Mississippi Kites : Shemitah and Release

These are Mississippi Kites. As I was parking, I saw a trio overhead seeking a hunting perch. I knew where in my park they’d end up, and sure enough they did. The sun still hadn’t quite crested the ridge, and the birds were still too shadowed for a good photograph. I stood there willing the sun to go faster. I may even have risen up on my toes, putting a little body English into it…. Would they wait? Or would they go hunt in the false dawn and leave me with only “what if’s?” I stood there, anxious and frustrated. I took hundreds of too-dark exposures, as if somehow by clicking the shutter I could force the lighting to improve.

5782 is a shemitah year. Tanakh prescribes a 7-year cycle for letting agricultural land replenish. It is a life-and-death leap of faith to forgo cultivation for a full year, and scholars debate shemitah’s historical observance. Literally, though, the word “shemitah” means “release.” My rabbi taught beautifully that this shemitah year, especially, we should think about what we can release. Can we find ways to acquire less and instead utilize better what we already have? His question’s simplicity belies the profound challenge it raises. Can we release ourselves from the internal urge towards “doing/getting more and more?” Can we substitute a trust in “provide-nce” for our individual, active agency?

As an artist, precise control is the defining paradigm of what I do. My photography fuses technological proficiency with wildlife knowledge and adds aesthetic considerations. My teaching needs to be concise, informed, and resonant. It is all controlled. So what to release? Perhaps I can release the urge to control that which can’t be controlled. Perhaps I can release worry and replace it with surety that there will always be another bird. Can I simply rotate the dial away from agency and towards acceptance? Can we, all of us, release anxiety and supplant it with faith? The Kites remained; the sun rose; and my faith in shemitah, in release, was confirmed.