Ep 104: Part 3/12, Priestess & Rabbi Sarah Bracha talks Non-Duality, Joy, Oat Lattes & Hot Sex: How to Build a Relationship with God Series

What if God isn’t a bearded sky-dad, but a pulse of presence running in and out through every moment—every heartbreak, every art project, every awkward conversation? In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Bracha Gershuny—freelance rabbi, professional priestess, and all-around mystic renegade—to explore what it really means build a relationship with spirit in a messy, modern world. Sarah speaks to the importance of presence (really another name for God) and drops deep wisdom on listening to your inner voice, navigating religious baggage, and how what you know and love (Sarah refers to these as breadcrumbs and her own include hot sex and oat lattes) can help you find your way. You’ll hear:

-A little Non-Duality 101 (we are literally all in this together)

-How the divine is in the details too (dirt, dishes, dentist appts)

-Why the act of prayer can be the transformation in itself

-How community can replaces OR compliment the idea of God

-Sarah’s “yes and” journey of retaining her Jewish roots and adding her own ideas

-What if spiritual belonging isn’t about belief…but presence?

-How the “way opened” for Sarah (hint: devotion, creativity)

-A bit about the collective consciousness & Jewish Renewal

TRANSCRIPT:

Janelle Orion 0:00

Janelle, struggling to discuss sex and intimacy with your partner, not feeling met, seen or heard in your relationships. I'm Janelle And I'm Andrea. We're two midlife Mavericks sharing our own experiences, messy, AF and no regrets with marriage, divorce, polyamory and pleasure. We've learned that when you're brave enough to figure out what you want and ask for it, with partners, friends, family and most importantly, yourself, you'll feel more alive and free question everything, especially your mother's advice. There's no rom com formula for this. But don't panic. Being alone matters, honey, I can't miss you if you don't leave, what if your breakup could be your breakthrough? Our podcast is for brave hearts. Anyone who seeks or has found the courage to confront their fears and limiting beliefs about breaking societal norms in the spirit of finding their truth.

Andrea Enright 0:54

If you're seeking permission to be brave in your relationships and want to feel less alone along the way we got you,

Janelle Orion 1:07

wow,

Andrea Enright 1:11

where do I go? Like, SB just brought this, like, huge fusion of wisdom to building a relationship with spirit, and I was taking furious notes,

Andrea Enright 1:25

and I feel, after speaking with her, that I have a reframe in how I am looking at my relationship with spirit.

Janelle Orion 1:36

Beautiful so priestess, Rabbi SB, gave so many like nuggets of wisdom and perspectives of how to consider, what is a relationship with God, what it looks like, how to develop one. She brought things from a spiritual lens to a very like human visit, likedyou know, we talk a lot about oat lattes and skinny dipping. And so if you're curious and wondering and unsure of what it would be like to build a relationship with God, I find that this, I think this episode, you'll find interesting and intriguing,

Andrea Enright 2:13

absolutely, regardless of your spiritual path or non spiritual path or religious beliefs like espy just made it accessible and grounded for anyone so brave hearts, yummy.

Janelle Orion 2:33

Hi, brave hearts, I'm Janelle, and welcome to permission to be human.

Andrea Enright 2:38

I'm Andrea, and this is season five, how to build a relationship with God, Spirit, the universe, the divine, whatever you call it. And this

Janelle Orion 2:49

is a exciting new episode that we have. This is our first expert on the topic, if you can say that, but someone who has a lot of experience in this realm. Our guest today is Sarah bracha grizni, also known as Rabbi SB, and she's a professional priestess and freelance Rabbi as a writer, ritualist, musician, healer and teacher. She loves to help people get in touch with deeper parts of themselves by offering holy song and prayer. She's currently teaching a course on the Jewish Wheel of Time. SB, is passionate about universal human rights, cultivating community, and says an occasional sunrise will fill her whole day with magic. Favorites include skinny dipping, hot sex and oat lattes. Welcome. SB, you're my favorite guy to Rabbi. Maybe you might use my favorite rabbi. I don't think I actually have a whole bunch of them.

Andrea Enright 3:49

And SB is also a brave heart. She's been she's listened to the podcast, she's been to our events. She has a little postcard behind her that says, You are a brave heart. So we welcome her as a brave heart as well. So SP, how do you describe your spiritual or religious beliefs? Let's start there.

Sarah Bracha 4:11

Ooh, I like that question. It's first thing on Monday morning. It's a good way to start the week. My spiritual or religious beliefs, my sense is that everything is actually one web of consciousness. And it just so happens that the way that the program is set up, let's say we're not aware of that. We have the sense of individuated being, but we are actually all you know, intimately connected with the source. There is no way for us not to be connected with the source. It is actually all one thing. A teacher of mine said to me one time, it's either non dual or it's not. Janelle, which is kind of a great con. And what he meant was it is non dual, meaning, like, if it's non dual, it's non dual all the time, whether or not we're aware of it being non dual, it is actually non dual. But the way our consciousness is set up, we don't perceive that. And that's that's how we're designed. We're designed to have a sense of individuated consciousness.

Janelle Orion 5:23

Can you actually just do a quick definition of non dual? It's all one or possibly

Sarah Bracha 5:27

zero? I think that probably, I mean, all of this is speculative, but how it seems to me is that, like with binary code, which, as we know, is kind of the basis for a lot of our technology. The universe is probably kind of constantly blipping in and out. 1010 it's going between existence and nothingness, existence and nothingness. And the ability to change the direction we're going actually comes more from going into the nothingness, because it's actually resetting

Andrea Enright 6:00

all the time. So you said that we were, we are all connected to source. So how did you come to know that?

