The Lilith Blog

March 26, 2010 by admin

Jewdaho: Pesach and Purification

Next year in the Holy Land, next year in Jerusalem. This is what we say, leapfrogging off Purim and into two nights of intense lounging, heavy drinking, treasure hunts, and lots and lots of sitting. Pesach is a celebration of miracles, heroes, redemption, triumph of good over evil, and divine prowess. Our God, 1. Your gods, 0.

The Pesach story is of slavery and escape from Egypt, crisis of faith in the desert, and delivery to the Land of Israel. God’s gift to us, as the Chosen People. I wonder if we would have been so psyched to accept such a gift if we knew that God was also going to give Israel to everyone else on the planet. And then make them all hate us. “If God had only left us in a nice unassuming cave that nobody could find and hadn’t led us into the land flowing with milk and honey and drama…”

Next year in Jerusalem. But what about right now, this second? We pray for something that is somewhere else, somewhere in the future, when something external and beyond our control happens. This year we are slaves, next year we will be free. What are we slaves to? Freedom from what? And what are we supposed to do until the youth-group kids can’t be blamed for the empty Elijah’s cup, as we are ushered into a messianic age?

The story of Pesach is basically a story of darkness into light, with the final destination being way, way further down the hot, blazing, unforgiving desert road than you initially thought. In contrast, springtime is the season for renewal, rebirth, and abundance, and our Seder plate ornately displays lamb from the field, fruit from the trees, and a ceremonial ova. The time of year when Persephone returns to the arms of Demeter is always cause for celebration–whether it’s honored by dancing around a Maypole, hunting for chocolate eggs, or hunting for bagel dust on your hands and knees so you can spend five hours nibbling on garnish.

Cleansing the home is a big part of Pesach ritual. Every bread crumb, Twinkie, carb is banished from the kitchen. Spring cleaning. But a purification ritual is a purification ritual, and who can’t benefit from that once a year?

I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional spring cleaning; how spring is as good a time as any to take your emotional and spiritual temperature. What still has you in shackles? Do you have your bearings in the vast desert? How might you want this night, any night, to be different and sacred? And, the magic fourth question, what are you going to do about it?
Me, I’m catching up on my to-do list as a means of sweeping out the cupboards. And as a gardener, I’m very hopeful and excited at the concept of rebirth. I poke around my flower garden for early signs of life, while heirloom tomato seedlings thrive in my mud room (yay!). Whatever you do to clear your headspace, reflect on long journeys, or triumph over times of bondage and suffering leading to enlightenment, don’t wait until next year to do it. Make this year the year you create your own holy land, in your own holy places, while giving thanks for the chance to do anything at all. Dayeinu.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 18, 2010 by Mel Weiss

All Those Who Are Hungry

Allow me to state the obvious: the weeks leading up to Pesach are a time for thinking about food. That’s not only my very Jewish opinion—it’s my assertion as a designated foodie. This might sound ridiculously obvious, but the case deserves to be made anew: thinking about food is profoundly Jewish. Worrying about the feeding of others has been the purview of the Jewish woman since time immemorial, and the need to combine food with both elevated consciousness and a sense of commandedness is, basically, the root of kashrut (and the basis for Jew-foodie-ism). What you eat matters, how you eat matters, when you eat matters, and how that food got to you certainly matters. Straightforward, no?

I am swayed by this argument, not least of all because I like to frame my own food preoccupations—the local/organic/free-trade/non-GMO—as channeling the Jewish imperatives towards consciousness and justice through the too-often downplayed power of consumer purchases. You can’t avoid buying food, I always say, so why not buy food that works toward the greater good?

Of course, I forget about those who can’t buy food in that neat little construction, which is why I’m glad that there are things like AJWS’s Global Hunger Shabbat to help remind me. Global Hunger Shabbat, coming up this weekend, is “a day of solidarity, education, reflection and activism to raise awareness about global hunger.” As we prepare to invite “all those who are hungry” to our tables symbolically, we have a chance to do some learning, some communal and personal planning and committing, to the cause of global hunger—to the simple idea that there are people whose most basic human needs go unmet, and that that is wrong. That we have the power to do something about it. And more than just the power—perhaps the imperative.

