Mayan Mosh

Love song to Islamic distortionists

STOP SHOOTING YOURSELF!

Someone smarted then me once said "If you not getting criticized for what you doing in the world, you are probably not doing something substantial". I've been getting lots of positive feedback from the song and some criticism thank G!d.
I thought Id share a responses that might further explain the meaning and the prayer behind the song.
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My song is a prayer, a plea, for a paradigm shift. It's not blaming or pointing fingers. It's asking for the same shift that I think you want...you wrote that "Im sure te Palestinians too want to read books and eat healthy food..." and thats exactly what I sang and pray for. My song did not cover the entirety of the situation and it didn't blame anyone. If you'd like to write that song and you though it would be heeling and open peoples hearts and minds, Yallah. Id honestly love to hear it.
My song is about loving the "other".
It's beyond the tit for tat, beyond the endless history, even beyond the current abhorrent predicament.
Its about loving the "other".
Of course you and I know there is no other...and that when we drop bombs on or shoot missiles at someone, we are really shooting at ourselves.
I addressed my song to Islamic fundamentalist (I dont like that word, I think they should be called Islamic distortionists) because to most, they would appear to be my "enemy".
Hamass web page calls for my eradication.
"""The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, killing the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Off the Hamas web site taken from ~Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985
Thats directed at me friend.
Im a Jew.
Osama blew up huge buildings 2 hours from where I live.
I've had missiles fired at me by Hizballah. I hid under dumpsters as they exploded around me.
Yet In my song I wish them peace...
And when people hear that, it might, just might, give them permission to devilinize all the "others" in their lives.
And in my opinion, this is the type of medicine, the medicine of compassion for the other, that will one day lead to a REAL peace...and one day, I believe, we'll collectively be ready to do so.
And compassion for the other doesn't mean that you just sit on your hands and whistle while someone is coming to kill you. Its about what we are holding while we do our doings.
As soon as we become one sided and label ourselves as good and the other as bad we ourselves become energetic accomplices to very thing we are rebelling against!
We must do what we must do to make sure these atrocities desist! Invest your whole self! Work tirelessly to protect the children! All the children (we are all children). But what do we carry in our hearts as we do our doings? A vision of Compassion? Or Patriotism and Hatred for the "other"? All of our doings will be tainted and in vein if our sources aren't clean.
Let us pray to Hashem ("the name" ie."place name here") We should both be blessed to be brave enough to hold as many truths as possible, to see ourselves in eachother and have space in our hearts to pray for peace for all of us. May peace prevail, and may our personal actions and words be reflections of our greater will!
Im in!

My truth and your truth siting by the fire

I have friends on both sides of the fence. Some are holding guns, some are in basements hiding, and I'm left praying and trying to figure out the lessons of war as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Usually when Hashem gives us obstacles, the sooner we figure out the lesson, the sooner the obstacle disappears, revealing a path to beauty.

One of the main tests that this war poses is, Can we hold multiple truths at the same time? Are we big enough, are we equipped to suffer with the Gazan children while at the same time feeling with the mothers in Sderot. On both sides of this conflict we are guilty of taking tiny pieces of truth and holding them so close to our faces that we can see nothing else. We point and we scream, "THIS IS TRUE! THIS IS MY TRUTH!" And often we are right, it is the truth, but only a fraction of the whole truth.
I think we're big enough to hold more.
This war is begging us to hold more. And maybe if we learn to hold each others stories, while at the same time holding our own, this predicament will evaporate, like the mist in the morning, revealing a most lovely path.

We must hold onto our vision of what, in the end, we want. When we pray for peace for Israel, we know that also means peace for her neighbors.
We dip wine (symbolizing removal of joy) from our cups on Pesach (Passover), because the Egyptians, OUR oppressors & murders, had to suffer.
When Korach came to challenge and fight with Moshe, the first thing Moshe did was fall to the ground and cry.
Compassion for the "other" is the most challenging kind, but it is also the most potent and maybe, just maybe, it's the medicine of the moment.
So I pray...
I pray to the G-d who splits seas and makes frogs rain from the sky, the one who let the light burn for eight days instead of one, and the one who reversed Hamman's decree...
I pray for Bnai Yisrael, that one day soon there will be a generation that doesn't know of enemies sworn to her destruction.
I pray for the children of Gaza that Hashem, who makes miracles, should make a shelter of peace for all the innocent ones.
I pray for Hammas, that the poison of hatred and fear that fills theirs hearts be transformed...QUICKLY! Before it's too late.

pre-Wedding dance freak out

love

Livnot retreat freak out

Happy niggun

Magnificence

Come my beloved.....

About a month or two ago I was sitting in my bamboo hut on an Island in the Guld of Thailand lighting the Shabbes candles alone. My mosquito net was tied in a knot and flung over a rope to keep it out of the way. I sat ad meditated. A Geko came into the room and then left. I sat in silence and cleared my mind for a few fleeting blank moments. Then thought about what I was actually doing and what this Kabalat Shabbat ceremony was actually about for me. I began to sing and chant repeatedly the words "Lecha Dodi", "Come my Beloved". and as I chanted my thinking mind reflected "Who or what am I actually inviting?". I felt something something click and unlock inside. Something that I have known and felt but hadn't put into thinking words. I was sitting alone in a hut in front of candles having a saince of sorts, invoking an energy into the room and into my being. We are magicians you know. And in that moment I became hyper concious of which energies I wished to invoke. What do I want? What do you want? What if I could feel anything? What if I could ask to feel anything? I know I can ask, and the universe she always replies one way or another....One way or another....
I asked for connectivity...to my sources...to myself at my core....to bring my insides onto my outsides and all that is outside into my insides...I also asked for deeper connectivity to my friends who are, thank Jah, so many, and so colorful, and scattered around this great circle. Uganda, Israel, El-Salvador, NYC, Thailand, Nicaragua in the last six months...So many connections, energetic roads forming between the me's and the you's. Sometimes the roads gets overgrown with plants and age and desolve back into forest. Some roads that we form are beyond asphault and need no regular upkeep for they are kept and held in places where decompositon has a hard time reaching her fingers of deterioration. My point is, I decided to be more connective and joined FaceBook, and thats mainly why I haven't been writing on my B to the L to the OG lately. That coupled with the fact that Ive been living down a dirt road on a hammock in the back country of Nicaragua for the last while and just before that in the in the NWern mountains of Thailand along the Burmese border where inner-outer net connectivity is different.
Im a free fully fledged hue-man, semi re-tired re-awakened human. My hair is in braided pig tails at the moment. I got a sexy laptop (for boosted connectivity). A story I wrote on this BLOG about the Sulhita got published in a book called "Jewsih stories from heaven and earth" and is in Barnes and Nobles and Borders. I slept on a sailboat last night under the stars with Cloni Yoni and my big little brother Daniel. Daniel leaves the nest in two days to start college. I remember so clearly and warmly back when he was a baby and Id hold his whole little body in my arms.
AND in case you didn't know, The BIIGGEST news thats keeping me lying awake at night with a blissful grin shmackered to my soul is that Yoni my Cloni and the Viv are having their Love Union decloration proclamation festival extravoganza
in exactly nine days!
Blessings and Blissings

Nica bound

Im in El Horno, Matagulpa, Nicaragua for the next month and a half.

The Island and the Monk

===Letter to Michael, July 7th, 2008, Ko Phangan, Thailand===

Sucha Sucha Big Small world! I spent the last week on a remote Jungle Island mountain. Yup. Surrounded by white sand and bright green blue water. I met lots of new faces, like the white Dolphins that flanked our longtail boat that took me to the Island, Then there were the birds, too too many to describe, BUT I must report, that there is a bird, no Ordinary bird, who lives near Burma, who's primary song is the opening verse to the happy Niggun! NO JOKE! Ya da da dada dada dada! And I thought I wrote the song...

I shared bungalow with a geko. But not a regular little geko. They called him a Tookay Geko...But he told me his name was Hal. About a foot long with neon blue poka dots. Pretty good roommate except he pooped all over the place and made VERY loud mating calls at about 3 AM. I prefer rommates who like to watch old war movies and drink nana tea.
I met a 5 foot long bright green tree snake and many monkeys Id encounter on my solo walks through the mountain jungle island. In that regard I guess they werent really solo walks at all.
OH I met a HUGE MONITOR LIZARD while walking through a palace completely made of teak wood, no nails, but the king painted over most of the wood so you couldn't even tell it was made of such a precious tree. Kings....
Yeah, the Lizarld just popped out of a canal. He was probably as long as me and looked like a dragon disasuar.

I also met some really nice humans. The monk experience was great. Throughout the whole experience I was reminded of our times and conversation in the Monk Caves in the North (of Israel). He was super old. One of his eyes was completely glazed white and when he spoke I could see the blood pressure building and bulging in his jugular vein as it pushed out of his wrinkly old man neck. He was ancient and wrapped in thick saffron robes. He sat with a straight back and perfect posture for over an hour in the Asian heat. I had to climb a great staircase to meet him. He was standing on the top of the staircase, next to a big golden temple that looked like it had been dripped out of sand. He was sweeping when I arrived. Most people bow to the ground 3 times when they meet a monk. I did not and I thought of all my ancestors who became martyrs for refusing to bow to this or that. I respectfully put my hands together near my hear and greeted him that way.. It was a little funny talking to the munk. You see, he was actually from Burma, and he spoke the Mon language (Mon people have been heavily persecuted by Burmese) sooooo I had not one, but TWO translators! One from Mon to Thai and then Thai to English (and vice versa)! It took five minutes of telephone to say "Hi" and you could imagine how much gets morphed in translation. Actually "Hi" in Thai is "Kin Kow Mai" which litarly translates to "have you had rice yet today?"....Yeah...the monk...the monk strives to sit in the middle, not getting pulled and tugged in eighter direction. No pain no pleasure. He sits alone in a seasonless world void of tears or laughter. When asked about our role here, our purpose, he basically said that we are here to get out of here. At least that how I heard it...He kept talking about this great place you could get too once you had done all your work in this world, where everyone listened to some band called Nirvana? Sounded pretty cool.... Not so much about fixing this broken world...more of a model for how to completely check out of it. Like, if I feel nothing and let everything go and Im attached to nobody and nothing and I nulify all my impulses and desires which make me human....then im out...and Im done...and I dont have to come back no mo.
It sounds like a good fall back plan to me. First though, Plan "A"...,Try try try to stay in the light, to mend what can be fixed, to raise the sparks in ourselves and others, To celebrate and seek out Awe-full experiences, to bask and rol around in our joys and to give breathe and love to our struggles, to connect as deeply and sincerely as possible with our sources and ultimately our source. That'd be my plan "A". But it takes courage to come out from the middle. If Newton is right, everytime you swing one way, theres a tug in the other. Im not convinced. I think non-attachment is a wonderful tool. I keep it strapped tight on my belt, and when things don't go my way or when my guitar gets run over by accident by a pick up truck (true story), So then maybe I pull it out and im not so attached and destroyed because I know its just a thing and it served a great purpose and its moved on. Or maybe I cry because I loved it. Anyways, Im glad the monk exists. Hes a totem, holding down that energetic force that I sometimes feel drawn to call.

From Bangkok Phom rak Khun (with Love)

===Letter Home, June 29th, Bangkok Thailand===

My group trip just ended and now Im on my own again.
It was a really intense trip. I often felt full and pulled to my extremes. Intensely beautiful and intensely painful realities to witness. Our work project was situated deep in the Thai countryside, down a dirt road, a few kilometers from the Burma Border. For our project we mostly mixed cement and layed a foundation for a playground for a free school that taught 500 kids many of whom were refugees. We did some sustainable agricultural projects on a model farm and planted fruit trees with proper monks. Most of the villagers in Viakadi, where we lived, had until recently relied on hunting and gathering in the forest for animals and bamboo for shelter. The big companies had moved in and clear cut all the old Forest and replanted with endless rows of rubber tree plantation. The old big forest was not only a food source but it also held down the soil and the big trees sucked up the water from the monsoon. This has led to massive flooding and erosion. I saw houses that got washed into rivers. I met slaves of human trafficking and endless refugees who'd ran away from Burma with horrific tales.
The whole time also it was so beautiful. So green. So alive and wet. Steep jagged mountains that look like paintings, houses on stilts made of bamboo, long wooden bridges, Bald monks in Saffron robes....Which reminds me. I got to climb a mountain and sit with a monk and ask him the meaning of life (Ill tell you his answer later). I watched elephants devour a 40 foot tall cake made of fruit during a local elephant festival. I sat in a brothel with my group and we interviewed teen sex workers and told eachother stories and laughed with them and listened to their reasons and stories and situations. I sat in a loud, dimly lit, overcrowded factory with the slaves who make most of the clothes that you and I wear. I went to the Jungle for walks, had dinner with the mayor and lunch under the River Kwai Bridge. Tomorrow I head south to the Islands, to a white sandy beach where I'll sit and swim and think and be thoughtless and eat healthy food and read books and write songs on the gulf of Thailand.
Next week touch n go in NYC then off to Nicaragua for 5 weeks.
From Bangkok
Phom rak khun (with Love)
Me

The other side

Bangkok, Thailand, June 12, 2008

18 hours skimming on air currents. I flew over the North Pole (yup) and felt the ice cracking...watched 'Kite Runner' over Kabul and 'Gandhi' over India.
And now Im on the other side of the proverbial bowling ball.
Fun thought; You and me, our heads are probably pointing in opposite directions right now, but both being pulled in the same inwards direction. When you drop something, it moves closer to me. If we started digging....

