One month

While I have chosen to live in the mountains for the past few
years of my life, I do miss the sea. I love the opportunities
that I have gotten to visit the sea in Israel.

I am officially three quarters of the way through my time in Israel and it has truly been a mix of experiences. I know I have learned more about myself then I would have if I had stayed home. I learned how much I miss winter; I've learned what I truly believe; I've learned how to be alone; I've learned how to haggle in the old city; I've learned more than I can relate, and more than I know.

Last week was the end of my internship with the amazing Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD). If you are ever in Jerusalem, look them up, they do amazing work on the best east facing view in the City (at least that I've seen so far). As a part of my work, I completed a fairly in-depth report of the state of environmental education at schools providing clergical learning in North America. It was an amazing project and I am so glad that I got to be a part of it.

View towards Jordan from just south of the Galilee. Straight ahead (East) is Jordan and a bit to the north where there is a
large dip between the mountains, is Syria.

Working for ICSD cemented my commitment to environmental work. Every day, I could feel how my connection to the work was based in my enthusiasm for environmentalism. It was an amazing experience to work within that connection. I also feel as though my spiritual connection to nature has been strengthened.

Ancient cookie presses from Akko, Israel. Because of Akko's
mixed heritage, these could have originated anywhere in
the world. They do look familiar from what I know of
Germanic cookie presses...

Nature is a very different thing here than it is at home. Here forests are a bit scraggaly as the land has a history of having been cleared making the majority of the forested land less than 100 years old. It is too dry for the dense mossy woodlands I am used to. This land has been cultivated for thousands of years, in many places entire forests have been planted in straight lines, like an orchard. The hand of man can be seen almost everywhere.

It is amazingly beautiful, but very little looks truly natural. It is a world of gardens, planted by human hands. And it is a land of stone, laid by human hands. And what stone it is too!

There are places like this in every old city I've
been in in Israel. In this spot, you can see
history in a very different way.Each of the
arches is from a different building, You can
see how they were built one on top of the next.

The majority of the stone I have seen here is pink or pinkish gold. In Jerusalem, every building is at least faced with it, if not built of it entirely. Over this past weekend, I visited Akko, the northernmost Israeli city on the Mediterranean. During the crusades, it was the principal gateway to Jerusalem, even though there are over 100 miles between the two. Currently many of the historic sites for tourists in Akko are from this period.

Akko is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the region (I have heard this several times, but I'm not entirely sure which region they are talking about, Middle East or Mediterranean.) There are Egyptian records dating back to 2000 years ago which speak about the city of Akko. It is an important port city at the northern end of Haifa Bay.

The undercroft at the church of St. John the
Baptist in the crusader ruins and Akko.

And it was a great reminder of my Christian heritage. I often turn away from Christianity and the connection I have to it. Many of my experiences with Christians have been negative, but now I feel like I have to explore that side of my family and life. I need to learn more about my father's family and heritage.

Thinking about these things this weekend led me to the decision to attend Easter services in the the Old City. So next week, you can look forward to hearing about that!

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Rabbit

Three nights ago, a rabbit crossed my path.

View across the fields north of Moledet

I was visiting my cousin in Moledet and we were taking a back way home from dropping off her grandchildren. This back way consisted primarily of the machine tracks running through the fields between the Arab village and her son's Kibbutz. It was a moonless night, the new moon just two nights away, the stars were bright, we were both smiling, the air tasted like spring. And a rabbit hopped its way across the road.

***

Pink blossoms across from Mamilla Mall just outside of Jaffa
Gate. This is a Judas tree.

Another month has begun in the Heathen and Jewish calendars. For both, this is the marker that spring has begun. Here is Israel, the trees are in bloom. There are green almonds on the almond trees, and blossoms of all colors everywhere. I've never been to Paris in Springtime, but it's hard to believe that it beats Jerusalem. And the month of Nissan is the month of Spring.

Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
This is the location  in which Mary is said to
 have been told that she was pregnant.

At home, the snow is melting and the air is a little warmer every day (I hope). The garth is busy with buying and starting seeds, preparing for Eostreblot, and dying pysanki eggs. Eostremonath means spring is in the air.

