Whats Your Game?

Not long ago I have started to read the 4th book of "Game Of Thrones" - "A Feast For Crows". I I have not seen the TV show, And I wish to stay with books.  a challenging yet fulfilling task.
The book is full of characters, and unfamiliar words and violence and dark humor. And yet it is amazing. Mostly because of its resemblance to our own rough reality, and also for its diversity and enchantment. Two things that are overlooked today in our  scientific and rational way of living.

The name of the book implies of a way to look at life - as a game. I wrote before (in Hebrew) about my own game and also translated a chapter from Charles Eisenstein's book "The Ascent Of Humanity" called "Back To Play". you can read the original English chapter here.

So if life is a game, then what are the rules? and why do we need rules?

Learning At The Beach

Yesterday I came back from a weekend on the beach with friends and family, and some other nice hundreds strangers who came to celebrate in a nice spontaneous gathering. The Music and the location were set by a group of friends called "The spirit gang", and all the people were invited to come and bring their own things, and to participate in the expanses as much they wished, in the spirit of the gift.

the magic hat collecting donations
 for the expanses of the party

We gathered some dozen friends, one family with toddlers (pardon my high English, it is George Martin's fault), and settled a camp between all the other tents of families and fiends who came to spend a nice Saturday of sea and music. The weather was amazing, cloudy and windy which is good for the hot summer days in Israel. The sea was rough, but the spirits were high. A Kraken shaped kite was hanging in the sky, reminding me of the god of the Iron Isles.

A Kraken kite in the sky

Our camp at the beach

Since the music was not my cup of tea, what I spent my time mostly was playing with my friends' children and with my own friends, the grown children :) 

One of my favorite games is Frisbee. I always carry with me a couple of discs, to play with whoever comes around. Sometimes, when there is no one to play with. or when the wind is too strong to play with others, I play with myself. Actually I play with the wind. I call it 'playing with god'. It teaches you that the way you throw the disc will affect the way it will come back to you. Same as life. What goes around, comes around. Here is a small sample:

There are many games that can be played with Frisbee. There is of course Ultimate Frisbee where two teams play each other trying to score goals, but unlike Football or other competitive games, the players are the referees as well. 

In general I find Frisbee a non-competitive game, and this is one of the reasons I love it so much. Most of the time the game is just for fun. Just trying to throw the disc exactly to your partner's hands, while trying to improve your skill and to reach higher level of beauty in handling the disc. 

So in freestyle Frisbee there are no rules. Just levels of skill and cooperation. And this is something which is missing in our modern culture - to play with each other and cooperate,but not for the goal of winning or fame and success. Instead, to find the meaning in the doing, and reach higher levels of beauty, fun and creativity.

The Game Of God

Another story that I have been reading the last year is the Torah. Every week I read the weekly Torah portion with my girlfriend, and sometimes other friends join. The reason I read this is to try to understand more the religion of the people who live in this country, and to understand more the religion I was born into.

As other secular people, I celebrate the holidays, but I do not know much about them. I also do not know much about the connection of our people to this land of Israel/Palestine/Kna'an. So I read, to understand better the rules of the game, the game of God. And it is a strange game I must say. full of death, and punishment and awe. But I still believe there is a more profound insight in the message written in this story.

After me and my friend finished to read the weekly portion at our camp on the beach, another friend came to us and shared with us her concern about people "becoming religious".  She said it usually make people become strict and can sometime create distance and break good friendships and family relations. I understood her concern, but I also rejected it, and pointed out to her, that many secular people are not willing to accept the choice of a person to live by certain rules, i this case, the rules of the Torah or the Halacha. And by this they are doing exactly what they fear from - distancing a person just because he now lives by different rules or values.

The game of god - what people might call religion, is not understood to me, and I wish to understand more. This is why I learn. By reading the Torah. By talking to friends who come from religious background. By reading Hasidim legends and also by listening to Atheist people talking about proof of lack of god:

The game of cooperation

In his last chapter of the book "The Ascent Of Humanity", the author speaks about playing beside the tower. The tower of Babel that is. The tower that is about to collapse. Our civilization of separation:

"Instead of focusing on survival ("making a living"), our interaction with the world will be our play. After all, our purpose is to understand, appreciate, and participate in nature's ongoing creation of new realms of beauty, and how do we do that? It is through play. Isn't that how a child learns to "understand, appreciate, and participate" in the world? In a sense, the entire course of separation has been nothing but a cosmic play; the difference will be that we will no longer be lost in the game, no longer oblivious to the illusory nature of our separation. With this consciousness, our play will become again playful.