As I got off the airplane and everything and everybody looked different and my body was 25% longer then everyone elses and there wasn't a single face I knew I thunk to myself 'I made it as far away from the place I was born while sticken to the mud heep'...I thunk to miself with a big grin shmackered to my face...'This still kinda feels like home'

Maybe this planet is a giant heaving living Organism after all (to be sung to 'it's a small world'). And we're part of it. You know they say that over three pounds of the human body is made up of 'foreign' bacteria and organisms, of which we could not live without. So too we're part of this massive beast who feeds off the sun and slurps from the oceans and whos breath is wind. I just got relocated, like a hemoglobin cell moving along arteries and veins, streets and rivers, to the other side of the mighty organism.
Maybe mother earth isn't just a great big ship that we're sailing on...Your a stich in the sail and Im a peg on the floor board.

Bangkok is growing on me, sometimes like a fungus. Shes filthy and grimy and then every few blocks theres a shrine or a massive temple wtih intricate detail and serene vibrations. People here are definitely more chilled out then most. Meditation is culturally embraced. There are statues everywhere of a healthy fleshy man who sits in perfect stillness, contentment and oneness with the world. This sends out massive amounts of shanti societal waves. I think about how this juxtaposes the waves that get triggered from the pictures and statues in other developing countries I've seen of the white emaciated Jewish guy pegged up to a roman torture/death device. Definitely different vibes...

My eyes and heart are open. My Group comes tomorrow.

Song Sessions

Howdy Howdy,
I keep finding more Vidoes from my Uganda trip a few months ago.
These are from two separate song sessions. VERY catchy tunes (beware!)
First one is "Deep Inside my heart" into "Jambo Bwana" (most popular song in Swahili) with a group of Kenyan Refugees who had just days before escaped death and brutality. Most of the people in this video had been beaten and ran away from their burning homes. It always amazes me how some people in the worst of circumstances, with every excuse in the world to be miserable, still know how to and choose to bliss out.

This second video is from a come-unity gathering in Ramogi Uganda with an amazing group of AJWS Volunteers. The song is positively addictive.

The Prince and I

This is the Prince and I. He's my friend that I met the first night I was in Uganda. We would spend hours and hours rolling through the countryside making up songs about life. This video took some highly skilled one handed camera work.

going to Thaigaraqua

I HAVEN'T EATEN A SINGLE BITE OF FOOD IN 10 DAYS!
Thats because Im in the middle of Juice fast. Really I like to think of it more as a juice gorging. Feeling groovey and juicy. Cloney Yoni is officially a master, not just of life and human love interactions, but he just got his Masters degree in Education. We had the whole family and Amigos over to celebrate and at around midnight we were all giving him blessings and singing some song about an ocean and waves and then there was silence. Through the courtyard from a window above a voice screamed "SING BOBBIE MAGEE!". Of course we obliged. Now you should know that from brothers apartment (or his togetherment as he'd call it) you can hear the phone ring in someone else's apartment from across the courtyard. Never once has someone complained about all the strange beautiful music and the hooten and holleren and now we're even getting requests from anonymous voices!
Im gonna be love parading for the next couple weeks in the US, then is seems the wind is blowing me to Thaigaragua (Thailand and Nicaragua) where Ill be focalizing two trips from two months this summer.

I Can Fly!

Ugandan Cowbow and I making music

If You Can

If you can walk
you can dance
If you can talk
you can sing
If you can think
you can dream

Anywhere you want...

We can lift eachother up,
We can move each other high,
We can overcome,
We’ll live in peace,
We’ll celebrate,
We’ll walk hand in hand
Listening to the harp strum beat,
Higher and Higher
We will give what we’ve got
We wont stop until we’re done
We shall be released
We Shall be free
We can live in truth
Higher and higher
We’ll get rid of war,
Everyone will eat
We wont live in fear.
We’ll live as one,
This is just a dream.
So was every other idea that ever happened.
Release all chains that shackle the mind.
No more slave dreams tonight baby.
Clear mind and clear vision.
See the change you wish to see,
Be the change you wish to see,
We’re here because we’re supposed to be
but we can go anywhere tonight.
Anywhere tonight.
Anywhere fun.
Anywhere you want.

The tank is full and Ive got a credit card.
Sometimes we sit at the edge of Gods driveway idling for hours and days and lives with the key in the ignition,
scrambling to try and read the maps and charts asking lost strangers out the window which way to go.
Anywhere you want beloved,
Anywhere you want.

I can see your bliss skipping down the road,
looking back with a laughing inviting smile.
Why not turn the key and lets get the heck out of here.
Or step out of the car and bliss out dancing on Gods front lawn.
Just no more sitting in smogged out clouds of confusion.
This car is starting to smell and we’ve got better things to do.

I do declare!
The self-perpetuating stagnating "Pursuit of happiness" leaves us gasping.
Pay no attention to such silly Jedi mind tricks.
Try and pursue your breathe.
Right now.
Try it.
(If your breathing, your not pursuing)
How'd it work?


Listen to this little secret
We have the right to bliss
We have the right to choose the highest perspectives around town
And We can stay for as long as we'd like

A million words

Some pictures I've taken over the last few months...
If you have any questions, write a comment and Ill write you back.

Sulhita

Last month Sarai and I sat at a gathering in the Negev desert in Israel called the Sulhita gathering. 150 Jewish and Palestinian teenagers gathered together for 5 days in the desert to make and celebrate peace. No finger pointing. No blame game. Just some good old fashion peace making. Some times we sit around and wait for politicians to tell us when we can and can't have peace. Screw that. We can just do it. And we did. For five days. We sang eachothers songs, and danced in eachothers celebrations and we sat at night around the camp fire and listened to eachothers stories.



One story really stuck out to me. It was told to us by a pair of peacemakers who came from a group of Israelis and Palestinians who had each lost dear family members from all the fighting. Most of the Israelis in the group had lost family members from bus bombings and shootings and most of the Palestinians lost family members from Israeli army activity. Yet they sat side by side and spoke of their yearnings for peace and reconciliation.







Ahmed grew up in Jenin. (He's the dude on the right. The man next to him is an Israeli who lost his son.) The only Israelis Ahmed had ever met wore green Camo, held huge guns and sometimes drove tanks. This to him was what a Jew was. He said that he grew up hating Jews and during the intifada he was in the front lines throwing stones and who knows what else. He'd been in and out of jail several times. One day there was an early curfew in town to keep people off the streets. Ahmeds 13 year old brother went for a walk to his grandmothers house just down the street. He heard shooting and started to run. Before he could make it to the door a rubber bullet made it to his chest. The bullet went through his little body and literally broke his little heart. He died. Ahmed said that that day was the last day he saw his mother smile. Fueled with more rage he hit the streets again looking for bigger stones to throw.

A few years later Ahmed needed a job and had looked everywhere in town but couldn't find one. His friends told him that there were good jobs in Israel. At first he was appalled at the idea of working in Israel for Jews, but eventually he had no other choice. So he got a construction job in a Jewish town working for a Jewish boss, the first Jew he ever met who wasn't wearing green. He was very bitter about the whole situation. One day his boss stopped and asked him why his face was always so sad and bitter. They sat down under a tree and Ahmed told the story of his brothers death and about his mothers grief. As he told the story his Jewish boss began to weep and say how sorry he was that had happened to his brother! Ahmed didn't really know what to do or what to think. He'd never met or seen a Jew expressing compassion and this behavior didnt jive at all with the image he had in his head of his enemy, the "other" he'd been fighting against and trying to destroy.

Two weeks later a Palestinian man walked onto the 18 bus in downtown Jerusalem and detonated and explosives belt around his waist. The blast was so strong that the top of the bus pealed back like the lid of a sardine can. 17 Israelis were instantly killed and many more injured. After work that day Ahmed returned to his mothers house. When he came in he found her on the ground crying besides the television set as the news was coming through. He said "Mom, why are you crying? don't you know those were Jews who were killed, not Palestinians?" The Mom looked up and said through her tears to him "I'm crying because of all the Mothers who are right now going through what I once went through".


Something began to change in Ahmeds heart and in his mind. He no longer could say that he hated Jews because he'd met one, just one, that he really liked. His mother showed him that pain and suffering transcended nationality and religion. And he had to reconcile this new information with his actions. He realized that throwing stones and plotting destruction we're just perpetuating the struggling. Eventually he found the Bereaved Families group of Israelis and Palestinians and now he tours around Israeli towns and Palestinian communities side by side with Israelis and shares his story.

These people who lost their relatives have every excuse to live in hatred. Yet they choose love and reconsiliation. If they can do it, we have no excuse.

Another thing that really struck me by this story is how it only takes a few small interactions to radically transform a person. So Im trying to look at each moment as sacred and as having awesome potential for growth. In this life, with this body and with these eyes, we can barely see the ripples we are constantly sending out. We know so little about what effect we have on eachother. The boss had no Idea was he was really doing and neither did the Mamma...they were just being, being genuine and coming from a place of compassion and when we come from that place of compassion, especially for the "other", we send out beautiful waves of goodness.
Click here for Sulhita

Hug Around Jah-ru-shalem

Cool Video from a hug we made last year around the old city

Animal Sounds

I met this guy in the Jungle....actually in the most densely populated monkey Jungle in the world...so they say. The Jungle also was home to Forest Elephants and Leopards that lurked in the trees. This man knew the medicine of the trees. Did you know that Monkeys self medicate? They do. When they have stomach problems the go to the the warbegia tree and know to eat its bark...AMAZING! This guy, as you can see, knew how to talk with the primates so he had all the inside info...who was dating who, who had flees etc...

got S.O.U.P?

BIG NEWS! We started an NGO in Uganda...And your all involved. Its being registered as we speak. I think were calling it the Sustainable Ugandan Orphan Project or S.O.U.P for short...Got Soup? Now ya do.

Problem; Aids, Malaria, Ebola and war has wiped out a huge chunk of Ugandan Middle aged population, the parent population, thus leaving behind a ridiculous number of parentless kids. Most of them just run their own homes with the eldest child being in charge or they go to live with their Aunti. No parents, no food, no money, no education...School costs money and is considered a luxury.

Trim-tab;
WE GOT LAND IN UGANDA! 3 Acres. And we're building a heady farm where were going to grow chickens goats pigs and corn. The farm can be looked at like a bank (or just a farm if you like). The extra female animals and seeds (or interest) will be distributed to the kids and their family. They aren't allowed to to eat the animal immediately, rather they will procreate the animals, thus providing the family with a business opportunity. The first female offspring they must pass on to someone else needy in they're village and then they must do the same...pay it forward kinda thing... On the village level this will be overseen by community councils we will set up ahead of time in the villages.

Thats the basic basic gist. Theres a lot more to it that I didnt write up.
We're putting together a constitution this week. Our Ugandan counterparts are two amazing men. Ones my friend, the musician I wrote about before, who happens to also be a card carrying certified/bonafide prince in the kingdom of Toro (home to the youngest king in the world....who is 15 yrs old). Our other partners name is David and he already is running a wonderful NGO on the other side of the country and is running for parliament in two years.

So far in the last two weeks, without verbally asking, someone kicked down an office in Kampala Uganda, an old computer and a bit of money has already come in!

We're looking for co-dreamers and eventually we'll be having a big oll work party to get the farm built...Your all invited.

Wish list for right now is a decent lab-top computer and someone to throw together a web page in the next couple months...

Oseh Shalom

Abayudaya Jews of Uganda

We Jews come in every shape and color of the rainbow. In the eastern part of Uganda, along the slopes of Mt Elgon, live 5 comunities of some of the most beautiful jews I've ever met. They're called the Abayudaya. They study Torah, they observe the Sabbath, they love to sing and dance, and they were heavily persecuted during the Eda Amin Era. Theres a San Fransisco organization thats trying to help this comunity by funding a clinic and a guest house that would generate income.
http://www.jewishresearch.org/1007/full.html

African Lulabye

Side walk song session with a new friend in Uganda

Kenyas burning Kenyans Dancing

Could you open the window please

After a song session with the kids at the Kenyan Refugee camp I sat and met with the elders. I listened. They were eager to tell me their stories. One guy, Peter, who was about my age, told me through his swollen eyes about how he'd be lynched by a mob and then had to watch as his home and all of the things he'd spent his life collecting went up in smoke. I promised him I would tell his story. So here I am. I cant imagine having something so terrible happen to you and to feel like theres no one to tell it to. It happens all the time. They had all suffered.....they had no homes....little food.....they'd seen death...yet they knew how to dance and celebrate the gift that is the moment. Amazing.
The problems in this corner of the world are completely out of control and can be overwhelming, often to the point of paralysis. Millions of refugees, Sudan Genocide, 5.4 Million dead in the last ten years in Congo! I barely even knew there was anything happening in Congo. Kenyas burning, 28% of pregnant women in South Africa have AIDS. We're bombarded and theres no way that our ability to act/react can keep up with our levels of awareness. Internet, CNN, BBC, barraging my eyes and my conscious constantly.
Somehow though I believe that there is enough. That we weren't dumped on this planet without enough resources to feed ourselves and all live descent lives. Sounds crazy and so far off. When I pray, I pray that we get out of our own way. We're blessed with a suns that is constantly showering and recharging a super fertile
planet that just wants to give and give. There is enough. Theres enough space. Theres enough food. Theres enough energy. Theres enough money. Theres enough. It is we who poison the earth and hoard her resources. Then we fight trillion dollar wars over these resources so then theres no money for medicine or education for the basic and the obvious. Had we not gone to war with Iraq and invested the Trillions of dollars elsewhere, we could have crossed off one of the big ones...AIDs or Cancer maybe...World hunger for sure...vaccinations easy...education for all..Sustainable energy...probably several of these. We could collectively choose such a reality, but we get stuck in our patterns, in the same old same old. You know when you get on the back of a grey-hound bus and it smells like piss and you cant stand the smell but after a few minutes you get used to the smell and it seems like it goes away. it doesn't.
Ill tell you Its been wonderfully startling for me the last few weeks.
One night I was in Uganda, the next morning in a Cafe in Amsterdam, Cuddle puddle that night in New York City and then San Salvador by noon the next day. Head spinning, reality shifting on a dime. Amsterdam and her sterility and straight lines with the mud huts of Uganda still fresh in my eye. Thousands die each day from diarrhea. Rehydration salts cost 3 dollars a packet. So Im stuck asking myself how do I buy anything I dont need.
I read recently that every 110 hours a million more humans arrive on the planet then die into it. Every seventh person on the planet is a Chinese peasant. Humans drink over a billion cups of tea a day. The insects outway us and the chickens outnumber us four to one. We're tiny...You and Everyone you know make up a sampling error on any global census, yet your it. The dust of the earth whom this world was created for.

