This is a guided visualization.
You can read it to yourself or
read it out loud to your congregation
or havurah or other group....
Please get as comfortable as you can in your seat.
Begin to notice your breathing (make a few audible, slow breaths so others present can join you)....
imagine it is a really nice day during sukkot.
You have made a plan to leave your office or place of work or study - to leave that strong office temple which houses your day's efforts and for a few minutes to go sit in a sukkah.
You step away from your desk and head down or over and out into the sunshine.
Walking along you see the sukkah on the side of a building at the top of a hill.
Looking up you notice the branches on top of this sukkah.
Looking down the sides of the sukkah, as you draw closer you marvel at how fragile the structure appears,someone has laced daisies through the lattice as a decoration, they have not yet faded.
As you cross the threshold into the sukkah, the light changes, filtered by the green pine needles on the branches.
It is very quiet and the floor is natural grass.
You see there is a choice of a cushion, a chair, or a mat on the floor.
You sit down in the spot that is just right for you.
A light breeze picks up - and beams of light stream in.
How do you feel?
How is this few minutes different to the time in your worksite?
Do the clients you see have times in the days of their life like this?
How do you know?
What do you feel?
What do you notice?
What do you need?
You gently stand and walk over to the lulav and etrog.
Do you pick up the lulav to examine it first, or the etrog?
Hold one up high, toward the beams of sunlight -
in your spiritual imagination do you shake your lulav and express exasperation at the Source of Life? or wave it in greeting love or appreciation?
Don't worry about what's right, do what you feel.
Hold the lulav up and notice what your body and soul wants you to do with it.........go there, notice what happens.
Breathe.
Now put the lulav down.
Lift up the etrog, inhale its fragrance.
Let that fragrance be a memory for this time in the sukkah as you put it down.
Turn, and head back to work.
(If you read this visualization to a group continue perhaps this way by saying: When I can see your eyes I'll know it is ok to continue as a group.)
Learn more about Jewish holy days
in Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice [2];
Holy Days and Shabbat by
Rabbi Goldie Milgram