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 6 May 2005 @ 05:55
Holocaust Week is over: Twirling in my head are stories of survivors, daughters of survivors,and daughters of sons and daughters of survivors.
Have finally seen the movie "Vita e bella, La" (Life is Beautiful) [link]
by Roberto Benigni, with its glorious melody of humour and creativity in the face of Nazi camp reality.
Tilly in Afghanistan[link]: working to raise the status of women and children. And my friend J who is thinking of giving up her comfortable life to dedicate herself to altruistic world outreach.
The story of a West Bank romance, an American who married a Palestinian political prisoner.
[link]
"West Bank story
By Daphna Berman
What caused a Jewish girl from an upper middle-class New York suburb to fall in love with and marry a Palestinian political prisoner who was born and raised in a traditional Muslim family on the outskirts of a dilapidated refugee camp?
In her directorial debut, American-Israeli filmmaker Devorah Blachor attempts to answer this question, made all the more poignant by the fact that the Jewish girl from New York also happens to be her cousin.
"Waiting for Quds," which premiered earlier this month at both the DocAviv film festival in Tel Aviv and the Chicago International Film festival, follows the lives of Allegra Pacheco, an American-Jewish human rights lawyer, and Abed al-Ahmar, the Palestinian prisoner whom she represented and later married." (go to the link for the rest)
Synthesizing: And there I was again last evening, 4 hours at the kibbutz front gate, sitting, cleaning away cobwebs, wiping off tiny lizard turds from the tabletops in order to freshen up the the little guardhouse. Opening the gate for those who wanted to enter or leave the kibbutz, watching TV and thinking of this past week.
Events began to stir and simmer within me as I examined the salad that is our lives.
What is event but a collection of causes and effects?
The flavour of each individual effort affects the whole, but more dramatically, makes a difference to ourselves. When I add my opinion, my action, my clear intention, I celebrate my own existence. I am. And I change the event in some small way.
But what happens when I exert my influence? Being sure of my intention, being in focus, I radiate vibrations that affect others. How they're affected, however, is out of my control, unless I manage to internalize the glorious lessons of T'ai Chi, and use their energy to flow in my intended direction.
Yet, it never fails to amaze me how surprising other people's reactions can be. Some are heavily in the claws of their own insecurities. How many adults still cling to juvenile coping methods? How often have I met up with a polished adult (groomed, arranged, with eloquent tongue and fashionable comments) who, when challenged, responds with taunts, 'deafness' or bullying techniques?
Reading people's auras can be a frightening experience! Be prepared for the worst!
But if there's a little gleam of life in a person's eye, there's hope.
Look for the gleam, I say to myself. Search out the gleam, cultivate those who gleam, and let that gleam glow. Together we can do something.
More >
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 29 Apr 2005 @ 06:16
This week on the kibbutz has been relatively quiet.
1. The government has amongst disinformation, informed us that the pullout from Gaza will be delayed 3 weeks, so, unfortunately, we won't have to cut out for summer vacation early.
We might,however, have to delay coming back to school in September, so there's hope!
2. The potatoes are being harvested, so all those emerald fields are now slowly drying, the green chlorophyll sublimating into the air, the smells are still delicious. Chamomile is more radiant than ever.
3. The bike road is now a series of dunes - it's a huge effort of concentration to make it down the road without slipping and sliding. Someone out there is having fun, but this particular biker prefers an occasional rainfall or leaking irrigation pipe to keep the road visible.
4. The kibbutz secretary is rumoured to not only have quit his position but also to be seriously thinking of leaving the kibbutz. This is a welcome surprise. He, brilliant in his study of history, is also a liar and a manipulator. Because of him, many kibbutz sons and daughters - ages 18 and up, have left the kibbutz in disgust. It was his great idea to link not working (even for a day or two)to non-receipt of a yearly budget. Funny how he chose to enforce that new rule of his on young kids fresh from the army or high school, but not on those parasites of kibbutz life who don't work because of whatever reason they choose,those who are 40 years old or older, those who claim distress or circumstance. Those people continue to receive money, rights, uh huh.
The secretary might leave the kibbutz? Fine with me. We might get a chance to install someone with more sense.
5. Weather's been hot and dry. I haven't noticed. I've been painting and writing and making a chapbook of poetry, and generally venturing outside for walks in the cool of the afternoon.
6. An old friend dropped by. He's one of the ex-kibbutz sons who left after leaving the army to stay with his music. He's living with his wonderful jewellry making wife, Lilach, their trippy little daughter, Eliya, and Woods, an ex-Jamaican who plays keyboards. Funny how he's re-living the life that G and I led for years. Out in the city, trying to make a living; him from music, her from art. They're now going to leave the inner city and head out into a town to look for cheaper rent.
Once you leave the city, though, you lessen your chances for gigs and gigs keep you in the scene. G's been trying to point this out. Me too, cause now they're expecting their second child. One child, no problem. Two children begins to be serious with serious need for income.
Let their fate lie in hopeful directions. Ours? We're on kibbutz, not in mid-town Tel Aviv living from our art. But then again, we've got 4 kids and they are unbelievable gifts.
Can't complain.
7. Passover is almost over. Here it ends on Saturday. In the U.S. and Canada it carries on another day. Not sure why. Why would anyone choose to keep up with that matza torture for another day? This is the 3rd year I've managed to avoid all forms of matza for the duration.
8. It's bug season, it's hot and dry season, it's another month and a half of school season, but I'm deliriously happy. I can't believe that I'm still alive and enjoying life. There seems to be such an oxymoron going on.
