Mother {Earth} Day Tribute

To all my mothers as expressed through mother earth - the most fertile and giving mother of them all. These photographs are taken from my travels in Israel. The quotes are from Song of Songs, a beautiful love poem written by King Solomon. According to Kabbala, the secrets of creation and the healing properties of all plants are encoded in this short, sacred, erotic text.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Dedicated to Devorah Willaman, my foundation, my mother
ficus tree grove in She'an Valley

The beams of our houses are cedars; our corridors are cypresses. (1:17)

Dedicated to Eleanor Willaman
rose garden in Jerusalem
As a rose among the thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. (2:2)

Dedicated to Rita Domber
sukka in the grape vinyard at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu
Like the finest apple tree in the orchard is my lover among other young men. I sit in his delightful shade and taste his delicious fruit. (2:3)

Dedicated to Rosanne Guido
flower blooming in Tel Aviv
The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of singing has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. (2:12)

Dedicated to Ruth Domber
fig tree in Bat Ayin
The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming. Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one! (2:13)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Dinah Chinn
tree in the valley of Mt. Meron
My beloved is mine, and I am his, who grazes among the roses. (2:16)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Rivkah Marga Gestetner
date palms along the Mediterranean

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right. (3:5)

Dedicated to Lisa Domber
green at the feet of the Judaen desert
Who is this young woman coming up from the wilderness like clouds of smoke? She is perfumed with myrrh and incense made from the merchants' scented powders. (3:6)

Dedicated to Karen Willaman
flower in the Carmel forest
Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; Henna with spikenard plants. (4:13)

Dedicated to Sarah Zadok
sacred desert well in Kibbutz Ketura
You are a fountain of gardens, a spring of living waters, and flowing waters from Lebanon. (4:15)

Dedicated to the beautiful women at B'erot
wheat field in the Hula Valley
Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out; let my beloved come to his garden and eat his sweet fruit. (4:16)

Dedicated to my Mayanot sisters
royal purple flower in the foothills surrounding Jerusalem
I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; to take my myrrh with my spice; my wax with my honey; my wine with my milk. Take meat, O friends; take wine, yes, be overcome with love. (5:1)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Chaya Levinger
vase of almond blossoms in Tzur Hadassah

His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. (5:13)

Dedicated to Rebbetzin Chana Silberstein
caper flower in the Golan Heights
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, who grazes among the roses. (6:3)

Dedicated to Shirley Domber
zucchini in the Bat Ayin vegetable garden
I went down to the nut garden to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine had blossomed, the pomegranates were in bloom. (6:11)

Dedicated to Hellen Willaman
almond tree in Gush Etzion
Your navel is perfectly formed like a goblet filled with mixed wine. Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lilies. (7:3)

Dedicated to blood; sisters, aunts, cousins
date tree in the Jordan Valley
I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples. (7:8)

Dedicated to my Garden Girls
tree orchard in Bat Ayin
Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom--there I will give you my love. (7:12)

Dedicated to Joyce Lebowitz
etrog tree in Kfar Chabad
The pots of figs have given forth their fragrance, and on our doorways are all manner of sweet fruits, both new and old, which I have hidden away for you, my beloved. (7:14)

Dedicated to my White Oak roots
blooming the Negev desert
Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? Under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labor gave you birth. (8:5)

Dedicated to the women in Ithaca
sabra cacti in the West Bank settlements
You who dwell in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice! (8:13)

A donations was made to B'erot Bat Ayin in the name of all the women honored in this blog post. B'erot is a place where women learn to live in harmony with the land. http://www.berotbatayin.org/

Here come the Men in Black

Welcome Home!! I officially landed this week. Although it's been 2 full months since exiting the plane, only now is the jet lag is gone, the fog dispersed, and some semblance of order returned to my life. The culture shock has been electrifying, the fruits lackluster, and the weather….enough said. But the spring is coming and there is light. I just started working for two organizations that I love, World Zionist Organization and The Jewish Learning Institute, and am sojourning in a fascinating corner of Brooklyn called Crown Heights.

Crown Heights is intriquing, home to both the largest West-Indies immigrant community and the Chabad-Lubovitch Hasidic Jewish community, every excursion to the market is worth taking a notepad and recording. Bearded Hasidim and vividly dressed Caribbean-natives make for a colorful experience. I am surprised by how comfortable I feel around black men and men in black hats and even more surprised that I am the one who stands out on the street.