In both traditions, this is the month of new beginnings. At the beginning of last month I talked about the meanings of the month of Adar as a time to find the joy in the darkness, now we transform that into a new start. Nissan in the beginning of the ecclesiastic year in Judaism, (the civic year begins in six months,) and in the Heathen tradition, Eostremonath is the start of the light half of the year. Eostre being the goddess of the dawn.

Cousin Gila buying lamb in the Nazerth
Shuk. 

I think of myself as having reached a new beginning this past weekend. As a part of my visit to my cousin, we spent a morning in the city or Nazereth, most famous for its bustling Arab population, the Elbabour spice shop, and fantastic shuk, oh yes, and Jesus grew up there. Our first stop was a small group of Muslim men who tried to convert us to Islam. We all left with our religious beliefs, or lack there of, in tact.

But the experience made me think about what it is that I really believe in. It made me question how my relationship with the god of my lineage interacts with the practices I follow in my life. I believe that these thoughts will become much more clear in the coming months.

A. Ernout and A. Meillet state in their Etymology Dictionary that 

"Little else [...] is known about [Ēostre], but it has been suggested that her lights, as goddess of the dawn, were carried by hares. And she certainly represented spring fecundity, and love and carnal pleasure that leads to fecundity."

Of course, even this is assumption based on modern uses of rabbits in the festivities of Easter. But there was something about that moment on the way home that told me the dawn was coming. I have spent the past three months in challenging darkness, and the light is now cresting the hills.

Gila's cat with the blooming tulips. Tulips here, then tulips
when I get home. My favorite spring flower.

I am thinking of home, of cold feet in cold, healing water, of eggs dyed in candle light, of kittens who are now cats, of fresh bread and hot chocolate, and I am thinking of the song I sung as the sun rose in the Frankfort Airport, the song we sing at home this time of year, the song of the dawn:

Hail Dawning Goddess

Returning from the East

Stirring the sleeping Earth

Welcome worthy Eostre!

The winter is ending, the dawn is rising, a new cycle has begun!

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Good Work

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, from the rooftops of the Old
City. I went back up to the roof-tops on Thursday night. It
was still stunning. 

What does it mean to be fighting the good fight?

For about a month now, I have been interning at the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development. It is an amazing organization doing the kind of work that I feel good doing in a place that truly needs it. ICSD believes that the core of the environmental crises is spiritual. That we, as human beings, have lost a spiritual connection to the earth. This is a good approach. It is a path that runs along-side my own.

I might spend too much time in back alleys of
the Old City...Nope, no such thing.

This is a place where I can stretch my wings. Where my thoughts and ideas are not seen as at odds with the organization.

Dome of the Rock from the roof-tops.

I have had many moments in the past few years in which I have been unsure about the path I am on professionally and even more unsure about the people I feel forced to work with. Consulting is not easy work; starting my own firm is crazy; Intentional communities have no money to spend. But this job is helping me put it into perspective. I am seeing my talents in a way I have never experienced them before. I am, possibly for the first time, seeing myself as an important part of a team. I am not just a job description, nor am I a cog in a machine, I am a project manager.

Rosemary in the park on Shabbat. Yes, all those purple
flowers are rosemary bushes. 

In this job, I am responsible for the “Green Seminaries Project” in its current incarnation. Currently, the project is a study and report of faith-based environmental education at schools for religious leaders in North America. The study encompasses almost 100 schools rating them based on their environmental education with the intention of eventually improving environmental education at schools throughout North America.

Other than my Senior Plan at Marlboro, it is the most fulfilling non-spiritual work I have ever done. (In the realm of spiritual work I am including cooking for feasts, singing, dancing, and almost all my fiber arts work.)

But this job is not sustainable for me. Foremost, I will not be in this internship for more than other week and a half, there is another month of the program after my internship is over. Then I will go back to the states. 5,000 miles away from this amazing organization.

Johanna, the friend I  am traveling
 to the North with, looking into
 an archway on the roof-tops. Why
 this archway is up there, I could not
 tell you.

I will return to my home, to the life I feel connected to, with the memory and knowledge that there is a place for me in the world of sustainability. I am reassured that I am on the right path, professionally. I will find the communities that need me, and I will find the ways to assess and help them.

Spring time in Jerusalem, the Judas Trees are in bloom

Of course, for the time being, I will find a job, probably in Boston, that gives me a regular pay check while letting me go to Grad School and travel to Vermont for my monthly rituals. For the time being, I will think about insurance and Orthodox neighborhoods and college loans. For the time being, I am a stranger in a strange land, and that is ok.