Happy weekend to all.
judih More >
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 22 Apr 2005 @ 07:53
This is spring. This is agricultural transition. This is vacation from school. This is a dip into acrylics and colours and glues and scissors and timeless wandering.
This is a day before Passover. This is a kibbutz gathering itself for a communal Seder, in a communal spirit. This is me feeling apart within the whole.
This is an area hovering before chaos. This is a calm before an upheaval. This is being in distant touch with family. This is telephone deliverance. This is being far away from DNA.
Passover is tomorrow evening. The commemoration of the release from slavery. The praise of human beings in their quest to survive. The act of a mother to save her son from being slaughtered by a pharoah's edict. The act of a Royal Princess to save a baby in a basket, a baby who most assuredly was suspected of coming from a Hebrew family. The act of a Pharoah to raise a strange boy as a son and then the act of the son to discover who he truly was and to toss aside all royal education, garments, falsehoods. The act of a stuttering humble human being to engage the forces that some call "God" to do the impossible, allow his enslaved nation to flee from bondage.
This is an act of a people to have faith that wherever they would go, no matter how strange or bizarre, was worth relinquishing scepticism and pledging their trust. Freedom still exerted her magic enough to outweigh inertia.
And this was an act of the Egyptian nation regretting their weakness but being powerless to change history, and having the curtain fall upon them.
All this is spring. All this today. All this before the rest of our lives. This drama that plays yearly in the homes of Jewish families all over the world. The story that gets re-told, the symbolic food that gets served to remind people via their senses that the story must be ingested. Slavery must again and again be experienced even for a few hours in order to elevate freedom to her highest eschelon.
The people come together to celebrate freedom. Spring.
And as for me and my family? Tomorrow evening, will I be going to the Passover Seder at our kibbutz? I don't yet know. If my son performs, I'll go. If not, I'll take it upon myself to cook something - giving G a break considering he cooks for 400 people everyday and this past week, 400 people plus all the food for the Seder. (Yes, I do not normally cook. I bake bread - something that is not traditionally part of Passover. I make rice, something that no doubt will be a part of this new tradition)
It's a powerful season. Wesak approaches. Pilgrimage in the air. The time to walk the earth (figuratively) in search for release from past delusion, a cleansing from old histories, old shackles. This is the time for spirit soaring purification.
Good Pesach to all,
judih More >
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 15 Apr 2005 @ 19:30
It was my turn to stand guard for four hours last night at the Kibbutz Gate. It's a heavy, electronically operated closure and is part of our security system.
Well, it was my turn. My turn to show up at 6 p.m., bringing along some lemon grass freshly harvested from the herbal garden growing in a barrel in front of our treasurer's office.
It was my turn to turn on the TV, situate myself in a position where I could check out who was coming into the kibbutz and who was leaving. My job was to check out each car, truck or jeep and let them in once I got the impression they were safe.
Well Monterey Pop Festival was on last night, and there I was with Cass Elliot and the rest of the Mamas and the Papas, Grace Slick and Paul Kantner and there I was clock-watching and surveying the traffic, light but consistent.
And as Janis Joplin sang and ultimately Ravi Shankar played for a 20 minute finale I wondered about how life moves us around in strange maneuvres.
If anyone really wanted to enter our kibbutz - whether thief, hooligan or terrorist, what was I going to do about it? Of course I sat there without a weapon, and though the first two hours of my watch were graced with the light of day, after dark, how was I to really identify drivers. What was to prevent a serious infiltrator from seriously infiltrating?
We're lucky in this area. The army patrols and when G and I used to take our nightly walks outside of the kibbutz to watch for falling stars, army jeeps would stop us to check us out every half an hour or so. They're seriously guarding us from infiltration.
So, why was I watching Jimi Hendrix doing the Wild Thing with his guitar from the confines of a tiny shack with iron bars on its windows and a dim view of the periphery.
Before this country started up, G's mother used to have to climb a 30 meter tower to guard. She had to send out morse code messages. Everyone not only knew Morse Code, but also used it. I learned Morse while in school, but use it? Never.
Here, they did. Here, guarding was essential. And here I was last night, going through the motions with flower children and Scott MacKenzie singing about San Francisco, pretending to serve a purpose.
My button finger got a workout as I opened the gate, and my service to my kibbutz got a karma boost, but luckily for me, it was no more than that. One day it could be. As Don Juan advised, I hope to be somewhere else if that happens. More >
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 8 Apr 2005 @ 08:17
Weather: A sharav, or heat wave, will develop everywhere today except the mountains. (mountains? nowhere nearby)
Politics: They're predicting that after Passover, early May, the upheaval will begin. The settlers are going to start the evacuation from Gaza June 1st or so, but before that, roads are going to be blockaded, IDs are going to be issued, and our school will be surrounded by huge concrete barricades in case, kassam rockets are fired on us.
Interesting times.
People are getting tense. Peace loving kibbutzniks and moshavniks are wondering how we are going to get around from this immediate area (just west of Gaza) to Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva.
Will an hour trip take 4 hours?
Home: Boys are working today in the Chicken House as their one-day a week contribution to the community on their day off from school. One daughter in school. Another daughter in the U.S. working and enjoying a more quiet life before returning back home hopefully in September.
Mind: Planning to organize a spring chapbook of my poetry, and to update my Music Biographies website to a point where I can offer it to students to learn about my current choice of musical personalities (Music Bios
Life: Friday is the best day. Afternoon approaches for total relaxation with G - extending into Saturday afternoon.
newslog number one completed.
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