THE COLORS SUNG TO ME AGAIN

Cotton fabric, commercial and hand dyed, machine pieced, machine quilted, 120 cm x 130 cm 

Photographs by Ran Erde

NAZARETH IRIS - איריס נצרתי

The marvelously beautiful Nazareth Iris is endemic to Israel and blooms right now in the eastern Galilee.

Wishing everyone a nice Sunday!
Photographed yesterday by my husband Uri Eshkar.

BEAUTIFUL RAINSONG IN HEBREW

תאר לך שהגשם היה מלמטה למעלה
תאר לך מה יכול היה להיות
לא היו עוזרות שום מיטריות
בשמיים היו צומחות פיטריות
תאר לעצמך מה יכול היה להיות .
גשם גשם רוח קר ועבים.
גשם אין ירח ואין כוכבים
גשם יורד כמו איטריות של מים
גשם גשם יורד מן השמיים
גשם גשם יורד
גשם גשם עולה...
תחשוב בגדול תחשוב עם חיוך
אם הגשם היה הפוך
מן הסתם אנשים היו מתחילים
ללכת על הידיים
בשמיים היו ניקוות שלוליות
תאר לעצמך מה יכול היה להיות...
גשם גשם רוח קר ועבים ....

גשם גשם מילים ולחן אבנר שטראוס
http://www.avnerstrauss.com/poetry-kids/54-geshem-geshem.html
"Imagine the rain would fall upside down... umbrellas wouldn't help, mushrooms would grow in the sky and people would walk on their hands..."

For Sheva and Avi, for Gal and Alon,  for Yasmin and Noam, and for whoever likes it.

Photo from a very rainy yesterday, by Uri Eshkar

EIN AVDAT- עין עבדת

Last year in February my husband and I visited Ein Avdat, a beautiful canyon in the Negev desert, located south of the kibbutz Sde Boker. It is two kilometers long and very narrow. The Hebrew word "Ein" describes a water source, usually a spring. Two deep pools are filled by several all year active springs, their origin still not completely understood, the water descending from falls. The gorge is splendid in many ways. 

The rock formations are fantastic and of different colors. Evidence of prehistoric inhabitant was found, and much later Nabateans from the nearby city Avdat, their station along the Incence Route, used the canyon. In Byzantine time Christian monks occupied  the caves in the gorge. Due to the ever present water supply the fauna is rich and the flora is lush for a desert. Many animals dwell there, among them the beautiful ibexes, who have no problem to climb the steep rocks. 

Special trees are growing at the edges of the ponds, some of them are very old. Among them are poplar trees and salt bushes, both of them accommodate to the slightly salty water. This canyon is truly magnificent!

Some weeks ago my friend Vered too had an outing with her family to the Negev desert, to the Maktesh Ramon and to Ein Avdat. She made wonderful photos of the area, so most of the pictures here are hers and I added some of my husband's from a year ago. Enjoy the views of the desert and of the Ein Avdat oasis!

Photographs by Vered and Gadi Skolnik and Uri Eshkar.

SCULPTURE GARDEN IN GDERA

This is Yoma Segev - a very special resident of Gdera, a sculptor, one-of-a-kind.
Yoma was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv and moved to Gdera in the seventies, living and creating there, as a hobby actually, ever since.
He collects car parts, iron scraps, rubber wheels, wood, stone, everything that suits his fancy and incites his creativity.
From these materials he fabricates astonishing pieces of art. It seems to me, that Yoma does not care if anyone likes what he does, if he can sell it, where to exhibit it, what will be its purpose - he just creates, obsessively, soulfully and wholeheartedly. From everything he can get his hands on he will shape some visionary image flowing out of his endless imagination - for me this is one very strong indication of a true artist.

His  play ground and his display ground is his court yard, the garden around his house. This is an open air museum par excellence and here he works and creates. It rains on it, dust and leaves and pine needles settle on it, rust is nibbling on the pieces, it does not bother him. All his skills he taught himself, he is an autodidact, who started his marvelous pastime around 40 years ago and he still goes on. The sculpture garden is open to the public, free of charge at all hours of the day. If you are lucky, Yoma will come out and have a chat with you, he has an outgoing vivid and nice personality, humor blinking in his eyes.

