Scenic veiws, kabbalah, cheese and whining...

On Shabbat we went on a short road trip in the Galilee together with the kids and Yoram's mother. We picked her up in Karmiel where she lives, and took off. Yoram rarely tells me where we are going before departure, which both creates a pleasant sensation of surprise, and a slight frustration for not being able to prepare for getting as much possible out of the destinations.

First we went to the Druze village Peki'in were we visited Savta Gamila. Savta (grandmother in Hebrew) Gamila began as a woman started making soaps and other beauty products from pure olive oil and medicinal herbs. Today the business is commercialised, but coming to the small store in Peki'in must be as close to the original as possible. We brought some massage oils, moisturising creams and scents from there which turned out to please us more than expected.

Statue on Peki'in town square,

holding the Druze flag

Peki'in is a village that since centuries back have had Druze and Jews living peacefully together. In Peki'in you find the cave where according to tradition Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, aka Rashbi, hid from the Romans for 13 years and in the meantime wrote the famous book of Zohar, which is one of the most important scriptures in the Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah. I consider myself being a spiritual being, but not religious. Religion, for me, is a frame-set of rules and rituals, mainly created to exercise power over the people. However, the true intention behind the actions is lost. People say their prayers and perform their ceremonies more out of fear than out of appropriate knowledge why. Mystical traditions, on the other hand, seems to focus more on the actual development of the individual soul. Kabbalah for example, provides a clear and logical terminology to describe us as human beings, our different components, and what drives them, and besides that, practical exercises to make you blossom. If you study a tradition like this, you will develop into a reasoning, balanced and sound human spirit, who is not easily duped by the religious clergy. No wonder why mystical traditions have always been banned and rubbished by the religious establishment.

The sign at the Rashbi cave

View from Peki'in

After Peki'in we drove up to another Druze village, Beit Jann. Beit Jann is situated on Mount Meron, 940 m above sea level, which makes it one of the highest points in Israel. We were driving through the narrow streets, and soon lost direction, as we often do driving through Arab villages. They have no road signs, and seem to build with no logic at all. At last we found the highest point, from where you could look out over the land below. Quite magnificent! On the way out we turned on the gps.

View from Beit Jann

On the way down we stopped by Ein Camonim, the goat farm/dairy/restaurant that I have mentioned previously. At that time Yoram was there alone with his mother and the boys, and only brought cheese back home to me. After that I promised myself that we would go there just the two of us. That was not really the case this time either. Alas, we did not sit down for a meal, but merely bought a few cheeses. This time I made Yoram promise me a day there without children and in-laws.

Goat cheese in Ein Camonim

Except for the fact that everybody but me and Yoram was complaining and whining all day long about walking too much, too much heat, and generally a too far distance to TV and computers, the day was pretty successful. Yoram promised the kids that we will never bring them on a road trip never again. Unfortunately, I do not think that he will stick to it.

Topical antibiotics

Taste the term once again. Topical antibiotics. What I see before me is thoughtless abuse and optimal conditions for the development of resistant bacteria. People do not even respect systemic antibiotics. If they get a prescription for let us say 10 days, many quit as they start to feel better, and save the left-over pills for later occasions. This does not mean that the infection is eradicated from the body. Instead the strongest and most adaptive bacteria survive, and provide the basis for future antibiotic-resistant strains. This is why, if there is a true indication for using antibiotics, you should always finish the whole prescription - down to the last pill. However, most light infections are better taken care of by our own immune system. Every infection that is naturally fought, makes you stronger and better protected. Antibiotics do not give you that benefit.

So, what about the topical antibiotics? Do you think that people are more careful with them? Of course not. In Israel the doctor sends you home with eye-drops or ear-drops containing antibiotics for the lightest infection. No specific directions on for how long to use them, or possibly "until it does not hurt anymore". This is to me insane. It is like applying some nazis on Germany to eradicate all the Jews in the whole world. It only decimates them temporarily, and instead makes the survivors stronger.

