Dear companions in love and justice,
This week, we’ve heard a lot about the blue wave. For good reason!
Now from this vantage point, what might happen if we let the image and imprint of the blue wave transform in our mind's eye — into the "blue marble?” That iconic photograph of Earth from space, our unimaginably precious blue planet, suspended in darkness.
Elections are vitally important. Now, all the more so, our job is to be a life-giving force for ecological possibility, political imagination, and sacred justice on the scale of Blue Marble, where we’re all a part of this story. Where All is the story.
That’s why I’m asking you to make a generous gift to The Shalom Center today.
https://theshalomcenter.org/donate
On election night, we watched maps fill with colors - red and blue, and blue, and blue. And in the days since, more and more mostly blue maps on our screens.
Now imagine what happens when we ease our gaze outward to see that blue map from space. First the county and state lines disappear, then the borders between countries, until the whole Earth comes into view.
Astronauts have a name for what can happen when we see our planet this way: “the overview effect.”
"When you look at the Earth from space, you realize that our planet is a beautiful, interconnected system. We are all in this together."
- Mae Jemison, Space Shuttle astronaut
From that place, where distinctions between red and blue give way to an orb of green-blue-brown-white swirl suspended in black, we ask: How can the blue wave be mayim hayim - living water - to sustain and enliven life? How can it be distributed to quench thirst, water seeds, and irrigate possibility? How can it be like Miriam’s well, endlessly drawing Source for the good of the people?
We zoom in and ask: How can this blue wave grow in its scale of compassion and care and interconnectedness? In its “we’ve got each other?” In its, “we’re not waves, we’re water?” A tent where “we treat all our kids as all our kids” and “love thy neighbor” is practiced and skilled-up. Where the momentous “firsts” can be celebrated and also calibrated - for the histories they came from that both delayed and delivered them.
How can we practice blue wave politics with blue marble consciousness?
Our beloved founder, Reb Arthur Waskow, taught that the sacred Name of God can be heard in the sound of breathing: Yud Hey, Vav Hey. We breathe out what the trees breathe in. They breathe out what we need to live.
Arthur spent his life advancing that insight: into prayer and protest, Jewish holidays and movements for peace and justice. He helped us feel how deeply our lives are bound up with the life of Earth.
Reb Arthur called this the Interbreathing Spirit of Life. Take a breath. We are part of something vast and alive — the blue marble.
Here at The Shalom Center we are carrying that awareness into these times. We bring people together for learning and conversation. We create rituals and public actions that help us meet serious challenges with creativity and living, breathing Jewish wisdom. And this month, a new sacred justice cohort begins, gathering activists, artists and spiritual practitioners from all around North America to learn together and create offerings for our communities.
If you, too, believe that we need to think and feel more deeply, to act with courage, and to find each other along the way, I invite you to support this work.
Please donate generously — today — to help The Shalom Center continue its teaching, gatherings and creative action for transformation at the level of spiritual root.
Thank you for helping The Shalom Center carry this holy work forward.
With gratitude,
Rabbi Nate DeGroot
P.S. Your gift supports The Shalom Center’s work throughout the year. Please give what you can: https://theshalomcenter.org/donate