Elul - (Setting) Good Intentions
I’ve been told that, as a writer and a teacher, I seldom get to the good part soon enough for the reader or the learner; in my hope to build an idea, I lose the grace and/or the attention of my audience looking for a reason to stay. As an act of teshuvah for the coming year, I hope to share some more practical suggestions for those hoping to ground their psychedelic journeys within the wisdom and practice of our traditions. With the new year approaching, I’d like to offer a practice for setting intentions based on the custom of indicating the Hebrew year (the upcoming year is 5784) with a Biblical verse or phrase whose combined letter value equals that upcoming year number. These phrases, also known as chronograms, can help center our hearts by anchoring us in the temporal and the eternal.
Setting intentions before performing a sacred act is well-established in religious traditions around the world, and seems to have been part of the earliest psychedelic therapeutic protocols developed by Alfred Hubbard and Betty Eisner, and popularized by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in their “translation” of the Tibetan Book of the Dead known as The Psychedelic Experience. In our tradition, intentionality or inner awareness—kavanah—in spiritual practice, is essential, as Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi wrote in his book on Jewish prayer: "Our Jewish path to inner awareness begins with kavanah. Our meditative lives as Jews could not be complete without it, for it is the steering wheel of all inner consciousness work. Our inner search for kavanah might at first be satisfied with a momentary boost of intention. Ultimately, though, we want our kavanah to be transformational. We seek a complete realignment of the soul, a mesirut nefesh — a handing over of the soul to God's work. We wish to become the very intention and kavanah of God."
Chronograms, described above, can help us set an intention for our entire year, to create a ballast for our inner and outer work, guided by our sacred texts. So how do they work? The coming Hebrew year, 5784, is represented by the Hebrew letters תשפ"ד. Because each Hebrew letter has its own numerical value, we can search for verses and phrases within the text of the Torah which also add up to this number. (The number of thousands in the year—currently 5000—is often omitted.) Here is one entire verse which adds up to 784:
לְמוֹלִיךְ עַמּוֹ בַּמִּדְבָּר כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ׃ (תהלים קלו, טז)
To the One who guided their people in the wilderness, whose love is eternal. (Psalms 136:16)
The entirety of Psalm 136 is recited on Shabbat and holidays, and at the end of the Passover seder, as well. Altogether, it is a sweeping mythic digest of sacre Jewish history, starting with the Creation of reality, the deliverance of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery, to their settlement in the land of Israel. For me, this seems to be the scant, quiet moment of private intimacy between the people and Spirit. Being guided, perhaps by something as ethereal as a pillar of smoke, in a desolate, liminal space. This quiet guidance is an act of love, the drive forward in the midst of doubt, unsure of any detail of the destination. This journey could end in a just a few minutes, or stretch generations, and all I know is that I am not alone in it—I am part of a community that is supporting me and counting on my support. It is made up of all kinds of people with their own stories and hopes and sadness. They are strong and scared, kvetchy, crass, and creative, brilliant and befuddled. They are mine.
For 5784, I am setting my intention to hand over my soul to the work of the Holy One, my loving guide and my loving healer, in the name of all of Israel and all of my human siblings. May I engage fully with what the medicine of my life is leading me toward.
What would you intention be for this verse? What light do you see refracted in its 784 faces? How might you work with it all year to bring you to your own island of sanity in this tempest of a world?
May your Elul and New Year bring you to greater loving awareness, always.
Z
(My thanks to Professor Daniel Matt who always sends me an email before Elul reminding me of the next years chronographs. You can see his complete list and use them for your journeys here.)