I have made some interesting observations about the two groups, who share a lot more in common than first meets the eye.

• Both speak a barely intelligible English, interspersed with Yiddish or a Caribbean dialect
• Both full of pride for their roots and brazen to show it, assimilation not a word in their vocabulary
• Both are slightly distrustful of the powers-that-be, there is only one allegiance, and its not to the US
• Both stock grocery stores with food products that are unidentifiable to the average shopper
• Both always muttering something under their breath, whether a hip hop song of a psalm of David
• Both speak of a promise land flowing with milk and honey
• Both don’t move out of the way when you are jogging down the street

My only complaint is that men from both sects have aggressive responses towards women, one looks way too hard while the other abruptly looks away

I get a kick out of the dready and the chasid chilling outside the bodega smoking stoges together. Only NYC! There is a nice harmony that pervades this area. It’s a spicy and flavorful bowl scooped out of the melting pot soup that is New York City. Tasty! I am enjoying the experience. Plus there is no where else that jerk chicken and gefilte fish are so abundant.

The last blog post was written in a coffee shop in Jerusalem, and boy have I come a far way since then. I am now sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn hundreds of miles, breaths, waters, and prayers from Tzion. Since coming back, I have been meeting up with lots of friends and family who have spoiled me with decadent amounts of love, hugs and enthusiasm. It’s invigorating to sit across the table with a friend whom who feel such affection towards but, due to circumstance, have no idea about what is going on in their lives. After an hour or so, over drinks and snacks, you fill in gaps of time with juicy details; divulging, embellishing, and reliving adventures - sharing moments of inspiration, revelations, ups and downs, and life perspectives. Story telling plays an important function in the history of mankind and is unique to our species. It connects us to our friends and family. What’s that all about? This topic has been on my mind quite a bit, especially with Passover right around the corner. The entire point of the seder (the traditional Passover meal) is to sit around the table and ‘tell the story’.

There are two sides to every story; the teller and the receiver.
From the perspective of the receiver, I have this to say:
“Please please tell me a bedtime story” I used to whine to my parents every night before going to bed. Better than any toy, I still carry these pearls with me, never outgrown, stored away in my mental jewelry box. A story is an inheritance from our parents and friends more precious than gold, everyone can share in them equally without diminishing the value. Also, stories enable us to learn and grow from others experiences, rather than reinventing the wheel each time around, we are lifted onto the shoulders of historical experience. That’s why it’s so important to remember history. Based on two truisms: History always repeats itself and There is nothing new under the sun learning and retelling history is a building block of civilization and wisdom. Intelligence is a highly valued trait in our society- weaning valuable information from stories is the ultimate skill in my opinion, it should be part of standardized testing.

On the flip side, once you get a story, it becomes your own, imbued with personal meaning, filtered through the lens of our experiences. It is impossible that two people can tell over the same story. A quintessential transformation takes place from hearing and retelling a story, it’s called ‘comprehension’. Relaying an event to others requires the storyteller to take an active stance and become personally invested, to understand the events in the larger scope. The key word is retrospection. While in the middle of an experience, it’s impossible to make sense of it, its only after wards, in the retelling of it, that we fill it with ethical lessons learned, comedic twists, dramatic pauses, a narrative voice and an outsider perspective. It is only in hindsight that stories can come to an end...and hopefully with a 'happily ever after'

Speech is the thread that binds us to each other. Stronger than twine, more durable than hemp – speech comes from deep within our throats and penetrates into the mind of the listener. A story shared between friends ties them together, when two minds have the same piece of knowledge you essentially become one. I suspect that is the secret of speech, perhaps it is why G-d spoke the world into creation.

Today we have accelerated the sharing process, through twitter, facebook, texting, etc we can tell our thoughts, experiences and dreams to one another, creating a constant line of communication. Tragedies, hardships, exoduses, births, and deaths become universally experienced. These bonds are tying society together and breaking down past barriers that separated tribes, states, cultures, and continents. Speech is unifying.

Passover is a time of story telling, of creating bonds and strengthening one another for the trip ahead. Please take this time to share and listen, a garner tools for the challenges that confront us in life.

I hope everyone has a meaningful Passover.