January 2nd 2023

5:35 AM, Ottawa International Airport.
Toronto bound

5:35 AM, Ottawa International Airport.
My first defeat. 2 yolkless eggs. Yinless Yang & Yang. Haven’t left Ottawa and I’m already projecting onto booster juice breakfast wraps.

1:18 PM, Newark International Airport
Toronto quickly fades to the Qur’an. Tattooed on the forearm of the woman sitting to my right, is المحبة She tells me it means Empathy, Compassion and Love.

January 3rd, 2023

4:27 PM Ben Gurion Airport, Telaviv
“Promised Land”
Are all people not promised the land on which they walk, so long as they have God in their heart? Does all land not belong to god?




4:40 PM On the bus to King Solomon Hotel Tiberias

Handed a blank name tag, I am the heavenly weightlessness of this empty identity. I will pretend for Just a moment.

Jan 4th, 2023

1:10 AM King Solomon Hotel Tiberias

God is the Great Shamash.

Collage made with a picture of the sun reflecting on the bus windows.

“Shamash”: the candle used to light the other candles of the Hanukkah menorah. ”Shamash” means “servant” and comes from the root “shimush”- service.

The Hebrew word for “sun” is “shemesh”.

In the Mesopotamian language:

“Shamash, as the solar deity, exercised the power of light over darkness and evil. In this capacity he became known as the god of justice and equity and was the judge of both gods and men. (According to legend, the Babylonian king Hammurabi received his code of laws from Shamash.)”

11:15 AM Hike Upper Galilee
- Jilabun river
The plants don’t grow like this back home.

Jan 5th, 2023
8:11 AM Bussing to Tzfat
So what does it mean to be Jewish?
Same as any other ego identity trap.
It means fear.

9:30 AM Tzfat (Jewish mysticism's birthplace)
In the city of Tzfat, God is the awe in the eyes of my companions.

4:55 PM Binyamina-Giv’at Ada
it is against the law to use methods of revealing divine truths on which the law is founded.

7:00 PM Jerusalem
Hallelujah by Leanord Cohen hits different sung In Jerusalem

Jan 6th, 2023

10:09 AM Bussing to Yad Vashem holocaust museum

Are these the tears of a Jew or an empath?

The people Israel. United in trauma.

Jan 7th, 2023
Bela, my Hebrew name, among other things, means destruction.

Jan 8th, 2023

10:00 AM Cenacle, Mount Zion
David

Walking through Jerusalem with my note for the Western Wall. Reaffirmed my Hebrew name at a naming ceremony. Will write about it when I have time.

3:46 Har Herzl - National Military cemetery
Every grave is Anicca. My tears echo those of the Israeli soldier who accompany us.

Following the tour of the cemetery, we meditate on the serenading prayers of a sound healer. She concluded by leading the group in a chant of the syllable “Die.” A sound that all Jews are familiar with.

Everywhere you go, you are reminded of every life which has been sacrificed for this country to exist.

Jan 9th, 2023
6:30 AM Masada - Ancient mountain-top fortress

10:30 AM Kfar hanokdim
In the wake of the finite, there remains only infinity. Due to the breaking of a rule, the group takes a great loss. He is among the most instrumental forces that unite our community. Surely the love that we gave him during this departure ceremony is more, and of a greater intensity, than all that which could have been displayed in these last few days, had he stayed.

7:00 PM Jerusalem

January 10th, 2023
5:00 PM Improv workshop
- inna Gorstein

The only thing I can’t trust you with is trusting me. Apparently I don’t trust myself.

January 11th, 2023

Telaviv

January 13th, 2023
Hadera

Jan 15th, 2023
When I was born, I received the middle name Bela [ˈbeːlɒ], which was later decided to be my Hebrew name as well. It was derived from my great-grandmother’s “Bella,” In Hebrew meaning “Devoted to God.” This alone would be fitting, serving as a pleasant reminder. The male version, however, has some additional definitions. The most enticing, to me, being “destruction.” I discovered this definition on January 6th 2023, while researching the name, in preparation for a naming ceremony that would be held at The Western Wall on the previous day. I began reflecting on what the significance of this name, and its definition, was to me. The following glimpse into my thought process attempts to answer the question of why I chose to keep and reaffirm “Bela.” As my Hebrew name.

Throughout the Calem Bela Anderson-Barwin life, you have had a fascination with death. When he was a child, your favourite symbol was the human skull.

