tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32063447616950389752024-03-18T08:34:57.079+02:00THE BRAVE NEW LANDTHE BRAVE NEW LAND!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger263125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-72637495424645379512024-03-13T21:28:00.016+02:002024-03-14T08:25:52.646+02:00From Pickles to Bubble Gum<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetbMmxpPTwxah3pVkQgdTXQkVUk1OJPEbBEOcKtY4O3qHalKKZoBj6_zeyCwiVPCvL0QYr2Yb4G6bfQ8s8yorkbmKPmWRaPpV0gPeX7l5oBs6DelWdLQp-sRSmoRx7LrSVNx_km4pG0yx-PN_YAncWXP0Ydic6M9EW7scMsZdeZfwXk8Kz-8ZBur7HbM/s1600/Caananite%20and%20Smokestacks.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetbMmxpPTwxah3pVkQgdTXQkVUk1OJPEbBEOcKtY4O3qHalKKZoBj6_zeyCwiVPCvL0QYr2Yb4G6bfQ8s8yorkbmKPmWRaPpV0gPeX7l5oBs6DelWdLQp-sRSmoRx7LrSVNx_km4pG0yx-PN_YAncWXP0Ydic6M9EW7scMsZdeZfwXk8Kz-8ZBur7HbM/s320/Caananite%20and%20Smokestacks.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I fell for it
again today, the inevitable trap set for unwary teachers at the high school where
I’m ever so slowly becoming an educator, and along the way developing some great
relationships with the next generation of young Israeli leaders. This year had
been a tough one, having met with my students for only a short period of time
before we left for the holidays, and subsequently unable to return. By the end
of Sukkot, we had all wrapped up a wonderful holiday season with family and
friends, eaten and drunken far too much, and were ready for one more day of
rest before the start of the real teaching season began, Sunday morning,
October 8. Then, school was cancelled. It was far too dangerous, you see, to
send kids out into our world. It was far too horrible to even comprehend what
had happened. Each of us went into reaction mode, protecting our families, our
neighborhoods, ourselves and each other, listening for the latest news,
preparing for the worst, both mentally and physically. The school clock had
just stopped, along with the path set to educate, to deliver as a teacher, and
to build our world forward.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0in;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhyphenhyphenhePtR7-PNFLKkOfsng6xqhZ9bqjopiQq7oduv7spo9gP50i0JnW2ncFRmKc0Cr58cKkHsn0H-EK-5XBRXVd9csOvdmhKSyJEfbLZTxVJSv3nf2ZUMunIijmdymBLNopCb58OS8UNMcIeUhfEXYlFSfIn8JS0yVW8yQfZY-eyUWBwJCn5nJvSEjnVWk/s1504/Children%20Murdered.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1128" data-original-width="1504" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhyphenhyphenhePtR7-PNFLKkOfsng6xqhZ9bqjopiQq7oduv7spo9gP50i0JnW2ncFRmKc0Cr58cKkHsn0H-EK-5XBRXVd9csOvdmhKSyJEfbLZTxVJSv3nf2ZUMunIijmdymBLNopCb58OS8UNMcIeUhfEXYlFSfIn8JS0yVW8yQfZY-eyUWBwJCn5nJvSEjnVWk/w320-h240/Children%20Murdered.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "roboto slab", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Re’im, Supernova, 360 dead, & over 40 taken hostage</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Slowly … the
internet began to trickle to life, October 9 … October 10 … covering us all under
a dark new reality. We began to understand the workings of the enemy’s terror,
even as it became clear that our leaders, one and all, had ultimately been responsible
for the state we found ourselves in. The pompous banter and the bull-chested bellowers
had won the day, October 7, and we found ourselves without leaders, without a
way to lean, and without anything but our own, personal vitality. Each of us had
to put down our own goals and our own lives. We leapt to contribute to our
society in only the most positive ways; we volunteered our time and expertise, and
we put aside all that we had been developing. We joined together, clasping
hands as if searching for a missing person, one step at a time, through the
unknown, walking slowly up the road to One.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00J10h6tiFXzzqBmZYzwuTnLkEQfstCUQcs6OIC-EYrx1gBy0R_mE99jtq75vCVC64QYgwoZmEJ0U_hjMq4mASljhPGtwy_l0RWqiJXE46mQDiea9e7kIHrF1k-FscSv56DT7aKFcTtqriFgVEDeywS9KN5gKAvRPK-O5ObkUOqpdPE3tfx5PEJwxoKc/s1600/Ruins.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00J10h6tiFXzzqBmZYzwuTnLkEQfstCUQcs6OIC-EYrx1gBy0R_mE99jtq75vCVC64QYgwoZmEJ0U_hjMq4mASljhPGtwy_l0RWqiJXE46mQDiea9e7kIHrF1k-FscSv56DT7aKFcTtqriFgVEDeywS9KN5gKAvRPK-O5ObkUOqpdPE3tfx5PEJwxoKc/s320/Ruins.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">As a teacher, I
have grown much in the past 5 years. I began my latest career just before the
age of 60, and have often been pleasantly surprised with the interactions I’ve
had. I was older than all of my college professors, you see, but I still acted
as if I was in high school. Yeah, you may know me, that I’ve been interested in
finding the edges of living ever since I was conscious of living a life. While
I was in high school I sunk my mind into art, my body into skateboarding, and
my soul into surfing. Consequently, each wave I rode, grind I achieved, or
piece I completed, I understood just a little bit more about the world in which
I lived. Riding the edges of reality has always kept me aware of a deeper
interest, a place where no one had seemingly gone before; at least in my own mind.
Hence, learning and growing based upon the blurred reality I found at the
fringes of living have become the act itself, life as I know it. Teaching worded within began to reveal itself;, it resonated, it soared. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR_l_Y9ozsqCh0JInYUZ2n6gEaXrJkRX36mvrWqPT1p6v-tcMULZ8MDKmZTDhr-AuVBMDoTWneC_PEjsUrofxRCoZRa4g6ISRSY9h9qosj6DW1qIHYYWOyJAQM-wnKYqM653Gci75_h6j7zAy2-kNyh4RZg1-AIc9WTf-31BPHCjszlAOJQVeQ2cF-QMc/s1600/Road%20to%20Ruin.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR_l_Y9ozsqCh0JInYUZ2n6gEaXrJkRX36mvrWqPT1p6v-tcMULZ8MDKmZTDhr-AuVBMDoTWneC_PEjsUrofxRCoZRa4g6ISRSY9h9qosj6DW1qIHYYWOyJAQM-wnKYqM653Gci75_h6j7zAy2-kNyh4RZg1-AIc9WTf-31BPHCjszlAOJQVeQ2cF-QMc/s320/Road%20to%20Ruin.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Last year I was
just beginning to understand the impact I could have on my students. I day-dreamt about different outcomes constantly, but once the world had relaxed away from the
pathogen reaction mode it had been fostering since the beginning of my training
for a new career, I settled into quite a few brand new relationships, with both
students and other teachers. Pushing out the art-edges through this strange new
reality became quite sumptuous, as well. Once in a while I had to
grind an axle, but mostly the surf was epic, and occasionally I was able to
find a jewel in the rough. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Walking to work through a nature reserve, I came to
school one morning bright and ready to learn, ready to teach. I let myself in
through a tiny gate hidden under trees skirting the nature reserve behind our
school, put my ear-buds away and walked down the path to my basement office-cubicle. Then, I noticed that something was wrong, since the door to the
hall I usually entered through was closed. I looked at it, closed, but cracked open
slightly, and then noticed a tiny mob of students snickering under the shade of
a tree. Tracking back between the two images for a few
steps, I was about to reach for the door to open it when I recognized one of my
students in the group as he leapt forward. He had a look of concerned humor as
he beat me to the door. I stopped and waited for what would happen next. My
student, bashfully, grabbed the door and yanked it open as I stood and watched
a bowl full of soupy cucumbers fling down onto the ground under the door's opening. Thanks to my student, I had narrowly evaded a cucumber trap! <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlY9gG-c2HJq18s9nY6oIHgKn0nKWGbJ-wXp3knWy8yxxGE38K_gZtNJ9oAuwMB-OsWZ5LnKm8gz7ZNqyzNznNHgCk7b51lvd2Ig4FS5M6M2NVOwxQORjoeXCjhomxEIQ8JLjg2Zm_G-RYk5wB9JyhCmO_QcP7Zj0kH55CD74qwxIfasY01HrT4PgiAL4/s1600/Israel%20Trail%20with%20Cow.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlY9gG-c2HJq18s9nY6oIHgKn0nKWGbJ-wXp3knWy8yxxGE38K_gZtNJ9oAuwMB-OsWZ5LnKm8gz7ZNqyzNznNHgCk7b51lvd2Ig4FS5M6M2NVOwxQORjoeXCjhomxEIQ8JLjg2Zm_G-RYk5wB9JyhCmO_QcP7Zj0kH55CD74qwxIfasY01HrT4PgiAL4/s320/Israel%20Trail%20with%20Cow.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">It was meant for
another unsuspecting passerby, not me, you see. We were both a bit embarrassed, my student and I, after
the fact, sheepishly looking into each other’s eyes, then back down to the
ground between us. I didn’t let him live it down, mind you, and even this year
wrote a cryptic note on his report card that only he and I could understand. After
all, he jumped into the fray of living and saved me, regardless of his prior commitments
and obligations to the others he had been sitting with, that day, under a tree. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Today
I fell for it again, but it was different this time. I had just entered a
classroom to give an exam to students in the 12th grade. They have a Bagrut
exam coming up soon in which they need to learn how to research information
quickly and write their thoughts down in an essay format, seamlessly. My student from last
year, who saved me from the pickle trap, was in attendance, as well. After organizing
the students, I pulled my chair over to my tiny desk at the head of the room,
and sat down. After the students began to flurry themselves into the task at
hand, I began to organize my activities for the lesson in front of me: grading
unseens, marking essays from another day’s teaching, placing hatamot charts and
grading rubrics out in front of me, along with white-board markers to keep the
time for the test-takers. Then, when I stood to cross out with a red line the
last time gone, the chair stuck to my ass. My brand new blue jeans pulled away
from my body in an unnatural way and made my knees knock and my face redden. Oy, I
had sat right down onto a bubble gum trap, placed there from the class which met just before, and nobody knew... </span><o:p></o:p><p></p></div></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-4790151991395064432024-02-20T21:16:00.009+02:002024-03-18T08:34:23.807+02:00Unknown within Known in Uh... ~ <p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOLdkDXGUXB5kfScukToMCgalHt2Te9wOjxpXsoQMbd5NUcwKZzVLBAQUjBZd7nnFwPlP9jMMiQQk8IaDGrOlvNQzHIWbUPEtC77iLG4_LqsILwGNVuXXaPY0pciIt7u3V7fb3yfN8gBqOJICr4pOb0qQdLSRKliGvkZitXD13tBywtuxJ5z0Ebyo4R9k/s1600/The%20Last%20Column.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOLdkDXGUXB5kfScukToMCgalHt2Te9wOjxpXsoQMbd5NUcwKZzVLBAQUjBZd7nnFwPlP9jMMiQQk8IaDGrOlvNQzHIWbUPEtC77iLG4_LqsILwGNVuXXaPY0pciIt7u3V7fb3yfN8gBqOJICr4pOb0qQdLSRKliGvkZitXD13tBywtuxJ5z0Ebyo4R9k/w640-h480/The%20Last%20Column.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Last Column ~ </td></tr></tbody></table>In every moment there is a question. Within every question
there is a moment when each of us asks about the relevancy of each moment, and
the awareness of existence. My computer screen is dirty because I haven’t
learned how to clean it, and … likewise, my most current painting is bleeding
beneath gesso from another artist’s work. It sits there on my easel now as I
write about my birth parsha, Noakh. My school work sits lazily waiting for
attention, and my drawing table languishes in mostly ill-attempt. The world
around me is beautiful, but dormant, however wanting… And, all this is before
the eruption about to occur. It’s an unknown, this eruption from the earth. We all know what follows: flamboyantly spouting doom and rebirth as we
tremble and drown within the womb of our new lies, told and then reclaimed with the
ignorance of stealth, revelry in the reality of rebirth… and into moments anew – ish.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-86966334635169554662024-01-02T21:53:00.001+02:002024-01-02T21:53:55.073+02:00Gan Eden <p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-weight: bold;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfL12egTKw3Jnra024CkXq4dPcB9n536427Tsi7sx6E5-aT3xdgkKLKMj9Q5DQWL7jB3Htxe9-RDn_v1d1wiGfkY_an6bjteWmQVt5JDXKhMsfmW8-TePJ8rsRA7IXM3NEaLrmQPIb5PTXa1wR9p6vQAj8FO8Z9vJ5nmEFm4YpvNT-efC3Pq3YHqH6y-S_/s3198/IMG_9720.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3198" data-original-width="2398" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfL12egTKw3Jnra024CkXq4dPcB9n536427Tsi7sx6E5-aT3xdgkKLKMj9Q5DQWL7jB3Htxe9-RDn_v1d1wiGfkY_an6bjteWmQVt5JDXKhMsfmW8-TePJ8rsRA7IXM3NEaLrmQPIb5PTXa1wR9p6vQAj8FO8Z9vJ5nmEFm4YpvNT-efC3Pq3YHqH6y-S_/w150-h200/IMG_9720.jpeg" width="150" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">We don’t exist in one time, we exist in all the times. Branching occurs naturally and we ride them all, encompassing each moment. We must only become aware of the path to arrive at perfection.<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><p></p>Doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374538470218351860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-62316322626948172022023-10-15T13:26:00.012+03:002024-01-15T10:05:25.988+02:00Am Israel Khai / עם ישראל חי<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ61LY0xhy9nsWoHg0c_nbOJjNwy_ILR49Rq0KDl2yzHJkQoJ2QVGk62_PZk1KbI5YfvdkxVvFW3SJxNmNhpaHI3b7xkKh_S8CX4eHNaCvaQqMlYv9-Mao1IAkFKPvVtfkCMIdYtOaBDGOPywxcYVjML1EiBHpK9YbMUMmOgZX0WA7U9HXsfE0yuhNpZQ/s2696/Flag%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%205-16%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.JPG" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2696" data-original-width="2684" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ61LY0xhy9nsWoHg0c_nbOJjNwy_ILR49Rq0KDl2yzHJkQoJ2QVGk62_PZk1KbI5YfvdkxVvFW3SJxNmNhpaHI3b7xkKh_S8CX4eHNaCvaQqMlYv9-Mao1IAkFKPvVtfkCMIdYtOaBDGOPywxcYVjML1EiBHpK9YbMUMmOgZX0WA7U9HXsfE0yuhNpZQ/w638-h640/Flag%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%205-16%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.JPG" width="638" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="text-indent: 0in;">My Dad -</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He was the
tallest man I knew of, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. It
wasn’t always very easy to talk with him, but when we did, and when I needed
him, he was there for me completely, without any hesitation. He loved the
garden, loved his wife, loved his children, and he loved his work. He was an
urban planner that conceptualized a perfect society and implemented his and
other’s ideas to build environments to sustain a perfect population of residents.
