Maybe probably

There is some seriously old stuff in Israel.  When I traveled there with my family in 1987, the visits to churches and historical or biblical sites seemed boring and endless - rocks, rocks, more rocks, too many people in large buses, and...rocks.  My excuse for this irreverent remembrance is that I was seventeen and much more interested in the present and the future - and frankly, myself - than in anything that happened forever ago.

Before I left on my trip, Dan and I had lunch at a Jordanian restaurant uptown, a joint that serves good falafel and shwarma.  The owner strolled up to us towards the end of our meal and said he'd just made some tea flavored with cardamom and sage, and would we care for a cup? We pushed aside our plastic baskets with the remains of our falafel and fries to make room for china tea cups and a small tray holding sugar and spoons.  We told our host where I was headed, and his response was to exclaim, "Why God does this? Why does everything have to happen in such a small place? Everything important in one place? Why not Mohammed in Argentina, Jesus in Alaska? It makes things so difficult.  So difficult and so beautiful."

It does make things so difficult. And it is also what makes "the holy lands" so interesting.  Our extremely knowledgeable driver, George, liked to point out all the ways in which the Jews, Muslims and Christians are "cousins" - the ritual bathing, the prayers, the holy sites themselves, the ancient stories.  He also prompted our personal tour guide, Bonnie, about all the places where "maybe probably" stories from the Bible occurred.  "Here is where maybe probably Jesus spoke to the fishermen."  We saw places where Jesus maybeprobably walked, preached, lived...What astounded me was not so much that it might have been Jesus maybeprobably doing those things, but that we could visit places where people of a time much farther ago than the first century BC walked, sat and lived their lives. Not maybeprobably, but definitely. Israel is a dry country of stone, and though stone can be covered by sand and dirt, it does not deteriorate very quickly, and so much of what was still is!

Jericho

In Jericho we visited Tell es-Sultan - where one city has been built upon another city has been built upon another city - and the earliest area to be excavated had walls of what is thought to be a neolithic home.  Walls. I could imagine someone sitting and resting against those walls, in out of the blazing sun, 10,000 years ago. Living their human lives in the oldest city in the world.

Jericho

When we traveled to the north end of the Sea of Galilee we visited a place where a new hotel was to be built.  Before any construction begins, the site must be preliminarily excavated to a certain extent to make sure nothing awesome is being destroyed in the process, and by awesome I mean Really Old. In this instance, the would-be hoteliers discovered a first-century synagogue, and a market place, and a ritual bath called a mikvah that is believed to be the ancient city of Magdala, on the shores of Galilee.  Magdala, as in Mary of Magdalene.

We had an impromptu tour of the site by one of the volunteers working on the site (you too can travel there and take part in the excavation!) who explained the particular significance of the carvings uncovered in the synagogue, but what caught my imagination were the baths.  When they were discovered and excavated, there was a moment when stones were removed that held back the mountain spring that originally filled the bath.  With the stones gone, the water flowed again, filling the baths.  Seeing the steps descending into the water, I was moved to imagine the mothers and grandmothers using those steps, performing their cleansing.  Living their lives.

The Sea of Galilee is replete with maybeprobablies.  At Tabgha there is the church of the multiplication, where the famous story of the loaves and the fishes is to have taken place.  There is a church called Peter's Primacy where Jesus called Peter to lead the church.  There is a beautiful church and convent on the Mount of the Beatitudes...

Tabgha - mosaic on the floor of the church

Peter's Primacy

 At the church of Peter's Primacy we were able to step into the lake, which was cool on our hottest day so far.  We waded past a large group of rambunctious teenagers, and paused to watch a feisty  Franciscan monk shoo a young woman in a bikini from the water.  She somehow missed all of the signs about modesty in a holy place...

We got to talking to this group of young people, and found out that they were Palestinians from the Diyar school in Bethlehem, "out" from behind the wall on a day pass for the holy week!  One sixteen year old we spoke with said that it was the first time she was out of the West Bank in 10 years.

   "It does not make sense that I should need permission, a pass, to come to my home, but I have the attitude of have joy with your day, live for today."

