Halloween Radio

A Selection of a Few of the Many Dreams I Have Had Thus Far............

~Dream 3-17-10~

The most vivid CB dream yet. I was hangin out on the patio outside blue moon, talking to people passing by- it was the summer. I remember talking to sydney jernigan, she asked me if i wanted to have lunch to catch up, i said sure, but i cant buy her meal. I had my  big backpack with me, like I had just gotten back. She left to go grab something, I turned to go over to Camp 4. At this point the dream became so vivid I was convinced I was fully in CB. It was a lucid dream that was so lucid I completely skipped over the part where you "realize" you are dreaming. I though I was home. I then ran into Billy Laird, and he asked me how my trip was goin, and why I came back to CB for just a week. I didn't really know. I then remembered I had to go back to Spain. I then realized, in whatever reality I was living in, I had had a number of "dreams" where I had just gone back to CB for a week in the middle of my trip. Which I have had. I thought maybe this was one of those dreams. But it seemed to real to be a dream. It was almost as real as our "waking" state. So, I started freaking out thinking I might be dreaming all this, and ran into Camp 4 to get a chocolate crossaint, figuring if I could taste it, I would know I wasn't dreaming. I ran in, Sara Huckins was working, and she looked at me like "typical Jackson thinking he is dreaming"  and gave me a crossaint. I reached into my pocket, payed her, and took a bite. I could taste it! I could literally feel the chocolate on my lips. I still wasn't fully convinced, and ran back outside. The dream then began to fade out.....

~Dream Last Night~

1.

I dreamed I was driving in an old beatup truck with Wazz. A copy of some Steinbeck book lay on the dash. An old hunched over man was shifting gears, while Wazz was giving the truck gas and steering. Wazz kept showing the old man things, like he was giving him a lesson on how to drive a stick. We pulled up to dad's house at night. Th snow was beginning to melt on the grass, it was night. Josh was walking home with Muki, we stopped and chatted, and then continued on our walk.

*Wazz is Todd Wassinger, my past/future science teacher and friend. A man I respect and appreciate tremendously.

2.

I was in the desert behind Silent Arrow, with a couple other people, when we saw this giant Israeli warplane fly overhead. We knew it was going to bomb the Arab village below. Above us was a Jewish town. They dropped a bomb near us. I asked someone next to me if anyone was going to survive where we were. He then pulled out this map of populations in the future, that had somehow been divined. Where we were was blank of people. We then realized that the wiping out of all the people was happening with these bombs, so we made a frantic run up the desert hill to the Jewish town. The Israelis started dropping bombs all around us. The earth was shaking. One silver bomb dropped and started bouncing towards me. I ran out of the way, and it exploded a huge blinding flash of white light. We somehow made it to the town, and the only place we could refuge was the Holocaust Museum. So, we made our way into the museum, when someone informed me Hitler was kept here. The actual man was essentially locked up here, destined to look at the terrible things he did. I asked the person how he treated all the jews comin through. They shrugged it off, like he had gone kinda mental in his old age and was tired and the jews were more powerful then him now. We walked into the common room, and I looked at these too tight jean wearing guys rolling a joint. There mohawks were not spiked, and reggae was blasting. I turned to the vending machine and fumbled for something.

~A Dream Dreamt One of My First Nights in Israel~

I am a beast like man, with distorted features, and a humped back. He is hairless, though you would have thought he would be covered in hair, due to his beast like presence. He is living in this cave very dark and deep. I then notice he has three tulips growing out of his forehead. I am then the beast, and pull one out. I can really feel the stem come out of my skull, long and sharp. Five seconds of it as I pulled it out, smoothly. A little blood drips. I then realize how stupid it was to take it out because I can't set it down, I must hold it until I find someone to give it to.

Money

So. I told myself, in regards to the blog, I would share even the embarrassing things that have happened- so here you go.

 

My debit card was not stolen. I somehow managed to spend about 800 dollars over my budget while in Israel. I'm not sure quite how. Looking at the list of ATM withdrawals, I spent 800 dollars in four straight days. That's 200 dollars a day. I can't remember anything specific going on those days- it is possible those were the days my bag was stolen, but I think my bag was stolen before those four days. And even so, I carefully calculated what I spent dealing with the repercussions of losing my bag. 200 dollars on glasses, and 100 dollars on a new phone and minutes. That means I was spending  over 100 dollars a day, though it was before I went to the desert, and I only spent one night at a hostel in jerusalem, all the other times I had a free place to stay. And that was only 15 dollars. I spent it somehow, I kept withdrawing money. And I still have my debit card.