And it worked, right up until the time when his job ended, 10 years before his forced
retirement … due to corporate takeover. The American dream, of building from
scratch a perfect world, a society that worked together for the needs of all
its members, became sullied. Fear of not having enough and greed began to shake
my father’s foundation of hard work and faith. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My father grew up
in a working class family, his birth father having left him and his mother when
my father was only five years old. His stepfather married my grandmother and
raised my father in East Los Angeles in a house that he built with his own
hands. My dad wanted his children to have everything that he never had. He
wanted his children to get to play outdoors, instead of working in the hot sun.
He wanted his children to grow up to get an education, something that would
ensure their survival in the world, and that would ensure a more perfect
society. My father wanted to give his children the opportunity to have the
American dream, as he had learned to build in his own life. Then when my mother
was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and began to retreat into
her own delusions, my father’s perfect American dream began its path to ruin. My
father died at the age of 62, too close to the same age as I am now, from a brain tumor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">My Path - <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When I was 17 or
18 years old, I found myself walking alone on the beach one day, something I
did often. I walked in the hills behind my childhood home for miles, and I
walked between towns along the beach, climbing over jagged cliffs and across
active blowholes from the ocean, and I trekked across pristine sands of untouched
beaches. I spent much of my time thinking about the world I understood, and a
world I hadn’t yet learned to begin to comprehend. My father was not a religious man,
but had a sense of a world that worked, maybe even perfectly, where people of
many faiths and of many beliefs could come together and embrace each other’s
desire to connect with something greater than only themselves, not just alone in the
dark.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Walking down the
beach that day, I wandered into the shade of a small sandstone cave along the
bluff overhanging the beach below it. I had been thinking about the nature of
the Universe, and how it made no sense to me unless there was some reason for
its existence. My father’s teaching about a world that respected its members, societies
where people of many faiths and cultures got along was logical to me, but it
made no sense why there was so much trauma and catastrophe, so much hatred and
violence in the world. And, it made no sense to me that I could feel so
separate from the world as well, while walking in footsteps I created along the
way. There had to be a Creator, the world made no sense to me if there wasn’t,
and I could have no purpose in the world without having faith. I reflected upon
what my father had taught me, how we were all one and just needed to learn
together how to get along. We needed to learn how to worship a Creator, and how
to respect one another’s ways and efforts to connect. And, I reflected upon
how, from a very young age, I felt like I could connect to something greater
than myself, beyond my skin, somehow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That day, in a
little beach cave while watching the Pacific Ocean cough and spit along its
shore, I made a deal with the Universe. I asked for hints along the path of my
life towards truth and understanding. I wanted to know why I felt so separate
from the world, and … I also wanted to know why I could hear voices and ideas
floating along just waiting to land, waiting for someone to collect them. In
return, I told the Universe that I would listen to what I heard and try to
follow the path that seemed to be laid out before me. I decided to put my ego,
something I always felt had gotten in the way of inner peace, into the backseat
of my life and then smiled from ear to ear, with tears streaming down my
cheeks, as a wondrous road forward began to unfold.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioEessPonDR_stssCsj1toXPj8P8U0ejnO-Kdssavku2_-ZVK8BAwIzsNGgQVduiQE5T6Up5aWHQJg77IHR2-aDBhBKX1Svc4EKFyQ64ZMo2e0zHB-QJx7aYEUmgaYQOW5jyNSdSNwu5GDNjPToeN9o0FpaVaPhPdF9jElVfUUDsRbtHJ42h93yYHMOM4/s1080/My%20Path.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="978" data-original-width="1080" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioEessPonDR_stssCsj1toXPj8P8U0ejnO-Kdssavku2_-ZVK8BAwIzsNGgQVduiQE5T6Up5aWHQJg77IHR2-aDBhBKX1Svc4EKFyQ64ZMo2e0zHB-QJx7aYEUmgaYQOW5jyNSdSNwu5GDNjPToeN9o0FpaVaPhPdF9jElVfUUDsRbtHJ42h93yYHMOM4/s320/My%20Path.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Son of Abraham - <o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I knew that I was
an artist from a very young age. I won a contest in third grade for the best
artwork in the class, and decided right then I was an artist, even though I had
no idea what that was. My father was proud I had won the class contest, but
ultimately was not very pleased with my choice, especially as I got older and
my choice became embedded within my own identity. I learned more as I grew as
an artist and while still in high school I began to explore voraciously. I
learned that the voice I kept hearing was actually much closer to inspiration
than to madness, and I stopped at nothing to learn everything I could, whether
in the arts or in the world of science. My curiosity became satiated only by
learning, by growing my mind, by becoming a better person with regards to the perception of
my own identity. My original question, however, of finding truth and
understanding, was ever illusive. In collage I focused on the physical sciences,
astronomy, geography, geology, etc. But while in university I began to focus on
the humanities. History and cultural studies took over. And I met my future
wife, but didn’t know it until after a few months into our relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I studied world
history, western history, modern history, and religious studies. I learned
about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, other eastern faiths. But
nestled into it all was Judaism, which kept popping up in small ways all
throughout my studies. I kept asking myself about the origins of humankind. I
kept wondering why so many people in the world had so many problems with each
other, and why so many people in the world had a problem with a tiny nation of
Jews that was scattered around the globe, a people that had contributed so much
to human civilization and was undervalued at best, demonized at worst. My
future wife was even Jewish, even though she was culturally so more so than
intellectually. We went to see Shoah, by Claude Lanzmann, 8 hours of witness
testimonies detailing the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. I learned
how to celebrate Jewish holidays, and how make a Passover Seder, and I asked
my future wife to marry me after the forth cup of wine, just she and I sitting
together in a tiny kitchen. And then I began to study Judaism. One year later I
became Doron, son of Abraham, in a ceremonial circumcision and ritual bath with
my future wife and both my parents in attendance. I had another spiritual father,
and I was a Jew.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">The Eleventh
Man and Israel - <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">20 years later,
after a life of raising young children, working in multiple fields, and making
art all the while, I began to ask more questions. I couldn’t understand why
some Jews had problems with other Jews. The Jewish faith I learned about, and
one that I lived, was about spreading light to the nations, it was about
learning and growing, and about getting along with each other. Why then, I had
to ask myself, did some Jews seem to hate other Jews; and also, why did the
world seem to hate all the Jews?! These were questions that had been burning
behind the eyelids of living my life since I became a Jew, 20 years before. So,
you know me, I decided to find out. I joined an orthodox congregation in town,
prayed with them, learned with them, and I even sat on their board, even though
I wasn’t considered Jewish, by them. I was always the eleventh man in the minyan
(a quorum of 10 Jewish men), but I kept seeking answers to my questions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then the voices
started to whisper to me again, but not just about art. We had traveled to
Israel for my eldest son’s barmitzvah and while there, as a family, we decided
to live in Israel instead of the US. We all felt it, that Israel was the
eternal homeland of the Jews, and that we belonged there. We also had family in Israel,
and had for many years. We sold our businesses, learned as much Hebrew as we
could in a year, packed what we wanted to take, gave the rest away to our
synagogue to sell at a yard sale, and moved. We made Aliyah to Israel! Then two
weeks after we landed the Second Lebanon War broke out. It galvanized us. We
were in Israel to stay, so after some time adjusting to our new lives, I began
my studies again. A year later, after learning everything I could put my hands
on, and after answering questions posed by a religious court, another
ceremonial circumcision and ritual bath, I was born again into the Jewish Nation. I was finally a member of Israel the people, a
member of Israel the country, and I was now the 10<sup>th</sup> member of an Orthodox
Jewish minyan. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBCDN0rhaRg0e4533JtPeZhKONyvp3Zz5AbiOH5XfTY9AtBAUX-MaKJkK-wNeD9TVaEZFMMVchIU7iHburXw-k1QZqd4_p0Y2XSDqNHU76CCP67fqfvU2jB6DdjTM7ZRKlJk0XDRGd6fHuwKfLsGDEbOEY38cMD7hywOZxjp_AfhjchKuJ1DLxjVmJl4/s640/Zion%20Gate.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBCDN0rhaRg0e4533JtPeZhKONyvp3Zz5AbiOH5XfTY9AtBAUX-MaKJkK-wNeD9TVaEZFMMVchIU7iHburXw-k1QZqd4_p0Y2XSDqNHU76CCP67fqfvU2jB6DdjTM7ZRKlJk0XDRGd6fHuwKfLsGDEbOEY38cMD7hywOZxjp_AfhjchKuJ1DLxjVmJl4/s320/Zion%20Gate.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Taking Back
Zion - <o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When I first moved
to Israel I stayed for a short time in Jerusalem’s old city. I became used to
driving there, down the one way roads, between buildings so old and tight
together that it seemed impossible to pass through with a car. My favorite spot
to do so, however, was the Zion Gate. It was very difficult to pass through the gate
without stopping and repositioning the vehicle to clear the turn, and I only
accomplished it once. If you got enough of an arc in your turn, and maximized
the angle once inside the gate, you could make it around the turn and out the
other side. But mostly I had to stop and pivot the car to get through. Once on
the other side of the gate, bullet holes still pocked the surface of the stone,
left as a reminder of fierce battles that had occurred to free the ancient
Jewish stronghold from Arab occupiers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There’s a story I
learned about Mount Zion and the Independence War. A soldier named Ira
Rappaport was fighting with his platoon, for their lives, as the Jordanian
military advanced on their position. They found themselves surrounded by
hundreds of Jordanian soldiers and had only 25 bullets left between them. The
men knew they were hopelessly outnumbered, and agreed to take out as many enemy
combatants as they could, down to the last bullet. As the small platoon was
about to make their last stand, with the Jordanian Muslims about to overrun
them, something inexplicable happened. The Jordanian soldiers all dropped their
weapons and then suddenly ran away, yelling “Ibrahim, Ibrahim!” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Many years later, Ira,
the soldier who witnessed this enigmatic event, happened to meet a Jordanian
soldier who had fought against him at Mount Zion that day. According to the
ex-Jordanian soldier, his entire division, each a Muslim, had witnessed a
vision of Ibrahim (Abraham) defending the Jews in the sky above the Israeli
platoon. The Muslim army had no choice but to drop their weapons and flee. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Shabbat and Simkhat
Torah - <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On Friday, Oct. 6<sup>th</sup>,
I had a strange day. It was the last day of the Sukkot holiday, and I felt
depressed all day long. It didn’t matter what I did to alleviate it. In the
studio I was busy on many new artworks, drawings, and paintings, but I couldn’t
get past a few strokes of my brush before putting it back down. I had visited
my grandson that week, a new soul in our world only a few weeks old, and while
there I felt good, but on Friday I just couldn’t shake a feeling of dread, of
impending depression and doom. At the end of the day I decided to go on a quick
bike ride before Shabbat and Simkhat Torah, both together on the following day,
but it didn’t seem to help like it usually did to change my energy. I put on my
tefilin in the morning, did my exercise routine, and even studied Torah
briefly, but nothing helped.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It wasn’t until
the following morning that I understood what had happened. I’ve spent my life
learning to tune my mind and spirit into the waves of the Universe, to gather
inspiration for what to learn next, what to create in the studio, and how to
plot my path into the future to best utilize the time I have here on our
planet. On Saturday morning my life changed, seemingly forever. Starting with a
jolt of fear and rage, my depression disappeared into a fog of war. My mind
became dull and purely reactive. Every new atrocity committed that I learned of
would push me deeper into the toxic cloud surrounding my mind. I tried to stay
busy during the following week, and it was good to have my daughter in law and
grandson visit us in the north to get out of the downpour of missiles trashing
homes and lives in the south. But, every time a new atrocity was reported,
family, friend’s, and neighbor’s children witnessing first-hand murder, rape,
infanticide…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pure evil genocide that is
beyond words to describe, I would float back to the darkness, and am writing to
you now from this place, a pit of fiery acid burning my gut, and squeezing my
soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXB9S78ctlsojFakPsVnVkRGhl8B5vytzf4ArUiIE92UjwzdkL6mHq6fSD1pHyx0dgv1WzsEdudWqQjDNuLvMVmDk5ca4lrf6XSAOOz-k5m6eLYCu_wmMjESNl3s_6GdD0BZnc4az3yMCcLmiFMIulASC5Xtw9Oizy6Yfe4_-MrQx5GOVR3wFjrrf0JfU/s1080/Soldier's%20Prayer.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXB9S78ctlsojFakPsVnVkRGhl8B5vytzf4ArUiIE92UjwzdkL6mHq6fSD1pHyx0dgv1WzsEdudWqQjDNuLvMVmDk5ca4lrf6XSAOOz-k5m6eLYCu_wmMjESNl3s_6GdD0BZnc4az3yMCcLmiFMIulASC5Xtw9Oizy6Yfe4_-MrQx5GOVR3wFjrrf0JfU/s320/Soldier's%20Prayer.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Family - <o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My son was drafted
to the north. My nephews are serving in the south. My friends’ children are
deployed throughout the tiny country I call home, and are counting the dead and
mutilated victims, and reporting these heinous war crimes to the bereaved
families, and to the world. My son sat with his newborn infant son the day he
left to protect civilians up north. He held him close, and the bond between them
seemed to grow beyond words I can find right now. He had trouble leaving his
wife and son, but at least my wife and I were able to host them away from the
missiles reigning down in the south. Once he got to his field position in the
north, my son began to realize things he and his unit were missing, having had
to leave in a hurry like they did. My nephews in the south also required things
to help them manage the horrors they were uncovering. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My daughter in law
found a place that was open still to buy my son a watch. He needs one because
he’s a medic and must time procedures as he attempts to save a life. I quickly
rushed to the store, where I found that the salesman had waited for me before
closing. The streets are mostly empty, especially in those first few days when
terrorists were still running around shooting people at random, into crowds of
civilians. He handed me the watch he had pulled out from behind the counter,
told me that he was giving me the watch as inexpensive as he could, and then
insisted on giving me a pack of prayers to pass out to soldiers for their
protection, which I did. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">My wife watched
the baby while my daughter in law and I drove north to deliver the watch and some
extra equipment for my son’s unit. She brought Lassie, their dog, to help give
him strength if we were able to meet with him. We were, and I showed him some
pictures of his grandmother, who’s 98 years old, with his 4 week old son on her
lap. My son's eyes lit up when he saw the pictures. He gave his wife a huge
hug, played a second with Lassie, and after talking for a couple minutes with
her, we all ducked behind the car in the dirt for a siren. Something sinister
and deadly that was flying overhead had been detected. My son had to get back
to his unit, so my daughter in law and I got back in the car to drive home; we
had to stop once on the way for another siren, waited on our bellies on the
side of the road, then we stopped for an ambulance to cross our path, and then
our internet giving us directions stopped working, on both of our phones. We know, only now, that they can jam GPS from Lebanon. We
got a little lost with Ways telling us to go the wrong way, but found our way
eventually when we got far enough south to recognize landmarks. It was a
difficult adventure for us both, but it was worth it to have strengthened my
son, her husband. We could both see the energy in him become clear and
powerful.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The family we
have, living here in Israel and overseas, has been trying to help as much as
they can to get the things we need to protect our homes and children. Everyone in the
entire country is doing the same. My family in the US is also trying to help,
donating aid and supporting online against the rampant amount of false news and
faked propaganda spewing out of Gaza and elsewhere by terrorists and their sympathizers. We watch here, helpless, as
demonstrations are breaking out across the globe in support of these violent
war criminal’s actions, calling them freedom fighters and victims themselves.