Sarah Bracha 6:09

I guess from being connected to source, it's all speculation. I don't really know. I don't think anyone knows.

Andrea Enright 6:17

Or how did you come to believe it? I'm quite rational.

Sarah Bracha 6:21

Actually, but in some level, it's just what makes sense to me. It is the explanation that has that seems most likely everything is actually, you know, our bodies are constantly recycling. We're taking in other beings. We're pooping it out that's becoming other beings, then becomes other beings. You know, we're not actually separate in any way, breathing oxygen, which is produced by trees and plants. You know, we are all part of the of a cycle of life. And in terms of our consciousness, it seems to me that there's sort of a mainframe of consciousness from which our consciousness is arising. We don't really have independent consciousness. We have a sort of program, as I see it, which which allows our consciousness to present in certain ways. And there are things that we can do, like being really deep meditators, or, like, really good at hot sex, which can, like, put us into different states of awareness. It seems to be that, you know, most, most sort of deep spiritual practitioners come to the conclusion that is actually all one, and that something that we can best describe as love is the motivating force for creation. God wants to know God's self and be known and and so it separates itself into many parts in order to refine itself and have these have these experiences of reunification, which are much more exciting than just being unified all the time. And I also believe that in being, in having this kind of interesting where there's kind of interesting juncture of consciousness, where we have enough to know that what we don't have, we have an amazing power of imagination and limited powers of manifestation, but very strong powers of of speculation, and we have the ability to have suffering. In fact, we're set up, you know, as the first Noble Truth. From a Buddhist perspective, we're set up to experience suffering because we're separated and because, unlike animals, we're aware that we're going to die, and we're aware that pain and loss is going to be part of our reality, and we fear those things. But one thing that's important to say is that, like I think, we're kind of taking one for the divine team in being able to have these experiences of suffering, because in its unified state, like presumably, God is just kind of bliss, and in order to get the kind of full palette, and I guess this kind of intersects with with the existential kink, like there's something enjoyable for spirit to have these experiences of relative ignorance and suffering that it can't get on its own. So I like to think of that existence as that, like taking one for the divine team.

Janelle Orion 9:24

So how

Andrea Enright 9:27

did you first start building a relationship with and let's just, let's define our terms here. What? What do you call this

Sarah Bracha 9:38

spirit or the universe. You could say universe with a hyphen, universe. It's one song. I never thought of

Andrea Enright 9:48

it that way. I love that.

Sarah Bracha 9:50

I find God a problematic term because it is so freighted with connotation, not just that it's very sort of male identified, but. But it's very personified, yeah, it's like this idea of like some basically humanoid, like

Andrea Enright 10:08

a character, character, right? Yeah, like a movie, right?

Sarah Bracha 10:12

Yeah, exactly. And all of our unhappy experiences with religion and spirituality kind of get stuck on to that idea or that picture of what we don't believe the God we don't believe in, in The Artist's Way, which is a big part of my answer to your question. She calls God good orderly direction, which I think she got from 12 step. I'm thinking more generally. So I like that good orderly direction, but I also like to use like, it pronouns about God or the divine. Because, like, it's not really a he or she or they, it's just an it. It just it is it is reality. It is existence. It is beyond existence. It's everything being a nothingness.

Andrea Enright 11:00

I really like that, like removing the persona from it, yeah,

Sarah Bracha 11:03

I mean, I think that's kind of misleading. Maybe we need a persona, and I think it's one of the things that makes Christianity so appealing, is having like a human sized God to relate with. Like, Jesus is a person. I mean, he's also, you know, a bodhisattva, or whatever you want to say. He's like, got a lot of divinity, but he's, like, he's approachably human. And it can be difficult. It's definitely one of the things I've struggled with is like, God is so big. How, how can I relate to that? It's everything. How do I find an approachable face. I don't really know. I think the answer I've come to is it's within me. Like the best place to direct my prayer is inwards. That's my access point. Actually, the kind of the dark heart, the void which is within me, which is in my core, is directly connected to the void at the center of the universe. And I can kind of feel that I can connect into that sense and be like, Oh, yeah. And I find it very relaxing and nourishing.

Andrea Enright 12:09

Do you think that your relationship with yourself then is the same as your relationship with God? Are they one in the same? Are they different? Do they overlap?

Sarah Bracha 12:16

They definitely overlap. But yeah, I think that that I've come to realize it's pretty it's pretty close. It is a specific thing. It's like a specific wavelength within myself, or intention of focus. But yeah, I come more and more to the realization that being in as much health and balance as I can in myself is what allows me to be living, living a divine life. And so many people call the heart like following the heart, like the heart is, or that core, whatever that is, is like, intuitively on, on the path the mind gets in the way the body. The body knows more. The body knows more,

Janelle Orion 13:00

as you were describing that. SB, like, what came up for me? I was like, Oh, it's a yes and right. Like, God is within me and it's bigger than

Sarah Bracha 13:13

Oh, exactly, yeah, there is nothing in me which is not God, but obviously there's plenty in God which is not me.

Andrea Enright 13:20

Yeah, I love that. I love that that's beautiful. You reference like living a divine life. What is? What is living a divine life mean to you? I think

Sarah Bracha 13:29

it's both like being and doing, like, a sense of like, inherent wellness, inherent worth, that I am. All I need to do is show up and be me, and like my joy, my creativity, my connection with people, all those things are God enjoying itself, you know. And also, I think we, we're built to have a sense of desire, to be giving, to be actualizing some sort of purpose that is benefiting, benefiting the environment that we're in. And like, move, I don't know if this is all just very human projection, this idea that a story has had, like a beginning, middle and end, and we're like, in some sort of progress towards something better. But certainly, you know, compassion we're here to cultivate, I think, to cultivate patience and kindness and care for our relations, our human relations, and more than human relations, that

Andrea Enright 14:41

is beautiful, that's a beautiful description of a divine life.