Deep inside my heart

@ Kenyan refugee camp on the border

ways to help

http://www.directrelief.org/
EmergencyResponse/2008/

CivilStrifeKenya/CivilStrifeKenya.aspx?gclid
=CL3YypejrpECFUV0OAodzEhsdQ
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/
fromthefield/sosaus/120101160178.htm
http://www.imcworldwide.org/microsites/kenya_crisis
/kenya1.html?gclid=CIzaiOSfrpECFQIQFQodIjMjfA
http://www.goal.ie/
http://www.theirc.org/where/the_irc_in_kenya.html

Some stories

Spent yesterday rocking out Hineh Mah Tov and Lecha dodi with the most spectacular Jewish come-unity I ever did see...the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda.....They Live down a dirt road on the side of a mountain by the equator and they speak some hebrew and sing the most wonderful songs and study Torah (YouTube videos pending)...
Im starting to organize a Birthright Trip for them...
Last week I played a new years gig for a thousand Ugandans . I sang mostly Shlomo Niguns and Marley tunes of freedom (Mweterana Ab-Africa = Africa Unite!) The big hit was a free style reggae jam in their local language Rootoru. I sang all ten of the phrases I know. More people were scheduled to come but theres no gas in this whole country because of the fighting in Kenya....Im heading to a border refugee camp in an hour to sing some "deep inside my heart"
God is so tripped out! I saw some of the strangest animals that i didnt even know existed at a National park I was based out of for a bit. I went to the park to spend some chill time in nature and to get away from the city but for the first time in my life, it was actually too much nature! It was unsafe to walk around on your own because there were tons of big toothed predators that freely walked around like they own the place, cuz they did....Lions and tigers and Hippos (Hippos are very temperamental and fight to the death....and there was one that would come half a frisbee toss from my door every night)! Once I tried to sit outside and close my eyes to meditate...
It didn't work...
But Im Alive!
And so are you!

U ganda and I

Day of the show

January 1st, Fort Portal Uganda
Day of the show.
Fighting broke out yesterday in neihboring Kenya.
Somehow somone thought they could cheet on elections and get away with it!
124 dead is what they said.
War in the North....Now war in the east....
Theres actauly fighting in the West as well in Congo...
Uganda is landlocked and she gets her petrol from Kenya, and since the fighting broke out, the pumps have run dry. In the region I am in, there is one station with petrol within 100 miles. It happens to be two frisbee throws away from my guest house. Hundreds of petrol hungry motorist have desended upon this little station with there motor cycles and empty geri-cans...fighting over drops. I can hear them shouting from my bedroom. Police with AK47s have been gathering at the station, for soon the pumps will run dry.
The show must go on...
It begins in an hour...

Day One...Uganda

1st day in Uganda...I rolled up to the Central bus station in Kampalah the capital...
Stood around for a while and stared at a map...There were busses going in every direction to different countries and I had to pick...
I got on a bus that said "Fort Portal".
I liked the name....I like portals....And it was headed towards the Rawenzori Mountains, the tallest in Africa...This region is also allegedly the densest most monkifull place on the planet (though I doubt the researchers have been to brothers Apt on the upper left side or to Nachlaot Jerusalem). So I sat parked in the non-airconditioned equatorial mid-day heat, waiting for the bus to depart for FIVE HOURS! Didnt move...for five hours. Luckily I didnt have to pee the whole time becaue all the water in me was dripping out sweat. It was an incredible meditation. In hour two of the sit I reminded myself that this bus station was just as much Uganda as any other, and I had come to experience Uganda, so I was doing what I came for. I had arrived, though the bus hadn't budged. That thought morphed into brother Yonis Snorkling Meditation. When Yoni and I snorkeled in the Red sea, we'ed often just float limp on the top of the water...We'd become water...and so much more would become revealed once we stopped moving. I did this on the bus.
Hour four I spent pondering the nature of frustration and my lack there of. I reminded myself that if I ever wanted to try getting angry or frustrated at something, there were far greater sources to choose from, like the Invisible Children in the north, or the uninterupted Genocide in Darfur, or the killing in Kenya....
Then the engine fired...the air started moving...and we were on our way...
We pulled into town at night and the first two Hotels I went to were booked...The third one I walked in and a local was sitting at the cafe writing a song...I pulled up a stool, pulled out my guitar and we started to Jam...Turns out hes famous around here. James Katz (Katzchululi)is his name...His break through hit was a song he wrote a few years ago about Ebola prevention....Soon afterwards Ebola cases dropped severely. We're working on an HIV diddy. So he's my new best friend. Hes got a heart of gold. We ride all around together...and he takes me to gigs and has introduced me to Members of Parliament and other fancy people...and lots and lots of people people.
Rodger, the guy who works the desk at my guest house, makes 3 dollars a day. He works from 8Am till midnight every day of the week. His transportation costs are $1.50. Then food and rent...the math doesn't add up.
So James was throwing a new years Concert where thousands were due to attend and he invited me to be a featured performer!
Ill tell you about it in the next episode.........

Stuff

Awsome little video that clearly explains how we got so much stuff and why we're in such a big mess and how we can get out of it!

Who's Ganda?

Theres a voice in me, a small voice, that likes to pretend to know things about the future. He likes to think he knows where he is going and what will happen. I've spent the last several years gently hog-tying this voice and sitting him on a couch where he can watch my life, with all of its unforseen serendipity, unfold. These days, my hand is mostly off the rudder and my sail is flying high, catching gusts of divine wind that seem to be sending me to Uganda. Who knew? Small voice wants to add that he thinks we are going to spend time with lots of funny animals and African Jews (abhyudaya) before meeting up with an AJWS group that I will be Co-leading.
Tuaonana! ("Peace out" in Swahili)

Air Waves

This video was shot earlier this year at a live radio broadcast in Israel.
A funny little part you might miss;
In the middle of the video, Ben the host tells us that we're off air, and the shows over...We were having so much fun and the energy was so high that we kept on keepen on and making music for another 20 minutes after the show was over.

Around a Candle

Around a Candle

I thought my car was stolen yesterday
With my entire childhood in the trunk
I didn’t think twice
Which is nice
Drove my car down main st. in Woodstock
Where once the flower children gathered
Half a million strong
And through the rear view mirror I seen
Peace signs
And prayer flags
With price tags on em
It just made me sing louder

Today I woke up to bells ringing
And mama singing
Sun salutations and a backbend
Off the green couch to rhythmic music
It’s a Sunny day at the end of October
I think its Halloween
Its hard to tell sometimes
When you are wearing a mask

My chariot takes me north
But my mind drifts further
Further still
My radio was stolen so all that’s on is my mind
And a movie is playing
The doctors are dancing
With their seemingly sterile robes
With their super vacuum cleaner spot-removers
Its raining
And the sun is shining
My life is happening right now
This whole entire universe was created for each singular spec
of the dust
of the earth
And I’m a card carrying member of this bold bregade
The few
The proud
The alive

I’m starting my 29th rotation around the candle
Sometimes I get dizzy
I climb tall trees just to feel her spinning faster
The seasons always shifting their hue
With gradiance and graceful shift
Changing flow
Front row tickets
Don'y ya know
The trees are putting on their annual red fire show
Before the candle gets dim
And the branches naked
As if to say
“stay warm”
“I’ll be back later”
To remind me to wake up
And what it was like
In high school
When parents are out of town
“Listen” she tells us
“We can do anything we want!”
Listen
We can do anything we want
And I know a great inn keeper in this part of the universe

BIG Trees

Some Images from a recent backpacking adventure into the "Enchanted Valley" on the Olympic Peninsula with some great friends and ancient trees.

Big Love

This a brief documentation encapsulation of the love between Ben and Kacy Minnis at their Love Union Celebration Ceremony and the group Honeymoon that occurred there after.

A day on

Its always funny to me that most people celebrate labor day with a day off of work
(Brother likes to call it a day "On" rather then a day "Off").
We do the exact opposite of what we're allegedly celebrating.
It would be like sending hate mail on Valentines day.
Or taking things for granted on thanksgiving.
Or pulling down all your flag on flag day.
Or renouncing freedom on independence day.
I meet lots of people. Most people don't like their work. They wouldn't be standing in a toll booth, or making strangers french fries or installing cable TV in endless peoples living rooms or picking incessant rows of corn and coffee , If it wasn't for a buck. If Labor is so celebratable, how come we don't work overtime on Labor day? It should be called leisure day, or follow your bliss day, or do with your day what you actually want to be doing with your days day, because thats what most people do on that Monday away, and that is in fact celebratable.

Flying High

Flying over the coastal mountain range in Oregon in a tiny tiny plane!

Momma said.....

Video from this winter of a improv Jam in Tsfat with Friends Emily and Dubinski.

Strangeness in Honduras

Honduranian Hora

We walked an hour through the mountains, across a river, to the schoolhouse. I said that we came from afar and heard in North America that the kids in this town know how to have the most fun. We taught them to Israeli dance the hora and to say I love you and a bunch more.

top notch behavior

Since i left your driveway....
I could barely stand at the airport Check in. My Eyes were the kind of heavy that eyes only get from being on the road so long, seeing so much, and staying up all night. Russ and I didn't say goodbye to eachother. We have our own little game like that. No hug. No ceremony. Just a "see you soon" and a smirk. We only see eachother on big Adventures, Alaska, Israel, Costa Rica, Mt. Sinai at 3am on camel back, Safety meeting on the side of an ancient endangered Red Wood clipped onto a 160 ft long rope. Anywhere fun. So I walk up to the lady and put my tattered passport on the counter, the passport that got dropped in the Jordan River and that my Patchouli oil spilled all over in my pack, and the Check in Check out lady says "One way ticket From Cleveland to Taayhjuuuhhhh?". I looked up at her. "How do you say that sir?" she said with a clenched brow and a smile. I looked up out of my daze and let my cheeks be light too and said "Teh-Guh-Si-Gul-Pah, Tegucigalpa, It's the Capital of Honduras". And I began to blab about where I thought I was going. And she said wow and wished me luck and It was really only then that I gave any real thought to where I thought I was going. I knew it had good ingredients for a special time but I had spent no time planning or plotting or even imaging too much". I think people call that "getting excited". "So, are you getting excited for your trip?" I always hear people say. "I'm trippen right now lady" I a say to myself "And so are you".

Sometimes Its hard going through security with a beard and hair and dark skin, and some people think I look like Osama. Jesus or Osama. Never in between. Never "Hey man, did anyone ever tell you, you look just like that actor. Just Jesus or Osama (or Yoni). So I carry in one hand my wooden flute and in my other my guitar, the one that has no case, with stickers on it of rainbows and snails and smiley faces from Mollie-Jo, and the security people know that Im a hippie and not a terrorist. Hippies love to love and hippies love world peace and hippies never do things like car bombs or Gihads. I slept so hard that flight. I stayed in first gear as I switched planes and then fell back asleep. Woke up for the final approach. The captain got on to give his preparatory shpiel about landing. It reminded me of when I was a Kid and Mom would be pulled up to a red light in that maroon station wagon, and turn around and look at us and say "Boys, it's put on shoes and get ready to go time". "Top notch behavior, I want top notch behavior boys". And the words would come into my head, I mean I heard them, but the signals always seemed to get faded somewhere along the synaptic highways, rarely actually making it to my muscles. I tried to consciously do the same with the captains words, to give them no space in my thoughts. But then he began to deviate from the script and my synapses picked up the beat. "Ummm, I just want to let you know, so you wont be alarmed when you look out the window, we will be flying very close to the tops of mountains and the tops of trees, but this is totally normal and OK, and then just before we land we're going to have to make a real quick 90 degree sharp left turn and you know, some people have gotten a little scared (re-assuring chuckle) but this is totally normal. Oh, and one more thing. When we land we're going to have to really hit the brakes, so we dont go past the runway (chuckle), so don't be alarmed".

If you Google "Worlds Shortest International Runway" Tegucigulpas Tecontin International Airport pops right on up. I was told that some pilots refuse to fly there. Wikipedia will tell you that "This airport has received much criticism for being one of the most dangerous in the world due to its proximity to the mountains…" and will further go on to tell you about how it was a bombed a few decades earlier by El Salvador in what is know as the "Soccer War", a six day war that erupted after the second North American qualifying round of the 1970 FIFA World Cup soccer match between the two countries. The game was a do or die divisional tie breaker and political tensions where already boiling between the neighbors. El Salvador won the game, riots began, and the war started the next morning. No one won that game. I'm fairly certain that everyone could have been doing something better with their time. 2000 died and 100,000 displaced. Actually, there was one guy who made out alright. There was a General in Honduras who made up fake battalions that only existed on paper and he pocketed all the money allocated to his imaginary troops, which put quite a drain on the military. I guess Karmas a bitch when your an asshole. The war slogan that became popular in Honduras during the 100 hour, self inflicted, self depreciating, self-destroying, self abusing session was "No pasarán y no pasaron¡ No pasarán! They will not pass and they did not pass!" and I wonder if the slogan was birthed in reference to border defense or the soccer match.