The world is upside down, what is good is painted as bad, and what is evil is even
being hailed as good. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlzEvXUUOfFTY4f7spZRPSm6uNwHf2rxwzPijhkPXBs7StlZQ5FFGTHQHbjbf6fIQO8ZpauLDiBM05rA96CMQmco_ZzmddDr8leryHWFeMhyphenhyphen-o4Eos2tPXTWQBXsRYFKfC7Myj3Zg70L2J6mZyEMCI90DioZ2-ZJKh8dnBisIb7GtTDvfAgsYUe0bMMGM/s1024/Baba%20and%20Baby.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlzEvXUUOfFTY4f7spZRPSm6uNwHf2rxwzPijhkPXBs7StlZQ5FFGTHQHbjbf6fIQO8ZpauLDiBM05rA96CMQmco_ZzmddDr8leryHWFeMhyphenhyphen-o4Eos2tPXTWQBXsRYFKfC7Myj3Zg70L2J6mZyEMCI90DioZ2-ZJKh8dnBisIb7GtTDvfAgsYUe0bMMGM/s320/Baba%20and%20Baby.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></b></div><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Tefilin and
Prayer - <o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On Friday morning,
one week after the terrorist attack that took the lives of way over 1,000
innocent people, and the rape and capture of over 200 others, I put on my
tefilin to pray. I covered my head with my tallit, as I always do in order to
collect my thoughts in a womblike environment, and I began to tap into the
Universe. In the past, my thoughts have gone to my wife, my daughter in laws,
my children, my entire family, member by member, and most recently my newborn
grandson. On Friday morning my thoughts flew immediately to the victims and
hostages being held in appalling conditions, babies locked in bird cages, some
beheaded we now think, hostages that had been violently raped, bleeding from
the violations they were forced to endure while others looked on in horror. My
thoughts went to their captors, evil men that have been brainwashed since
birth, for generations. Then my thoughts traveled into the heavens to consult
with my spiritual father, Abraham. Tears began to stream down my face as I
asked my father to appear above the victims and their captors, to call out to
them to stop, and to understand the truth of what they were doing to these
innocent human beings. These were atrocities, this was pure evil. Maybe Ibrahim
heard me. So far all I’ve heard back from the Universe is of more dead, students
from the school where I teach… family friends, foreign nationals, holocaust
survivors…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Please reach out
to help, we need resources, we need to know that we are not alone, and our
children, on the frontline, need their life force strengthened right now to
battle this evil spreading across our planet. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We are together, we are alive, Am Israel Khai! </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here are a few resources should you be able to help: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://tis.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/tis/donation.jsp?campaign=214&">https://tis.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/tis/donation.jsp?campaign=214&</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.hadassah.org/donate">https://www.hadassah.org/donate</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.rambam.org.il/en/support_rambam/donate_now">https://www.rambam.org.il/en/support_rambam/donate_now</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.mdais.org/en/donation">https://www.mdais.org/en/donation</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="https://thankisraelisoldiers.org/?fbclid=IwAR2AW5rRygi_OYWBA8PAciGRJ4RSxukUHplUAqfDK45rRoqKF5WLHwWLPDU"><span style="font-family: arial;">https://thankisraelisoldiers.org/?fbclid=IwAR2AW5rRygi_OYWBA8PAciGRJ4RSxukUHplUAqfDK45rRoqKF5WLHwWLPDU</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-9588584351130758512023-05-21T21:16:00.009+03:002023-10-16T16:51:51.498+03:00Paper Plane <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOv_bzTrzqt7qZ_lVo7axfH0voCLKJ7aUJS2bYuzNZRudJUQSLUgSfCcT24ABW_uoHrD9aUXSgL5nj0VZOQuVlDI5DW8KdqsUCEFJ26Mzc5ezFAjWvSc7L-5S8D7jsayv7ufbWKuvE_rBMTGCCsADEg3Ndt-Me2Uv5jDQKvixV2ZGwjiJbwsZVr9QNu14/s1024/DALL%C2%B7E%202023-10-16%2016.44.06%20-%20paper%20airplane%20flying%20into%20a%20trash%20can,%20van%20gogh.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOv_bzTrzqt7qZ_lVo7axfH0voCLKJ7aUJS2bYuzNZRudJUQSLUgSfCcT24ABW_uoHrD9aUXSgL5nj0VZOQuVlDI5DW8KdqsUCEFJ26Mzc5ezFAjWvSc7L-5S8D7jsayv7ufbWKuvE_rBMTGCCsADEg3Ndt-Me2Uv5jDQKvixV2ZGwjiJbwsZVr9QNu14/w200-h200/DALL%C2%B7E%202023-10-16%2016.44.06%20-%20paper%20airplane%20flying%20into%20a%20trash%20can,%20van%20gogh.png" width="200" /></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The glee in her eyes told the story
from the beginning to its end.</span></div><div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, except the part where we all
jumped into the air screaming…</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">My young student stood at the back
corner of the room, eyebrows pursed in concentration.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She inched her way
forward, begging my attention, with a paper plane she had folded; also begging…
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, I agreed. She
could throw it in one direction only, towards the garbage can in the opposite corner.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She grinned before
our lesson, and I knew she would try it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I breathed in as it
flew, around one student, then another.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It arced to and fro,
ascending then dropping down, but (no way) just enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then it swooped up,
stalled, and came down … exactly into the corner alcove…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It landed perfectly
into the trashcan that I had asked for, a hole in one. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We all screamed as
we jumped from our seats, TWO POINTS! And then our lesson began. </span><o:p></o:p></p></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-6352017855114318432023-04-25T21:38:00.000+03:002023-04-25T21:38:19.167+03:00The Open Window<p>It’s cold, and a love-couch. It must be the contact, the
surface</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s got to be the shallow stuff, the breaking-the-surface
thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That thing that sings its way into the bowels of the thing,
that thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tension that breaks and becomes self-realized. The stuff of source,
which is never seen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then, there’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
other thing. The one open on the other side, of things<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But, I keep looking at the glass between, the skim-off of
cream at the seam<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of that thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It lurks behind brain-matter, waiting to sing, that thing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like it never was, it disappeared without a trace<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxyrOCgnv33ujvV1zkqR41MWQl2ZzgiFdzBx-YX5s27i8PnC1s4IVhB4RxmlUe428Aab6jrRxJ6v6oJ-jQciM2PgT09VwMoxDpZqbwFcQK4JtdAwmt88SA3c6YvoMATwZdS5NB6gN9XmvU3pFdArD7-AMH7DgNTjrjuIn4boYkh6FHmFs89-h3DXjb/s1080/Nesting%20Wrenches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="847" data-original-width="1080" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxyrOCgnv33ujvV1zkqR41MWQl2ZzgiFdzBx-YX5s27i8PnC1s4IVhB4RxmlUe428Aab6jrRxJ6v6oJ-jQciM2PgT09VwMoxDpZqbwFcQK4JtdAwmt88SA3c6YvoMATwZdS5NB6gN9XmvU3pFdArD7-AMH7DgNTjrjuIn4boYkh6FHmFs89-h3DXjb/w200-h157/Nesting%20Wrenches.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nesting Wrenches</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-62749511968688842552023-03-09T21:20:00.000+02:002023-03-09T21:20:28.339+02:00The Difference between Inspiration and Impulsivity<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJU4CAShvCpLo-3VKw7o5fDKjihAWwXEyUOaYKJieA-uwYntUSqa9bnyuj_0-9mutbPdpJQZl3owpF3K6jr6THxbV6CIql6qGfTtRdz1c-nEsZjq8yRsYRXXi8Lc4oa4b-sT7BjZBNmahmTXHOpBZGS7bxUqCkAN6E10q1EsbkjiA5K2n4ITReRQGC/s1440/Dog,%20Sea,%20Wife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJU4CAShvCpLo-3VKw7o5fDKjihAWwXEyUOaYKJieA-uwYntUSqa9bnyuj_0-9mutbPdpJQZl3owpF3K6jr6THxbV6CIql6qGfTtRdz1c-nEsZjq8yRsYRXXi8Lc4oa4b-sT7BjZBNmahmTXHOpBZGS7bxUqCkAN6E10q1EsbkjiA5K2n4ITReRQGC/w240-h320/Dog,%20Sea,%20Wife.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Inspiration is an impulsive phenomenon. Or … the light of
the impulse of the flame of inspiration creates itself into the opposite, the
muck underneath, the foundation of wealth that resides under each dump. I beg
to differ, however, since the place I think of when down is up, the
happy-place. That place bursts into fireworks and phlegm, it soars into the
unknown. I like it, and when it goes.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It comes from nowhere, but lands now. It builds itself into
stars and hiccups, slipping. Shine lands on foundation, as it calls and disappears
timely. The plain of pattern stains tattoos onto film. Flatulence’ don’t exist,
the grey-zone we believe. It rams into the animal in front and welds all pell-mell
into the mohel. It never actually sings. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the spire of will, we want wafflery with it, neat squares
to glisten and mine – digging deep in order to shine, the ton of milling and
shavings pour down until still. The difference is nil, ton and void, since the
arch flows up again then down. It is always a matter of shine, and much of a heart.
