I remember when I studied electronics and electricity in high school I was able to do the math ( V = IR ). It was presented to me as something “very intuitive” but it didn’t feel intuitive to me … and I didn’t dare to ask, because if it was “obviously intuitive” and I wasn’t getting it then something was obviously wrong with my intuition … then 30 years later a group of youtubers argue openly about it … and well:
How Electricity Actually Works
nBorn to fight
nMichael was overjoyed to see him. No one had known exactly where Isaac was, or if he was going to make it back. Other young men from the kibbutz had been arriving and disappearing into the war, and it seemed there were questions being asked about the ones who still hadn’t shown up. Maybe not even asked aloud, but implied. These kids had been raised to fight. It was what the Jewish people required, so that what happened before couldn’t happen again. Were they going to do what was expected?
Matti Friedman – Who By Fire – Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
Michael wasn’t just happy to see his son again, he was relieved. He said something that Isaac never forgot, and which he repeated to me in a little kibbutz house a few hundred yards away from where this moment had happened forty-seven years before. He’d repeated the sentence, turning it over in his head, many times. His father said, “I’m so happy you came to the war.”
Isaac loved his father until his death. He keeps a large photograph of him, one he took himself, on the wall. But he never forgot those words—the way his father was willing to sacrifice him, the idea that there were things more important than his only living son. It’s an unsettling story, one of our oldest, from Genesis. If this were a novel, the character of the boy would have to be named Isaac, but in a novel you wouldn’t dare call him that. It would be too much.
… Now he was in the catastrophe, where he belonged.
… There’s a blurry time at the end of a battle when no one’s certain it’s over, and the blurriness can get you killed … the battle is over only when you’re sure that all the enemy soldiers are dead.
i was born into this … into an embattled people
my parents tried to take me away from it … but were drawn back into it
i was raised to become this way … but it didn’t take
it seems I was born to not fight
for a long time, I fought fighting
until I awoke to the irony
reflecting now on this sheds yet another light on my aloneness
even as an adult I still get uncomfortable around two other adults fighting
I check to make sure that it doesn’t have anything to do with me
only to find it doesn’t matter … I am deeply disturbed by fighting
my father is a fierce fighter
The Art Of Life
nBecause sometimes you have to make a film about the man you just met on the beach
a gift from Anna-Maija
Celebration and … the Sacred?
nMaija asked me recently about my relationship with celebrating … and I am generally uncomfortable around celebration. Today I encountered these two stories from Rick Rubin, a master of delicacy. The first story sets the context for the second story and the second story (wait for it after the song and forgive the clumsy but well-intentioned interviewer) speaks subtly and intimately to one subtle aspect of celebration that makes me feel uncomfortable.
The stories appear at 1:38:20
(I don’t recommend the interview as a whole, there are better encounters with Rick Rubin out there).
Realms Beyond Reason
nRobert Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
” … the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can’t be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem … the solution to the problem isn’t that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality …
We’re living in topsy-turvy times, and I think that what causes the topsy-turvy feeling is inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal with new experiences …
You look back at the last three thousand years and with hindsight you think you see neat patterns and chains of cause and effect that have made things the way they are. But if you go back to original sources, the literature of any particular era, you find that these causes were never apparent at the time they were supposed to be operating. During periods of root expansion things have always looked as confused and topsy-turvy and purposeless as they do now.
… Moon exploration doesn’t involve real root expansions of thought. We’ve no reason to doubt that existing forms of thought are adequate to handle it. It’s really just a branch extension of what Columbus did. A really new exploration, one that would look to us today the way the world looked to Columbus, would have to be in an entirely new direction …
… Like into realms beyond reason. I think present day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of he medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you’re presumed to fall off, into insanity …
But what’s happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we’re getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought – occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like – because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.”
Who By Fire – Leonard Cohen, Israel … and I
nI’ve been distantly aware that Leonard Cohen visited Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war and sang for soldiers in the desert. So I went into this podcast episode about this event with a sense of curiosity. The story is told with care and subtlety and I look forward to reading the book.
My curiosity was fulfilled … and then some. I found myself immersed in a wholesome telling of a story of the world I was born into. I was 9 months old when my father suddenly disappeared for 6 months into this war. I know nothing of this world. I do not have childhood memories. Yet this is the world that shaped me.
