Song of The Sea Retreat - Our embodied Passover Story
In March 2019 I filmed my first Retreat. My friend Aliza Rivka asked me to be the videographer for her first Retreat in Dominical, Costa Rica. 13 wonderful women and one man come together during Passover at Danyasa Eco-Retreat. The exploration on how it feels like to leap towards our own personal and collective liberation began!
Together we journeyed through an embodied map of the Passover story as a metaphor for movements within and in our lives. We prayed, we shared, we witnessed, we discovered. In telling the same old story, we wrote some new ones. We danced with the elements, and with each other.
We held the tender places with compassion, and nudged each other into bold expression. We ate the best Passover food EVER (not exaggerating) thanks to kitchen witch Kelsey Kazarian, who nourished us and our culinary tradition with such love, creativity and magic.
We discovered that Costa Rica has Jewish history embedded in secret places like it’s language and lineage. We were supported by ancestors, angels and guides—including Miriam—in powerful ways. We literally circle danced at the sea. And we remembered the wellspring within, the abundance of knowing built-in to our very beingness.
What exactly is the story of Passover about?
Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is one of the Jewish religion’s most sacred and widely observed holidays. In Judaism, Passover commemorates the story of the Israelites’ departure from ancient Egypt, which appears in the Hebrew Bible’s books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, among other texts.
For many years the Israelites live in harmony in the province of Goshen, but as their population grows the Egyptians begin to see them as a threat. After the death of Joseph and his brothers, the story goes, a particularly hostile pharaoh orders their enslavement and the systematic drowning of their firstborn sons in the Nile.
One of these doomed infants is rescued by the pharaoh’s daughter, given the name Moses (meaning “one who is pulled out”) and adopted into the Egyptian royal family. When he reaches adulthood, Moses becomes aware of his true identity and the Egyptians’ brutal treatment of his fellow Hebrews. He kills an Egyptian slave master and escapes to the Sinai Peninsula, where he lives as a humble shepherd for 40 years.
One day, however, Moses receives a command from God to return to Egypt and free his kin from bondage, according to the Hebrew bible. Along with his brother Aaron, Moses approaches the reigning pharaoh (who is unnamed in the biblical version of the story) several times, explaining that the Hebrew God has requested a three-day leave for his people so that they may celebrate a feast in the wilderness.
When the pharaoh refuses, God unleashes 10 plagues on the Egyptians, including turning the Nile River red with blood, diseased livestock, boils, hailstorms and three days of darkness, culminating in the slaying of every firstborn son by an avenging angel. The Israelites, however, mark the doorframes of their homes with lamb’s blood so that the angel of death will recognize and “pass over” each Jewish household.
Terrified of further punishment, the Egyptians convince their ruler to release the Israelites, and Moses quickly leads them out of Egypt. ayAs the Egyptian army approaches the fleeing Jews at the edge of the Red Sea, a miracle occurs: God causes the sea to part, allowing Moses and his followers to cross safely, then closes the passage and drowns the Egyptians.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Jews—now numbering in the hundreds of thousands—then trek through the Sinai desert for 40 tumultuous years before finally reaching their ancestral home in Canaan, later known as the Land of Israel.
How I see it - Transition to Selflove and Unity
My Religion is love. My god is the universe and the divine existence of the whole. I believe in Harmony and the fact that ALL IS ONE. We are one with the Earth, one with the sky, one with the Elements and one with everyone else. We simply are reflections of everything around us.
And still... Since thousands of years we as a human civilisation are stick in war. Mostly those wars are driven out of power, ego, fear and the different patterns of belief. Yes, Religions are mostly the reasons for war.
Which God is the one? Which holy book represent the truth? Who is right? Who is wrong?
In the end it is again a war of Ego. As a result, those who can do nothing for the differences of opinion in the world are those who suffer most. The weak, the poor. Children and families.
The Journey to Self-love
We are all enslaved to ourselves. So this journey of Passover is not just about Moses and the Story of Exodus. It is about finding our truth, the roots of our origins. It is about freeing ourselves from our own slavery. Yes, we are slaves to our habits, our patterns and the stories we constantly tell ourselves to not get out of the comfort zone. What if there is a journey of individual and collective evolution that shows us a path of truth, of unity and responsible interaction with our mother Earth?
Moses wakes up from his royal family status and the abundant palace he lives in to live as a humble sheppart for 40 years. Living in Harmony with the Earth, his mind and the people around him. Today, it might be a bit difficult for most of us to step outside of the stream of modern life and simply become a sheppart in the forrest...
But after this experience I personally began to question myself, my choices, my path. Shining more light into the deepest fears and shadows of self helped me to see my insecurities, my desires and my Ego self from a different perspective.
I decided and everyday decide how I am painting my path. Realising that I a slave to my monkey mind, a slave that is stuck in the old system and the surrounding laws given to us by birth. This story of passover is my story of waking up to my truth, my purpose. The first step of embodying the message of love and unity by believing in myself an independent, strong and divine being.
By loving and trusting in myslef I have seen the world with different eyes as well. I am wittnessing the synchronized awakening story of millions of people all around the world. We are going out there to the streets, raising our voices, joining our hearts.
We are writing history today. You and me. By chosing to love ourselves and loving everyone else. By trusting in our truth and becoming one with the message of unity and love we are collectively freeing us from the old belief and slavery system of humankind. Let us embody this message of transition into a new Era, a new Paradigm and story of Unity together!
Gorgeous photos by Veronique Zork