We need both to be one, to be two together and still. It is always laundry in
the wind, and it's bugs in the sand. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">image: Dog, Sea, Wife - more cairns at: <a href="https://www.doronoll.com/noll-cairns">https://www.doronoll.com/noll-cairns</a> </p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-67372762612531827652023-03-04T18:10:00.005+02:002023-11-03T09:40:36.868+02:00Family Couch<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-size: 16pt;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdclBozYEIZPv2TZhOQ1wJdILO3WEIM-G2nnfrcMnza8rhoAM6d1WAwaXLS2zlCGfSvqznOLvBR_cTkyFL4Sb8R6sFxPZZ-Nl8J_i-NwWE1Cy_BDwUZE5bdnFKxciAMbMC4QKjBPRR82WujTuQWOc5mp2cev4V8g1QCFoVO-reiJoLvguQ2DuYjWx/s2992/HEY,%20MOISHE!%20%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%90%20dtnoll.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2944" data-original-width="2992" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdclBozYEIZPv2TZhOQ1wJdILO3WEIM-G2nnfrcMnza8rhoAM6d1WAwaXLS2zlCGfSvqznOLvBR_cTkyFL4Sb8R6sFxPZZ-Nl8J_i-NwWE1Cy_BDwUZE5bdnFKxciAMbMC4QKjBPRR82WujTuQWOc5mp2cev4V8g1QCFoVO-reiJoLvguQ2DuYjWx/w640-h630/HEY,%20MOISHE!%20%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%90%20dtnoll.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HEY, MOISHE! - <a href="https://www.doronoll.com/weekly-parsha/categories/leviticus-/-%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%90" target="_blank">click here</a> - </td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;">I wasn’t displeased about sitting in-between my parents – and I had the
TV-clicker, so pressed it and began to watch. It was a convoluted revenge story
developing, and I knew it. My mind fluttered between whether I was in control,
or if my hand was being forced. We all watched for a few segments of time, and
then I got bored and nervous. I fast-forwarded super-fast to the end. Then the
bullets started flying. The screen we watched became systematically shredded,
with fibers and smoke fluttering like worms in the wind, but still smoking from
ashes flipping from behind.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="text-align: justify;">I suppose I was just angry. It was irrational, considering the love that I’d
had. They looked at me in the dream like I was criminally-insane. Mouths hung
wide and low with eyes pinned to my lapel, lower than my sight could even see. I
mumbled nothing and moved back to the carnage, and stewed—then I woke up. It
was good to remember, as I do now, building bridges and zip-lines straight down. All the way to my old-age, teaching... Then I forgot it all.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="text-align: justify;">I remembered how I failed. I missed all the signs. Like a little dog
bitten by a snake, I quavered, I flailed. She was under my arm, tucked in and
protected. I was proud to be the one she chose, holding me close with reverence
and kavod. The others in the room begged to differ. I was not really with her …
they said. But, when I looked down, straight down, she began to quiver. I felt her
with me but then she pulled back. Pieces went missing as I watched from above.
She just plain disappeared. I looked up and the others moved away quickly. It
became dark, and I was left with my arm folded in the air, as if the dog was
still there.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="text-align: justify;">This happened before, having traveled to Jerusalem. The first night was
different, the second more the same. I woke 3 times in the night, the first to
the muezzin, the second from church-bells, and the third from a Jewish baby
crying; faith, faith, and life—that’s what I heard. I went to the wall, and
viewed from within the goings-on and also I saw some birds. They built
human-encounter walls there, at the wall, male and female, one to each side, and I wandered
between them and wondered what it would feel like. I was separate from what the
signs read; I was only a tourist watching from above, towards the world around
me, sort-of dead, but also so alive, and wonderfully-insane...</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="text-align: justify;">My son called me, he called us all. From atop a mountain next to a lake,
my son proposed to his gal. We smiled … all-around, congratulations and mazal-tovs,
with sparkling diamonds in the air, with love expanding in all directions. It
was a really fun day, in the small family that we have. Soon with God’s help,
I’ll have another daughter-in-law, our future, and thus theirs. We have become
greater, WE ... have without doubt. To see life unfolding into growth, into
stealth, wisdom and wealth, builds the future right now, exactly. My son called
me, and we spoke.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="text-align: justify;">On my bike ride I saw no wildlife. It was too late and too many had come
before. There wasn’t a porcupine swelling its quills. There weren’t any
tortoises; they had all left. Hedgehogs were asleep and the snakes were gone,
also. A jackal didn’t jump out, and the deer had all left for the year. Skinks
never show faces, unlike lizards and quail. A blind mole-rat would never even
know—scarabs and dung-beetles, centipedes with nothing to tow. Ants with their
butts poking high, scorpions and bees bumbling to and fro; on my bike ride I saw nothing, but
I still rode, I know.</span></span></div><p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-13865466648242332292022-12-21T21:18:00.011+02:002023-01-05T20:10:17.324+02:00Three Thumbs<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDlCBzyu0_Dz98DX6SDy4YXvuR6GODptzOpzhrTaudlUwMEccFn7HOpbUcwv52S037Ecdb5q760WmDQujm2AMspcX-wIcXlGF_8jw9XHU0TcUNGVSnsrC7X9TD0uy1n-xKqPMhKZ9opdnIiV5KbjlQhyIcWLEnkXkC-OYNiEbzvtT-SSC1auejY41/s2048/Carin%20Soccer.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1696" data-original-width="2048" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDlCBzyu0_Dz98DX6SDy4YXvuR6GODptzOpzhrTaudlUwMEccFn7HOpbUcwv52S037Ecdb5q760WmDQujm2AMspcX-wIcXlGF_8jw9XHU0TcUNGVSnsrC7X9TD0uy1n-xKqPMhKZ9opdnIiV5KbjlQhyIcWLEnkXkC-OYNiEbzvtT-SSC1auejY41/w400-h331/Carin%20Soccer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There’s a rule and two others that I found while navigating
the Ramon Crater. Back in Boulder there was a devil’s thumb, but this was
different. In the crater I rediscovered three of them, rules of thumb, rules to
live by, and rules that were meant. The devil is fantasy, I always suspected,
but the cultural paradigms sent down in time would never relent! So, in the
crater, I stuck my head in the desert, into the sands of time, and I learned as
much as I could, till mostly I was spent. And spent I was, coming up from the
barren lands down below, on the globe we live upon. I kept learning long after
sundown, the rules to live by … and, until now, not making a sound.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Rule one I learned from my father, as we hiked in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, the highlands of California. We arrived at a campsite daily,
with packs upon our backs, to find that others had left things behind. My
family was small, only four with my mother and brother, but we learned that
leaving a place better than when we came was the goal, and rule number one.
Pack it in, pack it out, only took care of one’s-self. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We needed to move beyond to make the world
better than when we came, so we left each place better than we found it, by
packing out others’ garbage as well.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4Ccw8mCLFU7CaYxFeYPnhsZJqCfH-Z_kg5hJmywsxKLSoAXvRSdwmwUKyqoIr1OQSeCeP7VkA9DMZFicKW8A9Xny-saIBLevbb-xLh0EvvgEpGNwChgqOaa6WqIXtQEC9tCbSHswJNBBbuxwddSGyFE5mDilopfPyZimp2ErfbwSvl2i3C5uSDvd/s2048/Shadow%20and%20Mountain.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4Ccw8mCLFU7CaYxFeYPnhsZJqCfH-Z_kg5hJmywsxKLSoAXvRSdwmwUKyqoIr1OQSeCeP7VkA9DMZFicKW8A9Xny-saIBLevbb-xLh0EvvgEpGNwChgqOaa6WqIXtQEC9tCbSHswJNBBbuxwddSGyFE5mDilopfPyZimp2ErfbwSvl2i3C5uSDvd/w400-h300/Shadow%20and%20Mountain.jpg" width="400" /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: left;">Rule two I taught myself, as all rules should eventually
become. I have a fear of heights that has developed over time. My palms sweat
when I think of a climb, and I tremble when thinking about the depth of the surface
below. Times in the past have given me vertigo, the world spinning ‘round,
never stopping, and leaving me cringing and clinging to anything found. The
only way that I’ve envisioned to overcome the irrational cringe as it appears, is
to chant to myself that it doesn’t really matter. I talk to myself, and caress
myself … enforcing my mind over matter.</div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Rule three was learned much later, from my brother, Uncle
Abba, as we sat around the Shabbos table. We spoke, one and all, of a higher consciousness,
a better self to lead others. We spoke of a world where each individual seeks
to know all. We spoke of a mind-space where the world could be contained, and where
each person’s realm could contain others. The line of thought always brought
us, sitting at the table, to the awareness that we are all one, and that we must
work together. I learned that to be whole I needed to incorporate the views
from others; I understood, at the end of each meal, that I needed to be ‘Rosh
Gadol.’</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjWUWh0Fol4_2Hqx1AIa1NSJMxXE3a5jYnbb0e3h7pdF3_RSfgBnMSTr0GPIa8XffesyAZXLqfYwcV1BjndcjKsusF-bB1dO41-N9t968FwpK9ra4zL9yeMXYdQcqJUUlXoeV3YTzQ2dmqSn30SZMXHkOP04dbl7YnooVKKC69xCDA5-a0beQJOa1O/s2048/Sunset%20in%20the%20Crater.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjWUWh0Fol4_2Hqx1AIa1NSJMxXE3a5jYnbb0e3h7pdF3_RSfgBnMSTr0GPIa8XffesyAZXLqfYwcV1BjndcjKsusF-bB1dO41-N9t968FwpK9ra4zL9yeMXYdQcqJUUlXoeV3YTzQ2dmqSn30SZMXHkOP04dbl7YnooVKKC69xCDA5-a0beQJOa1O/w400-h300/Sunset%20in%20the%20Crater.jpg" width="400" /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: left;">Conclusions signal an end, but I believe this is only the beginning.
With so much apathy coming down now, we feel the pain, as if the end was already
here, and aligned with our inner being. We ask ourselves, always, why ME, with
a capital Y, as we fly down the carnival ride we can’t believe we paid to ride.
We plummet down the trails we leave, ’round and ‘round, but to know the end is
only to stop falling down. To know who we are is a task undone, we slip down
until we drown, but … in life we sing as we descend. I say we should listen to
ourselves thinking, and stop drooping into the unknown, the undead. Be Rosh
Gadol! Take stock and take advantage! You can do it! It’s only mind over
matter!! Just be sure to help others clean up the mess they leave behind, that way,
TOGETHER one and all, we can shine!!! um... wut woot! </div></span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><o:p></o:p><p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-70060074219371888382022-11-07T22:26:00.004+02:002022-11-07T22:29:21.763+02:00Seed<p><span face="Calibri, "sans-serif"" style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWzQ2aIwxcfy_KaAvnBxAHDQcawYSK1_ToBV7loSxgGGC2QfblSwFfT952I2XxTzti9KJXeJRtHeF3eh07FcKKd8kdZaUNMLPmig9bsuonDhYRjKKc3OuksWPiipGwVKbexrX2xzZFl60CJSxxoYAYzAtj9kVO52Qi55iFPiQntznV56aL-TS139S/s3660/Etrog%20in%20Space%20%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%2010-16%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2552" data-original-width="3660" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWzQ2aIwxcfy_KaAvnBxAHDQcawYSK1_ToBV7loSxgGGC2QfblSwFfT952I2XxTzti9KJXeJRtHeF3eh07FcKKd8kdZaUNMLPmig9bsuonDhYRjKKc3OuksWPiipGwVKbexrX2xzZFl60CJSxxoYAYzAtj9kVO52Qi55iFPiQntznV56aL-TS139S/w200-h139/Etrog%20in%20Space%20%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%2010-16%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There’s a knowing left
under the world that reminds me of me. I think it sometimes, this knowing, but
it leaves soon thereafter, spitting nonsense into my memory of it being. The
life it left always tilts my reservoir of love but never touches my lips up,
never begs to begin. I sing, I dance, slamming it out unseen, but always
tasting the wishing in which it began ~ image: </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Etrog in Space, 10-2016</span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"> </span></span></p><p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-7160612852225385872022-09-22T20:32:00.020+03:002022-12-30T17:50:39.991+02:00Snake<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6IO5bIzXtCUNF_f0TthO56zJeya0pTGy4ZORHWSjuxtQH5-KlLrglOFgNQL9Uo6MPFmoSfZEEJ02OHyaVtk9rZqYn606MZZuXrB_F6lEMF5U-dFB97w380HjOHR0UeOKITMFZLKfI61sfJxFnhH1iCXzfkMn5WfVULUbQMreBMS7HD4zBnr33Tik4/s1080/Roxy's%20Last%20Day.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6IO5bIzXtCUNF_f0TthO56zJeya0pTGy4ZORHWSjuxtQH5-KlLrglOFgNQL9Uo6MPFmoSfZEEJ02OHyaVtk9rZqYn606MZZuXrB_F6lEMF5U-dFB97w380HjOHR0UeOKITMFZLKfI61sfJxFnhH1iCXzfkMn5WfVULUbQMreBMS7HD4zBnr33Tik4/w400-h300/Roxy's%20Last%20Day.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The alarm split my head open as it went off. My new phone
wasn’t normalized yet, and school had just started for the year. It was loud
and shocking, but my day needed to begin, nevertheless. Swimming through tasks
uncompleted and filling all of my inboxes, I awoke and shuffled towards my
morning routine—bathroom, dressing in the dark, tip-toeing downstairs to awaiting
animals … feeding, coffee, and contemplation of things to come. Fat ran into
the house when I opened the back door, our friendly neighborhood cat, instead
of sauntering through my legs for food as I tripped in the dark out onto the
back deck. It was strange. I saw Pizza hesitate on the deck-rail, his front paw
fluttering as if testing the air for safety. But, with a clink and a spatter,
the cat food landed into the metal bowls secured to the kitchen window-sill
with wooden cut-out frames and super-sheva.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I returned to the kitchen to begin to feed the dogs, Roxie
and Dude, scooped Dude’s food kernels with a different plastic cup and then spun
to fill his bowl on the deck. Fat jumped onto the window-sill and greedily ate
at the same time, but Pizza was still paralyzed on the rail. Dude wolfed into
his chow, as is normal, his senses old and reduced to only taste and smell. And,
Roxie was already gone, having run around the corner after more neighborhood
cats that often come to call—usually, hence, returning to guard her food-bowl and, of
course, to growl. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I measured her kernels into the bottom of the cup, swirled
it for effect, and returned to the deck. She was still nowhere in sight, which
is often the case as she gets wind of usurper cats waiting beyond the fence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bent, and watched the kernels fall from my
hand, swirling out of the plastic cup and into the bowl, metal clinking to a
stop—Roxie’s last meal. She saved me from imminent death, Roxie did, as I came
to suspect. I bent, the spill of kernels spaced out in time, falling to the
swirl of the bowl, the bottom of gravity cascading down, and around… <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Hisssssss… jumped at me. Behind the dog's water bowl, full from
the day before, laid a snake with poison fangs. The last kernel fell into the
metal bowl and twirled on its end, as I watched fangs leap out across the meter between…
I reeled in my mind, a swear word careened from my mouth, loud, muffled, and I stumbled back over my own roots. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It glistened in the morning air, a viper digesting a recent kill.
