Summer is always quieter.
I noticed a headline this week that the Barbican Conservatory is giving away hundreds, if not thousands, of cuttings for people to nurture while it closes for much-needed renovations. This news comes alongside reports of Kyiv coming under heavy Russian missile attacks, which killed 13, and, of course, the ongoing opinion pieces regarding the drought, the whiplash of climate change and those who continue to deny it.
We always have to choose where to put our attention, our anguish and our energy.
I hope you are recharging a little and that you can receive the teachings this week on the middah of equanimity and how to cultivate it. The Hebrew term is menuchat hanefesh (מנוחת הנפש), which literally means “calmness of the resting soul.”
The Musar movement teaches that seeking equanimity is about achieving an inner equilibrium that is not easily upset by the ups and downs that are part of life. We cannot insulate ourselves from life’s trials, but we can prepare for them; fostering a calm soul readies us to be the kind of people who can and will pass our life tests. As we learn from Pirkei Avot 5:10:
“One of the seven characteristics of a wise person is that they respond to first things first, and to last things later.”
Choose wisely in these days of Elul what you will attend to.
Shabbat shalom,
Rebecca
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