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.