Quickly, Fat left. Then I grabbed Pizza off the rail. I threw him into the
house, and then scooped my big dog Dude from around his belly, trying not to hurt his tumors as I
lifted him and flew him in, too. I shut the door and raced across the house to
open the screen at the front—then thought I saw the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">blur of Roxie coming in, followed by Luna the black cat, which disappeared upstairs with a bleating meow.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The snake catchers arrived from Atlit, after a brief call. All
business … they captured the endangered animal, with a trash-claw and a bucket.
We all joked about how it would be released back into the wild, next to our
home, then come calling again… ha ha ha ha… Then I walked to work through the
nature reserve next to our house. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On a break between
classes, my phone began to scream. It was subtle, but insistent, ending in Roxie’s
head being swollen and obscene. She had been bitten by the snake, my wife said
in the text. I was in shock. I ran into my next class and began to teach
vocabulary and connectors, but I actually can’t remember… <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Hours became days,
and then the day stopped. Roxie swelled up and her brain stopped too. Her blood
pooled and then she stopped living; and then she decided to go. We all kept her
alive with our love, for a day or two, as she perked up every time family would
call, wanting to grow back to normal, chasing cats and growling next to her bowl,
loving, just … so deeply, the life she had found… <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In memory, and in blessing
to all for a meaningful new year, full of promise and accomplishment, may you
be written into the book of health and astounding life… <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Shabbat shalom </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">(to read about Roxie's young life and start, please read here: <a href="https://israel-travel-secrets.com/beach-blanket-puppy/" target="_blank">https://israel-travel-secrets.com/beach-blanket-puppy/</a>)</span></span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-10238391558794709282022-08-10T21:36:00.001+03:002022-08-10T21:37:05.100+03:00Into the Woods<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-4o2K9lPiu6MaymkxFrZI5UZHhLWaIip6jR-B13jEPsE4r7OUYQi3CxDE6mPI-exuEd94qxkeI2BxJ68NTqkhtyUBCO6JstZueCh9j7IiG0miU5NRwzocA89JSYAQ5CjjbcesIbN1U2VrstZ-E4EhYzJJEE6CL1iU5nNfDdYj32Hjf7rlmQR6KZ1/s3243/Echoes%20from%20the%20Hallway%20(edited%20together)%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%202-17%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2352" data-original-width="3243" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-4o2K9lPiu6MaymkxFrZI5UZHhLWaIip6jR-B13jEPsE4r7OUYQi3CxDE6mPI-exuEd94qxkeI2BxJ68NTqkhtyUBCO6JstZueCh9j7IiG0miU5NRwzocA89JSYAQ5CjjbcesIbN1U2VrstZ-E4EhYzJJEE6CL1iU5nNfDdYj32Hjf7rlmQR6KZ1/w400-h290/Echoes%20from%20the%20Hallway%20(edited%20together)%20%C2%A9%20DTNoll%202-17%20%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9C.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Separated by the Rocky Mountain range
of craggy peaks, I was forced to reinvent myself by the sheer fact that I was physically
cut-off from my past; I had to rely upon the foundation that had been set down
by ancestors who once had moved west. I moved east and landed in Colorado, then
perched onto the foundation of a suburban home built the year I was born.
There, I began to search for work … and three years in I began again to paint. After
stints splinted with real estate, museum work, and cabinet making, I carved
into my suburban home a woodworking studio for days and a painting studio by
night. Hence, after tucking my freshly bathed jammy-clad boys into bed with a
story read between lines, pages skipped in anticipation, and then with a
parting kiss to the lips of my love, I disappeared down below the earth into a basement
brightened with paint to light up dreams of doorways invented to ascend.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">I built there a tiny staircase with a
curving rail up through a hole in the wall leading into an unseen garage, my
woodworking studio by day and a place to dwell above ground by night. My
suburban bi-level began to transform and to morph into its own, during daylight
building cabinets, but at night spray-painting dreams to create jet-ways into
the unknown. From table-saw to router, with some hand-tools in between, my mind
would leap from paint in the basement to ornamentation above. Built, mortised,
and finished upon the ground, with gold-leaf spread around and between, I spent
my nights traveling between worlds, one above ground and the other seeking the light
from far down below, but mostly unseen.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">My boys grew while my worldview
shrunk. But, I found that I was able to survive and almost thrive, and regardless
of numbers and inherent fears, a business was formed—built in summer with winters
too cold. So, built more I did, cloistering up, into the sky with a loft in my
woodshop to look out from with a ladder leading below—I left a dimension and
time, leaving behind the clutches of foundations built. I had parted from my past-life
in California and built my dreams on my own. In suburban Colorado I built it
alone, with no way to be heard, internet only a dream, I built from anew a
worldview unshared and painstakingly unsung.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">I coached soccer for my first-born,
attending teacher-meetings for my second; I evolved and developed into a parent
each day, LEGOs on the carpet, museums for learning, and teaching about bikes;
playing Airsoft in the day, but by night descending—seeking, expecting to rise
up again nightly via a staircase through the wall, I painted in oil-cosmic, and
the nights slipped together into still. By catching a ride in the dark on the waves
passing by, I remained to myself tangible, quite possibly alive, and my mind was
able to soar. At least that is what I told myself. Really, I was completely
lost in a foreign land with a foreign alibi. <i>Who was I fooling, anyway</i>?
I left California because I was tired of holding on to something that had died many
years before. I needed something new, something strange, something obtuse and
prickling in order to live. The world I had known wasn’t ever real, wasn’t ever
anything that could manifest a footing. It was a world overrun, that I lived
in, with too many other things, hollow things, devolving. The cultural
condition in California had mutated, for me, into something grand and bulbous, a
sore toe tripping forward, so with almost no choice left, I left it.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">My father grew up there, in the sunny
state of California, his father too, all watching the place breed and spout,
spreading a sort of cancer with a vintage tin watering can haphazardly onto
dreams dreamt, and then packed away out of sight—into crates perfectly fitting
produce produced in the dark. I left California with a brother from Laguna on
one side and from Israel a brother-in-law on the other. We slept one more time
15 stories above ground in a rent-controlled apartment on the L.A. shore, above
the ignoble chaos my mind depicted way down below. My head was made up and I
had to leave, the place I loved from generations before had spit my soul out in
order that my body should follow. And we went east… </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://www.doronoll.com/alternate-reality-stories" target="_blank">Click here to conclude our story</a></span></span></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-52942439283202353082022-05-22T19:04:00.000+03:002022-05-22T19:04:04.802+03:00 The Scream<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JnKF5l2hQrJn3xggcpcF2LYyM01MToZy2_ioHVkMAD7Qb1H_X5gdC76DChARyVPo-UVAp6-v-WEMDvqHCEuhWI89mm-JgtdZv6fhz67nEwsnhZ8UllMmOr3RkZe9fRxI88sqDAF_Sm7woX9kvEUr0VxZ5bumZvX2T6TPPFsPunH5Ho91iO6LD3rF/s1163/Scream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1163" data-original-width="872" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JnKF5l2hQrJn3xggcpcF2LYyM01MToZy2_ioHVkMAD7Qb1H_X5gdC76DChARyVPo-UVAp6-v-WEMDvqHCEuhWI89mm-JgtdZv6fhz67nEwsnhZ8UllMmOr3RkZe9fRxI88sqDAF_Sm7woX9kvEUr0VxZ5bumZvX2T6TPPFsPunH5Ho91iO6LD3rF/s320/Scream.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I want to scream every time I think about relieving myself.
What is this damn machine I’ve been stuck between?! My cells are conspiring, my
path is obscured, and my teeth need to be cleaned?! It’s just not fair that I
signed on for a life-changing path, a cairn or cornerstone to admire in
pathetic undertones of the unknown. There is a plan, I feel in the soul of what
I brought with me, but the feet of this thing I ride in have another design entirely.
There are vibrations propelling me into this strange and viscous place, time
dilating then expanding and becoming null and void because of its birth,
because of mine being me…</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I spew forth matter that has no relevance, not
matter at all. What matters is the meaning behind the expulsion of fluids, the
excrement left behind in this world of ‘no matter.’ Whatever… I chose it,
supposedly, when I was under the duress of wonder, wandering in a place I can
no longer remember. So, the corner of chaos that I once knew no longer exists,
and just rots in my memory floating about and stinking to high heaven. It’s not
about that, I know… but, holy hell—it sticks to this skin as I expulse the
refuse clinging to its core, forevermore... At least that’s what I think when I
think of it, the being that began before—there is really nothing more.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-18977607572859460902022-05-04T20:35:00.001+03:002022-09-03T15:40:51.397+03:00 Post Conceptualism<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBI7rhTFZnzGgFwEX434pIu0tiqTZx0vu_nBGEr55mRENmgjNfdHPwwQtLKg2bQljAnUEExan6SpSKF1Lceny3bvBkLiT-ODr_pQGesYii_Qw_oYjJ6yqk4VfMsW9C2K5O-3lDS_eFEjRh0Kgh-VrNLmAI8Pd8Bo1kMA0_x1Fyioo_0xdeoV2An3-/s2606/Bongo%20in%20a%20Hole%20in%20a%20Rock.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="2606" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBI7rhTFZnzGgFwEX434pIu0tiqTZx0vu_nBGEr55mRENmgjNfdHPwwQtLKg2bQljAnUEExan6SpSKF1Lceny3bvBkLiT-ODr_pQGesYii_Qw_oYjJ6yqk4VfMsW9C2K5O-3lDS_eFEjRh0Kgh-VrNLmAI8Pd8Bo1kMA0_x1Fyioo_0xdeoV2An3-/w200-h188/Bongo%20in%20a%20Hole%20in%20a%20Rock.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>We have built our mind’s eye to the point of blindness.
There are a few coughs and spasms, still, but in essence we have moved onto a
realm where each individual is aware, and pissed off at the world’s refractory-insanity.
We believe in mankind and at the same time we spit in its general direction, all
the while stuck between what we think and what we believe. We laugh at
ourselves, but not really, begging a question between what was funny and what
we now see. The corporate shadow engulfs us all, money begging our attention,
yet we know deep inside that once upon a time a soul moved the entire scene. We
are all blinded by our own enterprise, blinded into knowing, and totally unable to
see. </span></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-84711305812537456422022-04-26T18:49:00.007+03:002023-01-28T13:00:40.579+02:00Conversion Court <p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid_wx7K18hRmBUm2Foc11m1uJAtPuVNZxusJzSwGIe9D8JGmaZL80eFnolJinX0aEV_BKJcEB_Ku5NFz6Er7ZC3gqOKzO9DL2iB10nHp_Uh8OluhykQV-tAKiWR5hO3k7I8Oz-4aIT32IoJeyquACpj7o5CE0xMkVTNLVWTvvJW2gZgoYH-qBFGVB7/s2960/CONVERSION%20COURT%20dtnoll.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2960" data-original-width="2928" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid_wx7K18hRmBUm2Foc11m1uJAtPuVNZxusJzSwGIe9D8JGmaZL80eFnolJinX0aEV_BKJcEB_Ku5NFz6Er7ZC3gqOKzO9DL2iB10nHp_Uh8OluhykQV-tAKiWR5hO3k7I8Oz-4aIT32IoJeyquACpj7o5CE0xMkVTNLVWTvvJW2gZgoYH-qBFGVB7/s320/CONVERSION%20COURT%20dtnoll.jpg" width="317" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My background is a secular one, but as a child I was surrounded by quite a few churches strewn about. So, when I was very little ... there was a time when we were forced to go to Sunday school; and, we were disturbed
by every moment of it. It was a different era, you see, where children were
seen but not heard. So, I guess you can only imagine it if you didn’t share this
same experience in some form or another. Later, after coming of age and attending art
school, my mind told me to push all the limits—nothing was off the
table—at least until the year I was propositioned by both of my favorite teachers, one female
and one male, to take our relationship to the next level; not in an
obtuse way, mind you, but very respectfully and considerate of my feelings and blossoming
desires at the time. Thankfully, I had already met my soul-mate and learned
enough under-grad-world-religion to know that I was actually a Jew born into
the body of a Goy. I loved growing up as a non-Jew, but not as much as having ultimately
found my people-dom.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s a complex thing, “people-dom.” I came from a ‘people,’
but I became aware of another, and possibly a more suitable people. I had
already traversed Christian theologies, from Episcopalian as a child to Jehovah’s
Witnesses as a young adult. I even explored the local Hare Krishna Temple to be
sure of my path, but ultimately, after reading cover-to-cover </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">from </span><span style="font-family: arial;">my father’s (exploration
into other realms in collage) <i>Khumash</i>, I found something that resonated with my
soul. The Five Books of Moses spawned everything in the western world, I told
myself at the time. The underlying philosophy of Judaism didn’t attempt to deny
or omit other faiths, I told myself at the time. And, at the time, I was ready
to build the world into something that made sense to me, and </span><span style="font-family: arial;">could </span><span style="font-family: arial;">(I told myself at
the time to feel comfortable dipping my toes into...) maybe make sense to others.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I converted to Judaism in LA. My parents came to support me.