Anyways, It felt really good to land. The sun was seething hot scorching the runway and the air outside looked still and the sky so blue, hot blue. The sky had evaporated any thought of a cloud . And as the captain slammed the brakes, (I pictured him freaking out in the cockpit) I looked out my window and and watched the palm trees and the parked green fighter jets pass me by. I gave the captain a hi-five before walking down the stairway onto the tarmac . Got a new stamp for the old stamp collection and then found a short man named Jesus holding a sign with my name on it. I got in his red pick up, the one that needed to be hotwired each time it was turned on, and we rode out deep into the countryside.

Now, Im standing in Yonis apartment in the Big City. Lights are off to save electricity. Weatherman says it feels like a hundred outside. A FRICKEN TORNADO IN BROOKLYN! Hope its not too late. And I haven't been in a space, place, alone, in months. Honduras, Cleveland, Chicago, Arkansas, Israel in the last two months I think. I really dont even keep track. And I always forget where Ive been when and when Ive been where and who I've been where and all that jazz. Just a bunch of rolling moments. And we try to make them good. So Im standing in Yonis apartment. I duped in From Honduras Last night at two thirty in the morning. Paraded out of the airport. Said goodbye to the group. Cab driver told me about the flood and the twister and as I drove away from the "Developing world" Into the "Developed" I scratched my head. The fancy man from the US Agency for International Development in the Embassy in Tegu, just that same morning before the flight, With his power points and his swivel chair, told me with his arms folded and through his smug grin about how "In the 3rd world, Culture gets in the way of Development". He proclaimed "Corruptions is the misallocation of public resources for personal gain. We have corruption too in the U.S.A. The Difference is we have a fair/just legal system that holds people accountable." Without batting an eye my friend said "like Scooter Libi?" "Well no ones perfect" big brother reassured us. Made me think a bit. Are we developed? Are we done? Sure as shit hope not. Do we even want to be developed? Personally? Or is it healthier to stay in a state of constant development. And as I walked into JFK with all of its grandeur and girth and noise and hustle and magazines and smoke and clothes stitched in maquilas by my friends and beans carried on the backs of my friends for 2 dollars a day and just so much stuff, stuff everywhere. Every direction I look, Everything touched and changed, then slathered in a veneer of sterility. Makes me wonder. If the developing world actually developed like us, whos backs would it be upon? Who would cut their grass for them and make their trash disapear? Whos resources would they exploit?

Out my window

So, Im in Honduras, Leading an AJWS 7 week trip. When I left the rainbow gathering I was thinking of going back to Israel or going to California to work on a garden, then I got an Email that AJWS needed an Emergency group leader because one of them had to go home. So I said sure. 3 days later I got picked up by a driver named Jesus in Tegucigulpa, the capital of Honduras, and we drove off into the country.

Most of the best things in my life have been unplanned. My spirit seems to thrive in the unknown. This is the view from my bed, out my window, of the Honduras countryside. There is a clean fresh mountain river in our backyard with a canopy of hanging vines and crazy flowers and singing parots. I swim Everyday. The house we live in runs on solar (and Universal Love) energy and we planted a garden of corn and beans in the back. Yesterday I carried cinder blocks at the community center we're working on, watched a chicken get slaughtered, Israeli danced the Hora with barefoot Hondurans, taught villagers how to flick a frisbee and capped the day with a camp fire sing along.

Increase your apreciation fact of the day; The average worker on this planet earns $2.50 a day! Half of the workers on this planet earn less then $2.50 a day.

FREE MUSIC

Hey Ya'll,
Heres some free music, that was profesionaly recorded, from one of the trips I was leading in Israel.

http://livnot.com/Pages/Music_at_Livnot.asp

South-bound

Arkansas rainbow was mind altering. I'm in Cleveland today, Honduras tomorrow to lead a 3 week AJWS trip, next to a river in the middle of coffee country , with the goal of building a community center for them and to build a heightened sense of appreciation and awareness in us. Not sure who gains more, but thats OK.

Pics from Israel

Road to Rainbow

Jerusalem in my rear view mirror and in my sights. Im driving down south through the blue ridge mountains to the rainbow gathering in Arkansas by candle lights. Old friend down the road calling, calling me back, welcome home. Cheep coffee, cheep sunglasses and gospel tunes. Endless slathers of concrete pass me by, mile makers in the corner of my eye. I feel at home on this open road beneath an endless sky. Truck-stop sits like an ancient fortified shelter town, with gaping monoliths, along some historic trade route. We the pilots of the inter-outer-State sit in greasy diners and grant our terrain battered eyeballs a moment of breath. Welcome home.

BIG HUG!

This is a pretty mediocre news clip from an incredible event called "the Hug around Jerusalem". A couple thousand humans, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hippies, Religious, Atheists, you name it, gathered at different gates around the ancient walled city and gave her a long overdue, good 'oll fasion hug. We held hands and chanted words of peace and comfort to the old city, the epicenter to so many peoples spiritual practice, and we tried to imagine what real peace would actually look like. It was totally positive. Some pro-tests quickly deteriorate into anti-test where people vent and point fingers. This was a gathering of vision, of dreams, of how we want it to be. We hugged the walls in silence and then in song and then a drum circle dance jam session boogie broke out by the (predominately Arab) Damascus gate. Yes folks, its true, it might not have made the cover of the New York Times or CNN, But Jews and Arabs danced together in celebration, in public, for the whole world to see. It felt great. Sometimes the situation out here can make us feel paralyzed and helpless. We leave the mess for the politicians to try and fix over coffee at negotiations that thus far have proved fruitless. The hug felt empowering and uplifting and the celebration lasted all night. No borders were shifted and no grandiose documents were signed, but something changed a bit. Perspectives were shifted. One can't help but look at the "other" with a new pair of eyes after one has danced with him and prayed with him. Im not sure how, and its not something I can prove, but Im pretty sure that a big part of the healing that must take place out here will be with music and dance and people dreaming together over late night cups of tea. All the big religions proclaim God is one, Jah is one, Great spirit is everywhere and everything, we're all interconnected. If only we actually believed this. Imagine your cutting a cucumber and you slip and cut your left hand. Left hand would never pick up a knife and strike back at oll righty. Its clear to us that these two are interconnected and part of a greater oneness. By celebrating we connect, when we connect we can greater see oneness, the clearer we can see the oneness the greater becomes our impulse to live harmoniously, and that, and the hokey pokey, is what its all about.

For a day

I wrote this last month in El Salvador;

I feel like the little prince must have, always getting shifted around and shown different worlds. Jerusalem, New York, El Salvador all in four days. Customs, manners, different things, traditions, Black hats, sky-scrapers, open markets, Orange Fanta, traffic lights, golden glow, Time Square, Temple Mount, Mayan moon, mango trees and sugar cane, taxi cabs with fast lanes, Holland tunnel rice and beans, different rythems different speeds and trees and birds and bees, some say thank you some say please, hammock beds and candle light, soccer football Friday night. Isms skisms political dismay, Gringo for a day, Here for a day, Welcome home for a day, Travel for a day, freak for a day, up a tree for a day, In a war for a day, In a boat for a day, On the road for a day, On a stage for a day, In love for a day, In light for a day, Lost for a day, Im a child for a day, Im yours for a day, Then Im gone for a day. This old way, this old way, Its the way that I know living, and it keeps on sending me spinning to places and faces and crazy intersections with unmarked roads to anywhere fun.

in 2 Months

Tsfat, Jerusalem, New York, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NJ, Boston, New York, Texas (now), New York (Tomorrow), Israel in two days.

Pato Banton--Universal Love

A month and a half ago, conscious UK reggae artist Pato Banton shared a few songs with us at the home of a friend/Jerusalem resident and peace activist Eliyahu McLean at a gathering of the Jerusalem Peace Makers (link to the right). Palestinians, Christians, Atheists, Jews and Buddhist singing about Universal Love. Im not sure how exactly we are going to fix all the problems out here, but Im pretty sure this is part of the answer.

also

Theres another Video on my picture page www.jerspics.blogspot.com

Guatemala Journal April 3rd

I moved into the electricityless volunteer house at night and had to set up my bed by candle light. When I went to pick up my mosquito net/animal shield there was a thick hairy spider the size of my palm sitting on it. It was the type of spider that looked like an animal rather then an insect. I squished it. As I was tucking in the corners of my bed I found staring me in the face a brown scorpion. He was frozen. So was I. I squinted my eyes and drew first, for my flip flop. He scampered. I pinned him down on the mattress but he wasn't squishing. I reached down to grab for my other flip flop and the scorpion got away. I looked everywhere in that tiny room and around the bed for an hour. Nothing. I couldn't sleep in the bed knowing there was a little dude in it so I set up my hammock and fell asleep. When I woke up there was a giant stallions head four inches away from mine, through a screen window, breathing heavily. Welcome home!

Then came the kiddies. Its inherent, intrinsic in all children the desire to love and be loved and be held and to touch and to feel safe. I think its in all of us big people too but we are better at hiding it. These kids wear it on their sleeve. Everywhere I walk theres one of them holding each of my hands, even if they don't know my name. Ive been spending a lot of time with the Verones pequenos, the little dudes. Yesterday we commandeered an inflatable boat and 14 of us paddled 45 minutes to a dock in the neighboring roadless river town of Las Bresas on the Rio Dulce River. 86 degrees, blue skies, sunshine daydreams, no time, only time, the light breeze was at our back both ways. We pretended to be pirates. We sang like pirates. I taught them to "Yar" at passing ships and when we got to the empty dock we swam for hours and had soda and cookies. I passed out fishing hooks and strings and the kids were so excited to be fishing in an exotic new place. The fish were in fact bigger in Las Bresas and we caught many.

On the ride back to the orphanage I got caught in a quandary. We were paddling, and singing, a bunch of happy wet boys, and a motor boat pulled aside us and asked if we needed a tow. Naturally we "Yarred!" at them and threatened to board their vessel. We definitely didn't need a tow, as the journey itself was pure bliss. But part of me wanted to allow the man in the boat the good feeling of getting to help a boat full of orphans, (even though we didn't really need help). Maybe it would have made his day. He would have felt lifted like a hero. I told him no thanks, we were fine. I found out two days later that the man on the boat had terminal cancer and doctors gave him only 10 more months. I think/hope that future me will next time err on the side of sharing bliss and expanding goodness when at a similar junction. Its wise to assume that people are in dyer need of any form of elevation. Living, loving and learning.

Casa Pics

Pictures from my last experience at the Casa Guatemala orphanage.

¨kind of ¨ cool

Bussed it across Guatemala and hopped a river boat back to the orphanage I worked at three years ago. Millions of micro memories came flooding onto my chest. Then countless little hands all over my body giving me hugs. This is a beautiful sacred place to return to. Its amazing to see how things and people grow and stay the same.
This week I'm heading up a heads up agricultural project with the kiddies aimed at sustainability. I'm not sure how long Ill stay. I posted a note on the sailing docks today looking to hop a ride up North. Israel is calling.
Right now I'm in town picking up some supplies and there are four kids standing behind me just watching me type. They don't often see computers I guess.
This place always reminds me to give thanks.
Thanks for listening to me babel.
Its Easter week and there are pictures of me EVERYWHERE! It ¨kind of¨ cool looking like someones savior, but sometimes its a bit much. I honestly can´t walk down the road without getting (nicely) hassled. Sometimes I just walk by, meditatively, leaving them thinking...¨what if...¨
Sometimes I put my pointer finger and middle finger together and give a messianic wave. A few times I´ve actually given over blessings, once in Hebrew.
Anyways,
Theres a link to the left to Casa Guatemala, the orphanage I'm at.
Its severely understaffed, so if any of you are looking for an incredible place to invest your incredible energies...check it out.

Gringo and the Guate

For the last week Ive been practicing a self prescribed slowness meditation exercise. My regular pace in life is quite slow (as many of you can attest to). I've taken it to the next level. I never have to meet up with anyone, or be anywhere at anytime. I walk everywhere, on dirt foot-paths, in this mindful little meditation town, step by step. I climb cliffs by the lake like a cat in slow motion. No schedule, no where else to be, no time, only time, no distractions, divine interactions, no excuses. I swing on the swing and have no where else to be. I have a second story bungalow with my own porch tucked behind palm trees and fruit trees, by the enchanted lake thats surrounded by sheer cliffs and volcanoes. One of my Yoga teachers here I once sat in a circle with at a Rainbow Gathering in Brazil. My other Yoga teacher I celecinisticaly lived in a yoga center ashramish type place with in Massachusetts. They say its a small world. I think its huge! I've been writing endlessly and I think within the next year I will have a Book! I've been writing so much that my normal thinking voice has adopted my writing voice. Kinda scary. Once when I was a painter, when Id see a beautiful sunset or gaze at a magnificent tree, the first thing my monkey brain would do was figure out how Id mix the colors on a pallet.
Everything is as its supposed to be. At least thats what this world keeps telling me.
Even down here, amidst this rampant disparity, between the haves and the nots. The Gringos and the Guates. Truth is we're all given different gifts. Gifts that know no price tag. Gifts that hold the key to overcome struggles that we're also all given. We spend so much time distracted. Yesterday a Catholic Mayan woman, who was sure I was related to Jesus (hair was down, flowing cloths, ridiculously slow walking pace), asked me if I believed in the after Inferno (Hell). I said no. She said what about Evil? I said not really. I told her that I saw in this world forces of light and forces of darkness. I described, in broken Spanish, forces of darkness as any forces that distract or detach from feeling connected to sublime oneness. And that is going to look different for each person. If you can see the oneness in the TV and in the rampant slather of concrete, so be it. But if your distracted. If the rubber soles on your feet are doubling as rubber soles on your soul, It would be in your best interest to discard them at once. She laughed at me, and I laughed, and we drank more cafe' while watching boats come in.

