EFRAT'S MESSAGE

Healing Adam's and Eve's Shame

 

 

Right now, 2004_06_22 I found this detail of a painting on my camera. The grandkids must have photographed one of Dita's photographed paintings, exhibited on my table. Dita Liron, the artist, is my step-daughter. It must have been at the time of my discovery of "Efrat" in the Bible, that she painted this sensual series in orange and red, which touches me deeply...

 

 

Biographical Intro to "EFRAT" Efraim & Efrat Efrat looks at her new-born first niece in her father's arms, yearning...     Anti-Canaanism

 

EFRAT, said Rabbi David of Nahariya, has to do with "bear fruit".
"Yosef called the name of the firstborn; Menashe/He-Who-makes-forget,
meaning; God has made-me-forget all my hardships, all my father's house.
And the name of the second he called: Efraim/ Double-Fruit,
meaning; God has made me bear fruit in the land of my affiction."
[Gn 41: 50-52]
Phillip Ratner's two triumphant Josefs frame Marc Chagall's Josef thrown into the cistern.
[one of the few paintings signed by the author]

 

 

"Megilat" TAMAR and Megilat RUTH Phillip Ratner: Tamar and Yehuda; Ruth and Naomi on Oct.18, 2013 I discovered a video about Ratner's Museum in Beer-sheva. It is too amateurish to let me enjoy it, but I was touched by the music, a Bach-piece on the organ, which I used to play in my youth.

 

 

 

Nakedness

October 18, 2013 I'm a champion in feeling shame, mainly for things I said, that caused people to judge me, or so I projected on them. Only now I grasp, how much shame people feel because of their body and how they are dressed. The first shame I remember: It was in that German village to which we were evacuated March 1944 till Dec.1946. There, of course, was no bathtub, just a kitchen-sink. So my mother bathed us in a vessel, which she filled with water, heated by wood. Then she put us on a table to drie us with a towel. I would not remember this, if not one day someone knocked at the door and came in. My mother didn't sense, feel, fear , that I stood there naked - high on the table. I wanted to die with shame, but, of course, could not say a word. I must have been 6 years old then. A similar scene: I was my 12th birthday and I was invited to visit "Onkel Helmut", a friend of my dead father. He spoiled me with sightseeing (the Heidelberg Schloss) and food ("you must eat bread with fork and knife"), and then suggested that I use his bathroom facilities and take a shower. It was him who showered me, the naked girl. Again, I wanted to disappear with shame, but educated to "never defy a grownup person", I did not say a word. At least, in this case, I told my mother later and she was so angry, that she cut off the relationship with Helmut, who was almost the only "friend" she had in her miserable widow-life. These are just two tiny examples of body-shame. See my devastating shame since the age of 10 -Otmar... But that people's obsession with "looking good" has to do with "shame", this has started to be grasped by me only now! When I now traveled to my children for one day , I was sure, that I was dressed in a way, in which I would like myself , but when I stayed a day longer and had nothing new to dress, I began to hate that dark-red dress and felt judged constantly. Can anything be more ridiculous? So ridiculous, indeed, that I all of a sudden became aware of shame, body-shame which I did not want to feel, i.e. which I did not accept. Is that me, Rachel Bat-Adam , who could have been so unaware???? I'll not judge myself for this! This feeling of shame and the shame about the unawareness of shame "offers me gold-grains to pick" (see 2013 Songs, October Nr. 2) October 19, 2013 More about SHAME [see also today's "Felt Day" 53] The first thing that "came to me from the outside" the next morning, was this passage in a newsletter from [Boris'] "Wander Gatherers" links I liked: video: Clouds are always changing ~~~~ video: Ignite your childlike state of wonder post: Free your boobies - throw away all bras Then, during the next 8 hours, I attracted 3 incidents, that made me aware of my "body-shame": Earlier than ever - a knock at the door - Amit, my landlord's son (8) with a piece of cake for me. I was sitting at the computer, but still in my nightgown! And uncombed. I opened the door, but hid most of my body behind it. Yet he could see my "ugly" hair. How lucky, that I had at least inserted my false teeth already. Later on this Shabbat, a more severe incident let me feel shame-because-of-how-I-look: On my way back from the close desert-stone, on which I read and enjoyed the fantastic view, I met my neighbor Albert in his garden- a long chat about his intention to sell his house . When I crossed the junction, entered my castle, looked into the mirror, shame fell on me: : "How wild looks my hair, I look like a witch !" I need to defend myself even here (!!!): I guarded my hair against the wind, but it didn't help! The third shame was, I'm tempted to say, even "justified". Despite the bra-passage above, for my -new- daily game of choosing clothes I "needed" a bra. Since it squeezed me, while sitting at the computer, I loosened the hooks underneath the dress. Exactly then my landlady came in, bequeathing to me covers of blankets from her mother-in-law, and if this wasn't causing shame enough (Meital is meticulous in "how do I or you look", she wanted to take a phone-picture of me and the bed-ware, with my sound: "Toda, Segal!" With the bra only halfway on my breast, I looked even more "shameful" than without a bra. There is much work to do concerning my self-acceptance, before I can grasp into depth, how body-shame (more than money!) reigns the world!

 

 

Personified Projections

 

 

Caleb ~ Efrat's Man

 

 

 

 

See the motto of my book

 

 

 

I breathe, I move, I sound ~~~ Heaven to Earth