When Mr C and I first thought about coming on this trip to Israel, I had in mind that I would do a series of pieces based on the trip. I will have the opportunity to mount a show of this work at Trinity Cathedral in Portland. What is so interesting to me is that I had a vision of what the color palette would be before I arrived here. If you have looked at any of my photos from the trip, you can see that the color scheme is very neutral — gray, beige and golden tones.

I have been paying attention to words and metaphors as we visit various sites. For instance, pomegranates grow profusely in the Galilee area and are featured in antique carvings. Almost every where you travel in this amazing country, you are faced with the facts of past and present strife. I am thinking of representing this with red for the blood shed. Anyway, I am intentionally thinking about ways to present this experience in my fabric art.

Today, we drove from Galilee to Jerusalem through the West Bank, stopping for lunch in Jericho. We went through several check points as we went from Israeli control to Palestine control and so on. It was quite striking to see the difference in the Israeli controlled Galilee to the West Bank, which is Palestinian. The roads are less cared for, there is a lot of trash along the way, the homes are often made up of whatever can be tacked together and the farms do not have the polished look of the kibbutz farms. I will post some photos from today, later when I have some time.

I thought I would post some photos about our trip yesterday. You can see all of the photos on my Flickr site. Our first stop was the ruins of Sepphoris, famous for its splendid 3rd century mosaics. This particular face was very compelling:

We also visited Nazareth which is inhabited by Muslims and Christians — very few Jews live there. We had lunch near the well where Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have gotten her daily water supply, thus it is now named Mary’s fountain. We visited a recreated typical Nazarene home and farm. It is on a site that had been excavated and had some of the necessary parts of a family farm, such as a wine press made from a rocky area. Our guide was the lead archaeologist on the dig. There were the cutest kids dressed in costume hanging out for our entertainment.

I take many of my photos from the bus as we travel around the country. I love taking photos of doors, windows and interesting buildings.

Notice the high tops on this Palestinian girl.

I also love to photograph the architecture. Much of the housing is on hillsides and vertical. This is to save the flat land for agriculture

Tomorrow we are off to Bethlehem. When we arrived in Jerusalem this afternoon, we drove up to the Mt. of Olives to get an overview of Jerusalem — wow, what a sight.

I have been out of touch because we lost WiFi at the kibbutz for a day. Yesterday, we visited two sites that were in out of the way places and off the beaten path. It was much more peaceful. Our guide was asked to give us some quiet time on the bus.

We drove up the Golan Heights to the ruins of a Jewish town named Gamla which is (I think) the Hebrew word for camel. If you look at the photo below, you see the shape of the geography that resembles a ridge on a camel’s back. We did not hike down to the town, we observed it from above. You really can’t see the ruins in this photo. The geography of this area was spectacular. The sea of Galilee is off in the distance.

The site is a nature preserve as well as an archeological site. I enjoyed the various wild flowers in bloom. This thistle plant abounds in Galilee.

We then drove to Korazim, the remains of a Jewish town mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud as renowned for the good wheat grown there. This is the sign which greets visitors.

I include this because rocks and stone are such a presence in this country, even modern homes are made of concrete. But the remains of past civilizations are revealed in the rocks and stones of their homes and crafts.

The remains of the synagogue in this town were especially beautiful. I took lots of photos which can be seen on my Flickr site.

Here is Mr C finding some quiet time in the ruins.

We literally had this place to ourselves by the end of our visit. Our resident priest, Mary Anne, set a table for a communion service. It was a lovely experience to share the bread and wine, from our kibbutz, and served on pottery purchased here in the Galilee.

Just a comment on my last post. I was probably very jet lagged and a little grumpy. I was taken aback by the commercialism, but I am having a wonderful time. But, let me tell you, there is not much free time. Tomorrow we are off to Jerusalem. So excited! I hope to have a chance after dinner to post some photos of our visit to Sepphoris (Zippori) and Nazareth, today.

I have been hoping for some down time to really reflect on my impressions of this visit to the birth place of Christianity. Today, it was very hot and muggy, again. We have all had to drink lots of water. Most of the sights that we visited were out in the open, with little shade. So, we finished early to come back to the kibbutz to be refreshed.

I hoped that I would have time to write a more informative post, but here it is — 10:30 in the evening and I need to get some more sleep. I took a nap this afternoon and then downloaded photos. Then it was lecture time, followed by dinner. I almost dozed off in the lecture!! When we signed on for this trip, I think we had a notion that we would be a group of like-minded pilgrims quietly visiting the important sites of the historical Jesus. We are what I would call more progressive Christians, believing that Jesus was a revolutionary person who set out to liberate the oppressed residents of this agrarian and fishing area of the middle east. I believe that he was all about peace and justice in the shadow of an empirical government. We are traveling with two of the preeminent scholars of this notion — Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. The director of our Spirituality Center is married to Marcus. The pilgrimage is sponsored by the center.