AJWS seems more and more drawn to providing Jewish substance for the work they do, the work they enable and the work they encourage all of us am ha’aretz folks to join in on. Whether or not you’ve signed up for the Shabbat experience itself, check out the fantastic resources AJWS provides. They’ve got me thinking not only about the biblical roots of attending to the hunger of others as we are able to, but about the nature of our obligation. Tzedek, a word not infrequently tossed around, is generally accepted to translate in all its intricacy to “justice,” and justice is not optional. Without wandering off into theology, basically a Jew exists to serve God and strive for justice. Putting the tzedek back into tzedakah puts us on the hook to look at these issues with new eyes and a new sense of dedication. Without wandering off into sociological history, it also allows us to further elevate the still-underplayed role that so many Jewish women have committed themselves to throughout the ages: filling those bellies that need filling. Sounds like a good deal to me.

–Mel Weiss

Podcasts, Posts from the Field

March 16, 2010 by admin

A Reading from Naomi Replansky

Bronx-born poet Naomi Replansky, now 91 years old, reads her poems in this exclusive Lilith podcast.

Download Podcast

She has published the collections Ring Song (Scribners, 1952; a National Book Award finalist), Twenty-One Poems, Old and New (Gingko Press, 1988), and The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Another Chicago Press, 1994), with more work being brought out by David Godine in the coming year. Grace Paley described Replansky’s poems as “a music for which readers of poetry have been lonesome for years.”

Replansky puts her oral poetry influences in chronological order: “Mother Goose to begin with. I once wrote, ‘Mother Goose/ Was my metrical muse.’ When I was 10 or 11, it was Kipling’s ballads (‘For they’re hanging Danny Deever in the morning’). At 13 or 14, it was the profound experience of hearing Marian Anderson singing spirituals on the radio, in particular, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’. From age 15-17, it was reading the English and Scottish ballads. All this was of course in addition to other poetic influences, with different kinds of verbal music.”

Replansky’s deep, rich voice faithfully conveys the colors and nuances of her poems, whether those poems are her most intensely sorrowful or
mischievous and ironic. The seven poems read here showcase her impressive range, and the tones she strikes—verbal, emotional, and intellectual—are remarkably full and varied, particularly in such a short reading.

–Patricia Grossman

Patricia Grossman’s new novel, Radiant Daughter, is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press.

The Lilith Blog

March 16, 2010 by admin

Angel's Landing, Nancy Sitting

Last year I visited Zion National Park in Utah as part of the great road trip that exists on Interstate 15 between Pocatello and San Diego, where my parents now live. While I’m always puzzled at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) penchant for adopting Jewish names, symbols, and beliefs as their own, I can appreciate the decision to name this park Zion. Walking through the cool red canyons and seeing streams glide over sandstone felt distinctly biblical to me. I could almost imagine the gathering of prophets and spiritual seekers in similar oases across the globe thousands of years ago. Zion would be as good a place as any to relocate should one decide to live in a cave and trade wisdom for simple sustenance as a career.

A very popular hike in Zion takes you to what is called Angel’s Landing. This destination is a piece of cake to get to—if you are an angel. For everyone else, it’s a 2.5 mile grind up a steep trail, through an echo-filled canyon, and through a series of tight nearly-vertical switchbacks. This is no big thing—anyone can get up anything if you take it slow enough, and don’t mind watching 6-year olds and senior citizens pass you by.

It’s the last segment of the trail that mystifies me to this day. Basically, a long time ago, someone climbed to the top of a canyon, checked out a steep, narrow cliff-thing that soared several hundred feet higher with nothing but lots and lots of air and gravity on either side, and said “this is a great place to build a trail.” So a vast series of thick chains were set-up to help hikers get to the top. Chains, you have to hold on to chains. After passing signs warning of certain death should I fall, and cautions to people with a fear of heights, I braved the first series of chains before embracing my inner wimp and refusing to hike another inch.

What was interesting about this experience was the refreshing opportunity I had to feel fear of something real—falling off a cliff—instead of being afraid of stuff I’ve made up in my head over the years. Functioning outside of one’s physical comfort zone is a great way to figure out how to function outside of one’s emotional comfort zone. Programs such as Outward Bound, NOLS, study abroad, and pilgrimages to holy lands teach us this.

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying “do one thing every day that scares you.” Do you need to climb Angel’s Landing or ride a zip line every time you need a dose of bravery? Not necessarily, if you’re building up your bravery a teeny bit every day, say by digging around the excuse of “procrastination” to see what irrational fears might be holding you back from your goals.

That day, it was a very easy decision to sit with my back against something very smooth, flat, and solid where I couldn’t see how high up I was to wait for my husband’s summit and return. And I feel no need to ever brave Angel’s Landing again, especially since a woman from Pocatello did fall to her death on that trail this past summer.