What a total pleasure it was to watch these kids be kids, splashing each other and enjoying their moment of freedom.

We ended this day up on the Mount of Beatitudes, which gave us a beautiful if hazy view of the lake.

Galilee, with view of Tabgha and Capernaum on the lakeshore

By this time I was more interested in the lizards playing in the garden and the brilliant metallic-blue hummingbirds in the trees than I was in fighting my way into another church full of pilgrims.

fellow weary travellers

The peaceful garden was the perfect balance to the pace of the day.

And I was clearly more interested in the human ironies of our surroundings than I was in the artifacts. But one more maybeprobably to share today.  This night we spent on the shore of the lake at Nof Ginosar kibbutz, which houses a museum that has a first century wooden boat!  The boat surfaced from the muddy bottom of the lake during a drought year, and was carefully preserved.  It is made of 16 different kinds of wood, probably salvaged from many other boats, and is from a time when Jesus maybeprobably was looking for fishers of men...

My pictures of this are all so very fuzzy, but, like those steps in Madgala, this ancient boat caught my imagination, and the maybeprobablies became a little more real.

I have posted several reflections on our trip to Palestine and Israel.  You can see them on the page titled Stories of Palestine.

I am posting every day in November.  Enjoy!

Mountains, herbs and butter

moon over Asheville

October might be my favorite month, and the true turn of the seasons feels like it happens during the drive south to Asheville, North Carolina, where my friend Jen and I attend the Southeast Wise Women's Herbal Conference.  Every year we go for a bit longer, insinuating ourselves into the inner circle of women who make the conference happen... 

Jen and our fine "camping" food

 This year we arrived, along with our friend Sarah, on Wednesday for our work shift.  I love being on the camp grounds when it is still quietly humming.  Before hundreds of women arrive.

I've started every conference for the past four years welcoming women to the top of the mountain, where there is camping and parking.  I can see the gathering swell from this peaceful spot, and as you can see from the next, oh several photos, I also have long moments to myself.

How about I talk at you while you enjoy these beauties? So, every year I try to arrive with a blank slate and an open mind.  I have attended workshops on conscious dying, herbs for menopause, honing intuition and drumming.  I have sat through classes on stone medicine and adaptogens, and listened to the likes of Susun Weed and Aviva Romm.   This year my intention was to take care of myself through the weekend, be a little self-centered and only do what fed me.  This is harder than you think.

I started off well - I came down the mountain on a path that took me past more stunning fungus than I've seen all year in Ohio, and decided to not rush to make it to the first class, but to treat myself to a shower after 3 days of travel and work exchange.  Self-care.  I ran into another worker who I recognized from years past and together we decided to skip the talk on auto-immunity and made a beeline towards Sex as a Path to the Divine.  See? Open mind. It was awesome.  The 68-year-old teacher is a midwife and healer and was composed and articulate as she talked about brainwaves (beta - your thinking mind, alpha - your zoney listening-to-music-while-drawing mind, theta - your REM sleeping or tripping mind, and delta - your deeply sleeping mind) and orgasms (ok, so it wasn't so much the how, but the why).  This woman takes self-care seriously.

(are you still enjoying the pretty pictures??
or are you distracted because I mentioned what the teacher called "solo cultivation"??)

Did I mention that Eliza came again this year? She saved her money and looked forward to it all year, sweet girl.  Friday night, after the opening ceremony (highlight: hearing that Malala won the Nobel Peace Prize, in a room with nearly 1000 women and girls), we headed to the dining hall to watch Girl Rising which I wish everyone would see.

(Can you believe this sweet village of fungus??
They were living on a woodpile next to me.)

oh, those eyelashes...

Jen, our friend Kylene, and I had the pleasure of having Monica Corrado sit down at our table to eat her lunch one day.  She is a nutritionist, chef, student of living healthy and being well, and was there to teach several classes over the weekend, including one I attended: Get the Skinny on Fats.  We grilled her for a while there during our meal, and the upshot of everything she had to say (while making us laugh every other minute - this woman is charming) was "Eat butter".  Eat fats, preferably animal fats, because they are good for healing your gut, they are extremely good for optimal brain function (your brain is made of fat! so are your lungs and 50% of your cell walls!), your adrenal system, your immunity and they do not make you fat.  So there. Stop eating margarine and bring on the butter.

