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 arrived at O'Hare on Monday evening after an uneventful set of flights on Turkish Airlines. Don met me and drove me home, thankfully, as I could barely keep my eyes open! I am a bit jet-lagged and have come down with (what I think is just) a bad head-cold. I've unpacked and have a lot of sorting to do -- pictures, stories, gifts I brought home, to-do items, thoughts and feelings about Israel/Palestine. I am reading The Lemon Tree which is filling in a lot of gaps in my understanding of the history of the conflict, and I'm working on a longer blog post about that. I also want to share about some of the amazing sights and experiences. Slowly, slowly.[...]

Well, my time in Israel is almost over. There have been so many amazing highlights, as well as deeply though-provoking conversations and experiences, that I doubt I will ever be able to write about all of them. And there has been hardly any time to write! The tour ended Thursday night with our return to Tel Aviv from Eilat (where we took a day trip into Jordan to see Petra).[...]

I’m in Jerusalem now, and have been here for about 48 hours. There’s a lot to say about it, including about Shabbat which was time off from the tour, and which I spent with my friends Naomi and Dan and their kids. But I’m behind on writing, so I’ll post now what I started to write on the bus ride to Jerusalem on Friday, about the kibbutzim and my 1981 trip to Israel.[...]

A very long day, beginning with another sumptuous array of breakfast choices, checking out from the kibbutz hotel, and the fastest purchase of two pairs of shoes in my history (a very brief stop at the nearby kibbutz where Naot shoes are made, just to shop at the factory outlet store!). I think it may have cured the sandal-envy I’ve been having lately, plus a very practical pair of black walking shoes.[...]

Where to start writing about the past couple of days? The tour has been intense so far.

Our guide, Doron, is a highly-educated man who has been doing this work for around 15 years, the last ten of them while working on a PhD in biblical history or something like that. (He and my Aunt Ellen go way back, since he happens to be the same guide who was leading the same tour when she took it 10 years ago!) In addition to pointing out key locations and their associations to recent historical events, he talks about scholarly debates about which parts of the bible can be taken as historical facts, and which interpretations of archaeological findings are used to support those arguments, as well as how such arguments are used to support or reject the legitimacy of the State of Israel.[...]

Well, the flights were smooth, Ellen and Irving and I met up without difficulty at the airport, I slept reasonably well my first night in Israel, and my first day in Tel Aviv was fun. Naomi came to hang out and we actually met up accidentally, 45 min earlier than we were planning, on the walkway between my hotel and the beach! We had massages (a "spa day" for her birthday), ate lunch with her cousin, and then while they went for pedicures, I went for a swim in the Mediterranean!!!!! Absolutely lovely. Then Naomi and I met up again (also by running into each other again on the walkway between the hotel and the beach, without having a plan to do so -- but that time she was actually looking for me so I guess it's not completely cosmic). Anyway, we had a good time catching up.[...]

I am writing this from a Van Galder bus en route from Madison to O’Hare airport, en route to Istanbul en route to Tel Aviv. Yes, Tel Aviv, Israel. The first picture above is me all ready to go earlier this afternoon. Some of you have already heard about my absolutely last-minute decision to join my beloved Aunt Ellen and Uncle Irving on their long-planned 13-day tour of Israel, and then stay a few extra days to visit with long-time friends Naomi and Rachel and their families. For those of you who are just hearing about it now, trust me, I am still nearly as surprised as you are![...]

I think this may be my last entry about the Insight Meditation retreat.[...]