I’m a talker,

Except when my whole nervous system is flooded and I find myself choosing silence over trying and failing to capture what I’m really feeling.

A friend of mine, whenever noticing that I’ve gone quiet, loves to tease me by looking me square in the (left*) eye and prompting gently, “Words?”

It used to make me laugh. Still does. But it's rarely pulled anything out of me, because there are moments when words simply aren't enough.

When I was younger, I used to dream of becoming a writer.
I wrote poems between classes, edited the school paper, and typed up my friends’ reports for spare cash. There was something magical about chasing down the word that could say everything aching to be said.

I even went to writing college for a bit. Worked with journalists from other countries. I got completely swept up in etymology and the never ending search for the perfect phrase.

I wrote a couple of books, got articles published, worked as a copywriter, and figured I was well on my way to achieving my childhood dream. (Twenty books by age forty.) But then, I stopped. Abruptly.

At the time, I told myself it was writer’s block. There’s a half-finished novel still sitting on an old hard drive called Liya Rewritten. But even as I said it out loud, I knew I didn’t really believe it.

Because I never stopped writing.
Even as Liya Rewritten waited abandoned in the wings, I published another book (Invisible Me, Menucha Publishing). A novella (Bounce Back, Mishpacha Teen Pages). Dozens of articles. I wrote courses and programs. There is always a pen and page nearby.

But I was done being a writer.

Looking back now, I don’t think that’s what I ever really wanted.

It wasn’t ever about writing. It was about the yearning underneath it. The need to be understood. To have someone, maybe a stranger, read a line and feel their heart light up in recognition. To imagine them say, “Yes. I get this. You get me. We're not alone.”

But the thing with words is that no matter how carefully you choose them, they’ll always fall short for someone who doesn’t speak your language.

And being misunderstood, misinterpreted, misread;
That might be the loneliest feeling in the world.

It’s why even though the first thing G-d created was the Alef Bais, language, it was breath that brought creation to life.

Dibbur, words, brought the world into being. Ruach, breath, brought it to life. 

There is wisdom in language. There is power in naming, like Adam accomplished in the garden.
But there is something deeper in the inhale. Something holy in the exhale.
Something truer in the soundless pause between the two.

Beneath words, there is a truth louder than any sentence could ever carry.
It is the breath.
The whisper of Hashem’s ineffable name, riding our every respire.

Maybe that is what turned me toward breathwork instead of writing the next book.

And maybe this whole email is just me trying to say that there aren’t words for how our first week of Azamra unfolded.

Like breath, music lives in the place beyond language.

Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, composer of Lecha Dodi, once wrote about the music that (wasn’t) played at Achashveirosh’s feast in the Purim story.
Despite the king’s attempts to seduce and distract us with sensory pleasures, there was one sense he left untouched. Sound, music.

Why?

Because music has the capacity to awaken only what already lives inside of us.
No matter the genre, pitch, or melody, it draws out the truth inherent within the listener.

And Achashveirosh knew that if the Jewish people heard music, no matter how carefully curated the playlist, it would stir their innate love for Hashem.
So music was left out.

I lived the truth of that teaching this week.

At Azamra, music lives in every breath. It is woven through everything. It's attested to in our name.

We played everything from rolling beats and reggae to trance, Carlebach, high school favorites (the Chevra!), and niggunim. And every single melody led us back to life. Back to presence. Back to that feeling of G-d in every cell of creation.

There are no words for the morning our cohort spent breathing underwater and then painting and meditating in the afternoon sun.
No words for the day we all felt music with our bodies. Understood Kol Atzmosai Tomarna in the most visceral of ways.

No words for the day we heard with our hands and spoke through silence.
No words for the hours of laughter or the times someone called out, “Hey, stop thinking so loud, those were my thoughts,” because we were that connected.

No words for the prayers we have already whispered for each other and the ones we know we will share in the months ahead.

There are at least six mazal tovs coming. We have decided. In this space, everything feels possible. Breath is the final note in the song of creation itself... who can say what's possible when we put our breath to it?

I wish I could give you a neat summary of the five days we spent together that somehow felt like five years and also just five minutes. But language is not big enough to hold what it was never meant to explain.

One student said, “Every question is just another breath.”
And the beauty is, we have a whole year of breaths ahead of us.

This weekend I will be completing my eleventh consecutive cycle of Nishmas. Right in time for my birthday.

Nishmas Kol Chai, the breath of all creation, singing praise.

If that is not Azamra, I don't know what is.
And if that is not worth celebrating, I don't have words for what is.

So while this might not be the update full of details your curiosity hoped for, I hope you'll pause here, take a slow breath, and feel the knowing that some moments don't need to be explained.

Even one breath makes a difference.

Until next week,
Fally

------

- You're wondering about the left eye thing, yeah? Here's an EQ hack, the left eye is the window to our emotions. Try it sometime. Look into someone’s left eye and watch something shift. Instant (often unexpected and uncomfortable) intimacy. Unless you are a leftie. Then it feels like home.

- Want to be sure you're first in line for Azamra next year? Well you aren't. There are already two students who have submitted deposits. But you can join the waitlist here.

- If something in you tugged while reading about Azamra, that quiet ache of I wish I had been there, know that there is a place to begin. Vessel is where everything I teach starts. It is the foundation beneath all of it. Eight weeks of deep work in the psychology of the self and the soul. Not beginner material, but the real ground floor of mastery. It opens only once a year (and is required for anyone wanting to train as a hypnotherapist with me). If you want in on my world, this is where we start. You can join the waitlist here.

- If you’ve already been through Vessel and you're feeling the call to become certified in hypnotherapy beginning this July, reach out. You're already halfway home