THE BRAVE NEW LAND

As a new English teacher I am required by the Ministry of Education to take a new teacher workshop for my ongoing training. It is bureaucratic business at best; at worst a sausage factory spilling out unknowns and just more mess. Oy, a student in 10 th just now texted me that her Moed Bet was scheduled for another Gush, to which, having stopped writing this, I replied: My schedule shows Gush B - lessons 1 and 2. But, no matter, whenever you have English, you will be taking the Moed Bet —English Lit., tests… wow. I just finished grading the rest, from both Gush’s pupils a pile of damn tests. That’s the hardest part of my job, I can attest, grading and writing, commenting and scoring … that is definitely the worst and the best. Actually, there ‘is’ that Zen that creeps in from the edge of the classroom, slinking in and only then becoming relevant—when students notice life moving in front of them, when they exert themselves into a realm of the living. Yes, there are other realms too, w...

Through ruins from not too long ago, I descend into a glen daily on my way to teach. The way leads me past an Arab artifice now destroyed, Christians who built a mosque for visitors now gone. The way leads onto a path between cacti, grown to each side and interspersed with carob, straw, and incense. Oak sings down below, I always know, as I walk down step over step to the work I’m learning to know; but … this time was different. Tingles I felt from the sides of my path, tickling me along arms, cheeks, and brain. Something was different, something was wrong. Looking down I saw nothing, looking down there was nothing to see; just tingling in my mind. My sense and learning said spiders, but nothing was to be found. I wiped the sensations away each and every time, but remembered it to teach as I finished walking down to my new norm, that morn. Arriving at school I met students willing themselves to learn, and spoke of my walk down to school and said more, or less, not too sure. For, I re...

The water did not flow. It was too dry to play. So, we sat in the bowl all that hot and unhappy day. I sat there with Love. We sat there and stewed. And I thought for us both, “How I wish we weren’t on the menu!” It was too dry to get out and too warm to stay in, so we sat in the bowl doing nothing at all. All we could do was to: float! Float! Float! Float! Love and I did not like it, a tidbit not even. And then something went SQUISH! How that ‘squish’ made us flip! We looked! Then we saw it; we looked and we saw it step in with us! The upright walker! It stepped into the bowl with us, only to sink ...    For a printable PDF download of the rest, click:  doronoll.com/garden-stories

It rained from above and the earth gushed water from inside its depths for a long 40 days. When the deluge ceased, what remained of the human spirit continued 150 days more, sailing, and eventually disembarking from the wooden ark they isolated in and onto freshly formed land. There, a man named Noakh planted a vineyard into the earth and then grew it into wine. Having drunk, embarrassed, our tragic forebear retired into his wife’s tent as not to be found. He was discovered by Kham, and as Noakh had exiled himself where he couldn’t be seen, Kham, the father of Canaan, doomed his offspring for all of time. For Kham imparted to his brothers the story that was uncovered, employing a zeal born from tragedy; to “say” is one thing but to “tell” is quite another.  From Kham descended two nations: on the one side Mitzraim, a place born of social limitation, a class system with narrow design. And, on the other formed the people Canaan, whose world disintegrated along with their view as each...

Rubbing my eyes, using the knuckles of my hands, my vision exploded into purple irises blossoming between grains of sand. The moon, as we know, is full of this knowledge as it swings overhead. It fills my eyes with vision and laughs down on me, as in another new profession I stumble within. It’s seen it before, the moon overhead, full and boasting—and again it will no doubt occur. My mind hears the laughter often as the vibrations descend down, with smiles all around. This is my very own megilah, heard as of late, causing some angst but mostly most profound. The purple irises were meant for an oil painting that I’m currently making, but instead or at least inclusive of, the irises spilled out here if only to shed. This place that I consider home is both small and once large, contained within a space no greater than a skull, but singing out praise vibrating room in which to tell. The telling goes like this: Upon a time once mentioned, the story unfolds in a pristine dimension. In the cr...

