28 Elul: The Elul Moon by Rabbi Marisa James

For two weeks, the moon slowly fills to fullness, and for two weeks, it slowly exhales again down to newness.

That slow increase and slow decrease feels like a cosmic breath, one deep inhale and exhale to lead us into the season of return, renewal, and repentance.
I love that the cycles of our Jewish liturgical calendar are lunar cycles, that we see the journeys of our year so clearly connected to – and reflected in – nature. 
We also experience cycles, as we humans are also part of the natural world, although it can be easy to forget that sometimes! We have our own cycles, and our own deep breaths as we move through time. 
Elul is a reminder that the journey to a moment of great transition is just as important as the moment of transition itself. 
There’s an excerpt of Marge Piercy’s poem The Seven of Pentacles, about the background, in-between work that goes into growth, that I often read at funerals, another time of profound transition:

         Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
         reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
         This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
         for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
         the planting,
         after the long season of tending and growth, 
         the harvest comes. 
Living as if you liked yourself is one thing; giving yourself time to notice the work of digging and planting is another; and giving grace to the humans around us going through the journey of living in uncertain times can feel even harder. 
It’s so tempting to just think: we just need to get through until the midterms, the next election, until the right person arrives to fix everything that’s broken. 
And in that kind of thinking, what gets less attention is that incredible number of people doing the hard work of digging and planting and weeding, of building networks of support and care every day. We hope we’ll arrive at a destination that feels holy, of course. That one day we’ll celebrate the harvest of a new and more sustainable time. 
But Elul reminds us not to forget the journey, and in fact to honor the journey. 
Elul is a gift of the Jewish calendar for exactly this reason. I try to make time throughout the month to really think: what has my journey been like this year? What successes can we be proud of? What work have I done to heal the earth, in big ways or small? Have I paid enough attention to the beauty of the world we’re trying to save? 
A fresh new year is about to begin. May we inhale it deeply, and find our place in the work of digging and planting the seeds of a healthier world together.