After listening to it I spoke to my parents and they corroborated the story. I learned, for the first time, that this is why some years later (when I was 8) we moved to the USA. I did not know that my parents (mostly my mother) were trying to escape the anxiety of living in Israel. I learned that for my father, the anxiety of how to provide for his family in a new and unknown place & culture was greater than the anxiety of being physically in war. I also learned that they chose to move back to Israel because they felt the USA was less safe for their three young children than living in the persistent anxiety (and physical danger!) that comes from living in a place like Israel.
Listening to this evoked deep and wide reflections. How did this contribute to the gross and subtle difficulties I’ve had breathing most of my life? How did this contribute to my deeply rooted and persistent feeling of insecurity? Did I dream of being an astronaut because that would have put the greatest possible distance between myself and all this? Having failed to become an astronaut, was retreating to a Romanian village a feasible resolution to the problem? Though I lived near physical violence I was never subjected to it directly … and if this is how I feel, how do people who directly experienced violence feel? If this is how I feel having grown up on the powerful side of the conflict – what is being shaped right now by the historically inevitable violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians? Witnessing this perpetuating cycle sometimes brings me to tears and sometimes to a deep and peaceful stillness.
This also meets me as I am witnessing the war in Ukraine. I have noticed how I feel different in my surroundings. Having been born into war and lived most of my life in an embattled country I am predisposed and accustomed to the mental presence of war. When I look around me I realize that most people are not. I am also experiencing a sharper and embodied understanding of and respect for the embattled nature (and violence) of the state of Israel. I observe (from a safe distance) how Ukrainian refugees are facing uncertainty about if and how they will be received in whatever country they arrive – will they be let in? And I then realize with shocking clarity that there is only one group of refugees that are guaranteed shelter by law (an unfair law that excludes anyone else, including Palestinians who lived on lands that Jews currently call Israel) – Ukrainian Jews are, by law, guaranteed a safe haven in Israel … within its perennial anxiety and violence.
And though it is difficult for me to imagine living in Israel, I have also felt in my bones how this pertains to me. Though I do not feel personally threatened here in Romania (living 75km from the city from which my grandparents were taken to concentration camps during WWII) I have felt (on 2 or 3 occasions) how thin the veil of society is and how little it takes for it to tear and for anti-semitism to manifest. And I feel that both the society that physically surrounds me and societies all around the planet are heading into treacherous times that will likely introduce more than a little stress and tearing. And I wonder: how much of this feeling is rooted in being born into the war Leonard Cohen walked into?
Yoga Practice Charts 2021
nIn some past Yoga check-ins, I tried using graphs to illustrate how my sense of well-being fluctuates. The graphs were created in retrospect and I invented data to try to express how I felt. In 2021 I initiated a journaling experiment to see what real data might look like. I use a spreadsheet to collect both qualitative indicators and textual notes.
In this post, I will describe the journaling process and share charts that describe the second half of the year 2021. In the future, I intend to periodically (probably quarterly) reflect and report in this way on my practice.
Quantitative Indicators
The first set of indicators are qualitative and describe how my feeling changed compared to the previous day. A negative number indicates a decline and a positive number indicates an improvement. I adopted the following value framing:
- 1 indicates a slight, barely noticeable change.
- 2 indicates a slight but clearly noticeable shift.
- 5 indicates a minot shift.
- 10 indicates a major shift.
I move within this basic framework to numerically express the change I am experiencing.
These are the qualitative indicators I journal:
- Phsyical vitality
- Physical strength
- Physical flexibility
- Physial lightness
- Breath strength
- Breath flexibility
- Breath open-ness of channels
- Presence
Qualitative Journaling Points
- Modality of practice (Healing/Health/Beyond)
- Life events that took place the previous day and stood out in my awareness in a way that may have affected my sense of well-being
- Emtional observations
- Physical observations
- Breath observations
- Presence observations
- Other notes
Asana & Pranayama Practice Journaling
For asana practice, I have mapped a group of columns that correlate each to either specific asana or groups of asana that make up my practice. I then use a number (a rating based on the above-mentioned 1,2,5,10 framework) in each to indicate the intensity and quality within the practice. This is of course subjective (the numbers don’t even offer any equivalency between different asana) but within a constant frame. The sum of those numbers says something about the breadth and depth of the practice. I sometimes also add some comments about the practice or its development.
For pranayama, I notate the actual breathing practice (using breathing formulas) and also give the practice an overall numeric value which is for charting its evolution.
