A Divine Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was an unusual birthday for several reasons. To begin with, it was a Saturday, and I was born on a Saturday. Also, this birthday occurred at a time of major life changes, so I had a feeling of being reborn on my birthday. Along with the sense of birth came the vulnerable feelings of the baby I once was, a tiny premature infant in an incubator.

And this rebirth was midwifed by so many wonderful beings! Over thirty of my closest friends gathered to feast and celebrate together. We began with the havdalah ceremony of separating from the Sabbath, in itself a marking of transition.  I was in fact born at six o’clock on Saturday evening, so at the time of my birth, havdalah was being celebrated.

Adults of all ages and walks of life attended the ceremony, as well as four children and two babies, giving a deep sense of family. We concluded with the Amethyst Heart ceremony, in which new students were initiated into the Healing Order of the Amethyst Heart, a mystic order which came into beings through dreams that both I and later my students received. Baby Elena became the youngest person ever to be initiated into this energy, receiving the name Suprasanna—one who is ever cheerful and beaming.

This divine feast of love and friendship came as a profound reminder of the truth that all beings are my own and I belong to each one.