What is the nature of a gift? Why do we feel pleasure in the simple act of giving?

On my first day of herb school at Self-Heal School of Herbal Studies and Healing in 2016, I learned something that I will never forget. All healing is self-healing.

We are inherently tender by our very nature of being incarnate upon this Earth. Within our shared human predicament of agreed upon separation—for a time and for the sake of Divine Play—we find ourselves tasked with staying awake to our own suffering and to the suffering of this world, all while keeping our hearts open.

An inner winter provides us with a place to pause and cultivate our creative gifts in service to all of life.

I am sitting in the synagogue I grew up in on Yom Kippur, feeling the crystalline purity of the tradition into which I was born. It is lavender and sky blue and the sound of water and the song of my heart restored to peace.