 

I had a major emotional tear filled breakdown realizing I had somehow managed to do it. A friend told me that "Americans spend to sooth." It's true. I think we do. My wits weren't about me, my system had been totally shocked. I was lost in a dream scape- remembering it feels like recalling a dream- and what is money in a dream? It was a powerful, positive, life changing experience. I am beginning the recovery, the rejuvenation process.

 

And, now I know the value of money. I have a budget, pretty conservative but I can live off of it. I have a weekly budget, and daily guidelines. It is one of the most grounding things to know exactly how much money you have to spend, and sticking to it. I am finding deep soothing in that- for it creates a feeling of pattern and reward knowing you have this tool, as evil as it is, below you, and not above you. There are millionaires who manage to live a poor man's life and laboring men who manage to feed a family of five. Money can be manipulated, molded, transformed, bent, borrowed, lost, gained, won, disapear! My relationship with money has forever changed, and I think this change is a pivotal one in the maturity I am gaining from these experiences.

Ireland.

I'm coming back, waking up from Israel. I got sick here, and thats just part of it all catching up to me. The fact that I survived Israel is crazy. Wow. Looking back on it it feels like a great big vivid dream that I am just stirring out of now. Just waking back up. 

Ireland is great. I am eating good, sleeping. I am enjoying being with Mary Branley, a good friend of my mom's and very accomplished Irish poet. Playing a lot of music as well. Just being. That is all I can do. I head to Barcelona around the end of March to start school. I am doing an exchange with a family there who are good old friends of Xavier Fane's. They have a son who is a year younger than me, and is going to come out to C.B. this summer. So, as you can imagine I am looking forward to that! The turbulence is behind me. I'm not saying things won't come up, challenges present themselves, but I am sure nothing to the extent of Israel. 

Also, today I checked my ATM balance, and was surprised to see that I have 1,000 dollars less in my account than I have suspected. Now, I will be fair in saying I haven't written down every penny I spent, but I was keeping track of the withdrawals I made, and I should have another 1,000 dollars in my account. I don't know if I wrote about this earlier, but someone at the house I was staying at when volunteering in Bethlehem somehow managed to find my credit card (which I had put under my mattress) and tried to buy a thousand dollar airline ticket. Luckily the credit card cancelled. I didn't check my debit card, which would have been with my credit card. I am kind of in a state of shock as I write all this- it just happened like 15 minutes ago. Ya, this is not good. This really is not good. 

And "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" just came on in the internet cafe. Sometimes depressive music can be- depressing.

And I'll have to get through this one too. I'm comin back down to earth, I'm gaining clarity on some other things in my life, and being pieced back together.

And the Surrealism Continues.

And right when I thought the world is my oyster and the universe was being so merciful, I am presented with another challenge- perhaps the hardest yet.

I left the desert to go visit Gilad's (a distant cousin I stayed with in Jerusalem) parents in Tel Aviv, for a few days, before heading out to Ireland. I had met them once before, they are 66 and 87. So, I was set. Just three more easy days! I could see the mist, I would soon be out of the American fortress they call Israel! Soon! So soon I would be free from Hebrew and spitting people on the street and bent-head religious fanatics. Soon I will be out of the intensity! Soon I will be sipping a Guinness and watching talented traditional Irish musicians! 

And my trip ended the way it began. Kinda. Nechama, Gilad's mother, and her husband Hillel, have an adopted daughter. She is mentally unstable (probably skitsifrenik), obsessed with the Backstreet Boys, and violently hates all other boys ( I believe she was raped by a 16 year old when she was 16, from what I picked up talking with her). Essentially, I felt super uncomfortable after a violent screaming outburst directed at me. I needed to figure out how to leave. Its never simple. Nechama was very excited for my visit and felt she had to supervise me (she is a hyper-worrying individual). To make matters more complicated, my great-grandfather supported Nechama's family over the course of thirty years in order to help them move from Poland to Israel in 1948. She felt indebted to me. She made me the same cake my great-grandfather had her make for him on one of his twenty visits to Israel. So, I had to figure it out. I talked to Nechama, she got upset, and essentially wouldn't let me leave. I'm not going to go into the details of how I left, I just did, and went to a cool hostel in central Tel Aviv. 