The parallel with storyteller consciousness, described in Chapter Seven, is significant, and in fact play and storytelling are deeply connected. Play is an enactment of a story, a provisional reality with its own rules and agreements. As we become conscious creators of our stories, so also we become conscious players in the cosmic game. All the accouterments of the separate human realm—label and number, images and machines, technology and culture—become our playthings and the instruments of our art. No longer unconsciously lost in that separate human realm, we are free to reunite it with the natural. We reunite its linearity with the rest of the cycle from which we tried to separate it. We reunite its symbols and stories with our conscious creative intentions. We reunite its technology with the purposes and processes of nature. Wielding our gifts consciously now, we can create a human realm no longer at odds with the natural."

So I read the "Game Of Thrones" and I read the Torah, trying to understand the game that we are playing, so I can enjoy it more, and to find other people who want to play this game with me. As I go in this path, I find more and more. People who wish to share and cooperate instead of competing and fighting. 

And in a way this is also a good strategy of survival, because the evolutionary idea of "survival of the fittest", does not necessarily speak of the strongest individual, rather it relates to the group or specie that can adjust and cooperate best with each other. As I explained to a friend who asked me about my weird habit of waking up in 4 in the morning to watch the games of the NBA finals - I do not care who is the team who wins. What attracts me is to see two teams competing one another on who is the best one to cooperate among its members. And in this sense I find competition healthy, when it drives you to self improvement, rather than just being better than the other. 

Basketball is another love of mine, a game of cooperation and creativity, as well as many other follies which are part of professional and commercial sports. What I like there is players who remember this is just a game, and yet they are willing to commit themselves fully to this game.

A good reminder for us that life is just a game are children. With their spontaneous creativity and their joyful curiosity. I want to finish with such a reminder from the champion team's best player - Steph Curry's daughter - Riley, as they give an interview to the sports channels' journalists. May we remember this is just a game and find more joyful and less harmful ways to play it.

If We Want...

Life is (not?) a picnic

"Once there was a teacher who lived with his students in a temple. One day, a student asked, "Dear teacher, can we arrange to have a picnic?" The teacher said, ":Yes, we will have to find a day when we can have a picnic." Yet they were so busy, they never found even one day. A year passed, then two, then three, and still they hadn't had a picnic. One day, while walking together in the city, they saw a funeral procession. The teacher asked his student, "What is that?" And the student said, "They are going on a picnic. The only picnic they have is when they die." 

I lived through two wars in Vietnam, and I know what war is - you don't know whether you will be alive this afternoon or this evening. There is fear, anger, and despair. If you don't know how to manage these things. you cannot survive. That is why our practice is to have a picnic right here, right now, and not wait. Is it possible for Israelis and Palestinians to have a picnic and to enjoy every moment of it? I think so."

Thich Naht Hanh / Peace Begins Here

I read this beginning of a book about the peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians by Thich Naht Hanh, and it is so relevant, I decided to write about it. because this is exactly what we are trying to do.

wallace and gromit having a picnic on the moon

Many people  do not know about the place I live - Ecome,  and when I tell them about the place, or when they come for the first time and ask - "what is that place about?" - it is sometime not so easy to explain. But now I think I have a good definition of what we are doing, backed and recommended by a well known Buddhist teacher and activist.We are having a picnic!!

some people may think that having a picnic is not serious, and also not something that could give a real answer to the political and other problems we have with this ongoing conflict.

 Some may say that this is mocking the Palestinians that are struggling to survive, and instead of supporting their struggle, we are having a picnic.

Some may think that having a picnic is what lazy people do, and that without hard labor there will be no change in our bloody and harmful reality.

Well, I have to disagree. Having a picnic may seem like all of these, but actually it is  very hard work to have a proper picnic. especially if you are doing it with the one you were taught to fear and fight against.

HOW TO HAVE A PROPER PICNIC?

a picnic requires some preparation: making food, choosing a nice shady and quiet spot, and also a nice platform to sit on, whether it is grass, a blanket or a mat. 

