The Mirror

Stepping into the new year and the truest version of ourselves

This morning, I put Galgalatz radio on my Bluetooth speaker. It’s one of my go-to stations from Israel, and because it streams live, it always transports me there. It’s currently piping through my apartment as I write this, a cool breeze blowing in through the windows. Fall is here, and so are the high holidays. This time of year always sparks a strong shift in me, creating an unrelenting urge to reflect deeply, take inventory, and start anew.

When I first checked in with my heart, my initial thought was that this year felt like just another stick on this huge pyre I’ve been waiting to light. Every year since 2020 has felt that way. But as I sat to write this, on the eve of Yom Kippur, I challenged myself to go a bit deeper.

What really did happen this year?

Well, I started the year working at a small tea shop in town in the Poconos, where I was calling home at the time. It was a hard surrender to accept—working as a barista at a tea shop on an hourly wage, but one that ultimately expanded me in many, many ways. Nonetheless, by then I’d been living in the Poconos for just over a year, and I knew that I had overstayed. I was feeling antsy for growth. I felt a lot of guilt that I’d ended up there for so long, but I also trusted in the greater divine timing of all that was unfolding. In November, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family in Florida, and then journeyed across West Texas, into Arizona, spent Christmas in California, and made our way back across through Utah and the Midwest in the frigid temperatures of January. In February, we moved to New York in the middle of a weeks-long freeze—a literal sheet of ice stood between our apartment in PA and the U-Haul, and I could not wait to get here. I regretted leaving NYC since I had moved away in my early 20s, and returning to the city felt like retrieving a cherished part of my soul that I had never meant to lose. I launched Safta in March, deciding that it was time to share her with the world and build out loud. Since then, I’ve sold my work to two wholesale accounts, spreading my brand footprint across the East Coast. I’ve also done more pop-ups than I can count on one hand. I was cracked open by hyper-realistic dreams in May, rocking my whole understanding of my current existence. I was reminded of my power, and have been returning to her ever since. I’m also shooting video and photo gigs here and there, warming up my gear and remembering my photographic eye. In the summer, I decided to pick up part-time work at Madewell, a store I had worked with off and on since 2010. (That was not on my bingo card, but returning to the familiar surroundings of this store felt surprisingly warm and welcoming—a homecoming of sorts and a cozy nostalgia for my early 20s.) I’ve made new friends and reconnected with old friends. I went to Europe and floated in the Mediterranean Sea (any year that I get to the Mediterranean is automatically a good year in my books).

And still, three nights ago, I came home in tears, a thought randomly coming to me— “It feels as though I’m riding a gondola up a mountain and anytime I get to the top and wish to get off, the doors are locked and I have to ride back down to learn some other lesson”.

Although this year has been fruitful in many ways, this feeling I came home with is also valid. Life has been a bit dizzying, and I’m still very much processing the grief, loss, and changes that these unfolding events have had on the trajectory of my life. Many days, I feel as though I am the only one who is still grappling with these seismic changes, and then I come across a note on Threads where hundreds of people are expressing the same. We are not alone, and if you’re also feeling it, friend, your grief is completely valid.

A friend of mine who practices Kabbalah shared this morning that Yom Kippur is a day when Source holds up a mirror to us and says, “I see your true form…are you ready to step into this version of yourself?” This resonated deeply. Who am I in my deepest of hearts? 5786 is the year I allow her to come forward.

5785 was the year that I was fully cracked open. That I acknowledged and held that grief with tender hands and nursed her back to vitality. The new me began to emerge from this place of acceptance. I realized this year, finally and fully, that the old Maya I adored is dead. She exists in a dimension that I no longer have access to. And that’s okay, because now it is time to evolve to this new, current timeline. I think what I experienced in May, and throughout this whole year, is the shedding of those dead versions of myself. I realized, this year, that I don’t have to carry around all of these extra skins. And, you guys, what is emerging is really beautiful.

Small steps, small changes. Every single day. Like putting on the radio this morning to capture the feeling of a place far away that I also call home. And setting the tone of sensuality—calling in the divine feminine through all of my senses. What do I see around me? What is the smell in the air? How do I dress? Where am I going? I am enveloped in executing these small movements with passion and purpose towards a fresh start in this season.

Listening to Galgalatz this morning brought me closer to my family. I could almost smell the food prepping in my aunt’s kitchen for the break fast. Our family always sets a table full of sweet things—challah with my safta’s homemade rose and apple jams, babka and cookies, and Turkish coffee that’s cooked in a large pot over the stovetop. It’s transcendent. The radio this morning reminded me that I can take a small step towards growing these rituals in my own home, oceans away. I can be the woman who creates the worlds in which I dream of living.

I went out today to buy a round challah and rugelach to create a small but intentional break fast tomorrow evening. It will just be me—I don’t have big masterful plans, just a few small rituals I plan to do tomorrow: purging my closet of the clothes that no longer speak to me, lighting a candle and meditating, and getting sun on my face, connecting to the divine. At night, I will make some coffee and break my “fast” just like my aunt and family do on their front patio in Kfar Saba.

And it’s these little things that will build to create the version of me that Source sees in its mirror.

G’mar Chatima Tova & Shana Tova,

Maya

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