I dunked under the living waters and came out anew as I connected to the Creator of the
Universe using ... mere words to do so! Then, as I stumbled forward into the
unknown, I spent the next 20 years trying to understand the people-dom I had
joined. Finally (but not really), I let go of my ego-driven attempt to control
my growth in the world … and I moved to the Holy Land only to be dunked again.
And then I left adolescence and the real metamorphosis began. But, I found myself becoming so far away
from my childhood roots that I almost forgot... almost... and yes, then the world submerged under corona-lock-down and I had a window of space to remember with. Last week I visited my brother,
whose children are steeped in Baptist theology, and I broke bread with my
uncle Bob (yes, Bob’s my uncle), and I listened to the faith and love they espoused.
I could finally listen and be comforted by their belief in their faith. I could
finally understand that we are ‘ALL’ ONE; and, I also finally understood, in that
moment, something that I hadn't from the beginning. I finally knew that I was a Jew. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For more comics, click: <a href="https://www.doronoll.com/comics">https://www.doronoll.com/comics</a></span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-62698836330325252682022-02-16T18:50:00.002+02:002022-02-16T18:57:49.752+02:00 HOME ZOO<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9v-qgtpZd0Anu5X2Ir_l2gtecwwVvlRgaodRZu_6yWKZy2UBPgiOYlQeqMSoFw2Z2bLTtvdHpNLw63tI976HwH1_-sbj6dD6xOwrOE_f5HvePpgc92pQQ_CqJPZ0vN3Qqi5BGOtlt1nPAmd8rZ4D2FDK2PjMIna52aWMPXS5hQWMtiw-iCpxiBOh=s2824" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2782" data-original-width="2824" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9v-qgtpZd0Anu5X2Ir_l2gtecwwVvlRgaodRZu_6yWKZy2UBPgiOYlQeqMSoFw2Z2bLTtvdHpNLw63tI976HwH1_-sbj6dD6xOwrOE_f5HvePpgc92pQQ_CqJPZ0vN3Qqi5BGOtlt1nPAmd8rZ4D2FDK2PjMIna52aWMPXS5hQWMtiw-iCpxiBOh=w309-h304" width="309" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Fur growing up upon my floors, I sweep and vacuum it but it keeps building up … little doggies and kitties gather in corners where life in our house won’t disturb, and gathering can continue as days move together to form months, even years. Our white dog, Bongo, once brought into our home, has since vanished to other realms. He left looking into my eyes as I cradled his head in my lap, petting his fur, all the time knowing that it would never mix again with the black fur back home, to end gray and unseen, and then gathering in corners until our time was at an end. The black fur is Dude’s, and always has been, at least during our stay here in what we refer to as the middle of the east on our planet. Dude was our first dog in the Holy Land. Then Fat, born inside a dumpster, showed up looking for food and a night well spent. Pizza followed soon thereafter, as a cat that would be indoors, but in the end … just … wasn’t. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After Bongo replaced us with thought-clouds of wonder, we found Putzky the dog wannabe on a beach. She was born to a local Arab family down the street, but we colonialized her outright with smiles, cash, and the real potential of a healthy long life, and being. Her mutant features were of no concern. Then, a few years later, Loonie was handed to us via our young son, who God-willing will betroth quite soon. The zoo we live in has grown, mostly, from year to year, and with the blessing of Hashem may one day unfold again. That growth has extended to the wonder we feel looking around us from time to time, realizing our fortune, understanding our place and the responsibility it holds, and its sting. A gift we were given is obvious, as is written, but the awareness of such is something that can shine far beyond our understanding. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqlATJRb9nv-_MsM34h6FGa7OaG34A77UE2Fh2l5vJR2hXxB_wMUg8ahpOIrzoRaliqI5u_eRkKjvyUSiHOr-aEVqy1vXH8X4qNlM3CKMqo051_55Z65nBMneWsbNf_lQvFGCgSmZII44GCfoFstOw3qTGqN2vDGOfOAeRsBfHuirM0_uRXD7DWtZY=s2848" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2824" data-original-width="2848" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqlATJRb9nv-_MsM34h6FGa7OaG34A77UE2Fh2l5vJR2hXxB_wMUg8ahpOIrzoRaliqI5u_eRkKjvyUSiHOr-aEVqy1vXH8X4qNlM3CKMqo051_55Z65nBMneWsbNf_lQvFGCgSmZII44GCfoFstOw3qTGqN2vDGOfOAeRsBfHuirM0_uRXD7DWtZY=w304-h301" width="304" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Training new members as they join our pod is a complex endeavor. We have more than one human, but each member strives to be together. The only known ending for each and every story is that the animals within are the ones that know truth. The humans in our pod have a sense of where it will end, but it’s the animals that determine where the energy will grow and descend. Like lightning rods pulling down the love that we need, the animals in our life teach us to breathe. They teach us to love, not only them, but each other … indeed. There is a love with conflict between male and female in our realm, the dogs here sense it and can make sense of prophets from beyond. The animals in our life can tell us the things we don’t know. The dogs ‘begging what we can’t know’ give us a window to see each other and to then grow. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Ahhh… enough with the rhyme, enough with this twaddle and mow! The grass is not greener just because we seem to think so. I started a new project drawing my thoughts as they sewed humor, unfolding with … obvious ebb and a flow. Once we received a new cat, cute as could be, she displayed behaviors unknown and never (by me) seen. MMeeOWww… on and on. Her tail was a pointer poking down, rubbing fur raw as she plowed down into it all. Crying up to the heavens, Loonie echoed way down below. Our new cat was in heat and we just didn’t know. Pizza the boy winked at us all, he knew how to call, but we did not know... Up into the attic she crawled, Pizza in tow, around the house, all willy-nill, she drew him out and the rest of us saw. It wasn’t until we understood that the cat we had been gifted was not spayed as we thought, the owners from before saving money as their unwanted cat flew out their door. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIq8znErb66UoRTiYXGdFtqpZAQQ58RVxjczgwkqAqLvtN1r0K9cVVMrqVoyFUKjA-QopDrEzmUIJS7QRBcNHYNB9_bJIyUtpVQJHk2A4anqROxAivvxqvfiEf4vIFzrDU6UcVhzMONNVFm8Vs7L9bxxFz-oy1Clw6_3VTw5SBKP_bcikrUN08pYzc=s2815" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2815" data-original-width="2723" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIq8znErb66UoRTiYXGdFtqpZAQQ58RVxjczgwkqAqLvtN1r0K9cVVMrqVoyFUKjA-QopDrEzmUIJS7QRBcNHYNB9_bJIyUtpVQJHk2A4anqROxAivvxqvfiEf4vIFzrDU6UcVhzMONNVFm8Vs7L9bxxFz-oy1Clw6_3VTw5SBKP_bcikrUN08pYzc=s320" width="310" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Shabbat evening was coming, a time to shut down, and we acted once we knew. The new cat needed fixing to blend in with our zoo. The animals around us all knew, but we humans had to stew for a spell, thinking it over and processing all things new. Then with the clock ticking before the sun went down, we raced to repair the damage to our own family realm. There was time before our day of rest was protected; there was time to fire up the engine of things built in the world. In the town that I live there’s a road that wanders down, ending abruptly at the edge of the sea and the end of what’s known. The sun settled down there as I sped home before lighting, and it wallowed for an instant, the sun, with Loonie meowing softly, begging a ride back home. The sea roiled as I watched from afar, red-orange spray sizzling and sputtering out, as the sun wept for the day’s last time. Loonie yawned, like nothing had happened, but then as I descended down the Conqueror’s Road, I wondered if I had time to get home. I turned on the Wheat Road … then followed the plan down to below. I made it, we made it, and our zoo was complete once again, without chaos in tow — a brand new Shabbat Shalom. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Click <a href="https://www.doronoll.com/comics">https://www.doronoll.com/comics</a> for more comics!</span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-91256383569199304512021-11-16T20:58:00.003+02:002021-11-17T18:31:04.966+02:00Life<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJzoin68Drgyc1D1iZ9WAxibXpJlm5TqwI6qAJcyF-rtSORxuUzmdjMNX_3-UP7XjaOFOm4UVzYu6lACqCHd3dZ2xbgEuxTMvuUUQaqplvmdT4Ba1Bg3lq57c5Ip-oRnaDPqv-to_zRfcveRHOdrsjJ63rEIMP0Bb75oAfdjbhyh689aOs3hdpxInR=s1080" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="1080" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJzoin68Drgyc1D1iZ9WAxibXpJlm5TqwI6qAJcyF-rtSORxuUzmdjMNX_3-UP7XjaOFOm4UVzYu6lACqCHd3dZ2xbgEuxTMvuUUQaqplvmdT4Ba1Bg3lq57c5Ip-oRnaDPqv-to_zRfcveRHOdrsjJ63rEIMP0Bb75oAfdjbhyh689aOs3hdpxInR=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s moving so fast, damn, sailing past me as I run to do
its bidding the whole day long. It’s as if my head was not my own to hold onto,
while standing in an alley in front of my house; where a conversation ensued
about construction planning. With my head already hurting from trying to
squeeze coronafied students into a form that had already come, the English with
my wife was the most familiar thing to grab. Hebrew flew in hesitant spurts
between the four of us, a Christian, a Muslim, and two Jews pretending to
belong. Arabic poured out into cement bonding the air between them … and a plan
was formed. But, my head was still flying overhead, not mine at all. So I left
to walk to work through the ancient ruins left behind. Past the sparkling white
tower, evil lurking inside, I kicked through the gate leading down. A new sewer
had also been planned, so diggers pounded in step with each footfall
descending, each step stolen from a world gone wrong. Guilty for leaving my
wife home, I thought about how to mold young coronafied minds into healthy
beings to lead the way into a future unknown. I thought about my own sons
singing a life of their own. And, I thought about myself and the path that I’d
shorn. I sang along walking until I found it, a place needing attention, a
place to be born.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEieyQAk0jhsn09AJjXpjgvtqlKUdUqbVJgh0txEXPKpua-7UYJII7XgdHNDUsXTYrS3AM5uiX2ne2Jv_x9FDe5prOv-DS09WECKM6GqXjP46BpDM-WSG9Ky8Xj-dhHHkzqB9GBmatp2STa7y2T9D8V5Uoypv9OCn5vQBsWO_MpWTwym8ItEHVdIje4i=s2048" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEieyQAk0jhsn09AJjXpjgvtqlKUdUqbVJgh0txEXPKpua-7UYJII7XgdHNDUsXTYrS3AM5uiX2ne2Jv_x9FDe5prOv-DS09WECKM6GqXjP46BpDM-WSG9Ky8Xj-dhHHkzqB9GBmatp2STa7y2T9D8V5Uoypv9OCn5vQBsWO_MpWTwym8ItEHVdIje4i=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There’s a certain shape that speaks to me, a shape that
elevates the world and defies gravity at the same time. It’s hard to give over
the idea of what I’ve seen, but to try I could say that there are edges unworn.