Medical marijuana in Israel

Some friends, like Assi, like to call me a hippie. Not only because I choose to see the good in people before I judge (if I judge at all). I just happen to believe that I am generally a little bit more in touch with my true nature, as well as the nature around us. I cannot understand the negative hysteria around naked bodies, and I think that processed food tastes like crap. I also happen to know that weed is not as harmful to you as the authorities in for example Sweden want to scare everybody into believing.

It is not only pleasurable to smoke some weed for recreational purposes now and then. It also has a very strong indication for medical use. 14 states in the US have legalised medical marijuana. It is prescribed to patients with terminal diseases in order to relieve pain and negative side-effects from other strong drugs, like chemotherapy. Patients with terminal cancer, or AIDS, get pain relief, but they also get an improved life quality through regained appetite, better sleep and general relaxation. Who is to decide over a dying person anyway?

Israel also has a medical marijuana program today. The company Tikun Olam grows and distributes medicinal marijuana under the good eye of the Israeli Health Ministry. Today around 1,800 people get help to relieve pain caused by various conditions. Stories like this gives me hope for this country.

Phoney license

Now I am well established in the stable in Sde Yaakov, and I will keep on going there to ride their horses. However, after seeing my riding skills, I was asked by both the owner and the instructor if I have an instructor's license. Of course I have none. I am not even an official resident yet (but in a month I will be). Besides, in Sweden it is not necessary, at least not when you are instructing adults.

I started to investigate this kind of license and discovered a corrupt system that is built on money and not competence. Several private "academies" (like this one) offer instructor education's that are certified by the Israeli Sports Ministry and accepted by the insurance establishment. They learn about security and first aid, as well as some methodology and didactics, which most likely enables them to keep students safe around the horses. However, this is not where the shoe hurts. These institutions accept students that never sat on a horse before. In 300 hours training you can go from a complete novice, to teaching other people how to ride. Any one who is an experienced horse rider understands that this is impossible if you want to maintain a high quality. For this you have to pay around 10,000 ILS (20,000 SEK)!

Here I come, with 30 years of experience from various horse disciplines, and I am not allowed to teach even adults. I would say that the Israeli horse-riding instructor license is a big fraud that dupes eager students into believing that they will learn from an experienced rider. Instead, most of these newly-baked instructors can teach beginners to hold on to a horse in all gaits, but that's it. And that is not riding, as far as I am concerned. It is just travelling on a horse, which is something completely different. Truth is that it takes years and years to develop your own skills enough so you can actually work a horse in a correct way, and even more years before you can channel this knowledge into other riders.

Anyway, I will not spend 10,000 ILS on studying on a level where I do not belong, even though it would give me a license. I will keep on sharing my knowledge and assistance with anyone who desires it. License or not.

Blog strategies

I have been contemplating over why I write blog posts less frequently nowadays, and my conclusion is that I have had too high demands on myself. When I have an idea, I want to develop it, do some more research and write more than a few lines. That makes me procrastinate, since I do not always have enough time, and since that seems stupid, I will try to change approach, and write more spontaneous. It might lead to shorter blog posts, but at least they will be more frequent. However, it is not a promise. Only an intention.

One-night camping on the beach

There were quite a lot of people on the beach when we arrived, but we knew that most of them would disappear around sunset, and that was also what later happened. It was very windy, but we succeeded to get the tent up, and while we were busy doing that, Barak punctured one football and one smaller ball for some neighbours. What to do? I saw them provoke him playing with the balls in the first place, so they really did not have a case complaining about it. He loves to play with balls and has sharp teeth. That's it. These punctured balls instead kept the dog busy from that moment and on.

For dinner we grilled two huge entrecôte each, put a large spoon of garlic butter on them, and accompanied them with a Tishbi Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Nothing else. Later we made coffee in the finjan. When the sun goes down around here, it happens very quickly, but soon the moon instead lit the surroundings enough so that we did not need any flashlight.