Choosing the food is not so easy when you are having a multicultural picnic. Some are Jewish. some are Muslims, some are Christians (who do not have many food restrictions), some are vegetarian or even vegan. So when choosing and making the food it is important to find the most basic common dishes so that everyone will be satisfied, and also invite people to bring their own treats, in case the menu is not delicious enough for them.This should always be in some sensitivity because many people might get offended when you eat something they prohibit from themselves.

I personally say - Go Vegan. It suits everyone, even the non-human members of the picnic (the cats might need to go hunt...). 

Choosing the spot - this also requires some thinking and awareness, since some people are often not welcome in some places. For example - Palestinians can not go outside of the wall without a permission, and Israelis are not allowed in area A of the Palestinians territories, which means main cities and villages. Also poor people are not welcome in public spaces and noisy creatures are not welcome in libraries. So picking a place can also be a tricky business. This is why Ecome is located at Jericho (almog) junction, so it has accessibility for both Palestinians and Israelis, and it is on the main road from Jerusalem to the dead sea.

In general, I would recommend to pick a place with shade, some accessible running water (especially important when children are involved) and some open space to go around and find your quiet spot if you wish to be alone for moment or two.

Having a picnic inside our empty new pool 

Platform - to have a nice comfortable platform for everyone to really enjoy the picnic is not that simple as well. Some people have special needs. Some need a chair with a backrest, and some need a place to lie down. The children usually need some safe space to run around. And all of us need to feel secure and trust with the people we share our  picnic with, if we really want to enjoy it. So to have all this, you need some skilled picnic organizers, that can create and adjust the platform for everyone's needs. Of course it is not only up to the initiators of the picnic. The participants themselves have to take part in creating the right atmosphere so that everyone can enjoy the picnic.

Beside this, it is always good to bring a towel. Don't forget a towel. It can be useful in such many ways.

Entertainment - for some of us it is not enough to be with each other and some good food outside. We need more attractions, otherwise we will go a little crazy:

        

So of course shooting in the air while  playing music in a picnic is nicer than shooting each other, and yet, some of us are very traumatized by the heavy use of weapons in our culture, and would prefer a different kind of activities, such as - juggling,  acrobatics, drawing, yoga, playing games, writing and cloud watching. All of these are free, fun and healthy practices that can enrich our picnic and also overcome language and cultural gaps.

Beside all of these practical advice about having a picnic, I what to highlight want prevents us today from having a decent picnic. First, the technology. Today we are flooded with electronic devices that entertain us and give us all the excitement we need (or at least that is what we think), that going out on a picnic may sometimes even seem as trouble. Why go out with people, some of them we do not even know or like, instead of watching a funny video or chat with my friends? This is an obstacle we need to overcome, especially with the young generation, if we want to rediscover our human connection and belonging.

The second is what Thich Naht Hanh described in his book - our lack of time. most of the time we are so busy doing things, that we are lacking the time to enjoy our life. sometimes we are busy in doing very important things such as driving our children to school or garden, writing a essay for university or trying to raise funds for our NGO. Yet, the fact is the more we try to create a better system, the less we succeed, and the crises are just mounting up. I believe it is time we slow down and start spending more time with our loved ones, and then also with the ones we hate or scared of, if we really want to bring a radical change and to heal our pains as a human family.

There is always time for a picnic,

if we want...

        

To be like water

 Last week was the holiday of Pesach (passover) here in Israel.

This is the most celebrated holiday in Israel. people clean their houses very thoroughly, take away the bread and prepare to eat Matza all week, and also prepare for the traffic jams on the roads and long lines in the airport as everyone goes on vacation.

For Palestinians it means a closure in the checkpoint, no-one goes out of the wall for work. both because the work is stopped for the holidays, and both for security excuses.

I decided to spend the holiday in my new home -  Eco-ME, which is located on Jericho junction, in area C of the west bank. I thought this is an opportunity for Israeli families to come and visit the place, and for us it is an opportunity to have children in our place:

It is good to cry

and so, I came Sunday morning on the packed buses from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, and then to Eco-ME. As one of the holders of the space I felt both lucky to have the honor to invite and host people, and both frustrated for  not being able to cooperate with the rest of the members of the community to maintain the place in a more balanced way.