In everything we see, whether up, sideways, or down, there’s a pattern of being,
and all at once being born. The rocks strewn about have been sewn by a heaven unyielding,
with time filling in between and stretching out into our norm. A chip here and
a roll-down there, dirt uncovering and then spilling out guts of the world, the
stones tumble down. So on the path I move upon I stumble down, looking and
waiting for inspiration born, on my path to work well shorn. Breathing deeply and
stopping time, I find one or two stones. A base emerges from beneath the brush
and then stones reveal themselves one at a time. Into my mind I eject myself as
my ego rips out tendrils undone. I move silently into a realm without me being
strung. Plucking my cords and tickling each string, my song then erupts into
one. Time stops for a moment each time, and I lift my life up to gather up strength
to sing down. For, the world beckons each moment and then it moves on. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXM2WBg6bjJgKyFHNMMcf5-NQtYMAmUSaSar5DXEgn4jvXHdqEvFS-z3CgXAO3gTIWWfGegRhFvcs7T7a4cYfk4KM73fdaDyuhN6idXlIaXQL1RhsunIu4GgSjYPyqRmPHOUDNNrX1iE9nC7VAWmQqjNR7nCwvYwMgaCa7yYzy1ppywkQtGE1w0E4D=s2048" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXM2WBg6bjJgKyFHNMMcf5-NQtYMAmUSaSar5DXEgn4jvXHdqEvFS-z3CgXAO3gTIWWfGegRhFvcs7T7a4cYfk4KM73fdaDyuhN6idXlIaXQL1RhsunIu4GgSjYPyqRmPHOUDNNrX1iE9nC7VAWmQqjNR7nCwvYwMgaCa7yYzy1ppywkQtGE1w0E4D=s320" width="240" /></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Down into the glen I weave my mind, stepping down with each
grin I sing to the world all around. A fountain spurts out from the ground
there, water living and moving down, sound all around; trickling down. Canals
have been opened and dug in, letting the water move around, dropping into a
world unknown, and eventually disappearing into mind. And, I follow it all back
to work, where minds open wide to receive the next world coming down. Yes, coronafied
minds only need moisture to bloom, and to blossom into one. We are all looking
back as we think about now, but the future is growing always more young; everyday
it becomes. The cacophonic cultures that I witness all around only inspire me
to build. That’s the world we all know, a place where anything is possible and
everything is undone. We live in a world where life lives in every moment but
will never be won. We live to begin and to end, a life to be lived and a life
forever worn. Like a coat with many colors or a grey one that shone, life is a
gift from the heavens beyond. We live to have life and that is all that will
come, nothing exists beyond. So live on and on, until 120; we believe will be
won, until ... we all are witness with One. </span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For more cairns, click: <a href="http://doronoll.com/noll-cairns" target="_blank">doronoll.com/noll-cairns</a></span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-26184626746609508302021-09-01T21:04:00.006+03:002022-02-22T13:36:02.323+02:00The Shekinah, Corona, and the Tower of Babel<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9_wpoR85mxU/YS--HUYz90I/AAAAAAAAAaU/smnbbr23mTA2eTlGijTn-y-I1IZLWcsOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Iceland%2Bis%2BMelting.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9_wpoR85mxU/YS--HUYz90I/AAAAAAAAAaU/smnbbr23mTA2eTlGijTn-y-I1IZLWcsOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Iceland%2Bis%2BMelting.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Iceland is
melting. At the beginning of the summer my wife and I took advantage of living
in Israel by traveling abroad as the coronavirus waned in our country. In
Iceland they also had a lull in viral infections, so we hastily made an
itinerary and quickly earned our vaccination post-grad degrees. Then we jumped
onto a plane bound for Europe. Arriving in Iceland via (a very) German passport
control in Frankfurt, we received our campervan and headed to the foot of an
erupting volcano. Thanks to wonderful friends in Israel with connections to
wonderful new friends in Iceland, we spent our first night near a pasture of
horses across from the home of our neighborhood-volcano-guide for the day –
such a blessing! This was the beginning of a two week trip "<a href="https://youtu.be/ql-NKyTirtE" target="_blank">driving the RingRoad</a>," finishing up with the Golden Circle. Our trip included cooling magma,
exploding mantle, falling water, frozen trolls, melting glaciers, land dwelling
puffins, extinct herring factories, turf houses, the real discoverer of the
American continent, moss-covered craters, and even flying water! There was a
lot of other stuff too, but we have a long way to go here, so…</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UdH9qFpYd5s/YS--TrywEUI/AAAAAAAAAaY/CQ92mnhZJwo4PUguvrMTJf7TJWcFqCg8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Nimrod.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UdH9qFpYd5s/YS--TrywEUI/AAAAAAAAAaY/CQ92mnhZJwo4PUguvrMTJf7TJWcFqCg8wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Nimrod.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Nimrod is
known for his tyranny, probably the first of such in the history of all the
land. Tyrants are determined by a check-list, but for the sake of expediency I
would like to focus on one aspect of a probable tyrant’s resume – Me. When I
have an idea it is totally mine, regardless of where my influences come from. And…
that is what I want to say to the world – that it’s mine. We all get caught up
in the idea of monetization of such and such, and of so and so, and of all the
demerits therein; however, it’s only a temporary flux of evaporation in influence.
What “Me” is really all about is MY opinion. What “I” think is what I want
others to think; casting my opinion and collecting followers (wink, wink) is
what builds MY world into something more than me… with a lowercase ‘m.’ Opinion
builds the individual one at a time into giants of none, no matter, just … done.
Referentially: “In my opinion…” as I raise my head above others… you get the
idea. ‘Opinion’ is a reckless adventure seeking ‘luck’ when there was never really
any such thing to begin with.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bMH-VG3UsNU/YS--i1WJZqI/AAAAAAAAAac/NaubWKQzSXsqN5twy61MBPY4R2H6hQN1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/God%2BCreated%2Bthe%2BWorld.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1637" data-original-width="2048" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bMH-VG3UsNU/YS--i1WJZqI/AAAAAAAAAac/NaubWKQzSXsqN5twy61MBPY4R2H6hQN1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/God%2BCreated%2Bthe%2BWorld.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some may not
believe, but for the sake of argument of MY point: God created the world using
self-surgery to inflict a finite reality envelope sublimated within the ineffable
Infinite. We understand this more readily when using the nomenclature: Mother-Earth
(or Shekinah). The world we understand around us is filled with biology and
physics, finite reality expressing itself with complete abandon. When God
created our realm She split off from Him and She prospered, filling the
envelope that They created with all that we know and that now is. We live here,
in this place created, all of us, and we seek understanding and distinction,
one and all. This is the nature of us in our universe, filled with notions of
Me becoming One. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyRNxLIQzbk/YS--qk7Wc2I/AAAAAAAAAak/RS9BgJfLuSomUp8IOJJPrVa6DB3hke_gwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1910/Coronavirus.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1433" data-original-width="1910" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyRNxLIQzbk/YS--qk7Wc2I/AAAAAAAAAak/RS9BgJfLuSomUp8IOJJPrVa6DB3hke_gwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Coronavirus.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Then we got
hit with a damn coronavirus and began to understand ourselves better. The virus
stripped away the rough edges of our lives, causing some to pass over and
others to mourn their loss, causing others to cling desperately to themselves
as … um, what they understood to be themselves was slowly ripped away day after
day. This is awareness of My reality experienced, felt much the same as those
living and building for Nimrod, building a city to support him aloft, as he
convinced us all that we were doing it to be closer to God. What more could we
think at the time—that we were doing it only for him? And … if so … what was to
become of Us, the royal We?! Our opinions became diverse, many views with One
mind, and all because we stopped thinking of the present’s effects on the
future, but dwelled upon, instead, the past – I think this because, “It was
said by so-and-so (now deceased), so I will stick to my opinion because I know
how to be.” But this is just perpetuating a tower built in the past by others,
says Me. And that is just My opinion squirting again, you see…<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6G_SUmmZ5m4/YS--ysNyhrI/AAAAAAAAAas/jKbHfDGU34w2E0G6H8wBA6I2NK0rueKvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Troll%2Band%2BShip.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6G_SUmmZ5m4/YS--ysNyhrI/AAAAAAAAAas/jKbHfDGU34w2E0G6H8wBA6I2NK0rueKvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Troll%2Band%2BShip.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In Iceland
talking with locals, one of the explanations I heard about the idea that a
troll once waded out to drag in a ship, only to be caught by the morning sun
unaware, and subsequently causing the entire parade to be cast into stone for
all of time, was that: Icelanders don’t necessarily believe in trolls and
people hidden, it has just become relevant in ‘our time’ to attempt
understanding of the traditions of old, giving them the respect that they
deserve … and thereby keeping them going. This makes the most sense to me, with
a small ‘m,’ because the idea is not necessarily an opinion. An opinion would
be something like: “If you don’t understand what I’m saying it’s because you
are lost and confused, maybe even evil-inclined and selfish beyond my interest
in even interacting with you, ever. In my opinion you are beyond repair,
flotsam and jetsam for all of time.” <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-U4n-ymj8U/YS--9eWOYTI/AAAAAAAAAa0/3fOvLQiiVBw8kIhASRAGXBjxg1lgmrmlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Global%2BWarming.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f-U4n-ymj8U/YS--9eWOYTI/AAAAAAAAAa0/3fOvLQiiVBw8kIhASRAGXBjxg1lgmrmlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Global%2BWarming.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The weather
in Iceland was so pleasant that we were surprised. When asking others about it,
since we expected to be cold and wet with most everything we did, the locals
all agreed that it was not only unseasonable but obtusely perfect for the
touring that we were all doing. We were happy in each moment thinking about how
lucky we were, but all the time knowing that luck didn’t actually exist. It was
only an opinion of those in a moment where things seemed to align, and not
reflecting reality of any kind. The Shekinah is perfect, as God is, was, and always
will be. All things in all of time have already been calibrated and seen. Luck
is only an illusion of ignorance willing happiness or the reverse, building
chemicals to inevitably squirt down the line. “Global warming is only a meme!”<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hmdhyrkH7vs/YS-_OkrNVKI/AAAAAAAAAbA/bo0E2WH9BnYrYZH3OmE6p75lUDL7g2yqQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Local%2BGuide.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="2048" height="249" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hmdhyrkH7vs/YS-_OkrNVKI/AAAAAAAAAbA/bo0E2WH9BnYrYZH3OmE6p75lUDL7g2yqQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Local%2BGuide.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While hiking
a melting glacier with our guide, a Bahai man who once lived in his holy land
(Israel), between mention of glacier trolls and locals of old that had fallen, <i>but
luckily survived</i>, My opinion rose up unaware of my mind down below. I got
excited after hearing about the epiphany that occurred by the leader at the
time. I got excited about a group of people that all came together to
understand that We are all One. But, when I expressed my excitement about it to
our guide, he became surly and pained; he expressed thoroughly to me that: “It
was not something from men, but from God!” stated all the while with a finger
pointing above. And it was true. We all live in the same envelope, experiencing
the same Me, so how could it ‘not’ be? In another conversation he said that man
may have changed the climate in our land. We can see the record of days come
and gone, and today we sit at a time when the current trend just may keep going
… melting the world down one degree at a time.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KeJRIn7lq7U/YS-_a1tXGcI/AAAAAAAAAbE/80VnHnK592s5vQHIrbZ2enMDYQ-4aHg3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Tower%2Bof%2BMe.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1565" data-original-width="2048" height="245" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KeJRIn7lq7U/YS-_a1tXGcI/AAAAAAAAAbE/80VnHnK592s5vQHIrbZ2enMDYQ-4aHg3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Tower%2Bof%2BMe.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However... an opinion
is an attempt to build a tower of Me. Is this from fighting the edges of My
known space, or is it an inherent desire to cling to the Originator of our realm?
And then more questions are asked with answers not sung… We keep living forward
without singing our footsteps; we live in the past. We live there because we knew
not to wrestle with each step, while we skidded sliding in over marks made
thousands of times—every-time. Looking back is an attempt to build a tower of
Me, just like an opinion. Mine. And that is how I know that God is what I think
She/He is, Me: the small one wanting to be BIG. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FPijV-MrE9g/YS-_igNjhfI/AAAAAAAAAbM/o6KkHW6AwHcVObXC_gkSAReW98zPXRTywCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Me%252C%2Bthe%2Bsmall%2BOne.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1669" data-original-width="2048" height="261" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FPijV-MrE9g/YS-_igNjhfI/AAAAAAAAAbM/o6KkHW6AwHcVObXC_gkSAReW98zPXRTywCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Me%252C%2Bthe%2Bsmall%2BOne.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So… I think
I’ll just focus on me, the small One. That way, in the end, I might just end up
BIG instead. Now, it’s only MY opinion, mind you, but I think Nimrod’s tower
may still exist today. Babylon has long since gone, but we babble about nothing
day in and day out, all the time. Our voice just seems to have gone. We all
seek the One, but in doing so stumble upon Me, or at least MY feet trip under
blocks placed before … by me, with a lowercase ‘m.’ That’s how I know we’ll be
okay, and that thinking this is not just another opinion. In every new year we
have a chance to connect with the real ‘me,’ the One deep inside. If you’re
still thinking it is luck, you’re wrong. The beginning is much the same as the
end, and it is only time that stretches out between. Tyrants come and go and
always will, but each is primed by Me stating MY opinion, again and again. Yes,
I agree, this is a lame ending, but: to summarize: We should all just get
along, and to do so WE must stop being Me for a moment long enough to be mine.