Wild Wise Women

Saturday was the International Day of the Girl, and there was a parade through the conference, celebrating the girls who were present and the girls these women use to be. 

The last class I took on Saturday was with Kim Duckett, who runs the Mystery School near Asheville.  I've heard her speak before about the ancient Wheel of the Year and the way it is used as a template for inner work, but it was nice to get a refresher, plus she focused this year on the Autumn Woman, in the middle of her life.  Ahem, it hit home in many ways.  It's a time to clarify what things in your life you are ready to let go of, and what has simply been dormant and is still there, ready to be useful.  What have you harvested, and what is it time to say goodbye to? They were nice reflections for any of us to hear, but I had recently been processing some of this in writing and conversations with friends, so it was interesting to hear it as a step along the path that many people walk through.

Communing with the plants, dancing, playing games...Eliza and I were both exhausted and happy by the end of the day on Saturday, and actually crawled into her bottom bunk together to snuggle and talk about the day.  (Skipping the night-time festivities was more self care for me!)  Sunday morning I attended a talk with Aviva Romm on pediatrics and antibiotics (the bottom line: explore every option before taking antibiotics. They are way over-prescribed in our country, because they are an easy answer, but they are creating drug-resistant variations of diseases and can cause extensive damage to your gut health: learn more directly from the CDC) and then started the packing up for the long drive home.  Tired, happy, content...

Contain both sides in your heart

(this post is a part of a series of stories from a trip I took with my mother and nine other women to Israel and Palestine in April 2013)

One evening found us back at the Austrian Hospice in the old city of Jerusalem, sitting at table with Dalia Landau, who lead  us through a Shabbat Seder - a ceremony that welcomes the Queen, or the feminine divine through song and prayer.  Dalia is the subject of The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, which tells the story of her discovery that her adopted family home, in Ramle, Israel, was the family home of Palestinians who were forced out in 1948.  Her family were Jews who fled to Israel from Bulgaria.  As a teenager, she met the boy who grew up in that house, and their families have together turned it into a peace education center for Jews and Muslims, called the Open House Center.

This Seder was one of the most moving moments of this trip for me (and with all we saw that is saying a lot!).  We had heard so much about politics and dividing lines, that to sit in prayer and ceremony together felt like peeling away the machine guns and surveillance cameras, the wall, the barbed wire, and getting back to something living and divine.  

We washed each others' hands, sang together, broke bread and drank wine, doing our Midwestern best to sing the beautiful Hebrew prayers.  It was part ceremony and part theology.  Dalia talked about the Torah as being both a book and the discussion that continues, not something to be taken literally; a text to be held up to constant interpretation.  

As we finished our evening with tea and apfel strudel, Dalia encouraged us to confront our prejudices and keep open hearts and minds.  

If you are pro-something, you are against the other side.  

If you cannot contain both sides in your heart, you are a part of the oppression.  

Shabbat Shalom!

Connecting at the Checkpoints: meeting with Machsom Watch

I came across a story from the New York Times  last month that was published a couple of years ago but was still a shot of light in the continuing struggle that is Israel.  This story of civil disobedience - Israeli and Palestinian women risking criminal charges to travel together outside of the West Bank to swim in the Mediterranean - put in my mind two women I haven't yet talked about from the trip I took in April to Palestine and Israel.  Here is a story about the first.

We met Yael, a member of Machsom Watch, at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jersusalem in the wall that cuts through an ancient olive grove.  Machsom Watch is a volunteer organization made up of Israeli women who are moved to oppose the occupation by being a regular presence at checkpoints around the West Bank, bearing witness to the way Palestinians who are attempting entry into Israel are treated, and making an effort to advocate for a smoother passage. 

Some of the Palestinians in line to enter were merchants, traveling from home to market to sell their wares as they have done for decades.  Now this simple journey requires hours of waiting and no guarantee of entrance. 