I felt like I had all the work on my shoulders. Both taking care of the cooking and cleaning and the rest of the maintenance of the place, and both host the visitors who are coming. I felt that beside my beloved partner Talya, I am not synchronized with the rest of the community members.

I have to explain that Eco-ME center is a very special place, because when you come there in the first time, you can never be sure who is a living member of the place, who is a short term volunteer and who is a guest. This is because this place invites everyone to feel at home and take part in taking care of the place - washing the dishes and even clearing the compost toilets. But this also creates confusion as for the responsibility of each one of us, and might bring disorder and frustration, as it did for me. It was even harder because of the leaving of our beloved friend Aline, who left us to Germany, after half a year of giving herself fully to this project, and was a core part in our community.

I find it very amusing that the last weeks I am more and more acting as the father or the "big brother" telling everyone to clean after themselves. As the youngest child in my family, I used to be very spoiled and messy, and until today I have this image of myself in my head. And here I am, telling all the spoiled brothers in my community to take care of the stuff and help "mom" Talya in cleaning the dishes.... 

At some moments I also broke down. One time it came in a morning talk in which I accused everyone of being lazy and irresponsible, and  then Talya asked me how I feel. Immediately I started to cry.

 The ability and the feeling of security to cry in front of many people is such a great gift. So many times all we need is just to cry for what is difficult or sad for us, and because we are taught not to cry (especially men), we take it out aggressively. 

I feel my tears are my power, the power of water, the power of feeling, the power of life, flowing through me, cleaning my inside, renewing it, like the cleaning of Pesach.

          

Water for all

This area of the middle east is not rich of fresh water. Many deserts areas require that we use our water wisely and responsibly. But instead of sharing our water with each other and to make the region more green and life supporting, we prevent water from each other.

My  Palestinian friend Ismail told us how in the summer he gets water to his house once in 18 days, and the rest of the time he has to buy water from a water truck coming to his village. He also told us about hoe the IDF destroyed many wells around his village.

For Israelis it is shocking and sometime unbelievable to hear this. So ignored we are from what our military is doing, with our tax money, and our children, that we learned to look away and deny the facts - that we are killing our neighbors. If not physically then mentally and spiritually we are imposing them a life of fear and misery. 

I do not think we are doing it because we are bad. It is a combination of misinformation. and fear to face the naked truth. We can never underestimate the power of looking away.

infographics by michal vexler

  

Our misuse of water affects not only the Palestinians. Our rivers are all contaminated and not drinkable. People buy today water in plastic bottles. And by this, while we continue to contaminate our world with linear thinking products such as plastic bottles, we also support the conversion of our natural resources into money. We let private people take over water wells and we support it by buying their products. This is so wrong.

The Dead Sea, which I see every morning when I get up, one of the our most special and beautiful natural resource, is rapidly vanishing due to over-consumption. 

Last night I heard the rain falling all night. It is very rare in this time of the year in this area. I thought it is climate change happening while we close our eyes. I felt it is mother earth crying.

This week was amazing and meaningful for me. I met many beautiful people, amazing families. They told me how much they enjoyed the place, and how it gave them new questions to think about.

As for me, I wish to think less, and be more. to act according to my heart's will. to flow through the days, and bring my gifts to everyone and everything around me. To be like water.

If we want ...

        

It is not normal to be normal

This time I will write in English,

because it is time this blog will go global.

 Blogal...

I wrote in english once before, about a year ago,

and I want to write more in this language since I think my story is universal.

It has been two and a half years since I left my house, my job, my cat,

 and started traveling around Israel and Palestine.

Now I Reside In a place called Eco-ME, 

a center with peace and ecology located next to Jericho.

Eco-ME is a project, that runs every year from December to June, and this is its fifth year.

It a community based project, and every year the community changes,

but the relations between the people keep on going.

I feel this is a very special place, unique, 

because it brings Israelis and Palestinians together,

to speak not only about a solution for the conflict,

or an end to the occupation,

but also and mostly, about what it means to be humans,

and to live in peace with each other and the land,

in a world that is immersed in war,

a world of violence, of ecological and human crises.

The last war on Gaza was one of the worst our country knew.

not merely because of the number of dead and human disaster it has deepened,

but mainly because of the despair it wrapped around the peace seekers,

both Israelis and Palestinians, 

and the racism and verbal violence it has legitimized.