The thematic of his art is very versatile. Characterful faces stare at you, witches scare you, all kinds of animals are strewn over the place, sheep and insects and turtles and snakes and birds and fish and alligators and lizards. Symbols of the Holocaust and of Judaism are present. His ingenious creations deal with sex life and birth, death and torture. They are original and often mystic. He has a favor for shoes and hats. Iron flowers are everywhere. Many of his images are funny, like the bras and lingerie, and a Lederhose, and the spider witch flying on a broom. 

There are hundreds of figures, your eyes keep rolling and rolling around. Faces carved out of stone inflict their presence on you, sculls prick your soul. You gasp at the quantity, you wonder and smile as you grasp the imagination that is going on here and the huge amount of work involved - this man lives on a full storage of ideas, the muse never seems to leave him - this accumulated mass of artistic creations is just incredible and really worth a visit! 

All photographs taken by Uri Eshkar.

SHIVA - שבעה

My husband's mother passed away a week ago early in the morning and we buried her the same day, with the designated ceremony, according to Jewish custom. Then we "sat Shiva".
Shiva means being in the home of the deceased for seven days of mourning. The house is open to anyone who wants to visit and give condolences. Paying a visit to a Shiva is considered to be a "mizvah", a good deed.
 
I am not Jewish and when I first came to Israel many years ago, I found this tradition very strange. I could not understand why people would be content with many callers every day. I thought mourning to be something very individual and private and that I would like to be alone with my tears and sorrow and despair after losing someone beloved. I could not see how this could be shared with so many so short after the sad event. I changed my opinion completely. I attended many funerals here, and paid my respect at the Shivas that followed.  I noticed to my astonishment how comforting this always was for the mourners and how it gave them an opportunity to start dealing with their grief. The different ethnic groups have individual practices, regarding for example prayers and refreshments and food for themselves and the visitors. But there are fundamental rules of how to practice the Shiva for all people of Jewish faith. Sitting Shiva is indispensable for the nearest relatives, which means parents, son, daughter, siblings and spouses. The Shiva lasts for seven days, during which the family members gather in the home of the deceased, but the Shiva can be held at other locations too. There are many rules and restrictions. Have a look about them at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva 
No one in my husbands family is religious and the rules are not strictly enforced. But the sitting of the Shiva takes place. It was held in my father-in-law's home.
My parents-in-law arrived from Irak 1950, two years after the State of Israel was established. They started building a life and like any other newcomers encountered many hardships. There are a lot of stories to tell, and at our Shiva they got told. Many memories of my mother-in-law surfaced, and her husband, who was heartbroken by her loss, slowly calmed down. He got engulfed in the stories, especially those from Baghdad, and he even contributed to them, and within his cries there were smiles and even laughter. We put photo albums on the table and people loved to look at the pictures from old times and many had to add their own anecdote to them, spinning a yarn of events that span from Irak to Israel. This was all very dear and comforting, and interesting. I never tire of the tales of my husband's family and I heard some I still did not know. A Shiva can be an opportunity to bring the family closer together, to get hugs from friends and comforting and soothing words. My mother-in-law was very old and her time had come. But I attended Shivas of much more heartbreaking deaths - and still I got to see the same momentary wonderful results of the consolation the visitors gave to the mourners.
The seven days of Shiva for my mother-in-law are over. Her name was Tikva, which means hope, and it is not only my hope, but I know that she will be remembered and mentioned and talked about by all of us very often. Rest in peace Tikva!

AVDAT - עבדת - OBODAT - NABATEAN CITY IN THE NEGEV DESERT

Imagine, once upon a time, almost 2500 years ago, a tribe from Arabia began wandering the desert. The nomads knew they could not rely on natural occurrence of water. Being very clever people, known today as Nabateans, they started their future commercial success with building series of well hidden, plastered, covered and protected cisterns, never depending on sources of water of rare springs and occasional rain, herewith establishing a thriving culture in the sandy and stony plains and hills of the desert which lasted 700 years. They started to trade spices. 

The camel was domesticated already long before, and so they organized big caravans on a route that stretched from Oman and Yemen to Jordan, and from there via the Negev desert to the port in Gaza on the Mediterranean shore. They brought pepper, cardamon, cinnamon, saffron and ginger, spices that came from India in big ships via the ocean to Arabia. And they bought frankincense and myrrh in Yemen, two resins, which release their characteristic scent when burned. Both incenses were very essential in the religious rites of the ancient people. You remember the three Wise Men from the East, who brought to the newborn Jesus a present of frankincense and myrrh? Till today frankincense is widely used in Christianity. In Gaza they sold those precious products of the Orient for enormous sums and made huge profit. Then those goods got transported to Europe, to Greece and Rom. The Incense Road was born, and it flourished from the third century BCE to the fourth century CE.

The mountainous Negev desert is a harsh territory, the journey through it was very difficult, threatened often by sandstorms. Rest stops were needed and created, which, first being very modest, developed over time into fortresses and then into Nabatean cities, with Petra in Jordan being their legendary necropolis. http://pazzapazza2.blogspot.com/2010/03/petra-jordan.html  As their wealth constantly increased the Nabateans eventually settled down, and through contact with many different people they adapted elements of their cultures. Greek and Roman influences were evident in religion, language and architecture. The Incense Route had many stations. I wrote about one of the six major ones in the Negev, Shivta, in a previous post. http://pazzapazza2.blogspot.com/2010/10/shivta.html Another very important one was Avdat, or Obodat, named after a Nabatean king, who is buried there. The city was inhabited by Nabateans, Romans and Byzantines.

So last Thursday my husband took leave from work and we went with my niece for a day long adventure to the desert to visit Avdat, which is located off Route 40 between Kibbutz Sde Boker and Mitzpe Ramon, about 15 minutes drive from Sde Boker in the Negev highlands, where the old routes from Petra and Eilat meet and continue to the Mediterranean coast. The ancient caravan station evolved into a large desert city. It lays on a hilltop, about 80 meters high, and is completely surrounded by a wall.

On the plain around Avdat traces of ancient agriculture are visible, with foundation walls indicating farms, and detectable lines on the grounds, suggesting boundaries of fields and gardens. The Nabateans developed sophisticated techniques to irrigate the desert and channel the water from floods. Many modern farmers and winegrowers terrace their land after Nabatean patterns. Just now almond trees are blooming there.

On the way up to the city we saw many caves, carved out of the sandstone in the flanks of the hill, which were used for storage.

The ruins we see today are the foundations of the caravansary, the city fortress, the living quarters of a roman army camp, two churches from Byzantine times, with a basin in form of a cross for baptism, built over a Nabatean temple, a pottery workshop, a Byzantine house, a very well preserved structure of a Roman villa, a bath house, as well as several wine presses from Byzantine time and of course walls and walls and walls, many fallen down, of housing. 

We found two marble slabs, covering graves, on the floor with Greek inscriptions, and one has a Jewish Menorah on it, we could not find out what the text says.

Great treasure is still buried under the ground and while we visited there a crew was working to uncover more. 

The city was destroyed by earthquake in the 7th century and stayed deserted, but evidence of ancient life and economics is everywhere to be seen. Cisterns are present and fenced in, many vaults and arches have been preserved over the centuries, and walls and columns were reconstructed to give a better understanding of the place.

Strolling through the ruins is easy and very fascinating. The hours we spent there were filled with excitement, wonder and discussions about the life of the different people during all the centuries.

What did they wear? How was their food?  Was their wine good? Where did they cook and bake and what? How did their earthenware look? Did they grow sheep? What was the place of women in their society? Who worked the gardens and fields? What did the children play? What about education? Leisure? 

It was fun to imagine, to assume and to dream. The weather was pleasing, sunny, with a little wind blowing in our faces. The view of the desert all around is beautiful. We had a great day of history, nature and companionship!

The photographs were taken by all three of us.