Elul is different this year. Granted, it’s different every year as the lunar calendar dictates Jewish time. But Elul is different this year because I’m different.
I confided to my therapist recently how difficult it feels to be contained in a physical body. Everyone always asks how I’m doing, and when one isn’t doing well, how are we meant to respond? “How are you?” people keep asking me. “I’m alive, and this is my corporeal form. That’s what I know for now,” I respond. It’s raw, yes, but perhaps less vulnerable than the layers of truth below it: I’m in pain; I’m afraid; I’m thinking about climate crisis; we’re still in a drought; New England is a climate safe haven, for now; too many people are unsafe in their communities; I can’t move quickly enough to outrun my responsibilities and the work of this world.
My body is my body. It’s an animal body.
My therapist responds, encouraging me to honor my body – it’s not just an animal body as I insist. My body is powerful and capable and the human form is uniquely equipped with consciousness. She’s right, of course. “It’s difficult to be a spiritual being inside a physical form,” she says. She doesn’t mean spiritual as in religious or deeply connected to Spirit, which we both are. She means we are beings made of the same stuff as the soil under our nails, as the wind rustling the leaves, as the stars in the sky, as the sun itself. And how can something so large, so profound, be contained?
So this Elul I am slow. I mimic Heron who stands patiently at the edge of the pond. I embody Hawk who gazes out over the land to take stock. I take notes from Cat who rests often and in many locations. In Elul I allow the greatness of my being to take up space physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
Made in the image of the Divine – the One who cannot be contained. Neither can I. I am a fragment of the universe recycled over millenia, dying and born again. My nefesh, my spirit, is so tender and feels so deeply that sometimes the physical limits of my body are not enough. My being pours out in dreams, on the pages of my sketchbook, in tears welling up in my eyes. I allow myself to overflow beyond my body and invite the Earth and the One to return to me. This is what I know in Elul.
Arielle Sabot (they/them) is a Jewish outdoor educator, farmer, and administrative assistant. Arielle holds a B.A. from NYU in Individualized Studies where they studied how art and religion can educate communities about the climate crisis; they completed their M.A. at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies with a thesis on Jewish ecofeminist philosophy and theology. Arielle is deeply passionate about Jewish spirituality, climate justice, and how the two intersect. In their free time Arielle enjoys creating art, cooking, spending time with friends, swimming in natural bodies of water, and interacting with more-than-human animals.
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beautiful. 3 of my favorites and a new way to think of them: heron, hawk and cat.
September 11, 2026 at 10:42 am