Sinai 5.0 CountUP DAY 5, 4/3 @ secret hot spring i learn 2 count lunar tides, her menses cycle, counting=life.
Secrets revealed this morning on the beach, at a secret sulphur hot spring that only emerges when the ocean tides recede, and only for a few hours for a few days, when the moon is full and when it is new. Jessica goes often. She counts the days, scans the charts and hopes for accuracy. This morning’s window was 8:30-9:30am and we climb down the ravine, an hour north of San Francisco, it’s still cold, the ocean’s waves wild, and the hot spring already half submerged. we missed the window, and can’t go in, but we sit at the water edge, picnic breakfast and talk about the art of counting. the hot spring connected to the waves, and to the moon, and only those who count know to find it. Jessica counts days from when her period starts – when to go to the ritual bath, when she is fertile, counting the clocks within the body. counting matters. she has recently discovered the Jewish complex system of purity and mikves and counting seven days etc. and as we talk about it away from feminist critique we think how old this is, how wise this count, the cycles of seven with the sole purpose of creating life. Same as the seven cycles of seven days, seven weeks leading to Shavuot – the holiday of weeks. Shavuot, in Hebrew, means weeks. We count 50 from Egypt to Sinai, slave to soul, history to mystery but it isn’t really about the destination – it is about the art of counting. climbing up the mountain day by day. now.
today is hod of chesed – the grandeur that is timeless love. just look around and appreciate what already is. my task today – to really say yes to Jessica and get out of bed so damm early and go on this hike, and – the reward! the gift from the sea. and getting to know her better – a grand artist, a new friend. together we plot the Dawn celebration to mark the end of the count.
Then Jessica and I climb up from the hot spring, back up to the road, climbing a mountain, thighs and ankles strain, the ocean is vast below, the sun peeks out.
Day five. Sabbath. Still the week of Passover. I count on the fingers of one hand: five down, forty five to climb.
