|
|
 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 >
|
|
|
|
 17 Apr 2005 @ 05:02
a little blathering from the weekend's low-key jam
I
how beautiful is the universe
how wide our perception
in this open low - i'm ripe for discovery
II
how mellow?
laid back takes on new relax
fingers lose all grip
sweet weekend bistro low
how cool?
when hot baked bread
lingers in a matter of fact corner
knowing that a crisp loaf
can patiently wait
III
i hear ya, sweet momma
i hear your low-toned beat
as my swamp draggin feet make their own time
it may take me forever
but i'm commin, sweet sistah
to break bread with ya while we still gotta home
IV
DNA playtime
pick a helix, any helix
don't show me,
now put it back on the slide
presto!
changeo
a cloned persona
and there's more where that came from
a helix offers a helluva good time
(we, we, we, we, we, we,...
all concur)
There's more, but that's enough for now.
p.s. -
one person took the time to applaud my careless art! throwing out the words and letting them scatter into their own form. That's low-key poetry!
judih april 17/05 More >
|
|
|
|
 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 >
|
|
|
|
 12 Apr 2005 @ 19:58
Reminder to myself and all who practise Tai Chi/Chi Cong that International Tai Chi Day will be on April 30th. Ours will be held at Tel Aviv University.
Link offered to Marek's site (English or Hebrew). This site will be updated and am posting it here for safekeeping.
Check out Master Fong Ha who offered a seminar in the Classics. (missed it)
Tai Chi Way More >
|
|
|
|
 12 Apr 2005 @ 15:37
In case you need some relevant street talk, here's the latest edition of Street Slang. Street tongue - The Hebrew they never taught you More >
|
|
<< Newer entries Page: 1 ... 13 14 15 16 17 Older entries >> |