Touch N Go

Sitting back, strumming a song, in isle 26. Everyones already disembarked the plane. I´ve still got laces of heaven interwoven in my fabric and my pockets are stuffed with wild Jerusalem sage. I try to take her with me wherever I go, even here and now, in this touch and go.
I slide my tattered passport, the one that got washed in the Jordan, to a lady who teaches customs at the airport. She reaches out her hand and slides it through the glass window, bringing my my travel logged stamp collection to her nose. Eyes closed. She takes a long slow breath in as shes smelling where I´ve been
A knowing smile comes to her face and shes transported from her cubist space
She stairs me dead eyed in the face and then lets me go...
Though I´d love to stay a while longer in this particular flow
Im here today but it´s a touch and go
It´s 98 degrees inside and outside.
A short dark skinned farmer with a glass eye and a machete stands beneath a mango tree and recounts a brave El Salvadorian revolution.
Rice and beans and Chile sauce where catle have right of way.
Yesterday I was a drop of water in a puddle of cudle in the Upper West Side. The day before, across an ocean, in a city of gold.
To and fro Touch n Go.
Teacher once taught that this you must know ¨To discover new oceans one must loose sight of the land, Kick out your feet from under the sand" I guess thats what you might call my some sort of plan.

On Questions

"I would like to beg you....as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were a locked room or book writen in a very foreign language. Don't always search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything! Live the questions now. Perhaps someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
Rainer Maria Rilke

on Solidarity

"If You have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together"
Lila Watson

Hola

I feel....I feel like life is a giant wet, white, terrycloth towel and Im squeezing it as hard as I can. My first AJWS group leading experience in El Salvador was perfect. Heads got spun and redirected, eyes peeled open to new perspectives. We lived and worked out out out in the back country. Dirt roads with cows, pigs chickens,iguanas roaming. 97 degrees, rice and beans and endless Avocados. Planted seeds and dug out vegetable beds with one eyed pesents practicing sustainable permiculture techniques. Now Im in a fancy hotel by a pool in Managua Nicaragua waiting for my next delegation to arive.

Crazy Mountain

Last night I played rainbow songs and backup guitar at a house party with reggae artist Pato Baton and friends at a gathering of the Jerusalem Peace Makers (link to the left) with Jews Christians and Palestinians. We sat, drank tea, looked eachother in the eyes and played music as one. We danced. No one spoke of politics as that would have been a lowering, a decention of our soaring spirits. It felt like heeling and fixing and tasted like hope. There must always be vision of how we want things to be thats constantly tugging us forward and for a moment the answers seemed so clear to me.

On the same night, at the same time, about 30 minutes away from our celebration, an acquaintance of mine and a close friend of many friends of mine, was walking alone through a forest talking to God (as he was his practice every night) and three Palestinian teenagers ambushed him and brutally stabbed him to death. Erez died last night. He was a righteous dude who played guitar and just got back from India. He left a wife and 3 kids.

(Heres a link with one of his songs...
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/548/946.html)

I'm still dreaming and searching and Im walking up the biggest, tallest, craziest mountain and its completely pitch black and I can't even see my hand in front of my face. Every once and a while a lightning bolt flashes and all everything is illuminated. The path becomes clear. Then just as I can see, the lights go off and Im left climbing, with a memory of the way. I pray that memory she wont fail me and that someone, someone will please turn the lights back on. Because it's so easy down here to get lost and confused and distracted. But I remember, I remember that super power we created that night, that majestic light. I sometimes see a Divine oneness that flows through all existence. We all speak of it in different tongues and with different names but its there. This is the one world super power and it can bring about change more radical then an atomic bomb, more extreme then trillions of green dollars. For when we are able to look at humanity with pairs of eyes that truly see this oneness in all, a great heeling occurs.

Lost in the Dark

When your lost in the dark and you can't find the switch
and your hopes and your dreams lie dead in a ditch
When your blisters are hurten but you still gotta run
and your days feel all over before they've begun
When your tires are flat and so is your pulse
and to most you're invisible like the holy ghost
When your going through the motions and none of its real
and loves shes an emotion you forgot how to feel
When your down in the dumps and all circuits are busy
and you feel like an ant thats lost in the city
When your eyes are forced open and the truth is apparent
and it seems everything is flawed from god to your parents
When your climbing a mountain and your rope disappears
and your forced face to face with your deepest of fears
and crying wont help you so you suck up your tears
and no not no ones listening not none of your peers
When all colors seem faded but nothings wrong with your eyes
and your best girls in love with some other guy
When the beginnings a blur and the ends fast a coming
and you've run out of time but you've got to keep running
When your sails are all torn and your vessel is tossed
and you constantly dwell on all that you lost
When you've been up all night and it's near the break of dawn
and the worlds best advice is "hey life goes on"
Remember, it could be worse,
At least you dont live in Iraq

In the Cave of light

Im swinging on vines these days in a concrete jungle where Ancient monoliths tower to the sky nearly overtaking the sun and millions of strange uniquely divine creatures bustle about in and out of endless underground catacombs always coming and going coming and going...I frolic where the sky is scraped and the night never sleeps. The air here so cold and crisp, she'll suck the heat out of any exposed surfaces she can, to gain balance and equilibrium of course. So the creatures bundle as best they can, though often they must leave there breathing tubes open and therefore exposed. The skin around the breathing hole turns pink from the reenforcements, red energy and heat transports re-assigned to the turbulent front lines. sniffle.
I here that in this jungle there lives a golden man who is often found manipulating strange stringed wooden boxes, emitting delicious vibrations that penetrate souls and holes on the sides of strange creatures heads...
In this Jungle I have a Clone who always points me in the good directions.
The clone is radiant and in love with the world along with a Chilean woman who knows how to talk to judges.
I went outside today and found a Pink nosed creature wrapped tight in a clamor of noise and money. He was cold, old, and lost. I told tales of a Jungle back east where monkeys swim the backstroke in a land made of milk and honey.
Then the clone and I Harmonize. One became two, then one again... reminds me of something bigger.
And in a cave of light, in the upper left side, I find respite...At least for tonight.
Soon the Chilean will arise to go convince the judges and the clone will go to do as he does, and I sit and try for a moment, to remember what exactly I wish to recall.

Cali Trip

Perspective

These 3 pictures are of ONE tree. Look at the little people the base of the tree. The only way to see the whole girth of these giants is to step away from it.

Tree Sit

High as a kite

Christmas Eve 2006

I am sitting in a Red-Wood tree, miles in the sky, suspended in air. I live on ropes. I sleep on ropes. As I write this now I am sitting ontop of a giant dream catcher big enough for 2-3 people (though we cram 5) tied between two branches of an ancient red-wood tree 85 feet above ground. Brother Yoni is in the same tree as me right now 160 ft up. We have tree names. I refer to him as "Tarzan" and he calls me "Pancake". When the wind blows hard, the tarps start to flutter and Liebertall, the tree Im living with, steps onto the dance floor with all the other giants as they gently sway their tops back and forth. I double check my caribeener and rope but ultimately must surrender to the tree and the ropes that are holding me up.
A few days ago we pulled up to the edge of the forest in the Seabring convertible we rented in LA and drove up the Pacific coast Highway with the rooftop down. We entered the ancient forest under cover of night backpacks loaded with gear, rope, harness, devices, food, books and art supplies. We honkered down like donkeys with gallons of water clipped to our sides and hiked deep into the steep wet disputed mountainside. From one perspective we were illegally trespassing. I guess it all depends on who you think the judge is. We sat at the base of Liebertall with our guides "Shag", "Sunflower" and "Sparrow" for hours and discussed the movement, it's history, how its based in non-violence, and how to tie some really important knots.
(Ill write more soon)

Moven on up

It was deep in the Redwood forest where I first felt, truly felt, that while I was walking through the forest, I wasn't alone. It was the first place where I looked at trees as moving, living, breathing, eating, breeding, struggling, dancing aspects of creation (kinda like you and me). I vividly remember the moment....it happened in a moment...I remember the smell, the crisp air, the soft forest floor under my bare-feet. And I remember feeling small and humbled as this new awareness came to me and I realized that I was surrounded by 1500 year-old, sky-swaying, elders.

I've spent the last 4 months sharing my heart song with hundreds of children. I've taken them into the forest, many for the first time, and attempted to cultivate an appreciation and awareness to the wonders of nature. I guided countless pairs of eyes to look at trees with love and appreciation and recognition of each trees individuality. I'd take my groups and circle around a tree, and simply breathe with the tree.

I also teach my kiddies (and myself) to strive fiercely to live life in a way where our actions match our beliefs. First step is figuring out our beliefs, not so easy.

I believe in the power of the ancient trees. People are trying to cut them down. Only 3% of the old growth is left. I believe that this world will be better off if these remaining trees where allowed to remain living. They don't have ID numbers and they can't exactly speak our language but I still feel like they have some rights.
We humans where given awesome power and dominion, it appears, over this land. With that power comes the responsibility to guard and protect this precious gift.
So I'm heading up,
For the trees,
For the you's and the me's,
And the future you's and me's,
that are yet to be...

Im Going up!

The Bro and I

Decomposition

Muncha Muncha Muncha
Decomposition Hey Hey Hey
I Break down, I get Down

There are many kind of bugs
Worms and snails and slimy slugs
They are useful for me and for you
THey help to make the soil renew

So come on all you people gather round
Break down and listen, To Decomposition.

Decomposition is a useful game
a tree drops its leaves but they do not stay the same
A bug chews them up and spits them back out
Making the soil for a new tree to sprout

Deep Inside My Heart

Song session w/ 100 kids

Unknown

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

-Donald Rumsfeld
-Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Soap Box

28 times around the sun, Head spun in new directions frequently.
Even numbered stable ground. They say one must get lost before one is found.
I find my song today, full of sound, aching to release, yearning to escape.
So I let it out, where it feels right. No more hiding in the night. No time to waste no more.
Just a game of pick and choose.
Which gate to enter.
Which road fulfilling.
Which spring looks most cleansing to my weathered soul.
Which gloves will empower my hands to gather shards of broken light in this seemingly fragmented world.
Not a tick to waste but not a tick in haste. Coach always said be quick but don't hurry. Soul friends along the way guiding me, grabbing me, pulling me, lifting me up so gently by the runners on my chin to the places and spaces where my soul feels nourished. Fertile ground for my essence. This tree and these roots have been replanted, uprooted, relocated time and again yet soil fragments reside, rest inside, hitchen along for the ride. Ancient energy re-cycled. Such a blessing to be alive. Especially in a today. I'm left in a state of thankful, Awe-full (full of Awe), Amazement. Fingers twitching. Eyes peeled open. Larynx flutters. Dreams still racing. Heartbeat pacing. Blessings Blessings Blessings...

Yonis Blog

Brother Yoni's got a bloggidi blog with great pics and poems...
http://yonistadlin.blogspot.com/

Fire Spun

Fire Spun

Spinning fire, boat entry, at sukkot celebration at Teva.
Buckle your Seat-belt!

Sukkot

Matit and I building a shelter

Home

Any One Space Place
Is no kinda Place Space
To call your home
Only ONE place space
In any physical space place
To call your home
Is a waste
Places fade
Faces drift
Parents move
Different groove
Nothing lasts forever but forever
So my home she's like a sukkah tee-pee tent,
And I take her where I go
Holes left in the ceiling to let in the stars
along with it the snow
My home is collapsible, Manuverable, untakable, Un-mis-taken-able,
No more "oops, did I take the wrong one?"
Head spun, looken for a new place to call home
Everywhere I go, There I am
You see
Any One place space
Is no kinda space place
to call your home
at least for me

My Job

These kids had no idea I was taking them to an overlook. We did a blindfolded trust walk to get to the cliffs and a friend recorded the moment they removed their blindfolds.
I can't believe, I get paid for this.

First time

Last night I showed kids the Milky Way for the first time.
Today I took kids deep into a forest for the first time.
Taught them how to build a camp fire for the first time.
Explained global warming for the first time.
Explained how commercials bombard us with things we don't really need for the first time.
Guided them to sit alone with a tree for the first time.
Children ate leafs straight off a plant today, por la primera ves.
Lots of goodness being brought down into the world over here.
I feel honored to have even a little hand in it.

Ten kids circling in the forest around a tiny broccoli seed, Amazed at potential to grow.

Before Breakfast

This morning I got up at 7:30.
Some people where praying/meditating in the Gazebo by the lake. I walked alone along the misty morning lakeside trail with a mandolin and made up songs of thanks that my soul decided to rejoin my body again this morning. A man on a porch overheard my Melody and pulled out his ukulele and began to strum. We joined forces on the porch. I didn't know his name, but I knew so much about him from his heart song. We played and played and a woman come through the door on the porch. She was conducting a morning course on "what is happiness" in the room next door to a group of 20 teen-agers and the group had consensed that the two old friends making music through the window on the porch was their ideal of happiness. She asked if we would come in and share ourselves with the group. Of course we did. I told about how happiness for the most part was a bunch of tricks you pick up. Tricks for staying appreciative. Tricks for being true to yourself. How a rich person is one who's content with what he has. And then I played them the happy song. It was a delightful way to start the day.
My first batch of Kiddies come tomorrow!

