I am sure, to get a man to not want to touch his wife, and so by calling the whole episode "ritually impure" could quite possibly be the only way.

In our language, the ideas of "impure" and "unclean" have immoral connotations. But I wonder if this is really the case with the original intention of the commandment? Does calling something "unclean" or "impure" necessarily mean that it is evil, or just that it is something that should not be approached or messed with? I vote we should turn the idea around. Because English has obviously corrupted the idea of what this whole process is supposed to mean, I suggest we should call the menses "holy." They should be set apart. But they should be untouchable. Even a woman herself cannot mess with her menses, and so why should she be forced to interact with a man during that time, who understands even less about what is going on with her than she does?

I suggest we elevate the status of menstruating women to almost or nearly a kind of "holy of holies," since it is not only an incomprehensible force of nature, it is also the force of nature that allows human life to continue. It is the sign and the wellspring of human procreation. It is a reminder of the trauma that brings us into life, as well as the end we will eventually meet. It is eternity and death, entwined together, in one bright, crimson flow.

Who could touch that? Who could say, I will have my way over you, in that time? That time is sacred, as it should be. The woman should have every right to wall herself away, and say, hands off me. That is the time when men DON'T get to say what happens. It is when a woman's body says, "This is my time, you will obey the order of my universe." There is no arguing with such a command. Argue at thy peril, I should say.

And if you choose to do otherwise, that's your choice. If there is one thing we have, it is free will. But on my time, and in my life, I have to say, if I could enforce this commandment in my life, I would be grateful for a few days off, and a little bit of time for myself. Everyone needs that once in a while. Just how lucky are we that we have it built in for us?

1-15-09
Taylor M.