In the light of the great despair many around me are experiencing,

I find great hope and motivation in creating a different reality,

in creating an alternative, 

that for sure is small and margin but non the less with great significance.

      

Ownership and Belonging

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

We had a discussion the other day, about the question of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian who spoke said there will be no end to the conflict until all the Palestinian refugees will come back to their homes and the all the Zionist Jews will leave.

Later on the discussion he might have changed his opinion due to new facts he discovered about the Israeli and Palestinian history. Facts that complicate the situation and the view of who is right and who is wrong.

The approach he expressed is not realistic nor human, because you can not solve one problem by creating another worse problem. The same I say to Israelis who say all the Palestinians should leave to Jordan or live in Israel as residents without rights. 

What i want to suggest is a new world view, regarding how to refer the land. The land of Israel and Palestine, and the land of all planet earth.

It is said by the Torah that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.

It does not mean that we own it. 

In the same sense, the Earth is not owned by humans.

On the contrary, we belong to the earth. 

We belong to this land.

Can we live the sense of belonging without practicing ownership?

In a world almost completely commercialized,
a world of  institutionalized violence,
 a world of contracts and competition,

It is very difficult to see a different way, and it is more difficult to act in this sense.

But this what we are trying to do here in Eco-ME,

we try to build peace on a land that we do not own,

and still to feel we belong to, because we care about it.

This brings to question the whole of our economic system, 

our political institutions and our very sense of self.

If the land, home, money and all the things I inherited or accumulated,

sometime through hard work,

if all this things are not mine, then who's are they? and what do I get left with?

I started to question these questions some years ago,

and this is why I became a nomad.

If the world that I live in is consuming all the good of the earth,

and destroying lives and places in ongoing wars,

maybe it is time to stop worry about my own future,

and start taking care of our bigger home -

Planet Earth, with all its living beings.

funny ah...?

        

The Normalization

so some of you may think I am crazy.

some of you already know I am,

some try to normalize me, and I, like some Palestinians, oppose normalization

but not the normalization of relationship of Palestinians and Israelis,

as if the occupation does not exist,

but the normalization of trying to live a "normal" life,

in which everyone can grow up peacefully, go to study, have a job, a house. a family,

while we are consuming Earth's natural resource, enslave all the farm animals, and extinct all the rest.

I am not normal

It is not normal to pay taxes, while the money goes to finance wars.

It is not normal to worry about pension or life insurance,

while we destroy the future of our children,
by creating climate change and intoxicate the land and the oceans .

It is not normal to watch sports and entertainment on television,

while our world is being devoured by our growing egos and greed.

It is not normal to elect a person every few years and be dissapointed again and again,

and still believe that this is the most important thing to do as a citizen.

It is not normal to take a shit in drinking water, 

while third of the world does not have available and clean water.

It is not normal that there is only one place like Eco-ME,

and thousands of McDonald's branches.

Thank god I am not normal!!

hope we can lose our minds together in peace.

because we are never going to survive unless we get a little crazy.

If We Want...

      

TO BE IN CONTACT

This is the first post on this blog that I write in English.

If you are not a hebrew speaker and this is the first time you encounter this blog, then I should tell you that this blog is about a journey of a human being (that I refer to as ME), around Israel and the human consiousness, in search of true freedom and peace on earth.

I started writing it when I decided to leave my rented house and become a nomad around june 2012. Half a year ago, me and few friends decided to create a nomad community on bicycle. Since then I am traveling together with other people. some left, some joined, and as for today, we are 3 friends - myself (Arni is the name), Hadasa (named usually Shluli), and Alessandra the Italian.

You can look at our facebook page (which is also in Hebrew) to see some photos of the journey, and get some notion of our vibe. 

I also wish to note that I write with spelling mistakes and I am fine with that, and just hope I am understood.

The last week and a half we have been in Be'er-Sheva - the capital of the south of Israel. We have gotten to know some of the communities and social projects and centers in the city. We stayed at some friends that we met along the way, or along facebook, or couchsurfing. We went to work a little at the urban farm that is being built by an NGO called "Earth's Promise". We made a knitting workshop, we went to the city market (actually Alessandra went) to dumpster dive (which is pretty easy in the market, because they just give you the thrown away food), and we have been to local gatherings of singing, playing, acro-balancing and soup eating. 

