Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles

by Rivvy Neshama

  I put the book down to take a swim. Floating on my back to look at clouds John said were cirrus, I considered if deep down, everyone believes in angels, or wants to believe in angels, or, more importantly, wants to meet theirs. I’d like to meet my angel, I thought (wondering if I already had, and it was John). And then this thought just came to me: Maybe I could be the angel for someone else.

  I liked that idea. In fact, I think that’s how it works. We all get to be angels for each other, just by saying the right thing at the right time with the right humor or wisdom. It might be as simple as giving a touch, a hug, or a smile. All we have to do is really listen to people, even those we briefly encounter, and respond openly from our heart. We might never know we were their angel, but we could change their lives.

  The funny thing is, when I’ve taken the time to stop and help strangers, they’ve almost always said in parting “God bless you” and looked at me in a way that made me feel warm and blessed indeed. Perhaps I wasn’t their angel after all, but they were mine.

  RECIPES FOR PARTNERS:

  KEEPING LOVE SACRED

  The love you share with your partner is like electricity. When it’s on, you feel a heightened connection to the world and to spirit. When it’s off and you want to feel it again, you need to first regain your connection to spirit or your higher self. For me, one way back is through prayer or meditation. I pray to see with eyes of love, to forgive, and to stop judging. Or, in meditation, I’ll notice my anger and hurt and let them pass (letting them pass is the hard part, but it’s helpful just to notice).

  My mother always said you have to work at a relationship (she especially said it after my divorce). I never liked the sound of that, but alas, it’s true. It’s a practice to keep love on a higher plane. Here are some ways to return to that space when you find you’re on a descent.

  When wondering “Why did I ever pick this partner?” that’s a good time to remember just why you did: all the things you first loved and admired about them and still love the most. It helps to write these down when you’re feeling very loving—to reread when you’re not!

  This is especially useful for people like me, who tend to forget all the good when the bad times come. Oh right, I think when I read in my list, “John is a very accepting person who always forgives me.” Hmm, I guess I could give him a little slack.

  Go to spiritual events together—retreats, chanting, or a talk by a respected teacher, especially one with a good sense of humor—say, Deepak Chopra. I had no idea how funny this man would be in person since his books are rather ponderous. Yet there he was telling how he and his brother ritually scattered their father’s ashes in the Ganges River and then joking about where he might scatter his brother’s ashes in the future. At his favorite golf course? Or perhaps give them to his nephew so he could finally have his dad in the palm of his hand . . .

  But Deepak wasn’t just funny. His talk lifted us into the realm of higher consciousness and back. It was a cosmic trip that we took together, and like all good trips, it deepened our connection.

  Here’s something we do if we’re feeling distant or if we had a fight and want to get closer. It seems to work best while walking or hiking. We alternate saying things we like or appreciate about each other (with pregnant pauses in between, depending on how far apart we’re feeling). It might start like this:

  “I like your voice.”

  “I like how you are with my family.”

  “I like walking with you.”

  “I appreciate your willingness to do this.”

  On a long walk, you have time to remember many things, enough to bring you back.

  Sometimes it’s enough just to walk together, to see things and feel the wind or sun. It helps change your energy, especially at dawn or dusk, or on warm nights under the stars. If you’re angry, you can talk it through or walk in silence. Either way, it works. There’s something about walking, step by step, that releases your tension into the air.

  Think of your love as a cabbage or rose. I once walked with Ellie through her garden while we discussed the challenges of relationships, specifically our own. “The great thing about gardening,” Ellie said, “is that you cultivate the good. Sometimes you get rid of weeds, but mostly, you cultivate the good. Well, that’s what we need to do with our partners. Focus on the good. And just looking for it will help bring it out.”

  Okay, I saved the best for last. This is my all-time favorite recipe for couples. John and I have followed it for years, and it adds sacredness to our life and love. We do it in bed every night, and it starts with gratefulness. Taking turns, back and forth, we say everything we were grateful for that day—the sunshine returning, good news about Mom’s health, work we got done, whatever.

  When that feels complete, we move on to part two, where we share “Something I loved about you today was . . .” or “I loved you most today when . . .” It can be something really small, especially on days when you’re feeling grim and unloving. But the rule is, you have to say something.

  One night, after a morning row that left us barely speaking, just when I thought there was nothing I loved about John that day or maybe ever, he said, “I loved you when I heard you laughing on the phone with your sister”—and I smiled and loved him most for that.

  EVERYTHING I KNOW

  ABOUT SACRED SEX

  When I took est with Werner Erhard in the ’70s, it was partly because I wanted to raise my consciousness—something the training seemed to promise—and partly because Barry, my estranged husband, had taken it. God forbid his consciousness should be higher than mine!

  The sixty-hour course took place on two weekends, and enlightenment aside, the part I was looking forward to most was when Werner would talk about sex. “He tells you all you need to know,” Barry told me, refusing to say more.

  When the time came, Werner walked to the microphone and announced, “When you’re hot, you’re hot, and when you’re not, you’re not.” So ended his session on sex.