But when it comes to the really scary things in life, sometimes we are forced to grab hold of those chains and start climbing–fast. If you’ve got some experience dealing with fear in smaller ways, and have learned that breathing slowly and saying nice things about yourself helps a lot, then you might be able to interpret the pounding of your heart as a sign of excitement rather than panic. By starting small, you might discover that you are stronger and safer than you thought. Even if, in general, you prefer to stick to the slot canyons.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 9, 2010 by Amy Stone

Rapunzel, Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Disney thinks your name is too girly girly and is calling its upcoming Rapunzel 3D cartoon vision “Tangled.” The Disney
Juggernaut fears that giving the film a girl’s name will turn off boy moviegoers.

What’s going on here? Disney cartoons based on the Brothers Grimm tales – Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty – and the non-Grimm Pocahontas, Little Mermaid, Mulan, and more and more – seem to have done just fine with the time-tested girls’ names for the title. And Tim Burton’s current twisted “Alice” will probably do better than it deserves.

But presumably the marketing mavens don’t want a downer like a girl’s name for a film title. But if we’re cynically talking money (godforbid), why not call it “Hair” (OK – that’s already taken) and make a fortune on Disney brand hair products for hair-obsessed girls?

Rapunzel is such an icon for hair beyond belief. Right up there with Lady Godiva. And we all know the power of hair. When my Freudian psychiatric social worker mom asked my boyfriend of yesteryear why men like long hair, he told her: “It looks so good on the pillow.”

And the Jewish men who wrote the Jewish laws sure knew it. Only single women are permitted to seductively let their hair fly free. Married? Keep it under wraps. I don’t know what the thinking is on Orthodox women covering their heads with Dolly Parton- or Rapunzel-length wigs. Is this the letter of the law defying its spirit?

The beloved Grimm Brothers’ heroines have long been deconstructed by feminists appalled at their passivity. “Sleeping Beauty” indeed.

At least “Twisted” promises a feisty teen heroine with its release over Thanksgiving weekend.

And, by the way, it’s worth looking at the Grimm version of “Rapunzel.” The opening lines will surprise you: “There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about to grant their desire.” Sounds like Abraham and Sarah. And if that weren’t Jewish subtext enough, click on the preview for “Tangled” – the music with its soulful clarinet sounds like Jewish schlock. Tangled indeed.

–Amy Stone

The Lilith Blog

March 9, 2010 by admin

Sacred Female, Sacred You

Whitewashed, faded walls. Oddly set stones. Paintings on cave walls. Figurines of busty women with hamentasch loincloths. However many religious layers exist beneath the particular spot of ground you’re standing on, it seems the original overlay, the first human footprint as any archaeologist can identify, suggests a religious structure that deified women. Or, at least, there was a religion honoring the duality between men and women as equally powerful, equally sacred.

Many years ago, I saw a one-woman film, grainy in my memory. A series of monologues, I vividly remember the act where she portrayed the grief of women at the time of Abraham; rushing to hide their precious figurines, saying goodbye to their sacred objects. In that flash of a moment, everything I learned in Shabbaton got re-written—those evil idols were goddess statues, that sinful polytheism expressed sacred regard for Gaia.

I am currently reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. This hefty book, a feminist rendering of the King Arthur legend, is housed in the youth section of the Marshall Public Library in Pocatello, Idaho. A few hundred pages in by now, I am relieved I can keep up—due in part to my obsession with the film King Arthur, starring Clive Owen as Arturius, and Keira Knightley as the most bad-ass Guinevere ever. The historical eras in The Mists of Avalon and King Arthur play out on common soil, not so many years apart. Hadrian’s Wall. Saxon invaders. The mix of early, early Christianity with the native religious belief systems.

What Christianity did to the role of women and the goddess-concept on the Isle of Britain and elsewhere, Judaism did to the role of women and the goddess-concept a few thousand years earlier around the land of milk and honey. And my guess, while I haven’t done the specific research, is that other modern-day religions did the same thing in the regions where they spread and eventually gained dominance. This suppression of female power was calculated, deceptive, and often bloody, and this one-down position of women eventually became the norm. Bye bye, goddess-lady. Hello, domestic violence shelters.

Diving into a book like The Mists of Avalon or learning about the status of women during the time of Xerxes’s empire, I am reminded of the natural power that resides within myself. It is not in any woman’s spiritual or emotional DNA to be “lesser-than,” but the rubble of over 5700 years of carefully written history separates us from that knowledge.