Sarah Bracha 14:45

And everyone's got their own everyone's got their own piece of the puzzle. And it tends to be the case that whatever we actually really love doing is what we're supposed to be doing. So in my case, skinny dipping hot sex and oat lattes. I heard living with that divine life, but also also teaching and writing and leading people in prayer and holding space for ceremony, helping in like powerful, profound life, transitional spaces.

Andrea Enright 15:17

So you mentioned the artist. Way? Can you say a little bit more about that?

Sarah Bracha 15:21

Yeah, so how I got came to begin to have a relationship with God or spirit on my own terms when I was 23 because of an attraction to a boy that I liked who told me he was doing The Artist's Way. I was like, oh, what's the Artist's Way? I'll go. Like, start checking that out. And if you're not familiar, or for any brave hearts out there, not familiar, the artist way was, I think it was written in the 90s by a woman named Julia Cameron, who was a script writer. She was a, she was a an artist herself. And she was, she was in recovery, she was like, deeply in the 12 step world. And she kind of got the inspiration, she got the brainwave just kind of came to her that she needed to create a 12 step program for people to recover their creativity. And then, of course, this became her vastly most successful work. She sold, I mean, hundreds of millions of copies, I'm sure. And yeah, so the book, The Artist's Way is a 12 step program for recovering your creativity for each week a chapter. There are certain consistent practices throughout and certain different practices for each week of the journey. As you're exploring it's simultaneously sort of clearing out the blocks what's getting in the way of your creativity and encouraging you to just start to play and just just just mess around, just do what the things that make you happy. One of the things in there that I really like is she's like, write a list of, like, the art that you think you're supposed to like, and then write a list of the art that you actually like. You know, I love that. Yeah, maybe you're and then look at what it is about the art that you really actually like, if you're if you're obsessed. I realized through that that, like, I love 80s and 90s, like morality, movies like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show, that they have a really deep moral message and but they're done with this kind of lightness of form. They're kind of comedic. And that's something that's really true of my art, that I that I aspire to, is like a sort of lightness and playfulness that actually convey something very deep, but without hitting, you know, without being heavy.

Andrea Enright 17:26

So I think I hear you saying that you should, as a human, you can like whatever you like, whatever speaks to you

Sarah Bracha 17:32

and that and that what you actually like. That's your those, your breadcrumbs through the forest, right? That will lead you where you actually need to go, I love that. Yeah. So pay attention and don't resist what you what you really, what you're really drawn to. That's that's what will that's what will lead you. So through doing The Artist's Way, the first time I've dipped back into it many times, I came to a very clear realization that my relationship with spirit was quite messed up and alienated. And this is, you know, in no small part, because of the things that I was saying before, of like having this very personified character God who was getting in the way of my relationship with actual God, and so that led me to decide, like, oh, I need to, like, heal this. If I'm if I want to be an artist, like, I need to, like, clear up my relationship with God. That basically put me on this path that I've been on ever since there were a few steps along the way. But really, my what's so powerful about the artist. Way for me is, every time I connect to it, like synchronicity just kind of goes and like sky rockets, like stuff just starts, like popping into the field, like with immediately and very powerfully. So through a whole chain of synchronicities, we can relate to that.

Andrea Enright 19:00

But I can, I imagine Janelle can do

Sarah Bracha 19:03

there's, like, a, I think maybe it's a Sufi saying of, like, you take one step towards God and like God runs towards you, you know, opens the way. So I made this decision that, like that, oh, I want to, like, sort this out. And before I knew it, I was living in a intentional Jewish community space on the cutting edge of like emotionally connected, spiritually connected, Judaism, which I had never experienced before growing up Orthodox, modern Orthodox in London. It's very rational. It's not actually very spiritual. I mean, I had a good solid I got some great skills. I have a lot of I'm very grateful, especially having gone on to be a rabbi like that. Upbringing served me very, very well in a lot of ways, like I have a real grounding, but it wasn't like emotionally or spiritually nourishing, but I found myself shortly afterwards, moving to the start. States living in this community of young people who are helping to run a center of which was a place where, like all the great teachers of this stream of Judaism, which is called Jewish renewal, which is like earth based, progressive, ecumenical feminist, and extremely focused on, like, having a personal relationship with spirit. So I found myself living there, and then from there, it was not so long before I was like, oh, yeah, maybe I should go to rabbinical school. Yeah, that's what I should do. I should be a rabbi. That makes sense. So, you know, the way just kind of opened before me when I made that, the way opened before

Andrea Enright 20:37

me. That's just a little good mic drop moment. The way open before you

Sarah Bracha 20:41

the way knows the way. Yeah, exactly the way knows the way knows the way that's all

Andrea Enright 20:45

the way knows the way.

Janelle Orion 20:47

I'm hearing is you touch now on this childhood right that you grew up modern Orthodox Jew that found your way within the same religion, but to aversion that felt more true to your heart. And I think as part of this series, what we're going to be talking to different people of different religion, upbringings, belief systems and all that. And I'm curious about for you is, were you at the age of 23 were you at the point of like, I want to give up being a modern Orthodox Jew? Were you like, at the point of like, I'm done with this? Or were you like, Oh, I'm here and I'm still, like, trudging along because this is what I'm supposed to believe.

