Blessing for Rosh Ḥodesh Av, by Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit

Contributor(s):

Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit

Shared on:

22 July 2020 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Rosh Ḥodesh Av (אָב)

Tags:

21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, תחינות teḥinot

Blessing for Rosh Ḥodesh Av

Teach us, Mother Courage,
to weep

Teach us, Brother Honor,
to arrive with open arms

Teach us, sweet inner Wisdom,
         to slow down and see the
         earth crying out
         inside of us

Teach us, Silence,
         not to speak
         not to speak
         not to

Teach us, Love,
         to grow into ourselves
         to grow towards each other
         to do the painful work of unweaving
         so that we may reweave all of it
         all of us
         whole

Teach us too that to weave
we must also be willing to undo
the stitches of pain
to sit with them, tease them open
to sit with them

this year,
   let us look upon the pile of old
gnarled yarn
   that used to be part of us
and not dance around it
   but just sit with it
and listen to it

May our fingers become so tender
and gentle
that we can touch even the most
bruised parts of ourselves
and each other
with love

A blessing for announcing the new moon of Av, for Rosh Ḥodesh Av, and for the whole month. A poem of grieving and gentleness as part of collective liberation.

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Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit

Based in mid-Hudson Valley, New York, Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit is a working artist, peacemaker, and a weaver of blessings (through poem, prayer, and song).

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the mourning woman (Bekah Starr Art)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)

Blessing for Rosh Ḥodesh Av, by Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit

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