The only power women need to recover from the legends of our spirit mothers is not power over the mist revealing a secret island (it’s a relevant metaphor, however), but the power over what we individually believe about our selves. Do we like our selves? Do we see our selves as sacred and holy? Do we think our selves are generally pretty awesome and worthy of respect and deference? Before I began the process of reclaiming that vital and necessary power, I’m pretty sure I handed it over sometime in the 6th grade. To boys. To girls. To my parents, to my employers.

It’s not particularly extreme or bold to explore some basics of pre Judeo-Christian religious history. Very little of this history is factually disputed; it’s simply not advertised. And it’s not radical to be confident, assertive, and self-assured–it’s simply the way we all used to be. Best of all, I have come to discover that it’s possible to take company with the sacred female as I define Her, and enjoy the rich customs of Judaism at the same time.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

March 5, 2010 by Susan Weidman Schneider

Our Bodies–As We See Them, and As Others Do

This season has seen a crazy explosion of outdated and limiting images of women, often specifically Jewish women. Is it the recession? Does economic anxiety cause people to unleash these thoughts?

In its December issue, Details magazine, that laddie mag for men in a state of arrested development, ran a feature entitled “The Rise of the Hot Jewish Girl.” It touted the joys of Jewish women’s bodies—as if there were one single body type for everyone who identifies as a Jew. “Big natural boobs” were among the lusted-after characteristics all Jewish women are thought to possess, and the Details website (not to drive any traffic there, dear reader) lists Queen Esther, Theda Bara, Betty Boop and La Stresiand as part of our sexual (and embodied) inheritance. In fact, it’s an old trope. In literature, Jewish women for centuries have been viewed the other—seen by non-Jews as exotic, desirable, or dangerous. Sometimes all three at once. You can imagine where this is all going, without even reading the article, which fetishizes Jewish women’s bodies in a way that harks back centuries. Old bias in new clothing. Or no clothing.

Oh…and the illustration for the magazine piece featured the bare back and scantily-pantied bum of a headless, limbless torso, a Jewish star tattooed above the panty line.

I am not making this stuff up, I swear. And there’s more.

The past few months have seen nasty characterizations I thought we’d washed out of the culture 20 years ago. It’s an appropriate time, what with the new decade and all, to take a look at the parallels between then and now.

Then: Jewish women (I’m talking 1980s here) were characterized as JAPs (no insult intended towards Asians; as you’re well aware, reader, the sobriquet Jewish American Princess is the root of this acronym). The JAP was in those days reviled in cartoons, books, greeting cards and everyday teen talk and adult slang. A Jewish female too young to be a Jewish Mother (though she might indeed be a mother) and immature enough to be completely preoccupied with herself, she was characterized as demanding. Materialistic. Spoiled. Never mind that she’s not that different from a lot of other well-educated middle-class females. This stereotypical Jewish woman is blamed for wanting to marry a doctor, blamed if she wants to become a doctor. Too passive, and also too aggressive. Not much room to maneuver there.

Now: the stereotype has been reborn, but in different clothing. Literally. You’ll discover in the Voices section of this issue that “Coasties” are Jewish women from New York or LA, reviled on YouTube and on their Midwestern campus for dressing alike in popular brands and spending too much of “Daddy’s money.” (Please, please make sure to note the assumption that all spending money comes from fathers, not mothers.)

And also now: the New York Observer, an otherwise respected, often reliably hip weekly newspaper, publishes a straightfaced report about “cheetahs”—sexually assertive and desperately marriage-deprived New York women in their late 20s or 30s who are described as taking routine advantage of drunken men, having sex with them and then not even having the decency to leave before morning. Women—Jewish women at least—have in the past been reviled by comedians and disgruntled lovers for being frigid or uninterested in sex. Here, women are reviled for acting too boldly on their desires. Not much room to maneuver here either. The cheetah is posited as the “younger niece” of the cougar, that predatory woman who pursues men younger that she is. Please pause here to note that the animal imagery for women has shifted. Women used to suffer poultrification—we were called chicks, mother hens, old birds. But no one is afraid of poultry. But these big cats, at least in real life and not just as metaphors, are fearsome: cheetahs, cougars, jaguars. What’s coming next?

Lilith offers, as usual, an antidote to these demented and actually rather scary projections about Jewish women’s bodies, motives and desires. Taking you in entirely different directions, in these pages Lilith looks in a nuanced way at what some Jewish women think—and experience—about their bodies and their relationships. From breast cancer and gender dysmorphia and cutting to the holiness of how we feed ourselves, and how we care for the body when life has departed.

As all of us––Lilith readers and writers alike––strive to tell the truth, and hear the truth, about Jewish women’s lives, here’s a toast to a decade of continued development. L’Chaim. Happy 2010.

–Susan Weidman Schneider

The Lilith Blog

March 3, 2010 by Maya Bernstein

Say “Cheese”

Virginia Heffernan, in her piece Framing Childhood in this week’s New York Times Magazine, writes, with only a hint of sarcasm, that “we form families in the Internet age so we can produce, distribute, and display digital photos of ourselves.” I am here to admit, that at least from where I’m sitting, she speaks the truth. From the “marching orders,” which “come immediately, with the newborn photo, [and] must be e-mailed to friends before a baby has left the maternity ward,” the business of parenting is intertwined with the business of photo-taking, sharing, tweeting, Facebooking, and, shouting from the rooftops – look what I’ve done!

I justify the obsession by reminding myself that our closest family members live hundreds of miles away. I am doing a great service, I think, when, in the middle of a game, instead of playing along, I jump up and run for the camera. I am conquering lands and oceans, bringing my children into the homes of the people who love them most.

For ultimately, this obsession with keeping records of our children, and sharing them with anyone who will gaze smilingly along with us, is connected to the overflowing human desire to be in relationship. And, like all of today’s technology, the act of taking a photograph creates the illusion of being in relationship. When we take out our cameras, we think we are saying to our children, our extended families, and our friends: you are important to us. It’s analogous to “friending” someone, or tweeting at someone. What we’re forgetting, though, is that when we pulled the i-phone out of our back pockets, our kids were in the middle of a game, engrossed in real relationship, and we interrupted them, or, worse, extracted ourselves from being in real life relationship with them to duck into the role of observer. We’re engaged, but not too engaged.

Because relationships are hard, and technology is easy. It is harder to be an active member than to be an observer, aloof, behind the camera, manipulating the images, choosing what to show and to whom and when. And parenting is one of the messiest relationships of them all. It is infinitely harder to be a parent than to showcase our children. It is harder to be a good child than to send cute pictures to the grandparents.
My family came to visit this weekend. From the moment they arrived, cameras and camera-phones were clicking, as if, somehow, those ephemeral pauses, cloaked in hugs and smiles, could help bridge the gap of distance, and delay time, keeping us close together a little while longer. Interestingly, the frequency of the prevalence of the cameras diminished over the course of their visit. Eventually, we all got too busy being together. Eating. Going to the park. And laughing, spontaneously, when things happened so fast that we forgot to record them. And when I look back at the time we spent, those fleeting moments which cannot be shared over the internet on Kodak Gallery or Snapfish, are the ones that will stick forever, messy, joyous, and gone, guaranteeing we’ll need to come back for more.

–Maya Bernstein

The Lilith Blog

February 24, 2010 by admin

Culture Smash

This past Sunday Temple Emanuel celebrated Purim with a Megillah reading, followed by a performance by the KlezMormons. The KlezMormons are an ensemble from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and their performance Sunday was the first time they played to a Jewish audience.

My husband, John O’Connell, is the city editor of the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello, Idaho. He covered the Purim event, and wrote about it as well as I could!

The headline “Crossing Cultures” is significant for a few reasons. From a Jewish perspective, we are constantly crossing cultures in Southeastern Idaho, or perhaps more specifically, the local cultures are constantly crossing with us. Look at how interesting we are, look at how close to Jesus we are. Look at us celebrate our holidays. That’s how it feels to me sometimes. I’m sure every synagogue has some element of the curiosity-seeker-with-mysterious-agenda, but growing up at Temple Emanuel in Chicago, I sure never noticed it.

Pocatello is a largely transient area. People come and go from the university, the semiconductor plant, the hospital, the Idaho National Laboratory. There have always been Jews in Pocatello, but wild west Judaism hasn’t changed much since the days of the ‘Frisco Kid. So, Temple Emanuel in Pocatello’s membership ebbs and flows—and right now it ebbs. With our only child congregant barely 3 months old (and who looked so cute in her pea pod costume), we are happy to open the doors to the community during our festive holidays—especially the child-oriented ones. Our Purim festivities included dancing, fabulous music, as many hamentaschen cookies one could eat, and a satisfying full-house. And since many of the attendees aren’t the drinking type, that left more of my husband’s homebrew “Haman’s Hangover” and a large jar of Slivovitz for the rest of us.

