Part 2 – The Bedouins and a Journey to the Promised Land ————————————————————————————-
Two years ago, I came a hair’s width away from buying my plane ticket to Israel. It came to me in a flash that I wanted to explore my roots. I fancied the idea of going to the pyramids from Israel as a way to touch the furthest reaches of my Jewish heritage. “Hey,” I thought, “I can’t go any further back than that.” I was looking for a new beginning and that felt like a good place to start. Luck or providence kept me from that mouse click, and a week later my Dad took sick. I would have to wait.
But I was committed, I would get there eventually. Maybe it was something to hold on to, a plan for the future that gave me some hope through the hardship. In the meantime I began grad school at NYU in environmental education; if I had to stay I was going to do something good. Sadly though, In the middle of my first term my Dad died. I was “free” (physically if not yet emotionally) but I was not going to quit. But now, there was a little more ‘play’ in the program.
Don’t worry, this build-up will all make sense in a moment…
During an intensive second term I became a yoga teacher, and figured out an amazing way to finish the second year of my degree in Israel – a “productive”, whole year in Israel!. I had a plan, it was over a year in the making but it looked something like this: My Mom offered to take me to Kenya on safari, from there to Egypt, then through the Sinai to Israel; the journey of the Israelites! That certainly tickled my fantasy epic funny bone.
It was scary too though. I openly admit that I had not, until now essentially, committed to *anything* for over a year, save of course for the things that were embedded into me from early on, like basic school and such; and I was equally skeptical that it would ultimately all work out. I’d seen my share of curve balls in the past few years…
So, there I was, finally, at the pyramids, after all of that build up. This moment had been my plan for so long that I did not know what to do with myself. Spiritually, I had no clue what was next, or where to look. For years I didn’t even bother thinking about what came after. Quite magically though it was there, at the place of my beginnings, having asked for a new beginning, that I was unknowingly about to begin quite a journey, a deep, inward journey with a fascinating outward component. And it started like this…
After kneeling at the base of the second pyramid, my soul a bit spent and expended, I walked down to the Sphinx entrance ready to leave the complex. Of course this was not without a look at the famous monument on the way. The sight of the Sphinx with the three pyramids in the background is the postcard memory everyone is going for when they visit the site. This way out just to note is not the ‘usual’ way, with no bus leading right back to the city center. Though tired, I wanted to walk a little…
FOODIE PHILOSOPHY SIDE NOTE:
One of the treasures of Egypt this time of year are the mangoes. As I learned later, this is the one month that they are particularly abundant and everywhere stalls sell a large helping of 100%, no sugar added, mango puree for a whopping 75 cents. Well, after taking about a second to consider if I wanted the greasy, salty falafel on this sweltering day or the mango stuff, I went for the big juice. This is one of those little moments that can make all of this difference in a day, that can change the whole state of mind. I remember asking myself, all in the one second, “how do you want to feel?” I imagined the falafel in me, and then I felt out the juice. I wanted clarity. I *chose* the fresh feeling of the juice. Oh, the little forks in the road (wow, that was a bad, untended pun), and it did make me feel a bit better.
From there, I walked a little, and decided it was time to go back to my room to rest, I had been up since 5:30am to get to the Pyramids early. Well, as fortune would have it, I never got back to my room that night.
On the mini-van bus I ran into Mohamed, an English teacher at Cairo University in Alexandria who literally dragged me to his sister’s home to have tea there. I’ll be honest, it felt rather sketchy and potential abduction in the dirt streets of Giza are not part of the Lonely Planet suggested itineraries. If it weren’t for the kind eyes of the children that we passed in this impoverished neighborhood I would have fled. The young eyes could not lie if something was amiss, so my gut told me, and fortunately (thank goodness) I was right.
After the tea in this humble home I found myself opening my heart to Mohamed and his family. His sister had the sweetest little baby boy with energy enough for three and they lived (with a prodigal husband that I never met) in the rooftop apartment of a ramshackle building in a run down part of Giza. Being there felt somehow extremely uncomfortable yet oddly appropriate. Something in me trusted this man; I felt I needed to speak the total truth to him and after he asked me some rather deep questions, conversation led to the barrage of health problems that I’ve faced for some time, mostly related to poor digestion. That was when Mohamed mentioned a Muslim healer he knew of…
Now, to say this, I would not have trusted it for a moment were it not for the genuine report I was building with Mohamed, while he always seemed to be a little unsettled by nature, a kind of spiritual tiredness, he also emanated a strong and genuine kindness, a desire to help and nurture. I was keen to go and see this healer, a man who does not work for money, but for his relationship to his god. I was told the work would be quick.
After a long taxi ride we arrived to the workplace of this healer and Sheikh. The office was small, dark, with jars adorning the walls and a desk full of papers and small items in the middle. It was located on a small side in an urban neighborhood and the wood seemed to emanate a nostalgic though serious and for me, foreign energy.
