Saturday 23 June 2007, 11:37

Yesterday I had acupuncture which has helped my low back and leg immensely. The guy took my pulses and said "herniated disk." I came back to the place where I am staying and went to bed and spent 24 hours sweating out a fever, dreaming, waking, sleeping, sweating, etc. Today I feel better. I can have a conversation, I can sit at the computer and write, I may even eat something.

My last entry drew many responses from friends. All responses conveyed concern for my well being. Some folks had a hard time with my focus on the history of Germany and wondered about the genocides elsewhere, and did I think what happened in Germany was worse than what happened, for example, in North America. One friend was saddened that I didn't write about the beautiful places she showed me in Germany, and the places where there was resistance.

I am working something through. I don't know how to say it but I will try.

I had a physiological response to going to a place. I went there with some thoughts in my mind, of course, of the history, but I had no idea, plan, or desire to have this physical breakdown. But I did. Maybe my disk herniated and I got a virus. Maybe psychically I tuned into the ancestors of the place and my own ancestors and that relationship.

When I traveled across North America through Indian lands, I thought, and felt, and wrote in my blog, about that genocide. I cried. I listened to music of the people. I went to native lands, went to a pow wow, made offerings. It was deeply moving for me. I did not experience a physical breakdown. My body just didn't respond that way.

When I saw the beautiful places in Germany, and learned more of people who had been in the resistance and what happened to them, I was moved. I was glad to see the beauty, and saddened by the pain people experienced, but it was second hand news. It didn't enter my body.

When my back went kaplooey in Otterstedt, and then after coming to Holland I got this exhaustion flu-like thing, these were in my body. I felt like a witness to these things, not like I had any choice but to ride them out.

I think that we all have feelings about the behavior of our ancestors. I have ancestors who were bloody killers, if you read the old testament. Probably most if not all of us alive on Earth now have ancestors who killed, raped, pillaged. I feel shame about how Israel treats the Palestinians. When I was in Israel I was aware that as an american jewish male I was in a privileged class. The privileged classes are usually the perpetrator classes.

My earthwalk in this life is one of learning. Right now I feel that I am in the middle of a learning piece. I don't have an overview of it yet. It isn't complete. I'm in process.

I write this blog to share with friends my news, to share my process, as a kind of therapy tool for myself. A friend who is also a writer told me "You think you know what you've written, but you don't. You've created a structure and then people plug into it with their own stuff." I really sense that strongly right now. This is so huge for me personally, it makes sense it would hold energy for the people who read this, mostly people who love me.

So I welcome comments. I welcome the opportunity for dialogue. I am learning, and I am not putting down in this blog, the wisdom of the ages. This is all part of one person's journey.