Aggregating & Charting
The following indicators are aggregated and charted:
- The physical indicators are aggregated into one indicator.
- The breathing indicators are aggregated ito one indicator.
- The presence indicator is used as is.
- An integrated indicator is created for physical + breath + presence.
- An asana practice indicator is generated by summing up the asana indicators. Zero means I did not do an asana practice.
- The pranayama indicator is used as is. Zero means I did not do a pranayama practice.
These indicators are normalized to create a unified chart. However, the chart has no y-axis because the values are not really significant or comparable. There is, for example, no meaning to compare physical well-being to breath well-being. The integrated indicators is slightly raised compared to the base indicators for presentation purposes only.
Each monthly chart includes 10 days from the previous month and 10 days from the following month to allow for overlapping that can give some context to what occurred within the month.
2021 Monthly Charts







2021 Yearly Charts


Observations
It has been interesting to look at these charts, especially the overall half-year perspective and reflect on what the chart shows and how it correlates to my lived experience.
- Allergy – I started the journaling process as I was coming out of the allergy period which is a low point in the year. This is confrmed by the overall rise throughout the year. I feel this is a recurring yearly cycle though I do believe its form has changed over the years. I believe that this “allergy dip” has become more moderate (not falling as much), falls more gradually and less like a collapse, is overall shorter and the recovery is quicker. I am curius to see what future years bring both in terms of my direct experience and what the charts may show.
- Emotional Volatility – I experienced a lot of emotional volatility and fluctuation over the year. In my awareness this relates both to my personal sphere of existence and my perceived state of the world within my limited information intake. This is reflected in the continuous fluctuation of both asana & pranayama practice. My body and breath seem to absorb and express these fluctuations.
- Breath Sensitivity – at first look there seems to be a discrepency between the breath and pranayama graphs. Within my subjective experience my breath has not been well for quite some time. But when I think and say “not well” is needs to be put into perspective. It is “not well” in relation to my past perception of the potential of my breath. So even when I describe my breathing as “not well” it is still in in pretty good shape. Within this state-of-breath, relatively small fluctuations in my nostril-blockage and chest tightness can severely impact my pranayama. This is why the overall breath indicator is fairly steady but the actual pranayama practice fluctuates.
- Breath Blockage – Something in my mentality towards breath has shifted. I used to be in a “healing” mindset towards breath and I have slowly moved away from that. I have realized that my breath has been challenged in some way for most of my life. It expressed primarily as somewhat blocked nostrils and secondarily as tightness in the chest. My lived expereince is that my breathing difficulties are subtly correlated to stress and anxiety. Living in retreat has made stress and anxiety relatively subtle – which means I notice and am more sensitive to smaller fluctuations. In addition to that the emotional fluctuations of the past year have introduced a heaviess and lack of vitality which also negatively effects my breathing. I believe that changes to my overall life and well-being are both reflected in my breath and the key to improving it. So, I have settled into a posture of embrace and acceptance of my breath as it is. I try to inhabit it as best I can without applying any ambition to it.
- Body & Breath:
- Diminished breathing capacity (reflected as drops in Pranayama) is usually the reason for diminished asana practice. The pranayama and asana graphs either drop together or a drop in pranayama is followed by a drop in asana.
- Then, recovery in asana leads to a recovery of breath and pranayama. The asana graph usually rises before the pranayama graph.
- In this charted period I am still able to practice a moderated asana practice when my pranayama is diminished or absent. These periods when my breath and body feel diminishes create the conditions for practicing presence: if I am not present asana practice has a negative effect on my breath. So in order to practice I need to be attentive, soft and and caring with my body and breath.
- Steady presence and attention – it seems that while my body and breath absorb my emotional fluctuation my sense of presence has been fairly steady. It does fluctutate, it is clearly effected by more extreme emotional fluctuations, but overall I have felt, within this emotionally tumultous period, stable. I attribute this primarily to the Samkhya study process which has had a surprising effect on me (I still find it hard to believe how study of a text can have such an effect). I also attribute this to the mental shift (see 4 above) in relation to the breathing blockage. The shift from “fixing it” to “inhabitting it” also caused a shift from “applying force to it” to “softening into it” and that too has had a stabilizing effect on my sense of presence.
Greg Bryant on Generative Sequences
nI feel that generative sequences are one of the most overlooked and valuable discoveries in Christopher Alexander’s work. When you learn to see them for what they are you can find examples of them everywhere and then you can increasingly notice when/where they are missing.