The man’s eye was a bit piercing and I, in my great hopes, felt a bit giddy and humble, which for me manifests in being austerely polite in my words and mannerisms. Mohamed spoke with him in Arabic, using few words. The Sheikh asked me questions, few, but to the point. He didn’t touch me but only looked. He said I needed cupping, a form of mild blood letting with suction cups based on ancient practices (that has actually started to be vindicated by some Western research).
As an aside, I’ll note, I’d been to a few Western doctors to no avail. I’d tried Eastern medicine, to no avail. I’d been doing yoga and exercising and tried every dietary thing that I’m sure you cannot even imagine, to no avail. As it turns out, the lesson in the end is that it was not what I was doing or who was doing the doctoring but how I was inwardly going about it. The medicine needed was for the heart. I don’t like the style of most Western trained counselors (nothing personal) and I wasn’t keen on a ‘support’ group type of thing. I did have two people, wise teachers, that I spoke with regularly which helped me a lot, but all was not yet well. Thus, I figured, heck, some Muslim magic and bloodletting couldn’t hurt. Why not try?
We ran off, I got the cupping work done, and came back to the Sheikh’s place. He said the cupping helped but that I had something deep in me. There was something in me fighting against myself, weakening me. Mohamed in his translation did not say ‘daemon’, he said someone had ‘touched’ me, in an emotional or metaphysical sense. Clearly his practice was a kind of intuitive and spiritually inspired medicine. I was not asked to pay for his services.
He prescribed for me an interesting regimen that Mohamed would have to help me with, because he’s Muslim and I’m not (shrug). It was a blessing in disguise though. There I was, back at his home, and trying to figure out a way to go to Aswan on my overnight ticket in a few days while still doing this regimen. It wouldn’t work though. I had to chose. What did I want? What’s more important? Giving this craziness a try (and it was a crazy, non-intuitive series of things I had to do, a story onto itself) or leaving to another place.
It was hard to pull myself away from my expectations… I was “traveling”, I had to go “see things”, if I wasn’t I was “weak and slow” or something like that; I had to let it go. Wow, staring me in the face was the chance to stay with these people, live at their home during their Ramadan, *really* experience something, and I was looking for a way out of it. Well, there was part of my medicine. I had to chose, run or stay and fight, get out of my ideal and take a risk. I’ll tell you, after traveling for a while, you get good at a routine. I’m very good at going from place to place, finding the main attraction, chatting it up with people, sleeping and doing it again. It’s great, but honestly I wasn’t growing anymore. I chose to stay, to fight, to take a risk that my healing might be there. It would be interesting at least.
This decision did not come easily though. I cried in my friend’s arms, he held me like an older brother. I felt limp as a broken child at that moment, held lovingly, vulnerable. Maybe that was the ‘presence’ that was in me, feeding off of my energy and hurting me, afraid to be defeated and banished? Maybe Western psych would call it an identity crisis? Maybe, it doesn’t matter and that medicine can take many forms; that there is more to the human condition, Horatio, than can be found in your medical textbooks?
As I said, it was Ramadan, and these people took care of me. They, though fasting during daylight hours, did not mind my eating. It was part of my healing apparently to eat a lot, and I think there’s a little Jewish grandma in everyone regardless of culture, or is it that grandma like traits are ubiquitous cross cultures? Either way, my diet consisted of an amazing whole wheat, Bedouin pita, yogurt, farmer cheese, kofta kabob, chopped salad, deadly sweet tea and other Ramadan specific foods for the next week. The peoples eat communally, on the floor, dipping bread and using their right hand to gather portions. I got to see how these people really lived. I met their neighbors, who also greeted me like a brother. It is amazing how welcoming they were with what little they had.
They were very poor, and it showed in the conditions they lived in, but they were happy. Certainly, they lived worlds better than the Masai I lived with in Kenya, but it was non-the-less an example of severe urban poverty and the barrage of issues that comes with: poor schooling, poor medical care, and poor prospects for changing it. What did I come all this way to see after all? I stayed with the Masai to learn about their life; I came to Egypt with the hope that I’d get to spend time with a family during Ramadan; I got handed a chance to really travel, and I was going to cast it aside?
I mean this toward myself in a nice way; it was foolish to even think of such a thing. Travelers, journalists, and students dream of such an experience. This was the day after seeing the Sheikh and after the night passed and I missed my train, I relaxed a bit. Yet, it was to be as nerve wracking and intense a few days as the ones before it.
I ate in other homes, I had some fun times with the people, immersing myself in their life as I could, hand gesturing and using the little Arabic I’d picked up to communicate, and doing (not just taking) the medicine. I went to the desert to meditate at ancient ruins. I helped to feed the hungry, I helped to save a life, I learned more about who I really am. I didn’t run, as best as I could at least. A lot of it was not fun, some of it was, and I always felt out of place; accepted, but I knew it was not the type of life I could settle into. It was not the poverty, that was no big deal to live in actually, it was the energy. Mohamed would have had me stay forever, marry, and build a life there…
Oh, but that was about five days in, and the journey, intense though it was, had just gotten started. See, I was supposed to go back to the Sheikh for a follow up appointment so to say, but he had spoken to Mohamed, discussed what had been happening with me and already knew what I needed to do (how, don’t ask me).