Static Zoom —  It’s a strange new land, having become quite small, but living in it … um, I just can’t put my finger on it. Is it shrinking, or am I growing? Like trying to hold a tiny pin-nail while hammering to connect one piece to the other, my thumb and forefinger, the extremities of me, always take the brunt of my exploits into the unknown. Seeking adventure in life doesn’t help either—walking and riding the desires I wish for with almost total abandon. So, it goes to reason that the far reaches of what I consider ‘me’ must take quite a beating. This is the fringe of my existence, this place where I begin to blend with my surroundings. Maybe it’s also why I keep changing my professional aspirations—my desire to be something more—or … yeah, it’s probably just me exploring something else. I began teaching because I thought it would be a great way to connect with real people, and not just the social presences that haunt the internet. Then Corona hit. So, I scrambled to recov...

Chapter One: Black and White  —  Startling me every time, the alarm goes off and I think I must be dreaming. The thought of sleep rolls around in my head for a few breaths, then reality bites and I open my eyes with irritation searing at the morning darkness that permeates my tiny room. Clang-a-lang, clang-a-lang, clang-a-lang, the alarm keeps blaring, waking me from repetitious dreams that grant me peace and control to my worldview-asleep. Grumbling and moaning, I get up just like every other day, peeling back the sheet as if coiling back the seal to expose yet another can of fish to daylight. Breakfast is served. It is monotonous, monotone, just like the slippers I slide my bunion toes and greying-feet into.  Shuffling down the narrow hall, I can see the light staring through the door as the hollow orb of sun begins its slogging path across a vapid sky for the day. The light is also grey, even as I push back a spring-loaded screen-door and lower myself off the porch-ste...

Why am I so fixated on Gan Eden? I mean, what is the significance of the ‘origin story,’ anyways? We’re born, we live, and we move on… or does it end there? Come to think of it, does it even begin before this so-called “origin story” began? Like a Petri dish, it could keep on giving, growing old like compost and again sprouting anew like tiny seeds cracking, exploding into growth from imminent decomposition and death-overcoming, mamesh Noakh-replacing, just another new growth bloom descending. From one dimension to the next, riding the wake of living, life is only a conversation occurring at the fringe of reality, no matter the realm. Tohu’uVohu, as they say, or the fringe of no-thing we can identify becoming all things relevant to being, a ‘satiation’ of living. Gan Eden could really just be the incubator before sprouting, a hiatus ‘then’ birthing, just an awakening into transition. We could all have lived before and once done, will again live, ad infinitum every time.  When I bou...

The Promised Land is a strange and difficult term. When moving half-way around the planet to Israel, I told myself that I was deserving of it, a life-change and midlife crisis all rolled up into one. Having converted to Judaism while living in Los Angeles, I was still trying to find my own Jewish roots after 15 years of raising my little Jewish family in Colorado. I had fled from the city when my first son was born, and became a member of Jewish Renewal in Boulder, but never really melded into the fold, I always felt. At least that is what I told myself to explain the difficulties I seemed to be having feeling normal, but really just feeling Jewish. At the time I felt that I needed to understand, more in depth, the roots of the tradition, or religion, or culture, or place of origin, or language, or … any and all of the missing pieces of who I destined myself to be; so, I searched.  I searched for many years to find a path in life that fit my own vision; a vision of the answe...

The Distance Among Us —  Creating distance is as easy as stepping into your own private dream-liner, fully stocked with aspirations on hold for a time not demanded by regular life. The same is true of actually dreaming, in the sense that the life we live over in that world is always on hold for later, sometime in the future of ‘my’ perception of ‘me.’ Like a vacation that has been had, almost, not stacking up, but nevertheless over, a reflection on the past that happened before the last little bit determines the energies to be spent on the next little bit, and into the future. Breathe … it’ll be okay. The masks we all wear protect us from many things, and they isolate us from others. Covering the face can cover the window to our inner-being, while protecting us from the bio-terrors around and unseen. This also prepares us for a launch into the next generation of us. Just like sleeping and dreaming, we store up our energies and breathe in to our souls, just enough, to lig...