I have adopted an attitude in which I assume that if I am unclear about what to do next, it is because I am lacking orientation in a generative sequence that can guide me. Instead of just trying out to figure what to do next NOW, I am curious about my place in a generative sequence.
I feel that discovering or creating generative sequences is very rewarding work … potentially a form of art!
Custodial Relation to a Sentient Landscape
nThis morning I wrote this in a Samkhya journal entry:
The text itself is not a body of knowledge. It is a place-holder, a seed around which knowledge can crystallize. The knowledge is held in a kind of morphic field of all the teachers and students who have together engaged and explored the text and brought it into their lives. The actual knowledge crystallizes over lifetimes of intimate exploration.
In an earlier revision of the post there was more about how Samkhya reaches back into antiquity, how it originated in oral cultures … and now I read this:
… Archives are great, but they are only temporary. The Egyptians learned that the hard way.
Tyson Yunkaporta – Sand Talk
The only sustainable way to store data long-term is within relationships – deep connections between generations of people in custodial relation to a sentient landscape, all grounded in a vibrant oral tradition. This doesn’t need to replace print, but it can supplement it magnificently – those two systems might back each other up rather than merely coexist. Relationships between systems are just as important as relationships within them. Oral traditions grounded in profound relationships represent a way of thinking that backs up your knowledge in biological peer-to-peer networks and provides a firewall against dictators who might decide to burn down your libraries. It also mixed things up cognitively and allows your brain to rewire itself in more healthy ways. I call this way of thinking kinship-mind.
The phrase “custodial relation to a sentient landscape” has a strange reverberation. It feels like it points to truth but has no anchor in my lived experience. Most of conscious-me has no idea what this really means … in an embodied, grounded way. Thinking about it doesn’t make it better: I have a feeling that most of unconscious-me doesn’t know about this either:
- The tribe I was born to has been without a relationship to a “Sentient Landscape” for around 2000 years.
- The land to which my tribe was supposedly related to has been decimated over that period of time. Historically it is said to have been an abundant landscape. Now it is mostly barren and harsh.
- When “my tribe” awoke to their need for land they embarked on a violent journey that may have earned them access to this land, but came with a heavy spiritual price. They do not seem to treat the land as sentient.
And yet I sense a truth in the phrase “custodial relation to a sentient landscape.” I have tried to come into such a relationship with the land that currently holds me. I never felt comfortable “owning it.” I have tried to be a steward to it, but that hasn’t worked out too well either (I’ve really only been able to keep others from exploiting it).
And I think about the teachings that resonate most with me, Yoga and Samkhya. These come from other lands, lands I’ve never set foot on (in this physical body).
The only land I really know is my own physical body. But what is it without earth-land? Where is the earth from which I came? Where does it belong? My felt experience is that it doesn’t.
סתיו כמו חורף
nגל של קור עבר פה בימים האחרונים
הלילות קפואים, התנור בוער בבוקר
יבש בחוץ, האדמה קשה
השמש גם היא ביקרה בימים האחרונים
כמעט כל יום יצאתי החוצה וישבתי לקרוא עטוף בקרניה
אני פוגש שוב את החיוניות בתרגול
זו איכות שמופיעה מעצמה כשהתרגול ממושך וכשהלב שקט