Sarah Bracha 21:34

Actually, neither. I was still into it, and I'm still into it. In the last like three years, I've consciously released a lot of my attachment to traditional practice, because I came to a really strong realization that actually, you know, my relationship with Judaism was perhaps getting in the way of my relationship with spirit, and that having any kind of sense of like, my worth, or God's love for me, being conditional on anything is problematic, and I needed to deal with that. And I couldn't deal with that without, like, letting go of these things that I'm supposed to do, or some of them anyway, there's still lots that I do still, you know, I'm attached to, but yeah, all my life it's been actually a very positive I just get a lot from it. From being a religious and observant Jewish person, I get a lot from the calendar in particular, like the particular rhythm of life and celebration. I wrote a whole essay, you can look on my sub stack about why I'm obsessed with the Jewish calendar who put that in the show notes. Oh, nice. Yeah. So there are lots of things that I've just found to be extremely nourishing to me. So I wasn't at the point of giving it up. I was still finding it very meaningful. However, I will say that when I came to this space, I had never encountered Jewish renewal in the UK, and when I found it through this whole chain of synchronicity,

Andrea Enright 23:05

can you just define what that is Jewish renewal? Oh, it's this, like eco

Sarah Bracha 23:09

feminist, earth based, ecumenical stream of Judaism. It was the kind of brain child of a man named Rabbi Zalman schachtermi. He was actually born in Europe just before the war, and his family managed to get out the Second World War. And his family managed to escape the Nazis. And he came to New York in the 40s and grew up very, very orthodox. He was part of the Chabad Lubavitch, a black hat sect of Judaism, which, after the war in the 50s, was extremely small. Now they're like the they're kind of the main sort of missionary. They only mission eyes to Jews. But they're kind of missionary in, like, totally global, quite large presence anyway. Until he was 40 years old, he was like very much in the in the Orthodox stream. He had a wife and six children, and was a congregational rabbi. And then he had a big awakening. He did a, I think he did a master's in theology with Howard Thurman at who's a Christian theologian, black Christian theologian, at Boston University in, I guess, the 60s, early 70s, and he also, I believe, was in Timothy Leary's. He certainly dropped acid with Timothy Leary. I don't know if he was like in his like experimental cohort, but he took it, he took a bunch of acid, and basically had this big awakening that Judaism needed to have a serious update for the modern era, that he wanted to take all the best parts of Hasidism, which is particularly having, like, a deep personal relationship with creator, but update the social forms. It needs to be egalitarian, like men and women have, you know, have to have equal rights. It can't be essentialist. It can't be meaning like it can't be the belief that. Only Judaism is the right part. I discovered it through going to this, to this community where I lived as part of the community of people helping run this renewal retreat center in New York State, and I lived there for a year. So yeah, when I discovered this, when I discovered this form of Judaism, I was relieved, because I had been thinking, oh, I need to create something like this. And then it was like a relief to discover it actually already exists, so I can, like, just join the party that's already happening. So that was one thing I wasn't I wasn't like, I'm done with this, but I was feeling like, we need to move forward. Also, I had never come across a form of Judaism until I found Jewish renewal. I'd never come across a form of Judaism that I preferred to Orthodoxy, like reform? Judaism doesn't really do it for me. There are other, you know, there are other things that are kind of in between orthodoxy and renewal. It just don't really do it for me. So, I mean, Jewish renewal sometimes calls itself Neo Hasidic, so it is sort of very traditional at the same time as being very progressive, which is that suits me, with kind of intersection between the past and the future.

Andrea Enright 26:10

It's really amazing that you found something, a movement that spoke to you, like, that's so fortunate,

Sarah Bracha 26:14

very fortunate, very fortunate. Well, I reached towards God, and that way opened before me. Yeah.

Janelle Orion 26:20

And what I'm hearing when you said, like, oh, it was so great. I could just join the party. What I feel and like one of the reasons I wanted to do this whole season of with this question of building a relationship with God is because of the sense of belonging that comes from that relationship, right? And that relationship is an in for me. This is me speaking about me like it's an individual one, but then also it then gets amplified when expressed in community with others.

Sarah Bracha 26:52

Although Hearing you say that the thought that comes to me is actually, I think religious community can can replace the need for God, because it provides so much belonging.

Andrea Enright 27:04

Oh, interesting. You mean, in a negative way,

Sarah Bracha 27:07

it just is. I mean, from the upbringing that I had, and I mean, maybe you've seen this in the Catholic world too, like you have a huge sense of of connection with something, with other people, with a history and tradition, with a liturgy, with all the all these rituals, you might need God as well, but often because the religion also gives you a very specific like, Oh, this is what God looks like. This is what God wants. This is how you're supposed to talk to God. It can definitely, definitely get in the way of finding, how is, you know, if that's not exactly right for you, it can be in the way of finding how to really connect with God yourself,

Andrea Enright 27:49

yeah, and I would say, just as a generality, based on society today, you know, far few people go, fewer people go to church than did, you know, 5060, years ago, and different communities have replaced that, right? Like people go to meetups, or they go to their yoga class, or they go to the women's circle, and so in a sense, yeah, I see what you mean.

Sarah Bracha 28:13

And we're becoming people who, you know, a whole the way, even the way that we consume information, even in the last 20 years has shifted from like I have this TV channel or radio station that I go to that, you know, compiles my news for me, to being, you know, we have our own algorithm on every platform that we use, and we're the same way about spirituality and religion. Now we want to kind of composite that perfectly fits who we are. It's our yoga class on one day, and our women's circle and another. And I want to start at the weekend. It's not like I'm part I was born into this, or I found it, and like I'm in this community. For most people there, there are people who who are different.

Andrea Enright 28:59

How does having a relationship with spirit, or does it help you find peace amidst amidst the suffering of the world?