Others were in line because they were hoping to attend the morning service at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem.  It was difficult to see what the hold-ups were, but I think mainly the soldiers on duty were taking their time without regard to the approaching prayer time.  When a door behind us opened and an officer who appeared to be in charge of the checkpoint emerged, Yael greeted him warmly and in a familiar but respectful way, with smiles and a gesture towards us, her American friends.  Then she asked if possibly a third turnstile might be opened so these people could get to their services?  With a glance in our direction, he smiled and opened the turnstile and personally waved through a line of people without looking at their papers, which indicated to me that so much of this inconvenience is a form of intimidation of the Palestinians who are trying to go about their day.

It was uncomfortable to be there, with the abundant soldiers and their machine guns and surveillance cameras.  It reminded me of the feeling I get when I'm driving and spot a police car; even if I've done nothing wrong, a shot of adrenaline rushes through me and for a second I am certain I must be guilty of something.  If I was feeling this, as a privileged American tourist, I imagined what an old muslim Palestinian, in his kaffiyeh, might be feeling as he waited for the whim of the soldier to pass him through. It amazes me that people submit to this experience daily in order to sell their goods, or attend services, to visit family or to seek medical care.

Yael and merchant, showing the identification papers and permit for entry

We spoke with a woman who had successfully come through the checkpoint.  She was a merchant and had a permit, good for several months, that allowed her access to Jerusalem where she would sell her goods.  Even with the permit she is not guaranteed passage.  An elderly man made a point of walking by our small group once he had passed through and gave us a heavily-accented "thank you" before going on his way.  I have no doubt our presence made a difference that morning, but I wondered about other mornings when there are no witnesses.  I have also heard the opinion that maybe these efforts offer less of a protest against the occupation than they make the checkpoints and therefore the occupation "easier".  In an article from the online journal AlMonitor, one member of Machsom Watch is quoted as saying, "I often feel that what I am doing is bettering this occupation, which in reality I came here to finish, and to demonstrate against it. And I think we are treading on a very, very thin line there, between bettering the occupation and fighting it."

The road we took to Tantur. Old stones, and barbed wire.

After a half an hour of this, and finally watching the bulk of the line file through with the opening of the third turnstile we walked over to Tantur Ecumenical Institute to continue talking with Yael.  Father Tim, the current Rector of Tantur,  joined the conversation over the ubiquitous cookies, coffee and tea.

I have so many notes from this conversation that I am not sure what to share or how to phrase it;  I regret that I left this so long, but life has a way of moving you along.   We began with a long dialogue between Yael and Fr. Tim, who clearly enjoy a friendship though they diverge in their approaches to living in Israel.  Yael, the Israeli-born grand-daughter of a woman who married an Arab, says she was born an activist.  Much of her family have reacted to the situation by leaving Israel, believing that the only way to not be a part of the occupation is to leave the country, but she clearly believes that being present makes a difference.  Fr. Tim diplomatically talks about the political situation but stays just outside of the passion emanating from Yael.  In his job as Rector, he warns visitors to Tantur that the political reality could dominate their experience if allowed.

What stuck with me most about what he said was that the extremist element - the Zionists - would not survive without a patron, which in this case is the United States.  He shook his head over the systematic demonizing of the non-Jew in Israel, saying that occupation deeply corrupts everything and everyone and questioning how our democratic country could support the continuous violation of human rights.

Israeli and American - sisters at heart

Yael talked about the history of Machsom Watch, and stressed that their mission is human rights: to be a calming influence at the checkpoints.  In a place where power is so out of control that  Israeli officers can throw up a blockade and create a checkpoint whenever they want to, these women attempt to engage the soldiers on a human level.  Power corrupts a person's sense of right, and these women attempt respectful relationships with the officers, connecting them with their humanity.  In Yael's words, "It connects them to their consciousness. No one wants to be evil, not the officers, not the soldiers, not Israel."  

It was moving to once again hear someone talk about humanity and connecting - there was no talk of enemy or hatred or getting even.  And how could we help? How can we not feel like helpless bystanders to all that we were learning?

Yael's answer was "Some are called to be radical activists.  Some are called to listen.  BE LISTENERS.  It is a gift."

for more stories from this trip, please click here.