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to a tremendous storm. Wind and rain. I walked down to the front desk to get my pack and toothbrush, and started talking to this 6ft. 4inch young fair haired Australian guy wearing tight green pants, pink socks, an eighties ski jacket, and a neon headband. He had just got back from the clubs. Huge smile; hilarious and charismatic. He was chatting with the receptionist, and then we headed together to get some pizza for breakfast. We went back to the hostel, he went to bed. But before we got back he informed me he thought there was someone else staying at the hostel from Crested Butte. Ya right, I thought, its just the drugs and music wearing off. I met Nechama for lunch, went to the beach for the window of sun, got soaking wet in the rain, and went back to the hostel, were, I ran into two guys, one with a CU hat on. I started talking to them:

Did you go to CU?

Ya.

I'm from Colorado.

Where abouts?

Crested Butte. (the two guys look at eachother).

What? I'm from Crested Butte. Whats your name? (Guy in hat)

Jackson. (the two guys look at each other again and start laughing nervously a little) 

My name's Jackson (guy in hat again).

We then just stared at each other for a minute. I broke the silence:

Did you graduate from CBCS? (right, rather funny asking that question in Tel Aviv!)

Ya, in 2005. (then I realized that I was sitting across from someone who had done the same infamous english assignments from Pat O'Neill and hung out on third and elk and then here is someone with a accurate mental image of so many people we both know, ya, weird.)

Do your parents still live there?

Ya, my dad is Mickey Cooper.

So, there I am sitting with Jackson Cooper who did birthright and now is travelling around with some friends. Wo. 

Wo. I am looking back on my month in Israel and seeing a lot. It feels like one big dream. The memories or like that of a dream. I got thrown harshly into people's lives and tumbled around in each for a while, each one spitting me out a slightly changed person. I cannot know what lies ahead (internally I have a better idea externally), but I suspect that it won't be a turbulent as my last month. A month drenched in homesickness, balance needing, balance finding, synchronisity, wisdom, pain, big dreams, people, loneliness, togetherness, on and onward.

O, I just remembered an interesting conversation I had at the desert with Leon, the volunteer at the lodge, a very talented trance/world/electronica digital dj who was born in Israel to English parents. He is a stocky, tall, guy who resemble the Dude. He acknowledges the similarities, just picture the Dude without sunglasses and shorter hair and a little more energy, not much, just a little and you have Leon. So, we are talking about Judaism. Leon doesn't like Judaism, he is planing to come to America.

Me: Why don't you like Israel?

Leon: It is full of Arab hating dirty people. I want to go to America man. I want to get away from Jehovah (he begins laughing, as do I)

Do you identify more with English speakers?

Ya, Israeli's are all spun up, it the military that does it. The only way Israelis know to get rid of it is to turn to drugs. And I like Americans man, I like em, I'm gonna WWOOF across america and start full moon trance parties all across.

A few traveling israeli yogis/hippies sit down.

Then, me and Leon began to determine how Jewish I am.

Leon: Did you get Bar Mirtzfed? (he has the most peculiar english/israeli accent)

Me: No

Did you get your dick chopped? (i start laughing again)

Ya, I got my dick chopped, did you.

Ya, I got my dick chopped.

I turn to the guys who just sat down.

Did you all get your dick's chopped, I ask.

Ya, they all start nodding their heads and laughing a little. They then admit they got barmitzfed too. We continued to talk about Judaism, and we all agreed that it generates a lot of fear in a lot of people. The religion turned to politics, and Leon shares a story about sitting at a desk at his parents farm near the Gaza border, working on a dj mix on the computer, presumably smoking a joint, when out of nowhere a bomb comes down, scaterring all the things in his room around. He uses his hands to illustrate the surprise and swaying that ensued. 

Its crazy man, he says, it really shakes you up, and the people down there really hate Arabs, (he laughs a little, putting more wood into the potbelly stove we are lying around) ya, they really hate em. 

Check out my link to Leon's site filled with free mixes, super good, I suggest the Celtic High Ways, under the chillout section. Click "free mixes" on the left hand side of the page, and on the right hand side of the next page click chillout. http://celtic-dj.com/.