Sarah Bracha 29:09

I think it doesn't. I think, if anything, it amplifies my sense of responsibility, if everything was fundamentally meaningless and I'm just here to live my life and then die, that would be one thing. But if I believe that there's some kind of consciousness that cares and that I'm part of it, and I have, you know, I've been born at this time in this body with these particular aptitudes, that I have a responsibility to the to the collective, and it's a very tricky time to be alive, because our knowledge of the world's problems has, you know, gone up. It's now unavoidable, right? You know, like what we're seeing in Gaza, it's not like the worst thing that's ever happened in humanity's history. I'm not saying it's not. Awful. It's really, really awful, but it's being live streamed to us. People in Gaza have cell phones and they have Instagram and so, you know, we are being, we are literally just seeing, seeing it direct and alive in our pockets in a way that we didn't, you know, even with Iraq 20 years ago or Afghanistan, didn't, didn't see that, didn't see that. So, you know, that's just an example. But like, we're, we're so aware of our interconnectedness climate crisis, most of all, we know that we're approaching, we're like, speeding towards the cliff edge. We can see that. We know that, and we don't know what to do about it. We're very aware of the problems and the suffering, and we don't have the solutions, so it's a hard place to be.

Andrea Enright 30:52

Yeah, thank you for acknowledging that. I believe I hear you saying that because there's so much meaning, so much significance. It's really holding your feet to the fire to say, Okay, we better do something

Sarah Bracha 31:04

about this. Yeah, but it's unclear what to do,

Andrea Enright 31:07

yeah, so I think that's, you know, you just said. It does point you in that direction, like, I better do something about this. But how does that manifest for you?

Sarah Bracha 31:17

I think I'm kind of in a middle space with my in my relationship with spirit, like, I'm in process, and I don't think I've reached the place of like, true integration yet. You know, for the last 20 years, I've been working on moving away from the, you know, this unhelpful God character that gets in the way. And I'm moving towards the sense of like, everything I do is me living my divine life, and God is speaking directly to me, and I know exactly what's next all the time, but there's so much constant deconditioning that has to go into really believing that. Like, yeah, God speaks directly to me, and I know exactly what to do, and what I need to do is follow my intuition and follow my bliss and follow my inner prompting? And that's that's it. Because, you know, organized religion, such as dominated our societies for the last, let's say, 3000 years, gets in the way of that. It tells you that the be to be a responsible human, or, you know, on the on God's team, you need to go to this place and say these words and be with these people and do these things. It doesn't say you need to listen to yourself and put yourself in the kind of environments where you can hear yourself more clearly and remove the things that get in the way of you hearing yourself more clearly and then just do that. And you know you could say, this is like a feminine paradigm that it's, it's, comes from within that is like a settling deep into yourself to get the instructions.

Andrea Enright 32:49

How do you think you realize that, oh, wait, I need to go inward, right? Because I think that is a miss. I feel like that could have happened in my life, where I'm just like, Okay, now I'm just going toward this, which is outside of me, and then, you know, at some point I turned inward, but I'm glad I did. But I think there's a chance, a possibility, in our society for people never to do

Sarah Bracha 33:12

that. Yeah, for sure. I think there absolutely is. I think I came to it because I've always been, like, fixated on the question of, like, what am I talking to when I'm trying to pray? Like, where is it? How do I locate it? And at some point I just kind of got the answer in prayer. Like, No, try. Just try directing your attention inwards, rather than being like, where is it out there? Just try that. Try that.

Janelle Orion 33:38

Yeah, I love that. Prayer answered you like you were praying, like, where should I go? And prayer is like, right here, go in. Yeah? Love it.

Sarah Bracha 33:48

And I think that's like, one of the most powerful things about prayer. People debate whether prayer, you know, is anything listening. What's the point? We like prayer transforms us most immediately, like beyond that, there may be more that prayer does. I do. Think we're all in a unified field, so where we put our attention does? Does make changes in the field, but firstly, it changes us when we are the ones who need to hear our prayer.

Andrea Enright 34:17

I love that prayer transforms us. Yeah, this is something that Elizabeth Gilbert talks about. Is like two way prayer within right, just like you ask and then you answer right,

Sarah Bracha 34:28

exactly. Rebs Alma would say, don't hang up the phone too quickly. After you save your piece, get quiet and listen, I love that. Right?

Andrea Enright 34:42

Listen, it is. Listen, listen, for a while, yeah, so does a relationship with spirit, as you've so beautifully described, does it impact your other relationships? And if so, how

Sarah Bracha 34:56

it's hard for me to say, because it just is what it is. I don't know what my life would. Like, with no relationship with spirit. This may not be the answer that you are hoping for, but, like, I think it actually adds to my anxiety or neuroticism, if anything, like, because you know what I was saying before, I feel myself to be like, I'm still working on really believing that whatever I'm doing is enough, and that I'm enough. So if anything, it impacts my relationships, because I carry a sense of like, maybe unworthiness or something that that language doesn't quite resonate, but it's been coming up. It's been various things in my life have been like reflecting back to me that I carry a sense of like, let's call it unworthiness that I'm not even consciously aware of. So yes, it probably does impact my other relationships in not the best way.