Sculpture in the Mamilla Mall

This coming weekend, I am visiting Cousin Gila again, after that I will take a trip to visit pagan sites in Northern Israel. Spring is here in Israel, and it will soon be in New England as well. I will return home and find out what it feels like to have nine months without winter.

But I now know, I am fighting the good fight. And I am not alone.

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Purim

OK, what happens if you cross Halloween, Easter, Mardi Gras, and Christmas?

Posters like this were everywhere.
It was the easiest thing to find a party.

Purim in Israel, that’s what!

Purim starts with a daylong fast and, in most of the world (in walled cities it starts the following sundown), is followed directly by 24 hours of costumes, candy, binge drinking, and gift giving all covered in a strangely religious overtone.

Kids were not the only ones
dressing up

Of course, I only saw Jerusalem. I hear that Tel Aviv is much more extreme.

The festivities started a week prior, children in costumes on their way to school, small fire-crackers going off in the evenings, gifts of cakes and candies

Group of High School kids at the train station three days
before Purim.

everywhere, people looking for charity donations. The closer we got to the day the more interesting it got.

But nothing I have ever seen compares to Purim itself. The streets were packed, alcohol was flowing everywhere, and nowhere could anyone have told Haman, the villain of the Purim story, of from Mordechai, the make hero. I had decided that I would try to stay out all night and, hopefully watch the sunrise at the Western Wall.

Costumes continued the next day,
As well as all the other festivities.

I have a video of these two who
were playing amazingly on the bus.

Other than the sunrise bit, I succeeded. I found myself, at 4:00 in the morning, drunk, alone, shivering, and asleep, leaning on the most holy site in the Jewish world. But somehow, it was one of the best nights of my life.

This was the scene at Mahame Yahudah, the shuk in the new
city. Crowd so think no one could get through. Just before I
took this picture, a cab tried to drive down this street. It didn't
work.

My jacket and camera were at a friend’s apartment. My phone was in another friend’s purse, but I had watched the stars reflecting off the Dome of the Rock from the rooftops of the old city. The night air was crisp like only a spring night in the dessert can be, but I was surrounded by a beauty and energy I had yet to see in Israel. Even in the Old City, where it was quiet, there was a buzz of energy as people, mostly in groups but some, like me, alone, traversed the ancient streets. In my quest to explore, I found my way to the rooftops over the shuk. During the day, the shuk is the noisiest part of the Old City, but now, it was quiet other than the occasional group singing and laughing late into the night.

This was today. After the festivities were over.

In all reality, I’m glad I left my things behind. Yes it would have been nice to have my jacket, or even a scarf, but my only regret of the evening is that I should have explored more.

Now I have a desire to return to those roof tops. I think I know the way.

If you like my writing and want to help support my adventure, please donate at: gofund.me/joystar

Confusion and conflict

First of all, thank you all so much, I have over 1000 page views. Interestingly, 11 of those views are from France, 4 are from Japan, 3 are Hungarian, and one is from Belarus. All places where I'm fairly certain I don't know anyone.

Here is a blessing for warm days and sunny skys this summer for all my
readers in the snow-bound north. You were all in my thoughts this past
weekend and you will be in my prayers next weekend.

Thank you all, it is a pleasure writing for you.

 *~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~*

This past week I have thought a lot about why I am in Israel and what it means to me. I look at my time here and I find myself feeling very sure of my relationship with myself, but very confused about my relationship with the Middle East. I also feel very confused about my relationship with Israel. 

This week marks the midpoint of my adventure. I have been feeling every feeling that I know of, but mostly, I am sad to say, I feel unwell. To begin with, I feel physically unwell. I will focus least on this. Secondly, I feel emotionally unwell, and thirdly, I feel spiritually unwell. My relationships here are very difficult and I often feel as though those relationships are making it difficult for me to fully experience this place.

First, the physical. I don't do well in dry places. My sinuses clog quickly making it difficult for me to sleep. I get ear aches and head aches and spend most of my time wanting to sleep. Enough about that.

The Old City is so beautiful. I feel blessed everyday to
be able to walk through it. Everything from the stone
walls to the doors and windows is touched with beauty.
I look forward to exploring it more in the next two
months.

