Decisions Decisions

From a recent email of mine (feel free to leave feedback on this one especially!):

i'm having somewhat of a crisis of faith right now. i absolutely love what i'm doing, learning, questioning, being right now. i think i told you, i feel like i'm exactly where i'm supposed to be. but i really feel like an infant in this spirituality world. my friend said to me the other day, "i'm so impressed with how much you've been processing/communicating about your journey in 4 weeks! it's more than i've done all year." which is a nice thing to say, but i think some of my over processing is coming from a place of insecurity. i'm worried that if i go home in 3 months, this will have just seemed like a dream. i'll go back to secular life and feel this twinge of emptiness and not be able to figure out how to fill it. i need to be writing, processing, talking to people all the time to document that this is indeed happening to me. that this journey is so important for me, no matter where i am.

despite how much i feel this is right for me right now, i still have this very fundamental qualm with god. or not god. my relationship to god? (i'm going to use this word and assume you understand my definition at this point, in order to save myself repeated explaining. i think you can handle it.) i have this huge decision coming up this week. april 15th is the date i definitively hear from grad programs about being offered a spot off the waiting list and it is also the day i need to commit to a grad program (the one i've already been accepted to). i'm also toying with the idea of staying in israel for another year of learning. this means a few things. 1.) if i do want to defer grad school and stay here another year to learn, i need to tell them on april 15th. 2.) if i get offered a spot at one of my top choices, i need to see if they allow deferral. if they do, i have a serious decision to make. if they don't, i guess that answers it for me. so, how does one make these decisions? for most of the people i'm surrounded by, they consult god. they pray. they get an answer. i have no idea how to do that or what i even think of that (initially, it freaks me out to be honest. i'm not familiar with this model of operation. i've never done it.) this is the crisis. how do i know? how much faith do i actually have? if i do have faith, how do i tap into that and let it help me? i have no idea.

so, in the meantime, i'm doing the only thing i know how to do. talk to a lot of people. hear my thoughts/desired out loud to see what i really want (which i don't actually know yet). this kind of decision can't be made with logic. i think this needs to be intuition. maybe thats what faith feels like? trusting your intuition? i don't know. i don't want to make this huge decision by april 15th! this is my crisis of faith. this is why i feel like a child in this world i'm in. i'm so in awe of the people i'm surrounded by and close to and how beautiful their faith is. but will i ever get there? do i even want to get there?

this is where i'm at with spirituality right now. and my derech (path). more on what i've learned jewishly to come (amazing things about the upcoming holidays of pesach and the omer. so deep. i'm so elated to be experiencing these holidays i thought i knew on this level!)

on another note, i just started my pesach break so now i have three weeks off from classes to travel, reflect, be. i'm doing some really exciting things actually. i'll be spending a lot of time in the desert at this place called silent arrow (http://www.silentarrow.co.il/a.asp?p=24948) that my friend verity has a really close relationship with. from there, we're going to go to a few festivals. one dance/movement/creative community called adamah (http://www.adama.org.il/EventsSystem/DisplayEvent.aspx?TypeID=1&eID=488) and another at the desert ashram (http://www.desertashram.co.il/Default.aspx?tabid=81) called zorba (http://www.desertashram.co.il/EventDetailsEng/tabid/93/Article/89/Default.aspx). possibly a hop across the border to the sinai also? i really want to go to egypt. i think we'll also travel up to haifa for a few days and stay with one of her friends. these two girls i've gotten really close to - viktoria and verity - are incredible. such beautiful girls, inside and out. i'm so grateful to have met them and to be learning and traveling with them.