Janelle Orion 35:54

Do you then question whether following your joy the things that bring you joy, which is teaching and writing and leading people in in song and prayer is like, whether that's enough, right, or it's supposed to look more, yeah, those

Sarah Bracha 36:11

things feel feel good. I mean, more had the question of like, whether skinny dipping and hot sex and oat lattes are enough. You know, getting my nails done, and it gives me joy every time I look at them. And I like, you know, it's so pretty, it brings me joy. But, you know, shouldn't I actually be giving that money to Gaza, for instance? You know, is it? Is it? What's the, what's the cross benefit analysis of, like, prioritizing myself. You know, we're in this kind of wellness culture, which, you know, has a strong overlap with a certain sort of spiritual bypassing, like all I need to do is drink my green juice and then I'm doing my bit for the universe. Who am I to say whether that's right or wrong? But I, or both, probably both. Most things in my experience are both. And so I do think that teaching, I do feel a sense of like I'm living my purpose when I'm leading ritual or writing or teaching and it's like it's doing the thing. Those are my that's my public offerings, and I also, Janelle, you and I were talking about this socially the other day, like we were raised to be exceptional and to feel that, you know, particularly women, have been excluded from public leadership for for the most part, for many centuries, and just in this past century, it's begun to become a lot more available for women to be in in world changing kind of roles. And so there's this pressure of like, I'm uniquely gifted and have an extraordinary amount of privilege. What am I supposed to be doing with that? I have this extraordinary freedom. I have freedom of expression. I'm living in safety, thank Goddess. What am I going to do with that? I'm sure in all my other lifetimes, I wish that I had a feeling like this and and thought, well, if I, if I had the resources, if I had the possibility, I would put all my energy into into creating a world where everyone has that kind of opportunity to flourish and thrive. And you know, that's what in my, in my deepest knowing like we have to get to a place where human rights really are universally protected. That's what we need as the human family and our only planet, only home. We need to, we need to shift our relationship with completely as a as a mainstream culture. I mean, many people have a great relationship

Andrea Enright 39:09

with the earth. What are we doing? Yeah, yeah. And this sounds like, this begs the question. It's just like, which potentially adds to the pressure.

Sarah Bracha 39:17

Oh, yeah, right.

Andrea Enright 39:19

So what are the rituals and practices in your life, around your relationship to spirit?

Sarah Bracha 39:28

Well, some of it's still the Jewish the traditional Jewish practice, like I live the Jewish calendar, and that provides a lot of grounding, and I study sacred text and teach it. But studying it, I think, is probably, you know, even more sustaining than teaching it. And so those are two big, two big places of like nourishment for me. But I realized recently that a lot of my practice has become very, what's the word like, immersive or like, it's extremely it. Like extremely embodied and interactive. So whether it seems like contact, contact improv, or latihan, which is similarly, it's like a spontaneous movement kind of practice, or CO counseling, which is another, which is a place where you have somebody else's attention and you're encouraged to just like, really be just like or like, authentic relating these kinds of practices, where the practice is to just really be with exactly what's coming up, let it move you, and be interacting with others in a very truthful, spontaneous, present moment kind of way. Those are my deepest practices. But they I mean far more than meditation. I mean, I've heard it said that, like in like sitting meditation, the point is not to stay focused, but rather to, like, return your focus again and again and again. But I find with these practices, I can kind of stick. I have to stay in focus, or it does keep me in focus for like, half an hour or an hour, or however long doing this thing for and it works me. It really works me to, like, stay that present with what's really there and spontaneously arising. So I would say those things, those things, yeah,

Janelle Orion 41:25

that's a beautiful description of how the ritual of the relationship with God as being is actually tied to the presence to like, being present in your body and listening and responding from that place. And then you've added this other piece of doing that in relationship to others, right? Because, in a way, it's like the relationship like it's, if we're coming back to what you said in the beginning, right, if we're all one, right? Then you're, you're interacting with another person being deeply present with their own version of Spirit moving through them, right? And so there's this amplification. And in my experience, like being able to increase our capacity for presence is a, yeah, you said it was, I don't know if you use the word, it wasn't that. It was exhausting, but it works me, yeah, it works you like, right? I can be, you can I kind of like, you can kind of come back and be like, Whoa. Where did I go? Because for that half an hour of movement, of this moving meditation, or in the of the deep listening, I didn't know what you were going to say to respond to that question. And I just, I really appreciated your answers, because they're not, quote, unquote religious, yeah, yeah, right, right. And I think somebody here, so many people hear about, you know, meditating or journaling, and you really went straight to, oh, no, there is actually something deeply ritualistic and spiritual in doing a moving meditation with others.

Sarah Bracha 42:54

Yeah, I think there's something about having somebody else's attention that just keeps me present and being in the body. And I think actually, the another word for God I would use is presence. It is, it is present moment, reality. It is presence. And that's what you know meditation, or whatever is trying to or prayer, for that matter, is trying to get you to, is just being present with what is Wow, because it's there all the time. It's always accessible. We just have to train ourselves to be present with it. Yeah, I think this

Andrea Enright 43:27

is a great reframe. I mean, I can think of now, oh, what are the ways and rituals that help me connect to spirit or build the relationship with spirit? And whereas being in a box, I would have said, Oh, I have a ritual in the morning, oh, there's some meditation, oh, I do some journaling, but really, my rituals and practices that keep me present and connected to spirit is dancing is Simon, disco is choir, is connecting with others really deeply. And that's, that's just a beautiful

Sarah Bracha 44:06

reframe. That's it. That's it. Those are your breadcrumbs, yeah, and

Andrea Enright 44:10

it is playing outside, outside the box, right? It's, it just goes back to letting go of form, like, Oh, it doesn't have to look

Sarah Bracha 44:16

this way, right? I'm realizing that it doesn't have to look the same any two days. I remember speaking with your former housemate, damassa saying, and she was saying, Every day she I also want her practices. And she says, Every day I like to be in devotion to something. It's like the the 12 step they it just has to be bigger than me. Doesn't matter what it is. It just and I let spirit direct me day by day as to what am I in devotion to today? Sometimes it's a tree, but just to be in a relationship with it, it's bigger than you. It's not you, and you're in devotion to it, and you're learning from it

Janelle Orion 44:57

the way you've described. It's helping me see as a priest. Right, as a fellow priestess, that I'm clear that the gift of my medicine that I'm offering to people is my attention and my presence and that I will come out of and I have, over time, as I've been doing this work, increased my ability to hold my presence to multiple hours at a time, right? 345, hours, and I come out and in the session of like, oh, oh, I'm back right, because I have been so deeply attuning my attention to their human body, to their energetic body, to their breath, to a flutter of their eyelashes, like, what? And so I'm so focused in my attention that I know what to say. This is why I call it sacred sexuality, but it is part of my spiritual practice.

