pesach soap box

It is Pesach (passover) and as the goya amidst a partially Jewish family, I have been thinking deeply about Mitzrayim (the Hebrew word for Egypt) and Exodus.  I struggle with biblical readings. I, like Jacob wrestling with the angel, want the deeper meaning, my real name, catharsis.  Without this deeper resonance, dogma is dust in my mouth, offering little nourishment amidst the matzoh and wine.  So I study.  I read.  I reflect.  It is the path of a mama who adores all traditions, not for the tradition itself but for the deeper calling echoed within it.  The call of consciousness longing for itself.
Mitzrayim actually translates into "a place of constriction".  AHA! Now that is something I can relate to.  Constriction.  The bud wrapped, before the bloom.  The caterpillar tight in chrysalis...bound.
What is it in us that rebels against constriction on one hand and is lulled by its known security on the other.  Nature doesn't resist the bud or there would be no flower, no fruit.  The caterpillar would never take wing, the egg become bird, the seed become tree.  What in human nature resists this process. Mitzrayim becomes something to expel OR surrender to.  In our complacency, numbed to our discomfort, we shrivel as buds unblossomed and songs unsung.  We become comfortable in our slavery...uncertain.   Commerce, capitalism, politics, medicine, media, concept, belief, should, shouldn't, right, wrong and the almighty right to "more"---we labor, lost.  Then a voice within us urges.. to the edge of that constriction.  Tightly bound, afraid, we leap toward the unknown, pursued...by past, status quo, habit, fear, powers of might.  We struggle against limitation, bounded by beliefs and we bloom ... again and again... not a flower in isolation, but life pressing outward, life becoming life.
Give yourself to that simple process.
Give yourself to that resounding call... "Let my people go!"