Jewish Meditation and Imagery

I decided to go to this Jewish Meditation thing happening at the Haas Promenade - as the ad sounded nice "Healing after Disengagement: It doesn't matter if you're blue or orange.....religious or secular". This was part of a Meorot/Yakar happening. There were about 12 workshop presenters there and perhaps 10 participants - Reiki, Drama, Acupressure, Art therapy, deep listening or compassionate listening, and Imagery. I went for the Imagery workshop because Tirza - she pronunces her name "Teerzzza" - sounded interested. She does guided imagery which is to be able to get you to wherever it is you want to go. I was totally intrigued. Of course, after she guided us in her imagery, I had the most vivid imagination there. She asked us what we wanted. I said "freedom". She gave us an exercise and at the end we were to imagine ourselves taking a shower bathed in light. I told her I couldn't see my body as I showered only the light. "There! You had your freedom!" She reminded me of the Wizard of Oz at that point - "You wanted a heart, here's your heart!" I became a vase filled with blue light and journeyed to the beginning of time. But the chill in the Jerusalem early evening air made me shiver in the real world.

A storyteller told us that when one dreams of Ishmael, good things happen. This caused one of the "orange" women to look at her friend and remark - within my earshot of course - "she's saying that the father of the Arabs will bring us good luck???" I told her she "could" rephrase that to say - the son of Abraham, which he was and which was probably the reason for bringing in good luck...

Well I've never dreamt of Ishmael, but we did get guided imagery to walk with King David in silence and I imagined him much like Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk....