thanks for your thoughtful remarks to my blog.

on my trip to the region this summer i visited sderot, specifically for learning some of what you outlined, to experience different realities. in this case to meet with residents who’ve suffered the unconscionable attacks from rockets launched by militants in gaza (where i’d just lived and worked for one month). i blog about this if you care to read and see what i discovered.

we might differ on the wisdom of the matrix of control, the mechanism of the occupation—checkpoints, settlements, home demolitions, separation wall, permit system, incursions, administrative detention, and the like—and about outcomes that it might produce. i for one share a viewpoint with many of my jewish friends and israeli analysts like gideon levi and amira hass, that many of israel’s actions are not only illegal and immoral, but ultimately self destructive. we’ve not seen the last of the goldstone report on gaza.

–skip

once again, you’ve put exquisite words to my photos. here’s what i wrote about you and them this morning in my journal:

Always, always, words like these implying deep viewing and thinking hearten me greatly. They counterbalance the fact that not too many on my list of 100 or so actually look at the photos or read the blogs. A few like M will be honest about not reading or viewing. The big blow comes when someone writes to be removed from the list. I never know the reason—blogs too long or photos too many, too rambly, too much about my shits and dreams, too worrisome and troubling, badly written, poorly seen, too shallow…who knows? As with attrition in my teaching, I have to understand this is part of the process and doesn’t necessary indicate I’m a failure.

altho i realize your question about how do i do it is probably rhetorical i thought i’d sketch a few ideas: no. 1, i owe it all to my muses. call them spirit, call them inspiration, call them divine, matters not to me, they are beyond me and i rely on them. i pray to them. no. 2, hard work, persistent, always trying to go further. no. 3, awareness, one of the key stones of life. no. 4, attentiveness to the light, what radiates, what i generate, how sunlight and lamplight are transduced by objects. and no. 5, practice, experience, long years of study, experiments, failures, successes.

or so i suppose, but what do i know? thanks for looking, thanks for writing, thanks for loving.

– like the row of blue-garbed watchers in the Druze village, the wire fence there, the three silhouetted characters interacting. A moment in time.

And what a waterfall shot — slender blue ribbon, golden and gray cliffs.

The deserted Arab house, doorway opening into doorway into light beyond.

Great splashing river shot — the Banias rapids.

The mysterious cliff carvings and cave of Pan.

And that deserted room with the oval image of light on the grafitti covered wall with the round void above crisscrossed by wire mesh.

The distant windmills, the rusty tank, the warning signs by the dangerous mines.

Such gifts are these.

i miss the lighters, follow as best i can your exploits, often wish i were there.

i’m exploring the jordan river valley today, heading south toward jericho, from last night’s stay at a guest house in the old roman town of beit shean.

fondly,

—Skip (in Israel, Middle East, Earth)

The light and scenery does seem magical. We had a nice shoot on the Common and Public Garden today, but seeing Roman Aqueduct near the ocean is amazing.

Look forward to your return.

Bruce

you are the best, you (along with several other important factors) make my life worth living. thanks for your deep thoughts and feelings.

i’m in beit she’an tonight, in a gorgeous hostel that is part of a movement in israel, something i never anticipated. clean, relatively cheap, airy, friendly, shaped like an ancient khan or inn, with stunning views of the jordan river valley, i couldn’t ask for much more.

love,

skip

Later of course, you, as your own good companion, will experience the trip over and over as you revisit beny and the sea and the now harsher light.

And at this moment, we fortunate companions via word and stunning photos have ourselves the sense of being there with you — through your words and your eyes.