  I feel like that now, writing about sacred sex. When you make love from your heart, sex is sacred. The rest is all details.

  FOR THOSE WHO LIKE DETAILS

  My friend Gail, who wears sexy costumes on Halloween and other occasions, says the best way to make up with your partner is to make love. That’s right. Even when you’re fuming with anger and feel anything but love, there’s something about making love that does just that: It can bring you closer, higher, and back together.

  Why? Because sex is spiritual—powerful and transcendent—and can strengthen your connection to each other and the divine. Ascetics abstain from sex not because it’s profane, but because it’s so sacred. They want to make love with God and cut out the middleman.

  That said, with sacred sex, less could be more. There’s a practice of Orthodox Jews called the Laws of Family Purity. Derived from biblical commandments, these laws require couples to cease having sex during a woman’s menstrual period and for one week after. Then, before making love again, the woman goes to ritual baths called a mikvah and immerses herself in natural waters.

  A mikvah is a spiritual tool, not a physical one. The user must be totally clean before immersion and emerges feeling innocent and renewed. When a woman performs this ritual after menstruation, she says a prayer, asking God to sanctify her marriage and her return to intimacy.

  I used to think that this practice reflected negative feelings about women. I now see its intention to make sex sacred: special and reverent. Judaism, an earthy religion, regards sex as holy, a gift from God.

  But nowhere is sex more revered than in Tantra, a mystical path to Nirvana. Founded on the belief that all is one but divided into polarities, Tantra teaches how to awaken our “Shakti,” our deepest, most powerful energy, as a way to achieve union within, without, and with the divine. Tantra is a way of life, but it’s most known in the West for the practice of tantric sex, one of many ways to reach this state of bliss.

  John and I were introduced to Tantra in Mexico b
y our California-born, Mexican friend Pam. A body healer and teacher of tantric sex, Pam looked the part: Tall, strong, and tanned, she seemed happiest when skinny-dipping or camping out in the jungle.

  Tantra, an ancient tradition, evolved in Hinduism and Buddhism and has roots in Asian countries. But there was something about Mexico that made it perfect for our studies. On hot, sultry afternoons, we sat on Pam’s vine-covered porch, surrounded by the sweet scent of tropical flowers and the salty smell of the ocean, as she showed us exotic drawings and read from esoteric books. In her candlelit room, she led us through meditations and exercises that used the breath, sounds, vibrations, and visualizations to channel our sexual-heart energy. “It’s a way to merge,” Pam said, “with each other and the universe. It’s called the art of conscious loving.”

  We soon discovered that tantric sex can ignite amazing energy and ecstatic lovemaking, and we saw how it could be a ritual for self-transcendence. We also discovered that it’s a path, and like all paths, it takes study, practice, and commitment. Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because we like spontaneity even more than ritual, back home we resumed our simpler, down-home loving.

  Still, some things Pam taught us we now and then do. We might lie spoon-fashion and breathe in sync. Or call each other “beloved.” Or make our bedroom a temple of love by lighting candles, playing music, and reading poetry aloud in bed.

  But in the end, it comes down to this: When you make love from your heart, sex is sacred. The rest is all details.

  TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER

  The more I learn about our world, I sense a kindness at its core. And it seems that all species instinctively know how to take care of each other.

  One spring morning, Paul and Sarah drove John and me to a hospital in Denver where John was to have surgery. Sarah and I sat in the back seat chatting, and I was looking out the window at all the ranches on the way. At one ranch, I spotted a herd of cows with their young calves. It was April, so many babies had just been born.

  “Look!” I exclaimed, pointing them out to Sarah.

  “Do you know about cow nurseries?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, and got ready for one of her wonderful facts. Sarah used to teach immigrant children, so she’s my source of basic knowledge.

  “This is how it works,” she said. “The cows gather all the calves in a group, with one cow in charge to watch over them. And the mother cows take turns being the caretaker. Look sometime when you see all the babies together.”

  I could picture her telling her nine-year-old students this and how they’d go, “Ohhh, that’s nice!”

  Well, I said it too: “Ohhh, Sarah, that’s nice!”

  It helped put me in a good mood for the hospital. Of course, what really helped was sharing the ride with Paul and Sarah, our dear buddies, who kept us laughing and talking all the way there.

  By the time we arrived, I felt calm, even jolly. As we walked through the corridors, I asked directions to this or that and smiled and thanked everyone in my best possible way. And each nurse who helped John was so helpful and friendly that I believed what Sarah says: Most nurses are angels.

  “I feel so relaxed,” I said to John.

  “I’m glad you’re relaxed,” John the patient said. But he was too. Enough to sing me a song as he lay on the table before being wheeled into surgery. It was a Nat King Cole song. About oysters:

  Let there be you,

  Let there be me.

  Let there be oysters

  Under the sea.

  Let there be cuckoos,

  A lark and a dove,

  But first of all, please . . .

  Let there be love.

  Part Six

  * * *

  A NATURE RECIPE

  FROM FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

  Study nature,

  Love nature,

  Stay close to nature,

  It will never fail you.

