à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Acceptance
Of this Daughter and “Son of Saul”
I am beginning to conclude that the past is always present. On January 11th I received a Facebook message from the mother of the Hungarian family that hosted me as a college student. “If possible,” she wrote in Hungarian, “go see ‘Son of Saul’. It just won a Golden Globe.” I Googled it. Learning that the film takes place at Auschwitz, … Continue reading
Prelude to My Essay on Hevria
Mine is a complicated if not convoluted soul. Sometimes it reveals a side of itself that has been hidden so long I’ve forgotten about it, or assumed it no longer existed. In recent years, I’ve experimented with further loosening my already weak and ambivalent ties to Judaism, my birth religion, whose wisdom teachings and sacred chanting … Continue reading
Watching Soccer Through a Feldenkrais Frame
If I think of achievement principally, I find that some part of myself is always left out. – Moshe Feldenkrais, Amherst Training If Moshe Feldenkrais hadn’t nearly destroyed his knee in a soccer match as a young man, or if he had chosen risky surgery to repair it, he wouldn’t have developed his groundbreaking method that allowed him … Continue reading
Feldenkrais: Less is More (More or Less)
At my recent training segment, we did an Awareness Through Movement lesson that felt familiar. I asked Paul Rubin, the Educational Director, the source of the lesson. He told me and mentioned that he had taught it a year ago, before I joined the San Francisco program. Still, it’s likely that I did this lesson at … Continue reading
Speeding Ticket as Spiritual Teacher
The other day, while driving along the Massachusetts Turnpike at the tail end of a 1,900+ mile trip, I passed a dark grey car parked in the breakdown lane. Within a few moments, that same vehicle pulled alongside me to the left, blue lights flashing. Oh, crap! I thought. My shoulders sagged. I slowed down, pulled over, stopped. … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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