Head in the clouds

The transition back to America slightly psychedelic as I didn't really feel like I was in my body for the first week back. I felt like a gold fish wrapped in a plastic bag, getting moved from the store to a new warm home.
"So.....How was Israel?"
"uhh.....neat....." I'd reply.
"So what did you do there?"
"yah know, different things..."
What to start talking about? Sometimes I would reply that I spent a lot of time at a place called heaven where i had an organic circle garden, and slept in a tree house that sat above a sauna which was next to a mikva, where the poppa of the land built biblical king David style harps and the Momma of the land was a natural healer and where the jackels howled at dusk. This answer would normaly throw peolpe for a loop. And is it cool to just tell someone that you came from a war? Does the Diner lady really want to know that?
"what did you do?"
This was always a hard answer to muster, even when I was in Israel. Each day was usually filled with endless spontaneous adventures. If you asked me what I did yesterday I'd usualy be hardpressed for an answer (although yesterday I did make fire from rubbing sticks...no matches)
For the last few weeks I've been out here, tucked in a forest on a hillside by a lake, with a community of conscious, spiritual, musical soul rebels, and my feet feel like their on the ground again. We've been training and hiking on the A.T. and finally on Monday our first batch of kiddies come to town. To me, the main thing we are doing here is waking them up, and getting them to start making conscious decisions. Its a wake up from consumerism, detachment, apathy, spiritual emptiness, environmental neglect...We get em diggen on nature, and water cycles and decomposition and we teach them how Judaism jives with all of these concepts.
I'll be up here for a few months....
The best time to dupe me is on the weekends.
Be Good,
Come visit

Pey-Sock

All year, my two friends from Israel, Yochana and Matitiyahu and I, had planned a grand summer trip to Yochanans parents summer place in Minasota. At the last minute after several airplane ticket changes, I decided to stay longer in Israel and help out in the North. My sweet friends made a sock puppet of me in my stead and took me along for the trip. Theres more pics up on my picture page
www.jerspics.blogspot.com

Where Im Worken

this is where Ill be worken the next few months.
http://www.tevacenter.org/

l'estranger

America?
Rainbow gathering at JFK.
Dupes in every corner.
Jam session at the international arrival lobby.
Family road trip.
On the way to one week camping/hiking staff orientation trip on the Appalachian trail.

Soon

Im in Jerusalem now, almost done recording my second CD out here. It'll be available on the web soon. And I'll be back in the states soon. I'm going to be working at a place called Teva in Connecticut over the fall. Im excited to see how I fit back into the place I came from. I've watched TV about 4 times in the last 14 months. No strip malls, WallMarts or giant billboards. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of hyped up crap in America, big movies and new stuff to buy. I was never into that stuff (sometimes the moovies got me), but it was everywhere. The reality contrast will be stark, but I'm ready, and looking forward to it. Mostly I'm coming to get love from all my loved ones I haven't seen in so long. Soon I fly.

Letter to Farah

Heres is a piece of correspondence written to a dear friend of mine from Philadelphia who went to Lebanon to help the civilians there. We used to march together at peace gatherings.
Her letter to me is on the comment on the previous post.
--------
Hey Love,
Two quick prefaces;
1) I hate Political squabbling, I'd rather play guitar.
2) I hate war and my yearning for peace has never been stronger in my life.

But in the name of Truth finding, I'll share my perspective.

I was sitting on a porch, playing guitar, and some people started throwing explosive missiles at me.The people who threw the missiles at me got the missiles and learned how to throw them at me from a place called Iran, who has a very popularly elected by the people for the people president, who openly proclaims;

"Israel must be wiped off the map,"

"There is no doubt that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot (Israel) from the face of the Islamic world."

"Holocaust was a myth"

(I was surprised when I looked over your blog to see a speech of his. He doesn't seem like a peace-maker)

So I ask myself, what should Israel have done? Let these people, who dream of our destruction, destroy me and this country? Is that peace? At what point do we start defending ourselves? How many Jews have to die before we're allowed to defend our right to exist? In WWII no one stood up for us until 6 million of my ancestors were reduced to human ash.

Conversely, the Israelis aren't trying to kill civilians, that's why they pirated radio stations and dropped tens of thousands of flyers in southern Lebanon warning civilians to leave town. And that's why the Govt sent in ground troops instead of more bigger bombings, to distinguish civilian from war-maker (Guerilla). No one here dances in the streets and passes out candy when news of Lebanese civilian deaths come through the radio. Hizbolah aims at hospitals. On the Sabbath, they would aim at the old city where the Jews where gathered. I know this for a fact as I was there hiding in a shelter. The people shooting missiles at me were shooting them from civilian houses and even from mosques. That's why they were targeted.

You say this was a war over land, but Israel already gave Lebanon the land she wanted? Gaza was given and still missiles fall every day. The main agenda and platform of this current Israeli government was to hand over land... So why would an army attack a nation in the middle of handing over huge tracts of land? Whats the truth? I personally believe the publicly elected president of Iran (and check signer of the missiles that were thrown at me) who brazenly proclaims he wants the total destruction of Israel.

If Israel put down her weapons, she would instantly be destroyed. If Israel's enemies put down their weapons, there would be peace. No invasions, no annihilations.

These are the truths I have found. I hope there is something big that I missed, and that there was some other way to stop these people from trying to kill us/me here.

I love you and wish both of us peace and clarity and a day where we can sit on the stoop in West Philadelphia and play some music without a nag in the back of our minds of our fellow humans plight on the other side of the globe, because it won't exist.

Love Jer (Fellow human planet walker)

War no More

The war is over and life she's rollen on. Everyone is glad the boys are coming back home, most of them safe and sound. Most feel like there was a bit more work to do up there, and that this was just a chapter to a big mess we're gonna have to deal with later. The people behind this mess, the Iranians, have brazenly announced to the world that they want to end our existence. It's a shame. It'd be so much cooler if they'd just hang out and do their thing, and we'd hang out and do our thing, nobody dreaming of annihilating anyone.
On a happier note, no more people are dying (unnaturally, for the most part) around here. No more Sirens. In fact tonight we had an "End of War" Party with soldiers, fresh off the line, and volunteers, and beer. We sat on the porch and played Bob Marley songs of freedom. The Hills besides us stopped burning. No more background offbeat drumbeats from nearby mortat shelling. No more fireworks on the horizon. Just a quiet night with friends, and gratitude for making it to a new day.
Tomorrow we clean up the mess. Pick up the pieces, literally and figuratively. Refugees are coming home tonight by the thousands. Some with giant holes in their homes, some with giant holes in their lives. This nation is strong and quite alive. There was an incredible sense of unity and brother/sisterhood around here the last few weeks, which was probably the best side effect of the war. I hope is trickles on. It did tonight.

Some recent picture/Paintings by me

Tsfat

DayDream

Walk Away

Destruction

This is only a small depiction of some of the damage done by the katushas. This is the courtyard of a girls school about a hundred yards from where I sleep. You can see tiny shrapnel holes in everything. One of best friends Yifat studied here.

Radio interview

Hey,
Heres another radio interview from Tsfat.
http://www.israelnationalradio.com/
scroll down to Yishai & Malkah Fleisher, Thursday Aug 10 "Unthinkable Failure". My interview is in the middle and the segment closes with a sample of a song of mine.

Letter from a Soldier

Letter from a soldier (who gave me his uniform)

This war has taught, and will continue to teach me, many things.
Stories of heroism and bravery, side by side with grief and loss,
Pain of the wounded, and soldier camaraderie!
Yet, above all amazing things, it has shown me you!
Jews of the Diaspora, Jews of the world, our brothers!!!
Coming from four corners of the world for one reason –
Your heart knew no rest in foreign lands, your heart was here in Israel.
Putting your own life in danger, an act which many of our own brothers here in our own land have forgotten.
And this, only to bring us a bit of comfort, an encouraging word and a warm hug to us all.
To the soldiers fighting in the front lines against the enemy – terrorists – whose ways darken the human race.
And to the all the citizens declaring – here we will always stay!
This experience of yours has been an enlightening one, may you pass it on to all.
Tell them about your experiences here in Israel, in the shadow of this war and make them understand …
We have no other land! And we are all one people – a people of a repeating past and present.
Thank you from the depths of my heart for your actions and help and for all your amazing work.
Hold our hands and send us hugs from wherever you are.
We need these hugs, and the proof of the strength and unity of our people as a nation.
In conclusion, please remember that our hearts are forever bound together….
Come...visit us, and we would be delighted if you stay here forever - in our amazing Land of Israel – and make it your home.

Gad Even-Zur Officer
Ziev Hospital, Tzfat

Gift from a soldier

The Soldier who wrote the letter above, gave me his uniform. This is me on the Livnot Balcony. You can kinda see Lebanon behind my left shoulder. The mountains to the right are often on fire. Katushas have landed on Several places a minute or two away from where Im standing.

Soldier of Love

Every days missiles would fly out from the horizon. Id sit on this porch and aim my instruments up North and play prayers of peace and healing.

Letter to Russ

Ten Fingers Ten Toes
Thanks and praise
and so it goes
on and on
I feel my weight
I listen to my breath
and I know I'm alive
In this mangled reality
This reality antithetical to my norm
I never get attacked
I don't run unless chasing a Frisbee
Im a Babar and Babars move slowly
The only cover I normally have to take is in my bed
I don't hurry scurry or scamper
I don't wear shoes, but I do
My comfort zone resolved, desolved, redefined daily
I had designed my life nonconflictual
I guess Im still nonconflictual
My actions aren't so much anti
and I still don't like wearing shoes

Short Glimpses

Besides the typical things we are doing today, we're planning a party for the elderly of Tsfat tonight. Cheese cake, Bingo, board games, Relaxation techniques, Dancing and Music. I'm the band. I hope they like the Grateful Dead and bad eighties music.
We're planning it at a community center while there's talk of doing it in a bomb shelter. Usually the nights are quiet. Missiles and Sirens get replaced with Music and Laughter. Last night we had a barbecue and the night before we had a Yoga/Shiatsu/Meditation session with a Guru. It's important in times like these to do some normal things, to forget about the heaviness of war, at least for short glimpses.

News

2 Great places to get online News from Isreal
www.Jpost.com
www.haaretz.com

Pics

I've posted some pictures up on my picture page
www.Jerspics.blogspot.com
or click the link "JersPics" on the left.
Feel free to add questions or comments to either page.

Bag of Songs

I have a bag of songs. Each hospital room calls for a uniquely crafted, hand-made, hand-delivered, personalized, cocktail-concoction, song medley of healing. Some need happy. Some need to be eased into happy. Some need to release sad. Some need sleep.
A friend and I walked into a room where a lone soldier lay stretched out on the bed. Pain, suffering and exhaustion laced his battered eyes. We barely spoke to him. My friend began to strum, I began to flaut....gently. He began to drift... gently....and after 20 minutes his eyes gave up and he fell asleep. We tip-toed into the hallway, like parents who just put their baby to bed, to find his Mother, Father and four sisters with tears dripping down their faces.
"You don't know what you just did" the mother said through her tears.
"Our son watched three of his friends die in Lebanon two days ago. He then killed those who killed his friends and in the battle he got shrapnel in his leg. This is the first time he's slept in over two days."
I accepted her thanks and reminded her that if it weren't for brave soldiers like her son, protecting us/me day in and out, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night either.

Sirens

Siren

I shot this Video on Friday while delivering food packages. Just a glimps of what it's like each time a siren goes off, and they go off everyday, many times a day, in fact one just went off while I was writing this, the rocket landed in the valley. The old woman in this video couldn't get off the couch and was sitting by the window, the worst place to be when a missile falls. She was crying and her hands were shaking. What do you do? Run for cover or stay with the lady?

Boris and I

He had Shrapnel in his left hand, so I played the chords while he strummed the strings (thats my left hand in the pic)

No snooze button

I always hated waking up to an alarm. For the second day in a row I've woken up to sirens and missile attacks. Big explosions. One sounded like it came from Lebanon. big one. And one was down the street at the Etheopian absorption center I often volunteer at. I heard someone was hurt there. Someone from the south is coming in tonight to lead us in a meditation to settle our nerves. No one has been freaking out here, but the constant background sounds of war and explosions can grate on ones psyche after a while.

Hospital Visit

Interesting dude. This injured Israeli soldier comes from a Druze family. The druze are and offshoot of Islam, and they are always very loyal to whatever country they are living in. It's in their doctorine to do so. On the other side of the fence his cousins were fighting for Hizbalah.

Hospital Visit

Last night there were 23 soldiers, mostly newly injured, in the Tsfat hospital. We played happy songs and lullabies till midnight. Each soldier had a different crazy story. This one in the picture got hit by debris and shrapnel and part of an RPG. He had little holes all over his back. He said he couldn't wait to get back to his unit to stand with his brothers. Another guy, big tough stocky soldier man with bandages all over his bed ridden body, started sobbing while we sang him to sleep.

free time

In my free time I've been sitting on the porch, aiming flute music up north. I often get interrupted by the sirens, so I've made up a tune to go along with its drone (that I play once in the shelter).
I also started a city wide aroma therapy campaign here in Tsfat. When people ask what to bring up besides the basics I tell them incense....Nagchampa specifically. I have seven boxes. I light em and leave em all over town. I believe It's pleasing to the spirit in these times of displeasure.

Katushia

One of the volunteers here was born in Russia. Her name there was Catherine. The nickname for Catherine in Russia is Katushia. First thing in the morning, Every morning, she runs up to me and gives me a hug. "You can only get hit by a Katushia once" she says. "And you've already been hit".

130 rockets in one hour.
Smoke in the air.

