10 Tishrei: Reflections for the Day of Mourning

Thank you for reading this year’s Earth Etudes for Elul. We hope these musings on teshuvah and the Earth supported your journey into the High Holy Days of 5786. This is the final musing, a reflection for Yom Kippur, the Day of Mourning.

It has been an honor to share the knowledge of so many,
Arielle Sabot

Two years ago on Rosh Hashanah my sixteen year old cat Lucyfur wandered into the woods and never came back. She was an older lady with some health problems, and she decided it was time to say goodbye. We had recently moved to Vermont, and it was there she made her final resting place. 

At first I was in denial. Why would she wander off? Would she come back, or was she injured?

Eventually, it became clear Lucyfur knew what she was doing. She had always been intuitive, talkative, and clear about what she wanted. This was no exception. She had done her reflection and teshuvah for the last time.

Lucyfur first came into my life when I was a lonely college student living in New York City. She was afraid of humans, hesitant to trust, and recovering from her time in the city shelter; I was stressed with school, overwhelmed by the weight of climate change, and finding my way in the world. Six years after our meeting, we had both healed in unthinkable ways. We had returned to our true selves.

Since that High Holy Day season, I’ve come into deeper, and hopefully more right, relationship with the living Earth. I have come to understand what Lucyfur already knew, the land heals itself and others as it has since creation. I learned this through farming the land, meditating with the trees, and conversing with plants during outdoor adventures. The land as our most ancient ancestor knows more than we ever can.

I’d like to return to this, to the innate wisdom of our beginnings. I’d like to watch the trees sway in the breeze and know that they are communicating; I’d like to listen to water rush down the river reminding me that movement will never cease; and I’d like to maintain hope in humanity that even at our lowest lows – when we allow our communal and ancestral trauma to dictate our actions, violently, irreversibly – redemption and teshuvah are possible.

I’m reminded of these possibilities when I see plants growing despite a drought or when the fallen dead wood nourishes the soil of the forest floor. I hear about the possibilities for the future when elders in my community tell me stories about the fights they lost and won to get to where we are. I see the commitment of those around me to bring justice and liberation in spite of a crumbling empire for the sake of humanity and the more-than-human world.

At this midway point in the High Holy Days, on the Day of Mourning, we ask God to write our names in the Book of Life for another year. With the hard work of teshuvah done, we might think we can call it a wrap and move on. But the work never ceases. Let’s continue to investigate and be curious about the ways we walk through the world, the causes to which we commit, and the people and beings we invite to go with us.

Shana tova u’metuka, may you be written in the Book of Life!

Arielle Sabot (they/them) is an outdoor educator, farmer, artist, and community builder based in Boston. They direct Congregation Beth El’s BE OutSpirEd program in Sudbury, MA. Arielle holds a master’s degree in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is certified as a Mindful Outdoor Guide from Kripalu’s School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership.

Arielle organized this year’s Earth Etudes for Elul with guidance from the project’s founder, Rabbi Katy Allen. Many of the photographs featured throughout the month were created by Arielle.