Several years ago, John did extensive research for a piece exploring the alleged regional Mormon “divide” and followed missionaries around, hung out in high school cafeterias, and partied with the “Excommunicated Mormon Drinking Team” at the annual beer festival in Idaho Falls. While the multi-part series was fascinating, informative, and very well balanced, the paper ultimately decided not to run it—go figure. If nothing else, that decision does reflect a cautious and mysterious religious dynamic in this region that isn’t present in many other parts of the country.

My relationship with John, a recovering Catholic, has been a cultural experience in and of itself. While I never knew it before marrying a properly raised Catholic boy, there is much truth to the statement that Jews invented guilt but Catholics perfected it. While more inclined to run Atheist or Pantheist than I, it was he who pushed for a Jewish wedding, and he who curses at Pharaoh the loudest at our Temple seder. We are both more inclined to find Adonai on a ski run or in a garden bed than in front of a podium, and I’m sure our Jewish-Catholic cultural dynamics will play out throughout the length of our relationship. Perhaps someday he’ll see that having a loud family screaming match followed by a visit to a Chinese food buffet really is the best way to resolve family issues. Until then, John loves my culinary experiments with matzo balls, latkes, and hamentaschen, and while he laughs at the suggestion, I’m happy to sit with him through midnight mass any time he wants.

–Nancy Goodman

The Lilith Blog

February 15, 2010 by admin

Desert archaeology in Idaho

I have a long-lost camp alum on Facebook who lives in Tel Aviv and keeps taunting us about how he’s at the beach enjoying the sunshine. But, I love snow. And now that we’ve miraculously got a few precious inches of snow here in the Snake River valley, it’s possible ski season can be revived and the aquifers will fill so we can water things and play on boats this summer. We will happily accept any snow shipped in from the Mid-Atlantic.

I was 17 when I went on my Israel tour, too young to fully appreciate the natural and historic landscape where it’s fun-in-the-sun all year long. I was psyched about the trips to the Shuq, and the nights on Ben Yehudah street. I do remember wading through rivers and ancient aqueducts, but it’s only been in the last decade or so that I’ve really developed a sense of and appreciation for “place.”

I’ve often compared my local and regional summer landscape to that of Israel—hot and dry, with crags, mountains, rivers, and lots and lots of nothingness. Deserts, come to find out, are different from each other—and here the vast, desolate open spaces are comprised of sagebrush, Juniper trees, and basalt rock. And new-moon nights on the Arco Desert reveal stars as bright as I saw them so many years ago somewhere in the Negev.

I am even inspired to make my home landscape similar to that of Israel, and am actively seeking information about the Kalanit flower (Anemone coronaria), a protected flower in Israel. While I know picking this flower is illegal, I wonder if there are seeds/rhizomes/bulbs/dry-roots available anywhere. I would appreciate any information so I can start Kalanit flowers indoors and plant it as an annual!

Besides my attempts to create a xeric landscape of Biblical proportions, one of the many things I enjoy about my Idaho desert experience is being a lay-archaeologist. While no Western Wall or Mount Olive, The city of Pocatello has it’s own unique background and mythology. For example, there has been a common legend that tunnels leading to opium dens snaked underneath Old Town. This story was mostly debunked when renovation of Main Street revealed massive underground boulders stretched beneath the road’s surface, delaying finished construction so long that many Old Town businesses nearly went under.

Another colorful bit of Pocatello history is the presence of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the (first) Depression era. Evidence of the CCC and other New Deal projects are laced through such places as Yellowstone National Park, the Oregon coast, and the hillsides surrounding Pocatello, Idaho. Now-faint ridges dug into the hills by the CCC were cut to help slow water run-off into the Portneuf River, which before the city stretch was encased in cement and chain-link fencing, had the tendency to flood.

My home property abuts such ridged hillsides, and I find evidence of the CCC and friends everywhere. A garden rototiller dug up (my best guess) government-issue tin cans, and a metal detector revealed a metal box-top stamped with the image of a Chinese palace. Further back is a small set of concrete steps and masoned rock walls, overgrown with sagebrush and tall grasses.

Mother Earth absorbs all of us and our history sooner or later, and while I may never climb Masada again, I am happy to explore what lies beneath the rocks in my backyard. I am as spiritually attached to this place as I am anywhere; and when I catch the alpen glow off Scout Mountain, it is a sacred feeling indeed.

–Nancy Goodman