לא חוויתי אותה מזה כשנתיים
בשנה שעברה בזמן זה הרגשתי מתפורר מהקשר עם יוליה
הנשימה הייתה שבורה וגם הלב
אז התרגול קיבל איכות של החלמה והכלה
לא הייתי לי גישה לחיוניות שעכשיו שוב מתעוררת
לפני מספר שבועות סיימתי לראשונה את הקריאה של הסמקייה
לא תארתי לעצמי שקריאה של טקסט כלשהו יכולה להשפיע עלי
גיליתי שקריאה אודות פילוסופיה הודית עתיקה השפיעה עלי עמוקות
הרגשתי שהטקסט ראה אותי והכיר בי
זו תחושה מאוד מיוחדת
במיוחד לאור כך שאני לרוב מרגיש בלתי נראה
מזה מספר שנים אני מרגיש שחיי הם כמו סיום של סיפור ארוך מאוד
אני חושב שהשנים האחרונות הם הבשלה וחשיפה של מודעות
מודעות שכנראה נכחה בי בתת-מודע מרבית חיי
אולי תת-מודעות שהתעוררה בי בגיל שלוש כשתבונת גופי החליטה לחסום את נשימתי
וורק בחודשים האחרונים היכתה בי ההכרה שמרבית חיי התקשיתי, בצורה זו או אחרת, לנשום
אני זוכר שעד אמצע שנות השלושים של חיי, חייתי עם תחושה לא נעימה של ביקורת עצמית
הלכתי למעט מוזיאונים, גלריות והצגות, ולא התרשמתי
אני זוכר הצגה אחת שהרגישה כמו פרק גרוע של זהו-זה
אני זוכר שרציתי לעזוב די בהתחלה אך הרגיש לי לא נעים, אז נשארתי
אני זוכר שבסוף הקהל קם על רגליו ומחה מחיאות כפיים סוערות
ואני התסכלתי סביב ולא הבנתי מה כולם רואים שאני אינני רואה
השאלה הזו התפוגגה כאשר ראיתי את שחר רוקד אל מול השמש השוקעת על הדק בנמל תל-אביב
ידעתי אז, שאני כן יודע, כן רואה, וכן מרגיש … אולי אפילו משהו שאחרים לא רואים
במשך שנים רבות אחר כך רציתי לשתף במה שראיתי לדבר על מה שגיליתי
אך הרוב המשיך למחוא כפיים לפרקים גרועים של זהו-זה, אז ויתרתי
הסמקייה משתמשת בדימוי של צופה בהצגת החיים
הצופה מייצג את הרוח, הצגת החיים מייצגת את הטבע
הסמקייה מדברת על התעוררות של הרוח לכך שהיא צופה בהצגה
הסמקייה מדברת על שלב שבו השעיית הספק עצמה מושעית
שלב שבו הרוח מתעוררת לכך שיש צופה ויש הצגה
וכשהרוח מזהה שהיא הצופה ושהחיים הצגה, חווית ההצגה כאילו נפסקת, מאבדת את אחיזתה
ואני מרגיש כך, שראיתי את ההצגה
אינני רואה את הסיפור שהשחקנים על הבמה מנסים לספר
אני רואה שחקנים על במה מנסים לספר סיפור
אינני יכול, כפי שגם לא יכולתי אז, לקום ולמחוא כפיים
משום שנותרתי כאן, בהווה, ברגע, ולא נישאתי אל תוך הסיפור שלא באמת התרחש על הבמה
וכך אני מרגיש שהסמקייה ראתה אותי, זיהתה אותי וחיבקה אותי, ואמרה לי: שלם אתה, היה שלום
ההצגה נמשכת, אך משראיתי אותה, היא איננה סוחפת עוד
בהצגה שנמשכת, הקור והימים הקצרים והמבודדות מותירים את ליבי סדוק מעט
אני מתעורר מוקדם בבוקר, ער לחיוניות השורשית שבוערת בקרבי
אך אני מרגיש כבדות מסוימת שמתנגדת לקימה
אני מחבק את הכבדות ונעטף בשמיכה, ומוצא עוד שעה או שעתיים של מנוחה עמוקה
עד שהאור בחוץ מתגבר,עיניי נפקחות ומתאקלמות לאור וגופי נמתח
ועוד יום של הצגה ללא השעית הספק יוצא לדרך
התרגול מעמיק
המכחול טובל בצבע ומלטף את הנייר
השמש עושה עוד הקפה בשמיים, מסעה הולך ומנמיך ומתקצר מעט כל יום
הכמיהה לקרבה ואינטימיות עם גוף חי אחר נותרת בלתי ממומשת
הכמיהה היא לחוש עור ונשימה ואור ונשמה מקרוב ובצורה ישירה, ללא הצגה
אך פעמים רבות כל כך ביקרתי בהצגה של הכמיהה שגם שם השעיית הספק כבר מעורערת
אך הכמיהה בכל זאת נותרת
שאלתך חלחלה לתוכי
מרגיש לי מהותי שהיא נשאלת בעברית
כבר אינני רגיל להישאל שאלות בעברית
נעים לי לתהות ולענות בעברית
תודה לבנת, ששאלת
Mario Batkovic / Accordion
nI’ve never really liked the accordion. In my consciousness, it was dominated by a metallic sound and an association with folk music which have never appealed to me. But THIS … I still can’t decide if he made the instrument disappear or presented it in all its glory. This feels like an accordion doing what it was really meant to do. It is as if Mario has an intimate understanding of the instrument (both mechanically and spiritually) and what it wants to be. If I close my eyes I see into myself, if I open my eyes I see into the accordion. Mario is a medium.
a gift from Richard Bartlett
Aphantasia?
nThis came to me via Bonnitta Roy:
When I shared this with Sunni she asked me if I feel I have this … and this was my answer:
I am not sure that “it” is really a thing. I do not trust the dichotomies of “it-ness” that mechanistic thinking likes to assume and impose.
I do resonate with some of the experiences associated with “it.” I rarely experience visual memory (or other expressions of felt experience), most of my “memories” feel like stories that have been told to me about myself.
“Guided Meditations” (setting aside that I think the title is an oxymoron) have rarely worked for me, visualizing just doesn’t seem to play out well for me. I wonder how many other people have been alienated by “guided meditations” making them feel inapt and disconnected because the so called “guides” are not well informed?
In my painting I have come rely on a process of writing because, once again, visualizing does not works for me.
I would be hard pressed to describe people I know, even people with whom I’ve lived for years … I can’t recall features visually … I can’t tell you something like eye-color (unless I intentionally memorize it, and I am not good at memorizing either).
I think I may experience less emotional attachment (than others!?) … and that could be related to not having images present in my mind.
I do not experience much “missing” … of people or places … and even when I do … I feel doubts about what it is that I miss.
I can imagine that “it” is not a fixed phenomenon (like disconnected wires or inactive areas in the brain) and I suspect that “it” is effected by conditions and circumstances.
I do appreciate the recognition that different people (in different contexts?) experience visualization differently.
I do appreciate the breaking down of assumptions that we are all similar … that a brain is a brain … or a mind is a mind …
I do appreciate when mainstream scientific thinking moves closer (albeit in small steps) to respecting complexity, refinement and subtlety of perception and cognition.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz: A Right to Land
nHere is a rough translation because there are no subtitles in this short video (from its quality I place it in the 60’s or 70’s) an Israeli asks Leibowitz, an Israeli philosopher, a question:
I am a farmer who owns lands. What do I tell my Arab neighbor who tells me, in good spirit, that the land I am working was his 30 years ago? The same land that I now pay him to work was his.
This is the outline of the answer Leibowitz gives:
- There is no such thing as a right to land. No one has any right to land.
- As an example (to step outside of the Israeli/Palestinian controversy) he says that even no Swedish person has a right to Sweden.
- What makes Sweden Sweden is the millions of people who have lived there together for generations and experience an EMOTIONAL belonging to the land.
- This kind of link is stronger than any legal argument because you can argue and bargain about legality but you cannot argue or bargain with what is in a person feels.
- Therefore, he says to the person who asked the question, the problem is not between you and your neighbor. The problem is that your fate (he uses the word fate!) was to belong to the Jewish people and his to belong to the Palestinian people … and to find yourselves belonging to the same physical land.
- And the two of you are stuck in this horrible situation where you have no choice but to inhabit your lived experience of belonging.
- This begs the question: so what now?
- We have to choose between one of two options AND there IS NOT a 3rd option.
- Option: a war to the death (in which case the world will support the Arab position).
- The other option: dividing the country between the two peoples who inhabit it.
- And I know, as does everyone, that dividing a country is not reasonable and not just and that it will be very difficult and come at great cost
- … but you cannot change history.
Choking on my past?
nI wrote this partial post back in mid-January 2021. When I started it I had a feeling I may never finish it, and indeed I haven’t. Shortly after aborting it I did write a letter to my family on the same subject. But this post stayed with me. I have no desire to resume writing it. I do not even wish to review what is written before publishing. I do have a desire to make it public. I don’t know why. But here it is. Unedited. Incomplete.
Shortly after posting my last practice review my breath collapsed. It seemed inevitable to wonder if somehow COVID had reached me. I can’t really tell, but I suspect that is not the case. The focused blockage that was manifesting in my nostrils seemed to “get loose” and spread down into my chest. It became a cough and a tension in the diaphragm … the place where my asthma lived (lives?). This went on for ~10 days after which I felt a subtle shift for the better. I arrived at a comfortable ujjayi breath of 10.2.15.5. Now is the time of day I am usually on the mat, and I am not there because the last 3 days have seen another wave of deterioration.
During this time I’ve been re-listening to the podcast series Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem. Daryl Cooper has been like a close friend whispering harsh truths in my ear. He tells a story of my history. I was told this story in school when I was a teenager. But I was told an incomplete and broken version of the story. Daryl doesn’t hide or cover anything up.
If you wish to better understand what I am talking about I recommend listening to the podcast. There is a good chance it is one of the best history-story-telling podcasts you will hear. Any attempt I make to describe that story will fall far short of Daryl’s offering. The chronological “newsflash” version is:
- 2000 years ago Jews living in modern-day Israel piss off the Romans and the Romans come down hard on them and send them into the wind … a 2000 year diaspora.
- Basic tribalism keeps the Jews isolated in most of the societies they inhabit. Tribalism seems to be a fundamental source of “us and them.” Tribalism is eventually refined into racism.
- Jews learn to live under threat for thousands of years.
- ~150 year ago nationalism comes into fashion and the Jews join the party.
- ~120 years ago waves of Jewish migration (motivated by different social forces) start to arrive in Palestine fueled by a wish to make it into Israel.
- ~100 years ago the era of the two world wars begins and all the flux creates new potentials and opportunities.
- ~80 years ago the 2nd world war arrives and lands hard on the Jews.
- The Jews embrace the de-facto normalized strategies of “vengeance and attrocities” and turn them against everyone in Palestine who is not Jewish. The British are driven out of Palestine and the Arabs are driven into the ground (they have nowhere to go).
- ~70 years ago, on foundations of violent attrocities (receiving and giving), the state of Israel is corrupted into existence.
- ~50 years ago, just before one of its historical “survival wars” I was born.
Most of the modern world was built on violence and exploitation. Yet it feels to me like my, relatively recent, history is spiked with an excessive share of it.
Exploiting the Holocaust
My mother’s parents were German and Polish. They left Germany in the 30’s, they escaped the 2nd world war. My father’s parents were Romanian. They lived in a city ~80km from where I currently live. They did not escape and were Holocaust survivors.
The Holocaust is celebrated in Israel. It is fundamental to maintaining the national Israeli identity. If I am not mistaken both of my sisters went, as teenagers on school-organized “Concentration camp tours.” I was spared this ordeal because flights and tourism were not as developed. In the decades since these tours became more affordable and more common and became a regular part of many (if not most) young Israeli’s. We must never forget and we must never let it happen again. That comes in very handy when real military service is mandatory and you will be asked to subjugate other human beings. Young Israeli’s are sent to war as soldiers and when they die they come back as fallen (mostly) sons and (maybe a few) daughters!
The Holocaust was celebrated in my family. My paternal grandfather was once ceremoniously interviewed on video. I wasn’t there. I hated that this was happening. I had a feeling that what was taking place was deeply disrespectful. That this horrifying personal and collective history was being used not honored. Now, in retrospect I know that is was being used to set the stage for more horrifying history. When I left Israel to move to Romania (back to the place from which my grandparents were taken to German concentration camps) my fathers reminded me that “Everyone hates the Jews!”
Sheep & Men
I am a foreigner in Romania. I am also a stranger. I bury perfectly good firewood to make raised beds! I build strange stoves with barrels! I refuse to cultivate my land by plowing it with tractors and I feel compelled to protect it from overgrazing by sheep.
That last one almost got me in trouble. My neighbors, on one side, rent their land for industrial farming (and wonder why I don’t do the same … easy money!). My neighbors on the other side rent their land to a herd-owner for grazing his sheep. There is a lot of pressure on grazing land in Romania. I have tried allowing some controlled grazing on my land, but it didn’t work. I end up having to police my own land and policing leads to arguments … so I just don’t allow grazing on my land.
One time, I found the sheep grazing all over the raised beds. I ran out and demanded (asking was worn out by then) of the human being guiding them to get them off my land. He (naturally?) got angry at me and told me I should build a fence. I decided to hold my ground and to allow an aggressive energy to pass through me. There was anger in me but I was not angry. He also decided to hold something .. but not the ground … my shirt … in his fist against my chest.
This is the closest I’ve ever been to violence. I felt the anger swelling in me. I wanted to subdue him, to hurt him. Fortunately, I have neither the skill nor the inclination for it. But I remember the anger. The vibration was alive in me for a couple of days.
I realized that there was no good outcome for me. I am the foreigner and the stranger. I don’t drink in the bar (with the policemen?). I felt, in my bones, the fragile thin-ness of the veil society. I can imagine that under the right conditions … a bit more land stress, a bit more economic hardship … that the social threads could easily tear and I could become “The Jew.”
