i do not beseech my soul for healing healing is a mask that separates the old from the new and there is nothing that has happened to me that isn’t still happening no i stand (T)here today to beseech my soul for feeling and i wail! (for the unspent hour in the unspent life for spending time … Continue reading “if we are to sing, let us sing to lives of feeling…”
Avinu Malkeinu: Petition for New Loyalities
avinu malkeinu lo/low named and nameless name avinu malkeinu who has looked away avinu malkeinu who does not answer avinu malkeinu who gives charitably but without justice not once in kind avinu malkeinu who did not will not and cannot save us avinu malkeinu who is no father ours or mine your name is as … Continue reading Avinu Malkeinu: Petition for New Loyalities
Devon Opens Toronto Lights4Liberty Migrant Freedom Rally
I spent the hour before Shabbat gathering with transmitters of multi-faith migrant justice at the Lights for Liberty: Toronto, Canada vigil. Though I left shortly after my remarks to light candles and welcome Shabbat, it felt necessary to be there in loving affirmation of the strangers caged in camps across the United States and, too, … Continue reading Devon Opens Toronto Lights4Liberty Migrant Freedom Rally
Devon’s work featured in Bestselling Ben Yehuda Press anthology on new approaches to Jewish healing and grieving
cereus: poem for the New Year
my religion is not outrage but the flower that blooms in the wintertime knowing that all distance and disdain are a passing and that night gives birth to us in the presence of stars.
Finding Creation in Destruction: A Meditation for the Month of Av
Beyond the plot points of collective memory and a seemingly dark, perpetual mourning, Lie wide open spaces beckoning us to enter. Spaces beyond constrictions, Jeremiads. Jerusalem’s crumbling walls. What exists there is unknown and yet, what is known is there are places to be born. Un-made places in and beyond each of us. Waiting to … Continue reading Finding Creation in Destruction: A Meditation for the Month of Av
To Ascend Does Not Mean to Not Speak: Blessing for an Intersectional Hanukkah
To ascend does not mean to not speak Of the dead and the dying And the insidiousness of silence that stamps out women in the realm of the living. And to ascend does not mean to pour oil over the living dead Of anointing our joy over our starvation And the draping of miracles over … Continue reading To Ascend Does Not Mean to Not Speak: Blessing for an Intersectional Hanukkah
Chosen Family Sukkot Seder
This seder is held on the 7th night of Sukkot. All participating guests are called into the kitchen, dining room, community or common room (if using a larger space). The host welcomes everyone and passes out ritual cards with the seder readings on them. Asking all guests to put their hand on a plate or a dish, (s)he/ze invites an individual guest to volunteer to read: O … Continue reading Chosen Family Sukkot Seder
Erev Yom Kippur: Why Do We Fast?
Why do we fast? To pour open To make art To taste the berries. To see what it looks like to put ourselves together again. To empty out the unnecessary parts. To hope beyond fraility. To live with our pain. To find something buried below our skin. The words, "You were meant to live." And … Continue reading Erev Yom Kippur: Why Do We Fast?
Elul: The Shofar
The sound of the shofar calls to us from the realm of ancient longing. Which though seemingly back there. Is actually, here. In the moment we remove the veil of forward and back And decide, instead to face life as is. Yes, all of it. New Moon New Year and mourning. Each of these like … Continue reading Elul: The Shofar
Devon Spier 