catching up

ok, just to play catch up a bit.........after returning from israel, i spent a week and half in nyc staying at uncle harry's. it was a pretty rough transition, coming away from great community and intense landscape to being on my own in nyc. i got very immersed in posting all the photos from the trip (photobucket.com/karmakas). sky came and visited, we spent a few days together at harry's and downtown at tegan and arrow's (nyc raver/bio-deisal kids who are twin oaks satellites
). it was great and hard. good to see him and hard to figure out where to go from here.

the day he left, i travelled up to connecticut for a weeklong "internship"at a jewish retreat center called Isabella Freedman. they have a passover retreat for older folks, 12 of us came to help supplement the year round staff in the kitchen and dining room.

from phillie

greetings from philadelphia. i'm spending the weekend visiting my friend michael, a lawyer-turned baker who is part of the extended Elat Chayyim family. he's got on underground (in all senses) organic bakery going in the basement of his co-op house here in west philly. he makes hand-milled, organic sourdough breads, runs bread making workshops, sends out weekly emails to his customers and hosts a bread-blog. its a pretty cool mission, building community through bread baking. west philly feels good, friendly, relaxed and very community oriented.

before coming here, i was in nyc soaking up the jew vibe. thursday night i hung out at a weekly jew party for religious jews on the edge, yiddish speakers, israeli's, and anyone else who feels like showing up. its called chulent, jewish stew, and folks come and hang out, talk, eat, smoke cigarettes and pot and play music all night and into the wee hours of the morning. friday i went to some very hippied out renewal services on the upper west side. the chairs were all in a circle, with the rabbi mixed in with everyone else. there was a woman in the back, doing yoga barefoot. i felt right at home, singing, dancing, and getting into that awesome state of religous/spiritual ecstacy. after, i went over to someone's house for shabbat dinner potluck, turned out they were connected with isabella freedman. most of the kids there taught at teva, a jewish enironmental education program for kids. a very laid back atmosphere with delicious food and nice folks.