Only a moment to post today as we are off again soon.  . .

After the symposium Jeff Allen, Hadas Feldman, Zohar Navon, and I took off in a Isuzu 4 wheeler and headed into the great rift valley.  Over the next few days we explored the Dead Sea, walked the Juda Desert and stayed with Zohar’s family at a small moshav.  We climbed to the top of Masada where Hebrew rebels spilled their own blood, killing their wives and families rather than submit to the Roman army.  We found a dead Pelican who became stuck in the thick dead sea mud and was surrounded by blood red dye used to color phosphorus extracted from the sea for export.  This red polution bleeds from the works along the shore to fill streams and ponds creating images hinting at an old testiment plague.

Past check-points and Bedouin camps we entered Jeruselem and drove through the winding neighboorhoods built upon the Mount of Olives. We walked in the garden of Gethsemane, now fenced and imprisoned by church walls and street vendors selling olive branches, baseball caps and brass menoras, all sold from the hood of a ’66 chevrolet. I stood quietly as I looked over old cemetaries shaded by ancient olive trees and sprinkled with urban trash. Each grave maked with a body length hoizontal slab of stone, lie side by side over hills and into the deep shaded valleys near the old city walls. Out of respect some had placed stones upon the graves with gentle reverence for loved ones lost.

We drove through the hustle and bustle of the arab neighborhoods of Jerulsem, past open air markets filled with people in modern and traditional dress. An elderly woman sat almost invisable on a sidewalk selling flowers as the world passed by. I snaped a picture and captured the breath of the moment.

There are so many stories interwined in these moments. These stories can be told when once again I am able to sit in the quiet of my little room and consider all that has been. For the moment these images go by like lightning and I’m not quite capable of grasping the details. So stay tuned, I’ll soon have many stories to tell.

*photo by Jeff Allen

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