Sarah Bracha 45:49

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And actually, I find it very relaxing being very attuned to somebody else, because my mind isn't running. It's not like I know what I'm doing for that time I'm being with somebody else.

Andrea Enright 46:05

Yeah, this is a bit of a relief to me right now, because I have recently associated stress with dropping in deeply with someone, which is amazing. But then I come out and I'm just like, oh shit. Like, you know, I have to go back. I'm back to my life, the reality and the dentist appointment in the car and, you know, the meeting and thinking, Ah, I don't know if that's good, right? Like completely stepping out of it, but I'm not stepping out of life. I'm just stepping into into a different container where I'm very attuned. And that feels very

Sarah Bracha 46:38

good. It sounds like maybe you need some kind of trend. Transitional space, something that helps you move. It sounds like the transition is jarring for you, like Janelle was like, Oh, I'm back, okay. But for you, it's like, oh, out that didn't that transition felt glitchy. So maybe there's something you can build in to get from one to

Andrea Enright 47:01

the other? Yeah, I think

Janelle Orion 47:03

that's a that's a great suggestion, that transition piece, what SP is talking about is actually the critical thing. Because the point, I don't believe, is for us to always be in presence, back to like existence versus non existence. It's like, oh, I'm in this like presence, this god like space. It's my spiritual space, and now I'm back in my human space. But he being human is actually as important and as critical. And so being able to do the dentist in the mountain, in the in the meetings, and all of that is part of the human experience. And so I have got worked on just simply increasing my ability to transition between them. Love it.

Sarah Bracha 47:41

Yes, absolutely, it is all it is all necessary, and it's all divine. And I would say, also, I think it's one of the, you know, the sort of patriarchal model organized religion creates this hierarchy between and that's why, when I say I'm still really working on deconditioning myself and I'm in a mental space with my relationship with spirit, because I'm not fully there yet, but really believing that my oat latte is just as important as my 40 minutes on the cushion. Even though it may be, it may be more important that to create this hierarchy of like when I'm devoted to other people, or like when I'm feeling this kind of expansive state that is more important or more real than when I'm going to the dentist. They're all important. They're all real. Taking care of your vessel is extremely, extremely important. My sense is like, mystically speaking, that the universe is constantly going in and out of existence a lot, I think of our sense of the universe actually is a projection outwards of our experience as humans, like the whole kind of gendering of the universe like that just comes from our experience as mammals that were then projecting outwards that there's like a male part that, like, puts In a seed, which, without which the thing doesn't function. But then isn't like actually building the matter. And there's a female part, which is like the container, which is material. Why call that male and female or masculine and feminine? That's just from our experience as mammals being projected outwards, anyway. So when I say, you know, we're constantly breathing and breathing out, then we have a sense of, like, actually, everything's Breathing in breathing out. The way that our world works is that, you know, pretty much everything sleeps, which is a very interesting part of our design. Like, it's not just humans, like most things have a kind of on setting and an offsetting so maybe we're just like projecting outwards from what from what we observe. But I'm not alone in having a sort of mystical sense that the universe is kind of going in and out of existence, and when it's in the zero, when. As opposed to the one when it's in the offsetting, which is, you know, it's doing it like a billion times a second. Let's say that it's actually in that dark space that there's much more potential for, like remaking it, or like going into the like, what, what does it want to reawaken to be? I heard someone, one of my students in a class I was teaching said something about, like, if God is like a huge you know, as the mainframe of consciousness, there's something that computers do where they're like, defragmenting. They're like, putting everything that just happened into the back, back data stores and just like, what is actually needed for the program to run well right now. So we are, we can actually influence it. We're helping with, like, what is it? What is it putting in the back data stores, and what's its new, updated, refreshed version of itself? Right now, our consciousness, when we come into presence, we are present with, with presence and we, we can attune that through our conscious. You know, our little bit of consciousness is intimately and unavoidably in inseparably connected to consciousness. Big C,

Andrea Enright 51:18

if a brave heart was like, Okay, I want to be, I'd like to be on this path. But like, how, where do I start? Like, how would you suggest someone move toward belief or spirit?

Sarah Bracha 51:28

I think belief and spirit are different. I think drop any idea of belief. Like, belief has to come from your from your personal, direct experience. So if what you want is to cultivate a relationship with spirit, I can't get there's no one size fits all. The thing is to tune into what we you know, what are your breadcrumbs through the forest, and follow them. I would say, having said, there's no one size fits all, I think that for most people, like being outside, being in nature, it's just there's just a lot less interference. So getting into nature, more spending time alone in nature without the phone or the you know, just like being being prepped, like spending time just being available to spirit in whatever way for me, like really expressing my emotions and moving my body, are very helpful. Like we just we're taught to repress so much so when one of my favorite things is working out and the exercise bike in the garage. Because unlike being at the Rec Center, when I start to, like, really hit my edge, I'm completely like, is like, not just to, like, move my body, but like, whatever's coming up, like, I need to, like, I feel my gang and I feel what's like getting in the way of that? Yeah, I make a lot of strange noises while working out.