  —FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

  STUDY NATURE

  In one of many midlife transitions, I decided to become a teacher for inner-city kids. So I enrolled at Bank Street College, where we were taught to study nature the way we’d teach our students: not by reading, but by observing and reflecting. Watch something as it grows or changes, my professor said, like a plant or the moon. I chose the moon. Journal in hand, off I went, moon hunting.

  It’s not always easy to find the moon in Manhattan, but for one month, from the same location, I drew where it was at noon and at different hours in the day and night. I sketched its rise and fall and changing shape, and though I never really fathomed what it all meant, I began to suspect that the earth is indeed moving.

  Then, one night, I woke up from a dream with a visceral sense of our spinning earth, the circling moon, and their amazing, enduring connection. For one moment, I got it, and it was a moment of joy.

  I later saw that joy reflected in my third-grade students when they, too, were led to observe and discover. “Look, Miss Rivvy!” Kalima shouted. “Our bean seed is sprouting!”

  And at the end of the term, they created an album of notes to help me make my next transition: moving to Boulder to live with John. (“Thank you Miss Rivvy for all the good times. I hope you have a nice time with your new life. Love, Willy.”)

  Once ensconced in Boulder, I entered that expansive space you sometimes enter when you’re somewhere new. This led me to attend events I would normally ignore and to join groups I would normally not join—such as the Bioregional Study Group, whose goal was to study our hometown’s ecology and learn how to live sustainably within it. We talked about things like compost, which to me seemed exotic, and I soon made two friends, Alison and Milan, who inspired me with their projects. The one I liked best was this:

  Milan cut out a huge circle of white poster board and taped it to their kitchen wall. They divided the wheel into twelve months, and as the year progressed, they wrote down under each month all the changes they observed: which star was brightest and where it appeared, when they heard the first mourning dove or found violets in spring. They were creating their own almanac, and like the Native Americans, they named each month’s full moon to track the seasons, with names like Wet Snow Moon or Moon of the Ripe Tomatoes.

  But sometimes, the changes we observe can be disturbing. One summer I noted the absence of honeybees and read that pesticides were decimating their species. I missed seeing them and worried what would happen to the flowers and the honey. Then I noticed something I hadn’t before: A backup crew of butterflies, wasps, and smaller bees were busy flitting from flower to flower, drinking nectar, spreading pollen, and keeping the whole thing going. And when I think of that—or the dance between our earth and moon—I think, Whoa, it’s all connected, and it all works out.

  Which makes me sense a perfect wisdom, just watching it unfold.

  My religion consists of a humble admiration

  of the illimitable superior spirit

  who reveals himself in the slight details

  we are able to perceive with

  our frail and feeble mind.

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  LOVE NATURE

  I’ve always loved nature—trees and such—but I grew up in an urban family that was scared of spiders and considered a good outing to be a trip to the diner. It wasn’t until later that my love for nature bloomed.

  There are two ways to love nature. The first is with all your senses. Earth and sun, wind and water—each has an energy we can connect with.

  To feel my connection to the earth, I like to touch it with my hands, or walk barefoot, or lie down on the silky grass, breathe in its smell, and watch the clouds, the way I did when I was seven.

  In summer months, I look for chances to swim in the sea, the warm sun on my face as I flow with the water. And on dark summer nights, I walk out naked on our balcony to feel the cool breeze against my skin.

  A second way to love nature is to protect it. You pick one part you truly care about—the ocean, our wildlife, the bees—and
do what you can to save it. With that intention, our Bioregional Group read the booklet 50 Ways to Help the Planet and began to practice the many ways. I started with number 16, “Brush Without Running,” which advised me to turn off the spigot while brushing my teeth. At first it seemed like no big deal. I mean, even if everyone did it, how much water would be saved? Then the book told me: “Daily savings in the US alone could add up to 1.5 billion gallons.”

  Years later, I still turn off the water when I brush my teeth. It reminds me that I care. And it’s through small acts of caring that we learn to love.

  STAY CLOSE TO NATURE

  Staying close to nature is simple: Get outside and be there. Walk by the river, sit in the park, and watch and listen.

  When I lived in Manhattan, I felt impelled now and then to leave the city and head for the country, where I could hear the birds, smell fresh air, and see the stars that city lights hide.

  We need time spent in nature just as surely as we need food and shelter. It soothes our soul, calms our mind, and can even heal our pain.

  A lifetime ago, when my first marriage fell apart, I received this message in a fortune cookie: There are three great healers: Time, Love, and Nature. Being a strong believer in fortune cookies, I taped it to the fridge, and then I waited for it to prove true.

  I remember days when, frozen with anxiety, I sat outside all morning to feel the sun’s warmth. I remember nights when I cried to the moon and felt only the sky could hold my sorrow. I remember walks through the woods, breathing in the smell of pine trees and feeling my spirit slowly lift.

  Over time, with the love of friends and my children and the power of nature, I began to heal.

  The fortune cookie was right.

  And so was Frank:

  Study nature,

  Love nature,

  Stay close to nature.

  It will never fail you.