à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Starting Over
Bringing Passover Consciousness to a Dojo and Finding More Freedom
Perhaps the desire to turn everything inside out and upside down, like religious Jews who remove every last crumb of hametz before Passover, is in my DNA. The impulse still arises even though, as an adult, I have never followed Jewish law impeccably around any holiday. Having wandered from Jewish observance, preferring to focus on essence rather than form, I wasn’t sure … Continue reading
Lost and Found
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. – Henry David Thoreau While walking in the woods in February, I spotted a few pairs of eye glasses propped on trail markers and, in one case, fancifully placed atop a huge mushroom. I snapped photos and wondered if their owners would spot them on subsequent … Continue reading
Do Cars Have Souls? Cars and Karma, Revisited
My family of origin has a habit of driving cars until the final death rattle, even patched together with duct tape. When, a few years ago, a brother asked me if I was still driving the same car, I found the question odd. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to get a different vehicle simply because I … Continue reading
CHECK ENGINE: Of Cars, Karma, Gurus and Rabbis
[Dear Readers: This is a long essay. The narrative is not linear, it contains at least one four letter word, references to sexual scandal (not mine), and cars! It’s not the usual fare. Happy New Year!]. When I lived in Colorado, my Subaru Forrester’s check engine light went on intermittently, for days or weeks, before switching … Continue reading
Three Questions for Readers
As the calendar year comes to an end, I’m reviewing my blog and contemplating new directions and emphases for it and my writing generally. Without readers such as you, writing is shouting into the wind, so I’m very grateful that your eyeballs are perusing this post, whether it’s the first you’ve seen, the fifth or the fiftieth. I’d … Continue reading
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