Janelle Orion 53:11

Is great, yeah, it's great, beautiful. Sometimes I actually feel

Sarah Bracha 53:15

euphoric states. Like, if I push my edge for a consistent period, I'll start feeling like, like, like, real love kind of bubbling from just, like, energy's really moving. Maybe you've got to get rid of what or not get rid but just work with the edge, like, whatever's in the way work, work with it. And another thing I'll say that's been really, really powerful for me, occasionally, I have gone through periods of as a practice of writing to God and letting whatever's true be there. And when I reread in my journal, the last time that I did this, it is really interesting. It kind of moves from like anger and rejection and it just been really pissed off with, what is this? What is this dimension? What are you doing to reverence and awe? Like, I had to move through the anger to get to this. Like, like, then the awe occurred naturally. And a lot of creative and, like, it was beautiful writing too. There was, like, some really, like, just wonderful stuff coming through. But that's me. That's what works for me. Is the exercise bike and making sounds and writing to God, you've got to find what works for you. But I would recommend skinny dipping, hot sex and oat lattes.

Andrea Enright 54:32

Yeah, right, if someone can't get to nature, I'm wondering how you feel about this statement that, oh, people say that when they go into the mountains, they feel closer to God, and they feel closer to spirit, perhaps. And it was suggested to me a while back that, and I believe this part of this is true, that God's always around. We just have to make space for him, right? And we just have trouble making space on our porch, in our kitchen, in our car, right? And so I just want to encourage Bravehearts, who sometimes you can't get away, right? You can't get into nature, you can't go to yoga, like, where can you just make a little space? Would How do you what would you say about that? Yeah, I think

Sarah Bracha 55:16

it comes back to being present. So you might believe that you need half an hour of uninterrupted silence on your cushion. But actually it's just a matter of being present with whatever is, and like watching, like trying to come out of the mind, which is just being distracting and chattering and just you can do it in any moment, coming back into like, it's incredibly pleasurable to breathe in, incredibly pleasurable. And to feel like my body is not in I'm really fortunate, like I'm not in pain. I don't have like, chronic ailments of any kind. That's not true for a lot of people. But even in discomfort or pain, like, just to, like, revel in the sensation, even in, like, crunchy dynamics with the people that we're close to. It's all sensation. It's like the existential King thing, which has been a big I really, I really appreciated her thinking that came into my world, you know, a year ago. I guess all of it is enjoyable, if you can remove your preconceived notions of like, this is good, this is bad, this is spiritual, this is not spiritual.

Andrea Enright 56:25

Yeah, this hurts, this doesn't

Sarah Bracha 56:28

it's like it's sensation and it's stimulation. It's like there's something enjoyable about stimulation. It's well, it's one

Janelle Orion 56:35

of the gifts of the human experience, is a constant stimulation all the things. There's so many different sensations in the world and on our bodies, right? And, yeah,

Andrea Enright 56:45

thank you. Okay, this has been amazing. We could talk for a lot longer, but thank you so much, so much wisdom, just beautifully articulated. SB, thank you. Thank you for being willing to talk, talk and come on.

Sarah Bracha 57:03

Oh, my great pleasure. Okay, let me just tune in and see if there's anything else that like really wants to be shared. Joy is a is a great indicator. And I think it would think it was at the Brave Heart events that I came to one of you, I think, was talking about the difference between happiness and joy, and like that, Joy is much deeper than happy. Like happiness can be kind of superficial or externally created. That joy is, Joy is a really deep spiritual root. And you were saying something to me the other day about joy as a weapon, and in general, people, I think, in this civilization, don't have enough access to joy, which is why we seek, you know, have like, superficial comforts, whatever really brings you joy, whether that sunrise on the mountain or your oat latte or cuddling with your kid or your cat or whatever like that is, that is the way in. So yeah, don't overlook joy. And I'll show one more idea, which is Reb Zalman, who is the granddaddy of Jewish renewal. He talked about feeding the god field, that we shouldn't think that, like, creator is actually, creator is omnipotent. But like, there, there is a system that's running, there's a program that's running, and our our prayers or our joy or our presence. It does matter, like when we sing, when we make gazpacho when we devote what we're doing, when we're in devotion, when we're in devotion to another person, like that all feeds the god field that feeds the power of good in the world and makes it more able to to act. It gives it energy. And I think joy is definitely one of those things that, like, really powerfully feeds the god field. So go with

Andrea Enright 59:07

Thank you. Thank you. SP, thank you brave hearts for listening. And if

Janelle Orion 59:12

you wanted to get a hold of like, if you wanted to hear more of SPs writing or take her course. SP, how do they get a hold of you?

Sarah Bracha 59:19

Well, I assume you wouldn't call the things in the show notes. That's probably the easiest, but yeah, definitely you can subscribe to my writings on sub

Janelle Orion 59:28

stack, and what are they called? What's it called, or how they look you up at

Sarah Bracha 59:32

priestess rabbi, that's my handle on sub stack. Easy to remember. Priestess rabbi, if you're in the boulder area, come to some ceremony, some Shabbat space that I'm hosting, or something else in the community that I'm hosting, the class on the Jewish calendar. You should definitely check out if you're interested in that sort of thing. It's online. We meet for an hour at new moon and at full moon, and we have a bunch of like online opportunities. Use the connection and study in between those polls of the month each month. But yeah, we'll put it in the show notes so you can check it out. Thank you. SP, thanks for having me and your Braveheart crew. I love being a brave heart.

Andrea Enright 1:00:19

Hey, Bravehearts, looking for permission, work with us. Andrea offers permission coaching, and Janelle offers erotic wellness sessions. Follow us on Instagram, meet us in real life at permission to be human workshops in Denver. Subscribe to our newsletter. Do all this and more at our website. Permission to be human. Dot live. You.