I was whisked away on a motorcycle to another part of Giza, not too far off from where I’d been. It was night-time, and after arriving I was told I would need to stay at this place, with it’s open courtyard and clean air for 2 or 3 more days. To be honest, I was not keen on it; this had been an intense few days and I’d had about enough. That was, until I was called to the gaze of the home’s owner, Ibrahim. He too was a healer and spoke English rather well. He wore a dark robe, a round, welcoming face, and had in hand what looked like a set of worry beads. Sitting beside him on the stoop, meeting his gaze, one of those with a rare, piercing yet innately peaceful quality, being told that I would stay with him for a few days receiving healing, I felt a total shift in my being.
It all suddenly felt totally right. I would stay in this healer’s home for three days, spending most of my time with him, telling him about my whole life, hearing his humble advice, and receiving his Bedouin and Muslim healing practice. My intuition spoke well about this man, and I was well served by it. The dreams I had that night were intense, sleeping on the rooftop in the wee hours. I ate too well there as well, sharing in their late, Ramadan breakfasts, playing with the children, and sharing smiles with Ibrahim’s kind wife.
On the stoop late into the night, with a small open field used for crops before us, somewhere in the urban areas of Giza sitting with Ibrahim, I told about everything that was inside me, and I mean everything. It has been weeks since those days and I still cannot think of the slightest secret or hidden part of my being that I did not share with him. That too was part of my medicine. I think it was his openness, his non-judging nature, and the fact that he was thousands of miles from anyone I knew that made me so honest. I was also ready to spill these things from me. It felt like an intensive mentoring retreat with a bit of magic and ritual thrown in to keep it interesting. It was very intense, but I was much more relaxed than I was with Mohamed (just something about the whole atmosphere that didn’t resonate with me).
The lessons along the way came, not easily, but because of the place I was at inside, they came clearly. The medicine of the heart that I needed was presented to me, and I had to chose to open to it. They came with my words, my actions, my choices. These were opportunities that were likely screaming at me for a long time, but that I could not listen to for some reason. I found out how I want to spend my energies for helping people, I found out how to listen (or rather learned how to start) to listen to myself, I took the risk of opening up, something I’d been afraid to do for a long time.
COFFEE TALK TO THE READER BREAK:
Sorry that I’m being vague with how these lessons came about, they are some interesting stories, but there’s are reasons for it. One is, this description is getting long, and if you’re still with me, you’re a trooper and I thank you. Two, is getting into the details would be whole philosophical, epistemological discussions that would take me away from the deeper points I’m trying to make about my “treasure”, good fortune in these encounters, and descriptions of the lives of the people I met. Three, is that out of respect for the culture I encountered I do not want to discuss details of their practices without being willing to spend the time to go into depth about those practices on a personal and academic level. It would not be fair to them or to myself otherwise. One day I hope to write these thoughts out, and should I meet any of you that has read this, and you have more questions, I’ll be happy to go into more depth.
END BREAK 
.
In that week, I went to Mosques (to watch), lived in two different homes, changed lives, had my life changed, ate too much, engaged my heart, took risks, and got intimately involved in another culture. The offer was again made by Ibrahim for me to stay with him as long as I wished, but I knew now, not with a feeling of running away, but with a feeling of good heart that it was my time to go. I realized though that I did not care about going to Aswan and the Upper Nile. The surely magnificent sights of the Valley of the Kings would have to wait, perhaps forever. I knew what I wanted to do; it was time to go to the Sinai and to Israel, to make the journey that I came for.
Inside, I cannot say that all of my physical ails were gone, but my heart felt a little… cleaner somehow. My follow-up prescription from Ibrahim was as my friend in acupuncture school said, “a very appropriate diagnosis,” yet comically something he would “never tell anybody else [except for me] to do”. The essence of it, simply put, was don’t exercise or push myself too much, don’t meditate, eat meat, and try to only follow good feelings… and do it for three months; then go back to doing whatever I want.
Wow.
It really is astonishing, when you ask for something with genuine heart and intention, sometimes you get it. Thus far I’d had a fascinating cultural experience, found how I want to place my energies for helping the world, cleaned out some emotional baggage, and had some big and culminating realizations about how to listen to my heart. I also got a writ to, as one healer in the US told me, “take it easy”, something that’s been hard for me to let myself do in the past.
Now I had to find out what that all meant; you never know how good a new pair of pants are until you wear them to work for a day. First stop was Dehab, on the coast of the Gulf of Aquaba with its crystal waters, hippy divers and pillow camp restaurants – a little backpacker town in the base of the Egyptian Sinai. But that’s for next time…
Thanks for reading, Lee