Our local guide is an archaeologist and spends too much time (for me) pontificating on types of columns, the life of the Romans and other archaeological facts. One ruin begins to look like another and the constant babble does not give one time to reflect and sketch. Not to mention the busloads of other tourists visiting the same sites. Then, there are the souvenir stands. Even our bus driver has books and dvds for sale.

The boat trip on the Sea of Galilee was surreal. It was already very hot at 8:30 when we boarded our boat. It was refreshing to be out on the water. A peaceful and contemplative trip on the water would have been lovely.

Instead, we were “entertained” by the crew. They raised the American flag and blasted the Star Spangled Banner over the speakers.

They gave us a demonstration of how the fishermen would have cast their nets back in the day - that was interesting.

Now, we had to endure the hawking of a cd of Israeli music, which they blasted on the speakers and sang along with, and a vinyl “Places of the Holy Land” place mat. One guy even got out his drum and accompanied the music. Don’t get me wrong,  it was quite entertaining. Many people got into the spirit and danced and sang along. It was fun, in a way, but not what I had expected.

I am thoroughly enjoying the company of the folks on this trip. They are all interesting and intelligent. We start the day with a 15 minute meditation. The end of the day is another meditation with Taize chants, followed by a short lecture by each of the scholars with some Q and A. The Center has not sponsored a trip here in 10 years, and I think it is clear that things have changed considerably.

Enough about that. What else did we do today? We visited the newly discovered and unearthed site of Magdela, home of Mary Magdalene. It is on property owned by the Franciscan brothers who have it fenced in. Next door is a defunct amusement park - talk about surreal! Crossan said he hoped that the site would one day honor Mary as one of the followers and important historical persons, without putting a basilica over it!

Then we we stopped at the site of the feeding of the 5000. Under this alter is the rock from which Jesus supposedly served the food.

This building had beautiful mosaic floors that had been unearthed.

Next on the tour was Peter’s house, actually his mother-in-law’s. Several of the men could not enter this Catholic run site because they were wearing shorts - Mr C included. I was sorry he could not go in because it was the most interesting of the sites, with layers of buildings from different eras and the ruins on an incredible synagogue. Of course, there was a brand new basilica built over  the ruins of Peter’s house, but the synagogue was open and you could wander through it, imagining another time.

I love this mosaic on the altar in the new basilica.

We topped at a restaurant for a sit down lunch. I had the tilapia from the Sea of Galilee.

Mmm - finished off with Turksih coffee and dates.

I asked for a diet Coke! It wasn’t enough caffiene to keep  me awake. I am finishing this post on Wednesday morning.

Back at the kibbutz, we saw this 1st century fishing boat that was discovered buried in the mud in 1986. It is pretty amazing to see how the poor fishermen of the Galilee put together a boat out of various pieces of tree limbs. It is very fragile and had a metal frame and special atmospheric conditions to conserve it.

I must get put together for another day of Roman ruins? - probably!

I interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for a shameless promotion of a book by my daughter, Stephanie and her friend, Maria, in Portland, Me. Click the image to go to Amazon to pre-order. You can bet that I will be ordering several!! I think it comes out in November.

For those who do not know, this book is photos and text from their photo blog, 3191 — there is a link in my side bar. I am so proud of these two for pulling this off. This year, they are doing a year of evenings and perhaps, another book.

This morning we set off for Caesarea Phillipi and the head waters of the Jordan river. This is in the northern most area of Israel on the border of Lebanon. We were on our way up the Golan Heights to the base of Mt. Hermon. The air conditioner on the bus had a shredded belt and we got stuck in an out of the way town with Israeli soldiers, security guards checking packages as you entered stores, if you looked suspicious, that is.

The driver tried to fix it, to no avail. We finally got off the bus and stood around and chatted for what seemed like an eternity.

Help arrived. The repair was made and we were on our way - not! Another belt or the same, who knows, but we were dropped off in the town so that the bus could go to a repair shop. By now, it is late enough to have lunch, after we trooped through town, en mass, looking for public restrooms. Our guide wanted to keep us together. Of course, there was the ubiquitous MacDonald’s, which some opted for. We went out of the shopping center and found this lady making falafel sandwiches.

We were told to gather for the bus, then we were told the driver and the bus had disappeared and we were taking public transportation back to the kibbutz. Argh! Thank goodness, Ishmael and the bus showed up and we went on our way to Caesarea Phillipi. More Roman ruins. Those guys sure left a lot of stuff in their wake! Actually, the preserve was a combination of antiquities and lush vegetation. The headwaters of the Jordan river supplied lots of water for some beautiful flora.

We had to cancel the walk along the Jordan river and arrived past our scheduled time at the kibbuts for our afternoon lecture and dinner. Two days in a row, we have lost our precious bit of free time, but I am not complaining!! I just want some time to sit in this chair:

I started this post last night, but I crashed and am finishing it this morning before I go to breakfast. We are going for a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee this morning. It is really hot and dry here (I am not complaining about that) so this sounds very refreshing.

I finally have a Flickr set for the trip photos, here.