There was a group of people who built a camp some 20 metres away from us, in true Israeli style. Swedes camp as far away from each other as possible, for the sake of privacy, while people around here gladly sits down right in your lap although the beach is everything but crowded. When we were observing them putting their things in order, Yoram concluded that skinny-dipping now unfortunately was out of the question. Nevertheless, as the dark night covered the beach, as well as us, he suddenly surprised me by stripping butt naked and heading into the water. The moon, which was not yet full, gave just enough light to orientate yourself around your own camp, while our neighbours merely appeared in faint silhouette. We stayed without clothes all night; swimming, drinking, talking, sleeping and loving. We were sitting in our camping chairs, feeling the wind from the ocean giving some relief from the heat, while people walked by merely metres away. I think that Yoram was pretty enthralled by the experience. When we slept, all the tent windows were open, but in spite of the persisting wind, we never felt the urge to cover ourselves with anything. During all my previous holidays in other Mediterranean countries, I have never experienced such warm summer nights. The strong wind in combination with the humid air, made the sand penetrate everything, and since you never dried up, everything was more or less sandy in a sticky way. That was just something to accept and embrace.

We were awake and up already before sunrise and going back into the warm water was the first thing we did. We made coffee in the finjan and had pitot with raw tahina and sliced banana for breakfast. I had decided that we would make this trip as easy and convenient as possible, and we succeeded doing just that. No sensitive groceries and no complicated cooking that created a lot of dishes. We had a cooling box that kept water cold for us during the whole time, and that was it.

We stayed all morning and headed home around lunch. We knew that we had quite a lot of work ahead of us, washing dogs and the other things to get rid of all the sand. Although we only stayed one night, it was worth all the carrying and washing. We relaxed and turned off the mobile phone and tried to just be in the moment. I think that my husband, who previously has claimed that he spent his whole army in a tent and therefore never again, now actually has rediscovered the charm and sense of freedom it involves placing yourself on a beach for a day or more. We will do it soon again, for sure.

Sunset

Moonlight

Candle light

Sunrise

Play

Contemplation

More Gal and horses

A little review from Gal's second day in the stable with me. He was riding independently in a group of kids and out in the fields together with me. After that, he showered horses more enthusiastically than any of the other kids. He ate omelette and vegetables without hesitation in the stable, and when the day was over he did not even want to go home. Well at home, he asked for green peas...

Gal on the pony Don (The leader later left his side)

He ate lunch without any hassle

I had some really nice rides, here on the horse Fluk,

who is not far from doing all the reining manoeuvres

Give me a few weeks with him!

On our way out in the fields

Cooperation

Buddies

Passing the almost ripe pomegranates

Gal scraping water from Dina

Tonight me and Yoram will spend one (romantic) night at the beach, together with the dogs. Simple and unpretentious one-night camping, no zula, but only the tent. We go there in the afternoon and stay as long as we feel like it tomorrow. Red wine, entrecôte on the small grill, some easy breakfast, finjan and Arabic coffee. Not much planning or preparation. We built the idea yesterday evening. Review and pictures will follow.

Gal, the young horse man

Gal is scraping the water off of

the old mare Yochevet after showering her

The way that I view horses as excellent educators of children, is nothing new for the ones who loyally follow this blog. This week I have so far been in the stable every day, and today the kids were on our lot, so we decided that I would bring 5,5-years old Gal with me. Ziv is 10 now, and big enough to stay home alone, and he is neither that interested in the horse thing. Gal is instead, during his good moments, a very nurturing child, who likes animals a lot, as well as caring for them. On the other hand, he is the victim of two over-protecting "curling parents", who have pampered him into a quite dependent and demanding young boy. These two character traits in combination, made me realise that he is a perfect prospect for a young horse rider.

Yoram dropped us off this morning, and in the beginning Gal was following me around and I showed him the place. Then I started riding horses, so he had to take care of himself. The stable was full of kids his age, as well as teenagers and adults, so he was hardly alone - rather surrounded by more or less experienced people with whom he could create new and neutral relationships with. After a few hours I found myself "forgetting" all about him, and he did his own thing. I took him for a short ride on a horse, and later when I was riding again, another woman also took him for a ride. Other than that, he told jokes to the other kids, petted goats and Guinea pigs, and as the day was almost over I was looking for him, and discovered him showering one of the horses together with another young girl. She was explaining how to do, and he was listening eagerly. Then he scraped the water off of the horse like he never did anything else.