Grandma got to eat

Friday morning we had intelligence that there was going to be heavy fire in the afternoon, while all morning it was quiet. Around 2 o'clock there still hadn't been any strikes, a little odd as they normally start around 8 AM. Two last meals needed to be delivered before shabbat and we needed to pick up some supplies. So I put on my shoes and hit the road in the midday sun. Unfortunately there was a typo on the address sheet and my friend and I were wandering around for over an hour. Still no rockets. The whole time I'm walking I'm looking for good places to take cover in case the sirens sound. We meet a crazy cab driver who claims he knows where the house is (though the address doesn't actually exist). So we hop in the cab and head on our way.
When the siren sounds and your out on the streets, an immediate jolt of adrenaline surges in your heart and an animalistic scamper mode kicks in. You drop whatever your doing and scurry. The siren sounded and I was stuck in a cab. I told Cabi I wanted out. He said he knew a good place to go around the corner and I should believe in god. Around the corner was a giant wide open parking lot, one of the worst places to be. Shrapnel pierces car metal, I've seen it. His plan was to just park the car and wait. 5 seconds had past since the siren sounded. 10 seconds till landing. Car still rolling. I yelled at Cabi, tossed him ten Shekkel and told him I wanted out and opened the door to moving car. He stopped. I ran with friend. Sirens. Open naked lot. Found a trash dumpster vestibule made of concrete. Pushed out dumpster and curled into a ball. Head between legs, hands on head. Nothing to do but pray and wish for time to fast forward or somehow rewind. This was the first time I actually heard the Katusha cutting through the air. FFFWWWWWOOOOOOOSHHHHHHH! (as it flew overhead)
Boom.
But not just an exploding boom, a boom with broken glass and shattering concrete.
I didn't go to see where it landed. Still had meal to deliver. When we finally made it to the old woman's house the sirens sounded again. She was extremely old and couldn't move. She began to shake and cry. She looked like my grandma Rose. She was sitting on the couch by the window, shaking. Crying. We sat with her as the rockets landed. There's a nice Jewish Idea that bad things wont happen to you while your doing a good deed, and besides, Grandma had to eat.

Light in the Dark

Ten miles from flying metal shard ball bearing harpoon metal sling shots.
Ten miles south from red rivers where the children are fighting and the whole world is watching.
Ten Miles south of the nightmans watch while he waits and watches with adrenalined eyes and senses honed with radical acuteness.
Ten miles south in the city of blue where theres silver rain that chases you,
so we live in the ground because thats all you can do, while the August sun penetrates every sweaty crevice of your soul, drips and rolls down my cheek chasing eye drops.
Ten Miles south a father blessing child before he has to turn off his cell phone and head towards the line.
Ten miles south the hidden need food, sick the drugs, light and hugs, touch and music.
Ten miles south I build and I'm built and sometimes I feel like I'm walking on stilts.
Ten miles south on a mystical hill, I flout and I strum and I work and I chill.
Ten miles south in the city of air, I play a game of truth and dare, while buildings wail and sirens blare, so that the hair on your back stands tall, because when your walking on stilts you must take care not to fall.
Ten miles south, just a click past the line, A light in the dark, a flicker a spark, reality contrasted both subtle and stark. No conclusions found here just a place to start, we cast aside fear and live from the heart.

A point of View

A lot of you have been asking me about what I think about the war.
I don't like to talk politics, or to take sides, but I will say this. And Myabe I'll preface this Email by stating that this is all coming from a bonified, card carrying, tie-dyed, long haired, peace marching Hippie.
Israel is fighting this war out of self preservation. Its own peace preservation. Israel isn't fighting this war for the destruction of the arab people. Very important. The converse is not true. Israel does not want to be fighting this war, or be dealing with Lebenon at all, that's why we gave them the land they said they wanted 6 years ago.
We were just chillen, hangen out, worken on the tan, strummen the six string, and we got snuck attack by a people whom we had already conceded to. We already gave them all we could. I know we aren't politicians or diplomats but we must be wise thinkers. Think. What else could/should Israel do given the cards she was dealt? Stop the war today and they'll attack us again tomorrow. Surely. And that's not peace. Allowing yourself to get abused and destroyed is not peace. We gave them back their land, and this is what they've done with it. Did they build farms? comunity centers? resorts? nope, they built bunkers and drew maps for war.
Last summer we tore our brothers and sisters form their houses and synagogues from Gaza to appease. We thought that might bring peace. No "thank you", no getting on with life, just a closer firing point for their Kassams. Everyone thought that the big thing in the news this July was going to be the infighting amongst the Israelis because huge parts of the west bank were scheduled by parliament to be forcibly vacated and handed over. Every time we show a gesture of peace we are spat upon. I hate war. I can see it right now outside my window and I hate it. Our enemies, who are living their lives with the purpose of your and my destruction, don't want peace with us. They want us dead. It sucks right? And I believe that the only way to stop these people who want me dead is by force. I can't think of another way. And believe me I've thunk. I don't think a small gestural show of force would do anything other then encourage them and make them believe they can get away with it again. And its the saddest hardest thing to have to do. But if god forbid someone ever wanted to destroy any of you, I would do whatever needed to be done to ensure your peace.
These are just the conclusions I've come up with. I'm totally open and hopeful that there's something big that I missed and that there's a better solution.Until then Ill pray for peace, true peace.
We all come in Pieces.
-Pesach

Tisha Be'Av

I finally got good sleep last night.
Last night started a commemoration day where we remember the destruction of Jerusalem a couple thousand years ago.
It was eerie reading about it last night, out on the Livnot balcony....reading about the emptiness on the streets and all the destruction with the sound track of explosions in the background and mt. Meron besides me on fire.
But I got sleep.
Today we're all fasting, no food no water for 25 hours, so it should be a little more trying.
Im heading to the hospital soon to hang out with some of the soldiers who were injured in the same battle that Mike was killed in.
Lots of Love
Jer

Mike Levine from Philadelphia

I just found out that a friend of mine, a soldier, a kid, died up north yesterday. He's the smiley one on the right. Sweet guy. I used to eat Friday night Shabbat meals with him at my friend Ezras house in the old city. Before he left he said he knew he was going to die. He was 21. A blessed memory

Tsfat diaries 2

The whole time I've been here I've constantly been on guard. My senses acute to subtle sounds and vibrations. This morning, over coffee with a reporter from National Geographic (September edition), the missiles attacks began again in Tsfat and the Sirens have been moaning all morning, a few times an hour. We stand silently for a few minutes and listen to where they land. We don't thank god when we don't hear one land because it probably land somewhere.
---As I was just writing this E-mail I had to stop and run to the shelter...One sounded like it landed very close. Lots of the other volunteers are out delivering food and fixing things.
---Another 5 just landed and for the second time I had to stop writing to take shelter.
I'm being safe, and staying near shelter. Some people are getting lazy and are not taking cover every time the sirens go off. I promised you all I'd do all I can to stay safe, and I am.
War sucks.
Love
Jer

Day 2

Im writing to you from the hospital in Tsfat. Im blowing bubbles, playing guitar and flute for Doctors kids, wounded soldiers and patients.
Thankfully its been quietish. The Hospital got hit a few days ago, shattering four stories of glass, so their doing repairs today.
I went to my friends back yard last night and sat by a Katusha crater. It was hit in the first wave and my friends five year old was playing in the yard 15 seconds before it landed.
I sat last night on the porch with my co-worker as he gave his blessing of protection to his son who called to tell him he was turning off his cell phone as he was on his way over the line with the Golani Bregade.
Im being safe and preparing myself for when this quasi cease-fire ceases. Today Im in a fortified building all day and my bed room at Livnot is attached to the shelter.
Love you all

Wisdom from a Clone

As you sit on the stage of war, and the masters of war do what they do, and metal flies so fast that no one can see it and it goes into people...realize that you and all of you who stand witness are there now with a cause and think about your effect. This experience of life and living sometimes places us in the most ackward, backward, hard and painful classrooms...sometimes...but for some reason, realizing that you are there to learn something, to take something away, to learn and share a message, for some reason, this can bring something to chew on.The earth is trembling over there from the bombs and bullets, the earth is literally shaking....and we can't sit still anymore .This war is about Israel and Lebanon and others, and its also about you. Let war teach you peace-let war teach you peace-let war teach you peace, so that you know it, know it. Let this insanity blossom a bloom of clarity. The bullets fly so fast that we can't even see them, but we can see them,,,each one,,,what is its intention, what is its impact, its truth. Countries shouldn't fight and neither should we. When human to human to human knows this lesson that you are hopefully fortifying, when it is whispered, told and then shouted and then known from person to person to person, then we'll stop fighting with each other and war will become a myth.
-Yoni

Tsfat diaries

July 31st 2006, Tsfat

Driving into Tsfat was intense. We came in at night. I was driving with a carload of stuff and people. It occurred to me as I was driving, that to most people in the world my actions were insane, driving into CNN Breaking news northern Israel. I wasn't afraid, but rather respectful of the gravity of the situation.
A temporary cease fire began an hour after I arrived.
I didn't do it.
These cobblestone streets usually filled with wide eyed tourists and meandering mystics have become barren.
I've learned more then I've ever wanted to know about Katushas and how to take cover. My bedroom has a mini shelter in it and is less then half a frisbee throw to the main shelter.
We all come in pieces.
Shalom, Shanti, Paz, Vrede, Paix, Maluhia, Peace, Heiwa, Salam, Pyoung-hwa, Pokoj, Mir, Santipab, Fred, one day...
Me

Northern Winds

Jerusalem July 30th 2006

A cataclysmic wind is blowing in from the north these days, and its leaving my soul unsettled. It goes deeper then the news. With each passing report I feel a strange connection to my ancestors who had to survive against the Romans, the Babylonians, the Crusaders, The Inquisitioners, The Nazis (to name a few), who all worked so vigilantly to destroy the Jewish people.
Today, as I write, my old neighbors in Tsfat are getting explosive missiles that burst into searing shards of shrapnel dropped on their houses from people who dont want them to exist. Most of them have been living underground now for several weeks with there families, and there is work to be done.
Cars with goods and supplies need to be driven up north. Food needs to be made and delivered. Dilapidated bomb shelters (now homes) need fixing. The elderly need tending and touching. The kids gotto sing. Hospitals need visiting.
So I'm heading back up North, into the tempest, ten miles from the line, back to the smokey little town I once ran from like a refugee. I go with my guitar and (Native American) flute as my weapons of choice as I'm a lover not a fighter. And when the sirens ring Ill run for cover.
The organization that's running the relief efforts in Tsfat is Livnot (http://www.livnot.com/), the same non-profit organization that I've been working with for the last two months running spiritual adventure trips. The campus, whose space is usually home to rampant singing, heart and mind expanding conversations, has been turned into a civilian command center. There are even a few officers on campus to assist.
Check out the web page if you wish to help out.
Also, feel free to add questions or comments to this blog.
I'm OK. Just doing what I feel needs to be done. And if not me who?
I'll be as safe as I can up there, you have my word.
Please try not to worry, just send me up as much of the positive energy you can muster.
I leave tonight.
Love you
Jeremy/Pesach (my Hebrew name)

I saw war today

I saw war today.
I felt the ground tremble.
Last night I couldn't sleep because of the noise of explosions.
I am leading a 3 week "hike and explore" trip for a group of thirty 25(ish) year olds. We were staying at our campus up north in Tsfat.
A Beautiful coble-stone sleepy town where Kabalah originated.
Its the place I always go to to get away from the noise of the cities.
Its where I go for some peace.
From our balcony we could see a mountain on fire.
Cobra and Apache Helicopters flying overhead.
Every few minutes, a deep, rumbling BOOM....

We decided early this morning to move our group out of Tsfat even though there had Not been a terrorist attack or missile attack there in over 25 years. An hour after we left, the missiles exploded in Tsfat. An absorption center for new Imigrants where I volunteer sometimes, got hit. One Died, many wounded.

My friends who stayed in Tsfat and who live there heard the shriek of the impending missiles and then the crash of the impact, as they scampered with their families to the bomb shelters.

On our way to Jerusalem, we stopped near Tibereas on the Jordan river (at the place where they say JC was baptized). We were passing around a talking stick and having a sharing circle, when we learned that Haifa had been hit with longer range missiles and therefore we were still within missile range. So we packed up and headed to Jerusalem. I felt strange, and almost refugeeish, to leave somewhere because of war. To leave a town I love. To drive away from a sky chard with smoke. To be driving in one direction while gunships headed in the other.

Some of us are ashamed to be called the chosen people. We think its haughty or arrogant. The truth is, one of the main things we've been chosen for is to have it rough. It's never been easy for us Jews, and as soon as it starts getting easy, thats when it gets rough again. The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Asyrians, Crusaders, The Spanish, The Nazis and now our current adversaries have all come after us. Maybe it's all to keep us sensitive. Maybe to keep us tough. Maybe its a scenario set up to test our faith. I like a teacher of mines idea that once we get our act together as a nation, once we learn to love one another as we would want to be loved, To speak words of kindness, to give what we would want to get, our enemies will desist. Anyway, Its probably worth a try.
Last week I sat with my Chevre(friends) in a Bar-Chochvah dug-out cave where the Jews hid out from the Romans 1700 years ago. Tonight my friend and his wife and four kids are sleeping in a dug out bomb shelter tunnel under their house.

I'm safe now.
War is no longer only something I know of from the TV.
War sucks.
It's the ultimate party pooper.
I hope I never have to smell it again.

The whole entire world, is a very narrow bridge.
I'm not afraid.
I love Ya'll
Pesach

equal and opposite

Everyday I find a 10 pronged fork in the road. Each prong a different reality with infinite ramifications. I've never been in such a little place with such seemingly beautiful prongs. I say seemingly because one never knows where an unpursued prong might lead, though on the surface they shimmer.
Israel.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so they say.
This land known for chaos and turmoil is filled with so much joy and beauty.
The news never shows you rampant rainbow parades down the catacombs of Jerusalem at 3 AM. Or the gathering I just came from where Rabbis and Imams sat, sang and smiled together.
Last week I pursued a prong of preparing for a HUGE music/spirit festival on the beach called Boombamelah.
http://www.boombamela.co.il/
Sunshine, daydreams, palm trees, white sand dunes, outrageous art, Rainbow family, circles, blues skies, Mediterranean bliss. Sometimes at night I could hear the bombs from Gaza, as I was camped about 10 miles from the border. Once in a while, just over the view of my campfire, on the horizon, the night sky would light up green for a quick second.
I'm not sure if its equal, the good and the bad, the pain and the pleasure, but I do know that I dwell in a microcosmic land of extremes.

Solar Eclipse

This is a picture I took of the mid-day fire ball playing peek-a-boo. The moons always happiest when shes full. Today the spotlight was stolen. The curtain was pulled. The lights were turned off. The dark side illumiated. The moons sweet revenge...