So, I have seen the spectrum of Jews- from Leon to Simcha. I have seen this holy land ( M. Franti- "Every bit a land is a holy land and.......") and seen the people who live here and seen the humanity and the inhumanity. 

Tomorrow is my last day in Israel. To be continued......................

The Desert.

So, I have been all over the place. A quick overview of events first: I went to the Dead Sea for a day- wonderful, intense, beautiful, death like. I then went back to Bethlehem for a few days, and then Jerusalem, three different beds in three different nights, not quite knowing where I would be the next night. Now, I have landed! I am staying at the most beautiful desert lodge in the Negev. No electricity, really good people, desert everywhere, sun, stars, food! I am coming back into my body and re-recognizing how beautiful it is to be alive and human now! Wow! I have been here for four days, will stay a few more, and then head to Tel Aviv before flying up to Ireland.

Personal emotional stuff: realizing how much I love America! Wierd huh? It must be Israel. Because America was definitely not agreeing with me when I left. No, I'm realizing, how, as Leonard Cohen put it, America is "the cradle of the best and the worst." It is. I love the people. I do. Most of them! So, my "tribe" (not the jews, well, them too, but hopefully ill just take the good qualities!) is being pressed into me along with realizing that the "tribe" extends much further across the globe and that the earth is so connected with joy and that these emotions and spiritual truths are universal and timeless. I met a new life friend. Her name is Ayela. She is a very amazing person. Some connections are so right on and beautiful that all you need is one new connection to propel you out of any emotional shit you are in and open up your eyes (don't worry mom and dad, we are just friends, and she is 26). Anyways, life is good in my world. How are all of you? I heard its snowin in the butte!

O ya, and my camera, ipod, clothes, journals, gifts, and all kinds of stuff, too long to list, got taken by some religious kids on the street in Jerusalem due to my carelessness and laziness. I saw the kids who did it, there tzitzis flapping in the wind! I am learning a lot, common sense for sure! Ya, it sucks when your shit gets taken. All i can do is bless and release, and learn my lesson. Below is a new poem too. Also, here is a link to some pictures that a volunteer at the place and myself took with her camera. http://picasaweb.google.com/alwaysjackson/BlogDesert#slideshow/5441425860114793890

I'm alive.

The Great Joy is Free!

Laundry, wet, colorful, soapy your hands

In blue buckets of my dreams

Around and round: splash, swirl,

Of my days, I wring each separately 

And hang them, each to dry.

Our moon is in the fiber of each grain

And filling your pipe full with sand 

You smoke in the man, in the woman, 

In the moon, in the music!

In the desert.

The crow, dive deep! Into the star

Beside the cliff

Swing low, see far.

And may each flash flood 

Renew your faith

Give you solace

Fierce eyes and strength.

Then I slept, and

In the morning

Came upon my laundry, stiff and dry

Strung from two cypress trees

There were no other trees,

Just these two, in the middle

Of the desert.

And a pair of weathered red shoes

Had been tied together, by the laces

And thrown up onto

The same string

From which hung my laundry

Flapping in the wind.

The people, we starve

We laugh, we cry, we sigh, and die and starve.

And always we move under the sky, everyone

Alive today and each human who has ever died.

May you see the faces! The young, the old!

As we dance, may the beat be strong

And rumble and tremble and sway and boom!

And in movement to the beat of the earth

May we each take an item of our clothes

Tossing them, one by one,

Into a blue bucket

Of clear ocean water

And washing them together.

And hanging them all up to dry

On one long string before

Returning to the other plants, the other animals, 

the other stones, the other planets.

The great Joy is free!

This, is a beautiful thing.

New Poem and Pictures

~Here is a poem and a link to new pictures. I will post soon with some new stories to share~

http://picasaweb.google.com/alwaysjackson/BlogBethlehem#slideshow/5437449580546608786

Blue Ink

Standing in the sparkle and intimacy

Of a Byzantine church

I have not a reference point.

I have no memories to make

This any more real, or less

I am by myself

In the bowels of the universe.

And laced with the anxious tremor

Of not knowing where

To lay my head tomorrow night

I am

Writing this poem

On the back of my hand

In blue ink

For all the world

To see.