First Field Trip: My Love Affair with Mud Begins

October 20th, 2009

I am writing in my journal with reggae music playing the background. Our group is relaxing in a large common room. We are all impressed with the beauty of this space, especially after camping for the past three nights. Each window is unique, all the glasses are different shapes and sizes. Some are surrounded mosiacs. Later I learn that the windows were found first, and the holes were then created to mold to the frames. (So permaculture). There is a beautiful kitchen bar, which is made out of mud and there are entire rows of matching colored bottles. Inside the kitchen, dinner is being prepared by two of our group members. It feels like home, and we are nesting. We are at Yesh Mayin. Something that was created out of nothing.

On the first day of the filed trip, we inevitably got a late start and then spent many sleepy hours on a rented bus. We lunched at Nimrod Fortress and then we wandered around the complex for two hours. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, Uncle Avvie carried around an egg the entire day in his hand. I think he wanted to see if it was hot enough to cook an egg. This is my most prominent memory. It was a hot day (how I miss them) as we hiked down a spiky terrain in order to see the Banias. The terrain was hard for me to navigate and sadly I was the slowest of the group to me make my way down. Yes, I was returning to the Banias, with some hesitation in my heart. It had been such a strong private connection to the land that I did not want to share it with the group energy, which can be overwhelming at times.

We reached the Banias Springs quite late. Uncle Avvie promptly dropped his egg, which caused some of the group members to blame Pan. For we were now at Pan's Grotto, and perhaps he has a great disdain for eggs or for fools who carry them around all day. We explored the site quickly, not lingering at each remaining monument, as I had done only a week or so before. We arrived too late to hike to the other side where the Falls lie. Instead, we grumbled a bit, although I was mostly relieved and then clambored aboard the bus to Kibbutz Tsivon, near Klil (sp?) where we would be camping for the next few nights.

In the morning, I woke early with my commrade the infamous Ben Bokser, who is reknowned through New York and Israel. It was my first time cooking over a camp fire and I was nervous. In addition, I was now cooking for ten or more people. Things were tricky to say the least. I started the fire, which was no easy feat. Some members of the group scrambled for more wood to keep the flames going. Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, pan-fried taters, and an Israeli salad, which turned out to be tayim meod. I was quite proud of myself.

After breakfast, we hiked the Yehudiya Waterfall trail. First, we saw a destroyed Syrian village, which was built in the 3rd century and destroyed in this century. Israel never fails to remind me of humanity's capacity to create and then destroy.
We hiked for two hours before we reached a large waterfal. The water was briskly cold but we dived in anyway.As a group, we swam over to where the the two waters met. It was a great moment of peace and cleansing.

We had lunch while the boys splashed in the water trying to catch fish. The women of the group dried off on rocks and were amused by the boys' antics. Who knew there were so a variety of unsuccessful methods to catch fish, Avvie tried to spear them, Nadav threw rocks in the water, while two of the boys captured a small one in their shirt.

And now onto to something completely different. I have a confession. I have fallen, deeply, madly, passionately in love with mud. It was so unexpected and it happened so fast. At Kibbutz Tsivon, on our last day, we were shown how to make mud or cobb to insulate a communual building. There are various ways, however this method included clay, sand and straw and of course water. We mixed all the ingredients on a large tarp, and stomped on them until they were mixed. It reminded me of wine making, and just as intoxicating. From them mud, E. and I created a mud goddess in between two beams. It was an immenseley satisfying moment for me. I had created something, from nothing, with my hands.

This something from nothing, was how Yesh Mayin (sp??) was founded. There is a MOshav in Nahalal, where one young woman was inspired to turn her family's defunct farm into a permaculture space (building, learning, experimenting). More mud buildings, the love affair grew. From an old warehouse hangar, she created, with the help of many friends and strangers a beautiful salon. It is from this space that I write, that I rest, that I watch my friends in the candlenight laugh and enjoy dinner. Something from nothing is the essence of permaculture, nothing is wasted, everything is used. All the resources you need existed already in your community, in you space. It is also a very Israeli mentality, the image of the country that was built on a desert, which remains true on many levels.