“As I was among the exiles on the River Kevar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.” – Ezekiel.

“So, Ezekiel was standing on the River Kevar. As he was gazing at the water, the seven heavens were opened for him and he saw the Glory of Holiness, along with celestial creatures, ministering angels, bands of angels, seraphs, and angels with sparkling wings, all joined in the heavenly chariot. As they were passing through heaven, Ezekiel saw them reflected in the water. As it is written, “on the River Kever,” the River of Already.”

“Turn around! De you see the angels passing by?”, he was told. Yes, he said, I saw them in the water, in the River Of Already.

This parable is from the Kabbalah, my daily reading in recent weeks (it changes every couple of weeks). I love the parables in the Kabbalah, the ancient and very beautiful writings of Jewish mystics. I am thinking they were written by women, they are so unlike the raging and thunder in most religious dogma. But no one knows who wrote them, they were hidden away in caves and vaults, and are still being deciphered and interpreted.

I think I might once have been a mystic, hidden in a cave writing on his ancient blog, pondering the meaning of the parables the mystics spewed, like pulp romances and mysteries.

I think of them often in the deep woods, I am mesmerized by the idea of the River Of Already. If I sit still, or close my eyes out there, in my cathedral, I can see the celestial creatures, the ministering angels, the bands of angels, seraphs, and angels with sparkling wings, all joined together and streaking across the sky in the heavenly chariot.

Sometimes, I think God opens the seven heavens for me, and gives me the tiniest peek. I see the celestial creatures and sparkling angels rushing by in the woods. I think we all swim in the River of Already, there we can see visions of our own God.

Mysticism and mystical experiences have always been the part of Judaism that i most relate to, I have never connected much to the faith or been comfortable with its dense rituals and angry Old Testament. As a child, I was disturbed by the bloodthirsty and vengeful underpinnings of the Passover and other holidays.

For some, it spoke of liberation and freedom, for me it was suffocating.

But I have always been drawn to the mysticism, it is embedded somewhere deeply inside of me I feel it in the forest. I always feel the most Jewish reading the Kabbalah, not really anywhere else.

There I think about God, and who and what that is. I think God is a very personal thing, every person carries it inside of him or herself, much as people like to think they have found the one and true God and everyone must accept him or her. I have never thought to tell other people who to worship or believed there was only one way.

I don’t feel that God is that clear for me. A nice woman on Facebook was sid that I had not yet accepted Christ as the son of God. Why?, she asked. It is not, I said, a discussion I care to have with a stranger on Facebook. I don’t understand the need of people to have everyone worship what they worship. For me, the Glory of Holiness is our individuality.

But I think about God. In the Kabbalah, God does not threaten or warn, he tells his people “Go to your self, know your self, fulfill yourself.” That was the God of the mystics, he was the creative spark, it was a gift he gave all of us. Of all the creatures of the earth, only human beings can possess the creative spark, only we can seek to be fulfilled.

Fulfillment is God for me, perhaps, something sacred.

Animals accept the boundaries of their lives, they do not seek to be more, better, or something other than what they were meant to be.

We do, I believe, inside of me is a passion to be fulfilled.

Got to yourself. That, I think, is my idea of God, I am swimming in the River Of Already.