I think that his spine grew more today then it has during his whole life. Parents need to cut the cord and let their kids grow independent. Parents who are not used to horses, are furthermore often banned from hanging around in the stable. They simple do more damage than good, by getting hysterical as soon as a horse lifts a foot. Gal even functioned better when I let go off him and let him interact with the other people in the stable, although I am not his mother. He is still too young to start riding in a group, but next year he will definitely start. Some of the kids that has started this year, are not taller than Gal, or more mature for that matter, although they are above 6 years old.

To summon the day, Gal spent 6 hours running around in a stable, in 35 degrees heat, rode two different horses, and even trotted a little bit, showered and groomed a horse. All of this without complaining or whining even once. I can also mention that when we came home, he showered on his own and ate his lunch with good appetite, including a variety of vegetables.

I have a draft in my head for a blog post with the working name "Aikido vs. horse riding", about the similarities, but I am not sure when it actually will be written. Today Gal took up all my writing spirit, after a tough day.

Back in the saddle

Yesterday I finally went to Sde Ya'akov and rode horses in the small stable there. A good friend from Yoram's running group has a small riding school there for kids and adults. The horses are not any fantastic, pure-bred wonder animals and all of them are more or less shabby, but very well kept. However, as far as I have seen, also the backyard-bred horses around here mostly contain Arabian and Quarter horse blood, so they surely are decent horses.

Riding school horses that are not regularly ridden by someone who can correct them and loosening them up properly, often develop different irregularities, like stiffness on one side, or general stiffness in the neck and body, as well as a flat and sloppy stride. I was asked to ride three different horses who had different issues, but all of them seemed to be easy fixes if I would only give them some more sessions, or even on a regular basis. They wanted me to come back already today, but domestic issues prevented me, and instead I promised to come next week, as many days as possible.

We rode out in the fields for a while as I had finished the first horse, but the next two I was riding only in the paddock. Before I went there I had no clue as to how much I would ride, and where, so I did not have any hat. I quickly understood that our weekend mission will be to go to any nearby market to find me a light cowboy-style hat. In Sweden I had a nice camel-hair hat from the US, but now I giggle a little bit at that. Western riders in Sweden have cowboy hats as an important attribute, while here it is a necessity.

Hat or not, in the paddock they sprinkle water on the sand when you ride during daytime. Unless you do that, the dust will make it impossible to keep on riding. I was explained that the horses are used to it, and having the sprinkler in the middle of the arena helps the kids keeping the horses riding close to the fence. For me, I instead discovered that I was riding closer and closer to the sprinkler, searching the cooling rain drops. I think that both me and the horses enjoyed it a lot.

I definitely have found a new forum of expression, and I feel very inspired. It is one thing riding top-quality performance horses, but it is also very rewarding to work with these kind of horses, where you can see a lot of progress with little effort. I really hope that I will get the opportunity to do a good deed over there. I cannot wait until Sunday!

Strategies to cool down

I think that we have spent most of this crazily hot weekend in the best way possible - submerged in water in different ways. On the Friday it was Ziv's 10th birthday, and just as last year we went to kibbutz Nir David in the Beit She'an valley. However, this time we did not go to Sachne, but stayed in the kibbutz. As we drove from home in the afternoon and descended down in the valley the outdoor thermometer showed 45 degrees! The actual birthday party we celebrated inside the dinner hall, cooled down by the air condition, but me and Yoram grilled the meat outside and the air was really burning. When the party was over and we were supposed to leave, we said goodbye to everyone and strolled over to a dark spot, stripped butt naked and slid into the cool Asi river. Yoram surprised me by without hesitation remove all his clothes, although we were right in the middle of the kibbutz, but I was not late to follow. Later he admitted that it was the first time ever he skinny-dipped in an Israeli kibbutz. Maybe I have some liberating influence on him after all. When we got back to the car to head home it was a bit after 22.00, and the temperature was still 37 degrees.

