Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was traveling the world seeking adventure and whatever came my way. My destination was Israel, the Holy Land, for no other reason than I had stared at the full color maps of the ‘Holy Land’ in the back of the Bible while sitting bored in adult church service for (way too many) years of my life.
I made my way there, over land and over sea and in the air and found myself in a kibbutz in the Jordan valley working in the fields as an unpaid but idealistic semi-hippie, semi-american, semi-expatriated young lad of 20.
One day I decided to visit Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Holy Land. It lay on the opposite end of the occupied West Bank where the Palestinians still lived in their villages hoping to reform or resurrect their nation.
Jerusalem was fantastic. The old quarter with its open air stalls, the smells, the people moving about in their strange costumes. I had never seen anything like it, having lived my whole life in a small midwestern American town.
On my way back to the kibbutz I decided to hike across the length of the West Bank. I had my hiker’s backpack, bright orange with a tent rolled up on top. I had cooking gear and a sleeping bag and was self sufficient. I also had a small tourist map that showed a road all the way along, emerging at the northern end of the West Bank near my kibbutz.
As I walked into a small Arab village, probably Nablus or Ramallah or somewhere around there (this was 1970 before gentrification hit the place and the Israelis began building developments everywhere), the kids ran out screaming and laughing at such an outrageous sight and surrounded me. I was arrested by their joyfulness.
Before long some adults joined the group but since we didn’t know each other’s language all we could do was gawk and gesture. The only person in the village who could speak English, the school teacher, appeared. They offered me food: goat cheese and olives and pita bread and a bowl of olive oil.
I can still remember the taste of that food and more than anything the feeling of their hospitality. It was euphoric. They were caring for me, a stranger who happened to be walking thru their town, as if I was one of their own - someone they didn’t know and would probably never see again, just because . . . just because I was alone I guess.
In my new favorite book, ‘Hear Yourself - How to find peace in a noisy world’, the author relates a childhood experience which sparked another memory in me.
In the book Prem talks about sitting in the garden of his home in the foothills of the Himalayas as a child. The early morning dew is sparkling like diamonds in the grass and the deep blue sky over the mountains seems to go on forever. As the sun warms the air, billowing clouds appear with bright silvery edges. He describes the feeling of sitting there under the magnolia trees - a feeling of contentment and beauty as if the creator of it all had come and said to him in a very quiet voice ‘just feel’. Nothing else was needed. The moment was complete.
I had a moment like that when I was about 19 years old. It was in the Fall, same as with Prem, and I had been working in a friend’s apple orchard. The job involved climbing up among the limbs of the apple trees with a ladder, picking the apples and placing them in a large bag strapped around my shoulder and when it was full, climbing down and emptying it into a wooden crate. My friend would then come around with his tractor and and haul away the crate.
It took a couple of weeks to harvest all the apples and I remember walking home on the last day. His orchard was a couple of miles out of town and as I walked along I was suddenly filled with the most exquisite feeling of freedom and joy. It was so enchantingly beautiful that I thought to myself ‘this is all I need, this is all I want’.
I still remember that moment even though it was 50 years ago. It has been a benchmark and a point of light in my life ever since. Maybe it was a gift from the trees, having been in their presence for so long. It was a gift from somewhere. And like Prem’s experience, it came unexpected and uninvited, visited me and I was changed forever.
I’ve discovered in writing this newsletter, that I can only write well about what I feel passionate about. So my task each week is to discover what it is I’m passionate about. A life lived without passion is a life stuck in mediocrity. Who wants that? I want the epiphany, the feeling of magic, the trick that unlocks the real feeling of life, like those special moments so long ago.
Life is passionate about us. It took 14 billion years to come up with you and me. The galaxies forming, the interstellar dust coalescing into stars and planets, some with water and a temperate atmosphere, some with barely any atmosphere at all. Then the slow process of evolution, building, trying, discarding until finally - ta dah! humans and a world for them to live in.
Did the universe conspire to do that or was it just random? Either way it’s as incredible as it gets and certainly some kind of passion. I mean the universe didn’t just sit there and do nothing - it’s constantly evolving, constantly changing, constantly inventing new things. I would call that some kind of passion.
It reminds me of a poem from another favorite book of mine ‘stones tones and audible levers’
the universe
was created in an instant of passion
and will end with the death of us all
another passion
i detect a pattern hereall that we call god has come to
pass since our minds grew large enough to
embrace it
before that it was all passionall the fleeing stars
all the cars in transit
. . . .
It goes on and on and ends with:
all this passion
it’s death that dies
when we feel it
So true. I think that’s true. I wrote that poem and it was in a moment of passionate insight.
I have a passion for riding my bike. It borders on addiction. Good addiction though. Just don’t get in my way when I’m blasting down Broadway. I don’t like that. Ha ha.
I have a passion for reading good books. That’s why I included Prem’s book, my current favorite.
My 5 favorite books of all time are still within arm’s reach or somewhere in my office: ‘The Wizard of Earthsea’ Ursula K. Le Guinn, ‘Journey to Ixtlan’ Carlos Castaneda, ‘A Sport and a Pastime’ James Salter, ‘Okla Hannali’ R. A. Lafferty, ‘Universe in Creation’ Roy R. Gould. Amazing works of literature that evoked a passionate response in me.
I have a passion for going to the cafe where I can imbibe and relax and relate and maybe even meet new people. That experience of connecting to other people is great fun.
I have a passion for that feeling. Call it an epiphany or a realization or anything else, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not a word and it’s not a memory, it’s a real thing. It happens when it happens. I can call it, even though I don’t know it’s name. I can want it. Maybe it’s passionate about me too, maybe it just needs an invitation and a place to be.
music by All India Radio ‘Echo Other’ from 35:55
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’we killed off all the buffalos’
’in the cafe’
’next door neighbors’
’a ruby red dragonfly’
’ultra flash fiction’
’how we live’
’how we die’
’how we are born’
’raccoons under the house’
’Quetzalcoatl’
all the way back to August 2020
a passion for that feeling