Meditations on and photos of the historical dimension

This morning was the first morning I’ve done any significant amount of meditation in around 3 weeks. Oh, I did conscious, deliberate sitting meditation for maybe one 5-minute period while in Israel… and of course I was practicing being as present as possible to all the new experiences the rest of the time. But this morning I woke up too early (still jet-lagged, and still getting over my cold, and my mind busy with details of the upcoming generative somatics training that I’m hosting in Wisconsin next week!)

I decided to give up on trying to sleep, and did some stretching and yoga, and then downloaded a guided meditation from Tara Brach. It was a breath-focused meditation; near the end she shifted it to attention to sound, and then attention to the silence into which the sound is falling, and then to being that silence. This is one of my favorite ways to access that sense of oneness with the “ultimate dimension,” the blue sky behind the moving clouds of thought and emotion, the screen on which is projected the movie of all of the impermanent, changing play of sensation, life and death, the “relative" or "historical" dimension of our everyday experiences.

This morning, as I touched into that sense (it is always fleeting), it seemed linked to a set of images from Israel/Palestine, of the many archaeological sites, with the remains of many prior human civilizations. I realized in a flash that visiting these sites can be a deep meditation on impermanence. One of my favorite activities was when we stopped at an active archaeological dig and were invited to help with it. This “Dig for a Day” program, which we participated in for about 30 minutes of actual digging, was something I felt I could have done for hours, if not days.

This site is probably the easiest archaeological dig to feel successful at that one could imagine. The digging is in a set of chalk caves and quarries that were then back-filled with the remains of the houses that had been built above them. (Archaeologists think the Edomites destroyed their own houses when they fled from the conquering Maccabees; they were supposedly given a choice between converting to Judaism, leaving, or being killed, but our scholarly tour guide Doron was attempting to explain to me while we were navigating the somewhat challenging unexcavated-cave part of the tour that they probably believed they would be killed if they stayed, because sculptural evidence indicates they were already circumcised, so converting wouldn’t have been that objectionable…!) The digging is soft, loose, chalky soil mixed with rock, pottery shards, bone fragments, charcoal, and, occasionally, metal artifacts. I unearthed a lot of bits of stuff in our 30 minutes, my favorite piece being (obviously, to me, though apparently not so obvious not non-potters) a part of the neck of a ceramic vessel (see photo in album).

I’ve just loaded a whole album’s worth of photos onto the posthope site for your viewing pleasure (I think you have to navigate there; try clicking on Photos, then Photo Albums, then Becca’s photos from Israel and Jordan). I’ll be adding a few more photos and finishing the captions soon.  I am grateful for the many wonders of the trip; for many whole days spent NOT thinking about cancer; for lots of quality time with my aunt & uncle; and for lovely time with dear friends and distant family in Israel.