Yesterday we brought only Ziv with us to the Hula valley in the upper Galilee to do kayaking with some friends. The boys needed some time off from each other and although it was our free weekend we brought Ziv. Fortunately, he had other boys to play with there, so we got a lot of time for ourselves. In Kfar Blum there is an attraction centre that among other things offer kayaking on the Jordan river. I had a sun hat on and a piece of cloth that I constantly dipped in the cool water and then laid on my shoulders. Nevertheless, it was soon so hot that we spent more time swimming beside the kayak instead of sitting in it. All along the river bank people were camping or just spending the day to be close to the water, and we definitely got inspired to come back here for a camping weekend on the Jordan river. Maybe in September, for Rosh HaShana or something like that. If we bring the dogs, and especially Barak, we can sleep safely at night without being afraid of intruders.

After the kayaking we tried to find a picnic spot along the river, but it was very crowded with people and too hot to search for free spots, so we headed back to kibbutz Gonen instead, where our friends live. We went to the kibbutz pool and had our picnic there. With temperatures around 45 degrees the only place where we found comfort was in the baby pool, that for some reason was cooler than the large, deep pool. We were all floating around like seals in the shallow water, which was also shaded by a zula. When we returned home in the evening we were totally exhausted, but content. The temperatures right now are said to break all records, and it is safe to say that it is the highest temperatures that I have ever experienced too. But you will not hear me complain.

You have to go to some remote upper-Galilee kibbutz

to get a canned vodka/redbull kinda' drink in the pool bar

Dangerous heat wave

It is damn hot right now! Hot even with Israeli measures. Yoram's running group meets at 5.30 in the morning, three days a week, and run for an hour or so, sometimes more. Normally Yoram brings at least Barak, and also Goshen if they have decided for a lighter run. Yesterday evening he said that he was thinking of bringing both dogs today, since it would be a quite light run. I advised him to leave Goshen at home. This morning he took only Barak and left, while I was still sleeping. At 7.30 he woke me up. "Baby, you need to help me with the dog. After the run he could not stand, and I had to wait for 15 minutes before I could get him into the car. We were pouring water all over him. Now I am late for work and need to shower and get ready." I went down below the house and Barak was laying like a wet sponge on the floor. His facial expression reminded more of that of a Bloodhound than a German Shepherd. Yoram took off to work and I was left pampering the exhausted dog. He drank too much water immediately after the run, so he had puked it all up, and he was also pooping basically water. I started to give him water in small doses, and on a regular basis I forced him up on his legs to go out on the grass to pee and pooh. After a few hours he had dried enough to get a good brush and come inside, and then after sleeping for a few hours he was like a brand new nudnik. For the evening meal, I have wet the food and added some extra minerals, and too my satisfaction, he is roaming around the kitchen as usual. The dog is OK. I do not even want to think about what could have been if he had brought Goshen too...

From dust to dust...

I attended my first Jewish funeral a few days ago. It was some half-distant relative of Yoram's who passed away. One good thing in Judaism is that dead people should be buried as soon as possible, preferably on the same day, which seems quite sound compared to Sweden where they refrigerate the corpses sometimes for weeks before any funeral is arranged. On the other hand all Jews are buried intact, and never incinerated. For me, being burned and then have my ashes spread somewhere seems more appealing. Another difference from Sweden is that Jews do not use coffins, but merely a shroud. Nevertheless, considering the population density in Israel you might suspect that we will walk on bones and bones and bones in some near future, but I was also told that the grave yard applies "multistory graves", which means that if they dig a grave very deep you can expect that there will be another corpse above the first one later on. After the deceased is put down, the hole is filled up, first with some soil, and later heavy rocks. We were standing at a distance from the grave behind a lot of people and could therefore not see what was going on, but I could hear as they threw the heavy rocks down the hole on top of the body, and it felt kind of strange. Blessings are said and relatives share thoughts and emotions, of course in a microphone in true Israeli style (why differ from the weddings). Before it finishes, everybody should put a small stone or pebble on the grave to prevent the soul from dwelling around. I guess that custom is more needed with some than with others.