This is Celebration.....

Me spinning fire in a celebration for the upcoming week... and it was indeed a good one filled with impromptu parades, Arts n Crafts night, Frisbee in the park, 76 degrees with a breeze, Festival planning, Visa restamping, studying, Planting, Farming and going swimming in ancient ritualistically cleansing springs, in abandoned Arab villages, at sunrise to welcome and refresh for the new week (which starts on Sunday in Israel).

Flyen High

Cuddle puddle

For the last two weeks I had the esteemed pleasure of helping to host 42 21-26 year old Americanos who came to Israel to explore the land and check out Jewish Ideas. It turned into a huge Hippie Rainbow Jewish Love fest (as this picture implies).

smootches

Smootching is much easier when your partner doesn't have a nose

Sunrise at Mt Sinai

Bus ride

Monday Nov 14th
Enruit to Rainbow Israel in a bulletproof bus
Hearing stories of shootings and explosions
Walls of separation
Driving through tunnels under hostile towns
The women besides me explains that we must pray
and hopefully god will listen
"God knows when each strand of hair moves on your body
He can make an RPG misfire"
As I'm writing this, the bus just stopped and the engine turned off.
There was a shooting down the road.
Some Jews get out of the bus to pray.
One passenger, a soldier, grabs his M-16 and two clips and walks down the road.
Armored trucks are everywhere.
I am in what they call the "West Bank"
Which actually lies on the eastern most part of Israel.
This country is a mess and everyone has a different solution. One grabs his bible while the other clutches his gun while I head to the Rainbow.
The Military roadblock was just lifted and our bulletproof bus is the first one down the road where the shooting just took place. As we roll down the road, I think of the infinite could have would haves and did haves that create each moment. A butterfly farts in Mongolia and there's a typhoon in Japan. And What about the traffic lights? Does God himself control these fate determining mass-synchronization machines?
As the bus comes to a stop at resevoir road near the town of seven wells, we disembark and begin our journey through the night following rock piles into the rainbow. Under the cover of the full moon I remark to my brother "It is quite possible this day has not yet climaxed". And it hadn't...

The Clone Dupe

I came in my room in Jerusalem, and my replica was hiding under a sheet in the bed next to mine. We hugged like this for an eternitiy. People in the room were imaging us as wagging taled puppies. Life is Perfect..........

Playing DIrty

At the dead sea

Got Clone?

yup

Just a glimpse

I've spent the last little while at a renegade farm in the mountains, where Samson once lived, helping a friend turn a tract of dry land into a luscious blooming field of herbs and yummy food. I have a donkey. His name is Kunta. He is an Angry donkey. I learned to tame, saddle and ride kunta from a snake catching, exotic parrot breading, peyote' shaman named Lester. Technically the donkey belongs to this man but the donkey stays with us next to the late 1800's British train car that we're based out of. No Electric, no running water=no problems. Two days ago I was making tea by the fire and a heard of 170 goats passed by. I spent the day with them and their herdswomen. The goats listen better then the Kunta. Yesterday I worked in the field, processed freshly picked herbs, discussed radical politics with a Brahman guru groundskeeper who works the night shift at an Arabian horse stable, whos from Goa India, who has a dreadlocked beard that's white at the roots and it almost reaches his stomach and who was once an heir to an aristocratic throne. Later I jammed in hut atop a mountain, where rebel Jews once hid out in dug-out caves to hide from the Romans, with a semi-famous musician who gets play on the radio. Then hopped a ride to Jerusalem to play a gig at a bar till the wee hours.
-No details in this story have been exaggerated and some of the names may have been altered to protect their identities

New Heaven

Mi donkey Kunta
The train car
The Samson Mountains

Why?

"Why do you grow a beard?" I'm asked.
"For the same reason you grow eyelashes and skin" I retort.
"This is what an uninterrupted-man-face looks like".

Sitting and Thinking

So I haven't posted much in the last month. I've been quite busy doing things and going places and meeting people. I've also been thinking, sitting and thinking, as this picture portrays ("I wish this technophiliac would stop taking my picture"-said thoughts). King David used to hide out on the mountain across the valley, and there's a secret cold-spring clean-fresh water fall that we explored at the bottom of the ravine. All is well.

From sea to shining sea

I've been back in the holy land for a couple days and already my plate is overfilled. The Holidays are around the corner and everyone is getting ready. Some very nice rich man donated 2 million dollars so that young Jewish Boys could go to a place called Uman Ukrain to celebrate at the tomb site of a legendary Jewish philosopher and story teller. Russ and I have our foot in the door and my next writing to you might be from across the black sea. In a few hours Im embarking on a three day hike from the sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean.

They're the only ones....

In Greece, When people don't understand something, they say "It's all Chinese to me"....

Busking Santorini

This Irish bloke Patrick (who goes by the Greek name Psidon) and I (who was recently dubbed Argamemnon) played last night into the evening sunset and pulled in over 90 EUROS (over a hundred bucks)!! The night was capped off with a candle lit serenade to a young couple in love, gently singing and strumming the timeless Besame' Mucho. They threw 25 Euro in the guitar case and blissfully, hand in hand, disappeared into a quiet cobblestone alley.

Vroom

The best 10 dollars (8 Euros) I ever spent in my whole life was on this scooter.

How the dupe went down

I arrived at the dupees hotel at 0800, surveyed the scene, located all possible points of entrance, made contact with Alpha Bravo Gold-leader (the hotel clerk) and then nestled myself into a hidden crevice, where I could see but couldn't be seen (as photographic evidence 549JG38 indicates). As the target disengaged from the taxi I took several pictures of him so that later he could experience the creepy irk of knowing he'd been watched.
As the unsuspecting target completed the check in process, Alpha Bravo Gold leader signaled me with a secret hand gesture and I moved in for the kill. Target moved fast, real fast, to the elevator, right where I wanted him. As the motorized doors attempted to seal themselves, my hand interjected, forcing them to retreat. Then finally, in a graceful, singular gesture, I slid into the elevation chamber, snapped a photo, and gave my bro a most lovely and rowdy hug.

Front Yard

I left heaven and ended up in paradise. No really! They call this beach paradise and when I get out of my tent in the morning, this is the view.

Clothing is definitely optional in paradise.

Pantheon Acropolis

Zues is just alright with me

It's all Greek to me

I boogied into Athens a few days ago to dupe my step-Bro. I got him in the elevator.
Now I'm on the prowl for a sailboat to hop on and explore the Greek Isles.

I believe that's a temple of Zeus to the left of my big nobby head.

After breakfast this morning my waitress read my future by the traditional method of decoding spilt coffee grinds.

Good times ahead don't ya know

Souvlaki

Theres a big dupe in the air tonight
I'd tell you more, but I can't

Operation Child Smile

Hey Folks,
So, about a month and a half ago Some friends and I were volunteering at a terror victim support center in Jerusalem that helps out families that have been hit by bombs. They had us doing mostly office work and I decided I wanted to do something more hands on. I got the phone numbers of some kids who had either been in bombings themselves or their parents had been attacked and I decided to take them out to the movies and for ice cram. When my Mom and Step-Dad caught wind of this, they decided to firstly sponsor the outing and secondly they spread the word. Within days hundreds of dollars were flowing in (and still are) and thus an impromptu, no-profit organization was born. We call her "Operation Child Smile" and her chief objective is to shine some happiness on these kids and basically spoil them with candy, ice cream, cloths , toys and also food.
Most of the families we work with are very poor, especially if one or two of the parents are out of commission. The other day some friends and I took three kids out to get new shoes and some ice cream. Their father had been blown up in a bus. I noticed that the two youngest kids were having a very difficult time managing the ice cream cones. It was dripping all over them. When I asked the eldest why it was so hard for them he explained to me that they had never eaten ice cream from a cone before. It was just too expensive.
It was both sad and beautiful to witness.
I'll get pics up soon.

got harp?

yup

No Wrapping Paper

This morning I made an egg-hummus pita with hand picked eggs (our hands), Home-made hummus (our home),fresh picked tomatoes (our garden) and hand made sour dough pitas (our flour). I realized this morning that it has been 4 days since I've thrown away a single piece of non biodegradable organic trash. I spent the day working in the garden and I just had dinner with a bonafied Guru. Last night i met one of the Jackals. He lives in a den about a frisbees toss away from where Russ and I sleep.
Alls well in heaven....

Picture pages

Hey,
I made a page just for my pictures.

http://jerspics.blogspot.com/

There should be a link popping up on the side

ToDay

Today

I made bricks out of clay, sand, straw and poopi
for a new friends house

I also drank milk from the teet of a goat

Today

Lowdown on the Showdown

History is in the making and the political tension in this country is thicker then chocolate pudding. The pullout/disengagement begins today in Gaza and no one knows what will happen. The nation is torn. Jew vs. Jew in Israel. Country the size of New Jersey. The Jews in Gaza once served in the same army that's evicting them. Huge protests. State of Emergency. 4 friends of mine snuck in past the closed border into Gaza. Talk of armed resistance. People praying for miracles. No good answer.
everyone's holding their breath

Piece of Heaven

I've spent the last few days in heaven. No really, that's the name of the place. Heaven is about 30 minutes outside of Jerusalem and has a permiculture farm and a Harp making woodshop. We do sweat/saunas in heaven and then jump into a spring fed pool. While clearing a tract of land in heaven (for a new garden) I found several pieces of old old pottery and geodes and crystals hiding in the soil. The Woman of the land is a world renowned healer and harpist and the man of the house builds harps and fixes guitars for Israel's finest musicians who frequent heaven. In Heaven we pick fresh fig and carob for breakfast. In heaven we sleep under the stars while jackals howl to the moon.
Hopefully there will be pictures of heaven up shortly.

Where are you Dan?

Endemineh,
This means "what's-up" in the Ethiopean language of Amharik. You might be asking why is he leaning Amharik in Israel?
OK....History. 2300 years ago the Babylonians Sacked Israel/Jerusalem. They Sent the Jews of Israel into exile and spread out the 12 tribes amongst their vast empire. Some went to Persia (Iran). Some went to Lebanon. Some went to Egypt. One of the 12 tribes that got exiled was the tribe of "Dan". No one knew where they went. They were even called the lost tribe of Dan. Then, around 50 years ago, it was discovered that there were black tribes in Ethiopia practicing Jewish rituals and knowing Hebrew. Got Dan? Yup.
So in the last 15 years the Israeli govt has been flying in and absorbing thousands of Ethiopian, black as the night, Jews.
I spent the last couple days in the mystical blue town of Tsfat (where kabala originated) volunteering at an absorption center, playing with little ones who had recently been swooped up from the Ethiopean countryside. It was a big ol' love fest. I hope to have pics up soon.

Hmmmm?

This Pic is of me and my amiga Emily up in the north last weekend. Lebanon is two frisbee tosses ahead of us and if you look top left of my big nobby head you can see an Israeli patrol boat floating in the Med. The villages over Emilys head used to get hit by Hizbola rocket attacks quite frequently and still do once in a while. We hiked up here from almost as far as you can see and then took a gondola down into some caves/grottos.

Gandola ride

By the waterside

See the morning Sun...

It's a beautiful thing... At around 5:15 AM every morning, just before the sun starts tip-toeing across the horizon, the enchanting melody of the Muslim "call-to-prayer" can be heard echoing throughout the streets of Jerusalem. If you are awake and can hear this song, it probably means that you've been up all night having too much fun,,, And if you run immediately to your bed (without passing go) you can probably start getting some shut-eye before the sun penetrates your room.
No joke, It's been eight days in a row that I've seen the morning sun. Tonight it ends. Tonight I sleep under the cover of the moon (for at least an hour).
Layla Tov-Good night-Bon nuite-Shlap lecher-Buenos noches
Jeremy

Gone fishin'

Tonight Russ and I are gonna be living on a 6 by 3 foot long, 3rd floor porch for 48 hours straight, overlooking Zion Square (heart of downtown Jrslm) and lowering down a bucket to collect money for a charity. We're also hoping to catch some beer and falafel.

Speak Up

Speak Up

A mime stood at the gallows
As innocent as the north star
When given a last chance to speak
He stayed true to his art

The people they came by the hundreds
To see this final act
They all knew that his lips were sealed
And that he would not crack

A solemn tear ran down a painted face
As he waived the crowd farewell
Then his voice was heard for the very first time saying
"I'll see you all in Hell"

The whole crowd gasped together
And the hangman fell to the ground
The mime removed the rope from his neck
And tip-toed home without a sound

-JDS

Written Aug 3rd
@ Dezengof Sq.
Based on Hafiz

In a day

I'm in Tel Aviv today, staying with my step-bro who's a TV news anchor/celebrity/cool guy. Played ultimate last night with team Tel-Aviv (the Holy-landers). Going in a minute to meet up with Rachel Katzs friend Roni at a cafe by Dezengof square. Playing a gig tonight at mikes place in Jerusalem. Yesterday morning I woke up in a town called Naharia on the Mediterranean, just a frisbee toss away from the Lebanese border. That night I trained it to J-town and got completely duped by Alex Provda in a Jerusalem pub. But most importantly, laundry got done today.
If today ended right now, it could be said that today was a good day, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this day has not yet climaxed.

Silly people

Today as I rode the 18 bus through Jerusalem a woman was inquiring about my travels. When I told her I had been to Guatemala she gasped and said "Weren't you afraid? Guatemala is so dangerous!?!
I reminded her that we were riding on a bus through Jerusalem.

On top of the world

Russ and I atop a mountain in the Judean Hills near the dead sea.

Get 'er Started

Hey friends and Fam,
I made a blog.
I'll keep you posted if you wish to be posted.
Feel free to check in and add to the page.
I'll also try to shlap some pictures up soon, because everyone likes pictures....

-Jeremy