Second, emotional: this part of the world is very emotional. The post-Holocaust victim-hood complex is still strong, at the very least in this part of Jerusalem, though I have seen a little of it in other parts of the country. The relationship between Israel and Palestine is invisible in the everyday world; in my experience so far, Israelis spend far more energy thinking about Syria and Saudi Arabia then they do about Palestine. I've even heard off-handed comments dismissing the very existence of Palestine. The Orthodox world that I have been learning in is very quick to take up the sword against whoever they feel is a threat. I have heard "wise" teachers call the Jewish people the leaders of the world in the same breath that they insist that we are to destroy our enemies. "Love your neighbor as yourself" comes along with "Saudi Arabia is the new Amalekites [i]."

This cat was a wonderful model. There are so many stray
cats in this country. The were introduced to Jerusalem to
take care of a rat and mouse problem, and I think they
did a very good job, but the city is now infested by cats.

This bleeds very easily into my third feeling of unwell-ness, spiritual. I feel a disassociation with my Jewish heritage. The events that I would normally enjoy have become tainted by Dogma. Last month, at Tu B’ishvat, I talked some about the environmental contradiction in the Orthodox community. As time passes here, I feel that more and more. I see it every time I go to an Orthodox Shabbat when we eat three meals in honor of the closeness of our relationship with God, with full table settings, off of plastic disposable dishes. I hear it whenever discussions of holiness and the spirit turn to ravings about anti-Semitism and oppression. I feel it in my soul when I am in an Orthodox synagogue and I am told that, as a woman, I am not allowed to sing.

Today is the beginning of the week of Purim; a holiday that crosses Halloween with Mardi Gras in Israel. Last weekend was the beginning of the month of Adar; the month of joy. Both this holiday, and the month containing it, are a time in which we are meant to find the joy hiding in plain sight and to, in a way, emulate “God who "disguised" his presence behind the natural events described in the Purim story, and has remained concealed (yet ever-present) in Jewish history since the times of the destruction of the first Temple.[i]”

This has always been one of my favorite holidays, from an academic standpoint, as it is the only story in the Torah that does not mention God. Not even once. I also feel an affinity towards it since my first name is Esther. Even more so now that I know it’s associations with joy.

I spent this past weekend in Ashkelon, one of the best beaches in the world, apparently. It was absolutely beautiful. I got to
go swimming in this amazing surf. The sun was delightful. It's not all bad. Not by a long shot.

Watching the ultra-lites at Ashkalon beach. Thinking of my father.

But I am concerned. I have seen the ways that things can get turned around here, and I have experienced the dogmatic coating on what I have before seen as beautiful and holy, and I am afraid that I will see it again. I find myself morbidly dreading and wanting to hear a stranger speak my language, I both want the familiarity of English and afraid of what they will say.

I am in a state of contemplation and conflict right now. I see how blessed I am to be in this beautiful place, gaining experience on my resume, having the questions I have been asking answered, but I am also experiencing an intense removal from all things Jewish and Israeli. I am seeing the beauty in the ancient traditions of the Israelites but an ugliness in the reality of modern Israel. I am feeling a desire to strengthen my connection to what Judaism has meant in my past, and to better understand it, but to distance myself in every way from the Orthodox dogma.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to support me in my journey, please visit: gofund.me/joystar

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[i] The Amalekites were a people mentioned a number of times in the book of Genesis, and considered to be Amalek's descendants. In the chant of Balaam at Numbers, 24:20, Amalek was called the 'first of the nations', attesting to high antiquity. The Amalekites were nomads who attacked the Hebrews at Rephidim (Exodus 17:8-10) in the desert of Sinai during their exodus from Egypt: "smiting the hindmost, all that were feeble behind," (Deuteronomy 25:18). The Amalekites were thereafter the hereditary enemy of Israel. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "David waged a sacred war of extermination against the Amalekites,"[10] who may have subsequently disappeared from history. Long after, in the time of Hezekiah, five hundred Simeonites annihilated the remnant "of the Amalekites that had escaped" on Mount Seir, and settled in their place (1 Chr. 4:42–43). It is believed by most Jews that the last of the Amalekites were destroyed during the time of Queen Esther in Pursia.

[ii] Thank you Wiki “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim”