Stopwatches

הרפתקות העכבר בכלוב האריות

הרפתקות העכבר בכלוב האריות

בתחנת האוטובוס פגשתי תיכוניסתית שאמרה שהיא אלופה בשחיה. היו לה שדיים קטנות. היתה בריאה מדי עבורי – פחדתי ממנה.
"בהצלחה" אמרתי לה, כהחזר על אלפי הפעמים שאנשים איחלו לי בהצלחה מחוסר ענין ומרצון להתפטר ממני.

רק שחזרתי לרחביה הבנתי שהשארתי המסיכה אצל רחל. [ גם רחל הזאת היתה משוררת, אבל שמנה ובשנות הארבעים המאוחרות, לפחות, שלה. בסוף הפגישה שלנו בדירתה על עניני ספרות שאלתי אותה – וכמובן חכיתי עד לרגע האחרון כדי לעשות זאת – אם אוכל לינוק משדיה הענקיות.
"מה פתאום?" היא השיבה.
"סליחה" מלמלתי, "לא רציתי לפגוע או להעליב" וברחתי משם. אחרי כמה ימים היא התקשרה והזמינה אותי לארוחת ערב אצלה. סרבתי. אולי היתה מוקצה מחמת מיאוס עצמי.
טוב. אין מה לעשות. אסתדר בלי. התחלתי לעלות ברחוב עזה כאשר מי אני רואה יורד ממולי. פורת. בחור מתוסבך וממושקף ומסובך. כמוני. גם שעיר כמוני. פורת הוא פסל.
מה שלומך הוא אומר
בסדר. איזה פגישה.
איזה באמת?
ככה באמצע הלילה, לא?
לא.
אני שם לב שגם לו אין מסיכה.
"אני רואה שכמוני שכחת את המסיכה שלך"
אני מחכה, אבל הוא אינו משיב או מגיב.
"השארתי שלי אצל משוררת"
אין תגובה.
"ואיפה שלך?"
"תאמין לי" הוא אומר בסוף, "שיפול טיל. אני מוכן למות עכשיב"

ובעייפות אנחנו נפרדים.

Pesach - The Festival of Liberation

From my 1996 Diary, December 03

“One day one of the prisoners in the Johannesburg Zoo committed suicide. It was Brown Bear No 2, and the authorities were very surprised he had managed to do it. After all they had removed everything from his cell: anything green and growing, which he might have swallowed and choked on, anything like a branch or a rock or soil he might have impaled himself on or buried himself in. They left only the bare concrete slabs and a concrete tub of brown water and brown bear sat on his bum, legs splayed out, or lay on his side, without moving, for days.

Hey, visitors would shout at him, hey wena, and would throw things at him to try and get him to perform, peanuts, popcorn, or, when the authorities were not looking, stones and empty beer bottles.”

__________________________

The Egypt of our times is mindless and excessive consumption. What is called in Hebrew "Tarbut haTzricha" Unnecessarily large motor vehicles that guzzle petrol and hurt pedestrians. Junk food that causes obesity and is created from the pain and suffering of factory farmed animals. The unconscious use of air conditioning when a window could be opened, the use of electric lights and heat when daylight, insulation and other alternatives are available. The consumption of mind-numbing television and formulaic films full of gratuitous violence and parodies of sex, The obsessive consumption of so called "news" that no one needs to know. The inability to be with ourselves and with each other in simplicity, and hence the endless consumption of distractions - magazines, clothes, alcoholic beverages, gambolling, pornography, excessive work, cooking shows, celebrities and the obsessive following of their lives. And along with this consumption the commodification of education, of wellness, of so called "spirituality" - an arena crawling with charlatans of every shape and hue, from Catholic priest paedophiles to take-the-money and run "gurus" and pentacostals who trademark their offerings, to kosher mafioso who use a captive faith community market to enrich themselves personally.

That is why we are all personally commanded to leave Egypt.

______________________________

I'm afraid of living in Israel
because there's so much reactivity there
so much unconscious stuff
the pain body, as Eckhart Tolle calls it, is so big and solidified
and I'm worried that, because I am not firmly established in clarity,
if I'm there I won't be able to help
I'll just become another part of the problem,
instead of the solution
____________________________

I was thinking about Freedom as Pesach - the festival of freedom - looms in the distance and it seems to me the most fundamental freedom remains the freedom from thought. I also heard a beautiful quotation on the radio this morning from Eve Ensler, the visionary and courageous creator of The Vagina Monologues, who said "Freedom comes from telling your story, Freedom comes from telling your truth." (I might add that doing this publicly multiplies the liberatory effect)

Making the Australian unconscious manifest

There was a police show on tv the other night, a reality based thing, and one story that was followed was 3 immigrant youths who had attacked a homeless man and filmed the attack on their cell phone cameras. The brown skinned, quite diminutive youths seemed to be immigrants from somewhere (Indonesia?/Malaysia/ East Timor ?/ Pacific Islands?) who had, I imagine, grown up in Sydney's West and spoke standard West Sydney working class immigrant English.

White police officer: You should be ashamed of yourselves
(Tranlation: I'm white, and I'm ashamed that the homeless man is also white and a drunkard or mentally ill an unkempt and dysfunctional and seemingly powerless)
Youths look suitably contrite, make noises about how they just did it so that he would leave them alone
(Translation: if we look like this, maybe the powers that be will feel sorry for us, and won't hurt us too much, now that we were stupid enough to get caught and to have filmed ourselves doing it, so we must put on our sorry faces)
Police officer: a vicious and unprovoked assault on a homeless man
(it could have been me, too many of these fukkers coming into the country, they're trash)
Youths: we didn't mean nuffink..just to scare him a bit
etc etc

Meditation

If the universe is my body
and I am everyone
as the wise have told me many a time
then I am and have been the killer
the rapist, the litterbug,
the copywriter selling air, the newsreader,
with their disassociated smile,
the fraudster, the hit and run driver,
the Nazi, the terrorist
and I am the aid worker, the rescuer, the
faithful mother and provider,
the volunteer, the midwife, the
responsible, the hero, the
initiator, the creator, the one who does the dishes
even tho their feet is sore,
til everything cancels itself out
and then what remains?

Laughter Yoga in Jewish Sources

Mitzva gedola lehiyot besimcha - it is a divine imperative to be joyous - Rabbi Nachman of Bretslav (17th Century)

laughter is a container for joy, joyous means without impediment to the flow, without blockages, it can look like laughter or tears...

Eyze hu ashir? Who is wealthy
Hasameach bechelko. One who rejoices in his/her portion...not just accepts their lot, but rejoices in it, one who wants what they have with the same passion as many people long for what they do not have - Pirkei Avot - Chapters of the Fathers - Babylonian Talmud - circa 400 CE

Non-sense

A few phrases that don't seem to hold much substance when dwelt upon

Hashem Yinkom et damam - May G?d revenge their blood (said of people murdered bby terrorists)
hashem can avenge their blood by not spilling any more - of ours of theirs
what good will revenge do a grieving parent or child - rather let Hashem restore a sense of wholeness where there is the appearance and conviction of loss

Leshana habah biyerushalayim

Vesham nezabeach zivchei toda

Useful object No 79

A shield for busy housewives / moms when their on-heat husbands are ogling their breasts to much - or even fondling them - that they can hold up with one hand blocking hubby's line-of site, and leaving the other hand free to finish packing school lunches or get another load of washing going.
________________
"You're nine years old, for pete's sake, you should be able to open a blerry bottle by yourself"
Child feebly struggles with jam jar
"Oh come on, use your strength"
child struggles,
"Oh give it here"
parent impatiently grabs bottle, struggles, cannot budge it, bends over, turns red in the face but can't open it"
"have fishpaste on your toast, this stuff is full of unhealthy sugar"