I am remembering now, applying years ago, to get my Romanian drivers license (administered by the police in Romania). The request was based on my Israeli drivers license and so there were some “unique bureaucracy” involved (my recurring “luck”) and so the commanding officer was involved. He made some comment about “the Jews taking over again” … its right there!
I am Jewish to the extent that I was born to a female human being who other male human being deemed to be Jewish. I do not practice Judaism and I most certainly do not congregate with other Jews. I am not afraid. I am however aware of the potential for other (probably male) human beings to decide that, for their reasons, I am Jewish.
Violence
I am very sensitive to violence. To this day if I am around two adults who are angry at each other (having nothing to do with me) there is a child inside me that wants to hide.
Exploitation is, in my mind, a subtle and insidious form of violence. I am sensitive to being exploited. In school, I rarely collaborated with other kids (I can only think of one time where I willingly collaborated, all the other times were probably forced upon me). I was usually thorough and rigorous and hated the feeling of being used … taken advantage of … by others.
It is also challenging for me to receive. I need to feel that the giving is clean, that there are no strings attached. My grandmother, the Holocaust survivor, took care of me a lot when I was young. We were each other’s “favorites” … she my favorite grandmother and me her favorite (and for the record: first) grandson. But when I became a teenager I started sensing that her giving was not clean … that there was an accounting going … I was expected to be ” a good grandson” … and I distanced myself from her.
Expectations … I also experience expectations as violence. I am allergic to “expectations of me” … both when they are inflicted upon me by others and when I inflict them on myself.
Violence is a war that Israel, as a nation, has lost. I felt it when I was still there. I felt it, even more, when I withdrew from it (perspective). I gave up so much (how much is becoming apparent as the years go by) to withdraw myself from the violence. When the shepherd grabbed me by the shirt … I was so angry because he brought violence back to my doorstep … he reminded me that violence is present in him … and in me.
Weeds & Rigor
I don’t garden because of weeds … and allergy. The default story of weeds that lived inside me evoked violence … I was called to fight the weeds. I don’t want to fight the weeds.
My Holocaust surviving grandparents had bad teeth … supposedly caused by nutritional deficiencies. My grandmother had a deep fear of dogs … from guard dogs in concentration camps. To what extent such ripples persist across generations?
I have, for as long as I can remember myself, been and felt like a rigorous individual …. thorough … thinking things through … trying to make good choices … aspiring for better. This does not feel like a choice I make … I don’t feel like I can choose not to be this way.
Over recent years I have become more conscious of my two younger sisters as human beings that are getting older alongside me. We are very different beings. But it has been interesting for me to recognize that rigor is a shared trait. We have very different priorities but whatever they are we approach them with rigor. Recognizing this as a shared trait has made me wonder about it? I believe this rigor comes from my father and his parents.
Rigor can be a tough quality to live with. It is demanding both of myself and of others around me. It can become escalating … leading to too much intensity. It can inhibit movement (for better or for worse). It can be demanding on others. It can feel and be alienating. It can make me seem uncompromising and it can make me seem arrogant … not a very attractive social being!
Observing my sisters it is interesting to see how rigor itself, though common, has morphed in different directions through us. The older of my two sisters is mind-rigorous. The young is heart-rigorous. I think I am somewhere in between.
But I believe that rigor is a critical piece in … life … in facing the complexity of the world … in recognizing past failures and in avoiding repeating them.
Social Void
Violence doesn’t work for me. This is NOT an ideological statement. It is a biological one. I don’t feel good around violence. I shrivel and shrink … I can’t breathe … I can’t think clearly.
Placing myself in historical perspective through Daryl’s storytelling has jarred me. I felt shaken and moved to tears at the end of every episode. So much violence has gone into … me! So much violence against “my people” and so much violence perpertrated by “my people” … so much violence required for me to be.
Distancing myself from violence was and is, in its own right, a sensible move. Yet doing so has left a dark void. I feel physically intact. I feel spiritually intact. But there is NO social fabric.
Seeing Samkhya
nToday I launched a website about my exploration of the Samkhya Karika text. It is one of the ancient Indian philosophies and the metaphysical ground upon which Yoga rests. The text has 73 verses that outline 25 principles that constitute Samkhya. I am creating a generative summary for each verse along with a painting.