That’s how to be One.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Happy New
Year, and may You be written into the Book of Good Health, Long Life, and Pure Joy
to come!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For More Iceland pics., <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129082540@N06/albums/72157719597916690/with/51318697646/" target="_blank">click here</a></span></span></p>Doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374538470218351860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-26654579558260867662021-06-22T17:55:00.005+03:002021-09-18T13:07:41.301+03:00Ravikum and the Multiverse<p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="doronoll.com" border="0" data-original-height="1522" data-original-width="2048" height="297" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMwThrPZihM/YNH1wrC-ktI/AAAAAAAAAjY/JY2Glw8WQAg8PT7LQ5zcYHNwtiQNW6akQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h297/The%2BCommute%2B%25C2%25A9%2BDTNoll%2B7-16%2B%25D7%2593%25D7%2595%25D7%25A8%25D7%2595%25D7%25A0%25D7%2595%25D7%259C.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="The Commute" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;">Mishka Fet has an eye to the sky and sees a lone creature living on a floating fish scale swerving about in midair, dry, and hovering. The creature is Ravikum, who believes that the land he sees far down below him is really a giant fish swimming on the surface of a giant sea—so, our story is partially about how Mishka Fet is forever captured by the image of Ravikum, and our story is also about perceptional awareness, and dreaming of fish.</span><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Our story begins here:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">"In the beginning, in a time before knowing, there was a man who stood on the edge of a world. Mishka Fet looked up to the skies night in and day out, at the twilight of being, but he almost never saw anything worth mentioning. Up until once, when in a sharp little corner of vision, Mishka saw a scale flipping. From origin it must have been fish, but in reality it could not be so. For fish swimming most often occurred far down below. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Mishka blinked and missed nothing as it passed overhead, “It cannot be that something else could only be and ‘then’ be said,” he thought. But, just then, he saw it again, a faint and small blink sparking out life as if something was actually there from the beginning. The scale flipping caught the light of the world under Mishka’s feet and shone it back down, calling for help, sailing on the wind, and quite possibly not minding. Involuntarily, Mishka’s mind erupted into thoughts—screaming—while standing upon his precipice of unknowing; and then … Mishka’s mind fractured back into knowing, which filled in everything, all the blanks extending back to the beginning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Mishka had seen something move, something to tell. A life was being lived up there all pell-mell he knew, so Mishka said it to everyone all around him. “There is a life up above, on something small, floating about on the wind, like a fish scale twirling, like a world unknown.” It cannot be that no one can see, thought Mishka, “A life up above with living to give!? My purpose is clear, and has been from the start, the time I spend dreaming is plainly more than it appears. “Someone is up there. I know it! If only you’d all listen to the sights unfolding! There is up there a being shaking, a being unable to steer, full of fear, and flipping end-over … completely quaking!” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So, with care, gently, Mishka’s mind reached out with his hand and fingers clasping, like transporting daddy long legs’ by pinching, and then his mind placed the scale down with its world atop still reeling. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“No, no way!” said the voice of reason. “There is nothing there and nothing worth seeing!” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“Believe me,” said Mishka Fet, “I tell you sincerely that I see something big on that small thing. It’s not just a scale dried out, once attached to a fish somewhere about, there’s someone there I can see and quite likely there are more! Possibly there could be a whole world of beings just waiting to be seen!” said Mishka to the, oh so dour … reason. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">“I think you’re a fool!” laughed the voice of reason..." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>For the remaining pages, please click here to download the PDF from my website: </b></span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.doronoll.com/written-works">https://www.doronoll.com/written-works</a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></h3>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-28889816669773448792021-05-18T11:39:00.001+03:002022-03-24T09:10:21.125+02:00The End of Being a New English Teacher<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mu8Zh0-5xLo/YKN7ypyfSXI/AAAAAAAAAiU/kYC0yvyBBzAwM_aZxHSjDFWNpIIHt7SowCLcBGAsYHQ/s693/Bite%2Bthe%2BBullet.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="693" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mu8Zh0-5xLo/YKN7ypyfSXI/AAAAAAAAAiU/kYC0yvyBBzAwM_aZxHSjDFWNpIIHt7SowCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Bite%2Bthe%2BBullet.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">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<sup>th</sup>
just now texted me that her Moed Bet was scheduled for another Gush, to which,
having stopped writing this, I replied: <i>My schedule shows Gush B - lessons 1
and 2. But, no matter, whenever you have English, you will be taking the Moed
Bet</i>—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.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">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, we know and understand. However this particular realm of the
living produces movement beyond, and does so for all that can tell. This is why
I teach. Watching a student grow over the years builds me as well. And,
surprisingly, that growth can be seen even in the tiny bureaucratic business in
which our world requires us to dwell. Posting the Tziyun Hagashot in 11<sup>th</sup>,
haggling over English Lit. in 10<sup>th</sup>, grammar, vocabulary, and the
English Bagrut, and dealing with a government under siege all at the same time
from within and borders beyond … the chaos produced is always, somehow, ordered
by my mind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">All I really
know is what is left when the day is all but done, the glowing awareness that I
had an affect on my students, amidst pandemics and projectiles, riots,
injustice … politics, tragedy, and extreme unrest—so yes, with this awareness I
can now attest that I am no longer new. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-75434878260942505122021-04-28T22:27:00.001+03:002023-02-27T22:57:32.573+02:00Walking to Work<p><span style="font-size: 13pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rN9cKuKuGJs/YImvfXa4FwI/AAAAAAAAAhw/vKQXBg00I2IEuZh2ohLgv37GKxfHrpPCgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Fairy%2BForrest.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rN9cKuKuGJs/YImvfXa4FwI/AAAAAAAAAhw/vKQXBg00I2IEuZh2ohLgv37GKxfHrpPCgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/Fairy%2BForrest.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">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 realized what it was that
was tickling my head. In my educated mind I said spiders, but deep down I knew. I told
the story to my students who all stopped to listen, and at the end of my spin I
told the truth of what happened. I knew not what occurred based upon reason. I
knew that what happened was a break from the norm and a step forgotten. What I
found on my path helped me to understand about living, and it tore more. I told
my students what it was that I felt, I told them and then stopped talking and
looked all about. The class then paused as I revealed the truth of their wishes;
the classroom stopped when in truth I said: fairies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We laughed,
one and all, of course, but each of us knew that a truth had been spoken. So, I
left that afternoon wondering about many great things. And, the very next day I took the
same path, down through the ravine. Walking, I wanted to see if it was only me or just in
my mind from the beginning. The tingling started sooner, I noticed as I strode down, like they were all waiting for me to cross the same path—nothing to see,
as was expected, so I questioned it all the way down to the very bottom—where ancient
ruins abound. The longest active spring existing in the land, with water
welling up from the ground, exists in this specific realm. I walked down, like
every other day, to the bottom where I found a tiny beetle on my thumb. It
looked up at me, I could swear, as I freaked and flicked it like a hitchhiking
ghost never once being. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I kept this
to myself, up until now. But, later that day I walked home from work on the path I felt
from the morning. I forgot it all until I saw what reminded me of a new norm. Step
over step I ascended from the Hellenist ruins at the bottom of the hill. I
passed the cave that sprung the spring I drank from on occasion. I U-turned
quickly on the stairs under a carob. I passed, after turning again, the
skeleton of a stone bird cage in ruins. Columbarium drawings to show what was
once there. Up the stairs. Then from the sides of unknowing, they came together
in rows. A parade ascending with me over a path I now know, NO! But that
little blip is only in my head—beside me on all sides fluttered creatures
singing the way for us all. I smiled. I laughed. Smiling up the hill I watched
from each side as tiny faces sang—flying with me up the hill. Flutter-byes
sailing with me. A rainbow of living … with me up the hill. Fairies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0sNFImhLxwg/YImwcz8Y56I/AAAAAAAAAh4/_fla5F1hu5odDSZT_rTTs7SAS23w-N0fgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Mayan%2BZtur.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0sNFImhLxwg/YImwcz8Y56I/AAAAAAAAAh4/_fla5F1hu5odDSZT_rTTs7SAS23w-N0fgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Mayan%2BZtur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 1.8em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; overflow: visible; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%9F_%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A8" target="_blank">עין צור</a></h1><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-81375820444248659832021-04-12T19:17:00.011+03:002022-05-05T18:31:47.218+03:00Fish Bowl — A Poem of Love and Dirt<p></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKv5x7ccm12NfpnFwRjmDmLogWAc8S2jYWLV24NNv6x06IH1OMfiY2gjkHe9ewJWlOGxYoTPq6k0QtVcUUZ_O0dI1Unn119ZqBR3hKtsVn2RH55bngLy5XDRwtYAQvv-kUkfBbWKpp18xuGzQnFVyImJPhkCf9eo1kmHKdj0PsQW7STDNWvbLcUAQ_=s2498" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2498" data-original-width="2469" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKv5x7ccm12NfpnFwRjmDmLogWAc8S2jYWLV24NNv6x06IH1OMfiY2gjkHe9ewJWlOGxYoTPq6k0QtVcUUZ_O0dI1Unn119ZqBR3hKtsVn2RH55bngLy5XDRwtYAQvv-kUkfBbWKpp18xuGzQnFVyImJPhkCf9eo1kmHKdj0PsQW7STDNWvbLcUAQ_=w395-h400" width="395" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">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!”</span></div></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">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.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">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</span><span style="font-family: arial;">...</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>For a printable PDF download of the rest, click: <a href="https://www.doronoll.com/garden-stories">doronoll.com/garden-stories</a></b></span></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-6291242572991234702021-03-08T18:37:00.001+02:002021-04-03T10:59:59.563+03:00Generations<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv2zGY_JS9w/YGggadUBXiI/AAAAAAAAAgM/ZTAZgGXyNEImVt1kpF1iZNNQbuu00TlowCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/North%2BEast%2Bfrom%2BRamat%2BHanadiv%252C%2BIsrael.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv2zGY_JS9w/YGggadUBXiI/AAAAAAAAAgM/ZTAZgGXyNEImVt1kpF1iZNNQbuu00TlowCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/North%2BEast%2Bfrom%2BRamat%2BHanadiv%252C%2BIsrael.png" width="320" /></a></div>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.<p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">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 new generation was born.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The remaining sons of Noakh went on to build the world as we still struggle to understand. Shem became our leader in deed and in name; Yafet as well, who joined Shem and respected their dad inside the tent of their mom. From these deeds we learn of the fifth commandment to come, that: when children regard their parents in the way their parents attended to a child’s welfare as they began, honoring their spiritual essence born through blood passed down, all of mankind will flourish propelling life forward—much as a tree might, growing roots, branches, leaves, and fruiting into a wondrous future forever unfolding and never undone.</span></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comIsrael31.046051 34.8516122.735817163821153 -0.30463799999999708 59.356284836178844 70.007862tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-714887445673455462021-02-25T18:46:00.009+02:002021-05-03T18:25:33.337+03:00My Megilah<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qzs-JXps3d4/YGgintlE1ZI/AAAAAAAAAgU/UOYfbXL_DkAxkPIYy7DskW48bR-CglRDACLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/Canaanite%2BGraveyard.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qzs-JXps3d4/YGgintlE1ZI/AAAAAAAAAgU/UOYfbXL_DkAxkPIYy7DskW48bR-CglRDACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/Canaanite%2BGraveyard.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">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.</span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;">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 cradle of love
expansion occurs, new professions keep moving forward and to each comes a wake;
a moment of love of excitement that careens full force into a wall. And the
pattern begins—born, lived, then died, then born again. In each cycle stems
another, growth set in patterns and continuing to know. That’s why the irises
spilled out now, no doubt a cycle of love caressing the sores developed from a
new profession.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p>
<span face=""Calibri","sans-serif"" style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Last week I had had enough. I finished testing the
sprouts growing down low, but other invigilators began to hit the same wall. We
sparred briefly before all was deleted and we moved back to our corners, where
neither was seen, or for that matter until now heard from again. All that I
could come up with at the time and still now, is that this is the edge of the
cycle as each tends to grow, circles in a pond, irises in my head, and all that
it tells me has already gone. I can hear it grating at the edge of my mind
still, my skull is vibrating with the patterns all around. I rub my eyes to try
and see it again, but the edge only lets me hear—bur, a pseudo-palindrome confusing my
mind once again.</span></p></span>
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Purim sameakh! </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Image: Tumuli in a Canaanite Graveyard with a View towards the Smoke Stacks over Caesarea - over 6,500 years of history </span></p></div>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3206344761695038975.post-21110542344820462032021-01-27T10:59:00.007+02:002021-09-18T10:53:25.102+03:00Strange New Land<div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tq_xNRNkN9w/YUWa5T320zI/AAAAAAAAAok/5NTF0uK0l2QNKZ-ki4qvWK7dI7jLU_UAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Static%2BZoom%252C%2Bblack%2Bon%2Bwhite.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1364" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tq_xNRNkN9w/YUWa5T320zI/AAAAAAAAAok/5NTF0uK0l2QNKZ-ki4qvWK7dI7jLU_UAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Static%2BZoom%252C%2Bblack%2Bon%2Bwhite.png" width="213" /></a></div><br />Static Zoom — </div></td></tr></tbody></table>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.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">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 recover the path I’d been building, like everyone did, between bursts of anxiety and apathy. But, all we were left with was the facsimile of us, a picture on a screen with broken words intersecting across the internet, again—my students now all forced to stare at their crack dispensers, watching my talking head bobbing up and down, instead. Now the apathy is setting in, now the anxiety is spiking, and now I take a breath in order to recover myself from the inside out. I’ve got to get out!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">With my left arm throbbing, having received my second shot, I walked into the woods to work it all out. I thought of my students, the ones onscreen and off. I thought of the school admin meeting with all the teachers as well. We were all isolated into tiny boxes with our personal environments in tow. Some sat in front of bookshelves, others with art on a wall. Some had fancy backgrounds showing their inner being, while others had a camera tilted away towards the shadows across the hall. I listened to their words, giving kavod to the leaders, and smiling as if we all didn’t know. I felt it too, you see, seeing each of their faces was something good—even though it was behind a screen. Seeing them all, even in some disjointed way, was a tiny light, an illusion filling my soul.</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Blessings for a Healthy New Land soon... </span></div><p></p><p></p>noll.drew/doronollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11677326183993205231noreply@blogger.com