Posts Tagged ‘meditation’

 

Return Home To Yourself

Posted on: August 10th, 2025 by Alden

This is a new High Holy Day season meditative song on tshuva by my friend and musical collaborator David Franklin. David suggested taking selected phrases from two of my prayer poems, combining them into one song. I fell in love with his musical expression, especially the instrumental and nigun woven in, but felt that the words as originally written needed revision. We spent quite a while adjusting the words to my satisfaction, as well as selecting the Hebrew. Thanks to CCAR Press for their support of this project. Listen to the song by clicking on the triangle in the bar below. Click here to open a YouTube video of David singing this piece. Follow along with the words, beneath the download link. The sheet music PDF is our gift to you.

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Return Home to Yourself Sheet Music PDF Download

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Return Home To Yourself
Quiet the mind to hear the Voice,
Quiet the heart to hear the Soul,
Quiet the self, make space for Ein Sof.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

Return home
To yourself
Even if you have never been there,
If you feel like a stranger to yourself.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

Surrender fear and despair to hope and adventure.
Remind us of who we are
And who we may become.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

“Return Home to Yourself,” words by Alden Solovy, music by David Franklin, is based on excerpts from “These Barriers” by Alden Solovy from These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah © 2023, Central Conference of American Rabbis and “The Season of Return” by Alden Solovy from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day © 2017, Central Conference of American Rabbis. Used by permission of the CCAR. All rights reserved.

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Please check out Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe and These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

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First Bird

Posted on: July 9th, 2013 by tobendlight

777px-SolsortThis prayer/poem in the voice of the spiritual traveler was inspired by the birds of Jerusalem, their many voices and songs in the early morning. It’s a companion piece to two other prayer/poems using birds as the central metaphor, “Bird is Bird” and “Soarbird.” Sometimes the spiritual traveler will say a prayer with his eyes, with her heart, with his breath, with her being. And sometimes that prayer will be “said” by listening to other voices.

First Bird
The first bird of morning
Sings alone,
For the joy of breathing,
For the glory of seeing,
For the love of being,
Alive and awake
In this world.

The second bird of morning
Sings a duet
In the gentle breeze,
As daybreak meets the earth
With the wonder of being
Alive and awake
In this world.

Then the chorus appears.
The pitch rises.
Still, they make space
For solos and for silence.
They make space
To hear
They make space
To rejoice in being
Alive and awake
In this world.

© 2013 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: I use the phase “…alive and awake in Your world…” in the prayer titled “Every Beginning.” Here’s a short, short story about listening as a way of prayer. It’s called “Chava bat Chana.”

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Photo Source: Malene Thyssen

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