All in all we got to know some really beautiful good hearted people in Be'er-Sheva, but still i felt we are not completely fulfilling ourselves. There have been some challeges, of looking for a house every night, finding food, dealing with the unusual cold weather, and also with our own swings of mood. It is difficult to be with people, also in other's people's houses and not having time to yourself. At some point we just decided to cut from the city and go low - to the Dead Sea where the weather is warmer and the sky are clearer, and you dont have to walk on water, you can just float...


                         


There, at the lowest point on the planet, me and Alessandra met an angel. She told us she is here to dance. She danced Gaga with the all the frozen people of Tel-Aviv city, and she went to the Contact Improvization dance festival in Misgav. When alesandra asked her what is it, I tried to describe myself - its a group of people falling on each other in an elegant way. The angel looked at me and half laughed half cried, because she was not used to cynical humor. I apologized and asked for her to explain. It is a method to get in contact with the other through body and movement, she explained. It can be by touching or taking distance, it can be with words or in silence, but the important thing is to stay in contact.



                      


The angel told us about her own journey in Israel, about her making peace with her family, and wanting to go back to them to try this peace. To be in peace with another is to cooporate with him/her, not just to be OK with their existence while staying far away.

Next week we are going to volunteer in ECO-ME, next to Jericho, a peace initiative for sustainable society and environment, run by Israelis and Palestinians and international volunteers. The place tries to promote peace through workshops, meetings, cultural evenings. It is one of the only places for Israelis and Palestinians to meet together in a safe and supportive environment. It is a good place to get in contact with the other. I volunteered there last year, at a multi national Non Violent Communication workshop and it was amazing, and I am very happy to go back with friends this year.


In contact with the world

another issue that comes to my mind when I think of being in contact is my eager drive, and even addiction, to news, media, social networks. Of course big part of the world is addicted now to the smartphones, going around in the streets like zombies. I myself do this. But the thing with me is that I am not intrested so much with what is going on among my friends, but instead I want to know the big things that are happening - I am always looking for the sign of the global revolution.
I am always looking for new ideas to be spread around, for our joint mission of awakening:


                   


I always had this attraction to news, media and information. but sometimes I feel this will to know, this desire to be informed, is just my fail attempt to try and control the situation. I want to know when the economy is about to collapse, and I want to know about weather extremes, and I am all the time seeking for answers in the news and the social networks, waiting for peaces of information that will wake me up from the half dormant state of being, that me, and great parts of humanity are experiencing at the moment.

I try to understand this fix of mine to look for answers in the internet. Some look for it in a Tibetan temple, some in a science lab. I do it on google and Facebook. A good  explanation I found is that I wish to know the big picture, the whole story so I can fit better, so I can play my part in a better way.
But what is the big story?
how wide can my view of the world be?

My interest in social movements and ongoing processes of change are the same as looking for the change in someone outside you - a partner, a leader, a therapist. My therapist is the news anchor.

I wish to cut off from everything - computer, phone, newspaper - and to be in focus just on being present, with the people around me. But I find it difficult to be disconnected all together. My journey among communities, and my involvement in many people's lives require me to stay connected at some level. I hope that this level will get less mediated through appliances and instead will deepen with the people next to me, with the nature around me, with my inner self, with god which is everywhere, and all knowing without the need for Google.

fragile life

Last week a friend of mine lost her sister in a sudden and mysterious death. Another friend almost lost his house in a blizzard. And another found her cancer is back. All of them I have been told on the same day.
This reminded me even more how important it is to take good care of our loved ones, to be in awareness and appreciation to each moment and encounter, because life is so sacred and miraculous. We tend to forget this, especially when we are living a routine, even a routine of a nomad. There is so much magnificence in this world and in this life, and I want to experience it to the fullest.
So after publishing this blog I am taking myself a week off  Facebook and news fasting. It will probably be difficult, but I hope it will clear my sight, my attention. purify my feelings and thoughts, encourage inner peace, for the long way ahead.
I'll tell how it was next week :)

Meanwhile here is an idea worth spreading

                     

BE    -  LIVE
in         in
love      peace

If we want...