He watches a video of J. Robert Oppenheimer speaking after having witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945. Oppenheimer quotes one of Krishnas most famous lines in the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” It speaks to you. It speaks about you. You proceed to watch this video repeatedly, dozens of times. It may be one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.

After the second and third time Calem Bela Anderson-Barwin smoked salvia, you watch your entire reality be ripped from before your eyes again and again. Desperate clinging and more fear than was ever humanly possible. The Identity of the experience is continually and rapidly replaced. From the character who is being written out, to the page that is being torn out, to the novel which is infinite, and back again.

When Calem Bela Anderson-Barwin takes a 10 day Vipassana meditation course, you are taught Anicca. The understanding of constant change and the Impermanent nature of all that which is perceptible by the Ego. Context is given to salvia. Now, however, you are to develop perfect Awareness and Equanimity by very gradually being reintroduced to this wisdom, by means of embodiment of Anicca.

Matter can neither be created, nor destroyed. Similarly, it can be understood that no thought and no idea is original. The true power of the mind, in this case, is not the ability to create new ideas, but rather to exile old ones, allowing the new ones to enter in their place.

“Most of the time, when computers delete data on a drive, they just mark the section of the drive containing the data as “free.” This means that the operating system is then free to write over it when it needs space for something later.”

Dhammapada:
Verse 153: “I, who have been seeking the builder of this house (body), failing to attain Enlightenment (Bodhi nana or Sabbannuta nana) which would enable me to find him, have wandered through innumerable births in samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth). To be born again and again is, indeed, dukkha! (suffering)”

Verse 154: Oh house-builder! You are seen, you shall build no house (for me) again. All your rafters are broken, your roof-tree is destroyed. My mind has reached the unconditioned (i.e., Nibbana); the end of craving (Arahatta Phala) has been attained.

- The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama

Creation and destruction, like life and death, are two sides of the same coin. A coin which exists only in objective reality. In the wake of the Finite, however, there remains only infinity. This is the beauty of loss. This is the divine power of destruction. I have learned that with temporary loss of the linear ego, we are left with the timeless soul. With the loss of someone or something in our reality, we are left only with its infinite memory. Finally, to attain ultimate enlightenment, the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama had to destroy the system altogether.

Creation belongs to God. The only power of those who are named as separate, is destruction.

Jan 16th, 2023

Hadera to Natanya
I walk along the beach

Jan 19th, 2023

She is a prayer in my heart, in her heart my prayer is answered.

Among those of us eroding,

Seeing each other's faults before our own,
She weeps.
Blaming herself over us, proving least deserving of blame.

Why, God, have you blessed her with the power to draw salt from my depths without the ears to, herself, hear?

Why have you made her blind to the eternal beauty, from which you drew her?

As song,
Gently crashing on my drums, echoes cutting down my cheeks. My blood beats its response with rage.

I will not allow myself to be carelessly pulled into the confused flow that surrounds her. The ripples of potential Conception of counterbalance.

You have made her as pure as a cathode, but you will sooner make a cathode of me then an antagonist.

Not this time.

For I have played your anode role.
I have suffered the abuse of that which I subjected to it. I have felt the burn of those to whom I clung, as I have made medicine poison.
I have walked through fields of land mines retrieving my scattered vertebrae.

I will not be warped to the perverted pattern that plagues her.

Let my glass exoskeleton grow strong so as to help me resist corrosion. And let it, above all be a mirror for her to see herself in.

But when she should be without reflection, let her bask in her own radiance.
Let the aperture through which she sees herself be made of herself and not of her trauma.

In even its vaguest depiction, as a mere thought in my head, her eternal being brings pangs of excitement.
Arousal.

And far before my bias, a first encounter revealed nothing less than the ineffable truth.

Equanimity.

Jan 20th, 2023

Makhtesh Ramon “Crater”
in the Negev Desert


I have walked the shape of grandest tumult for the rest of my days.
Yet, of its film have I not seen a frame.
I am so big, it is perfectly silent.
I am so small, it is perfectly still.
Soon, I will die.

Jan 21st, 2023

Ram Dass

January 25th, 2023

Caesara

Rather than trying to alleviate all suffering, you might use some of it.
Devotion elsewhere than monkhood.



Hadera-West Station - Israel Railways

From the slowing train emerges a song of hysteria. As such, I am thereof enwombed. Soprano singer orgasms and the dying weeps of songbirds harmonize in tragic choir while the train comes to a stop. “andate a la concha de tu madre.” I think, “Return to your mother's shell.” What a blessing, to be told to go back to the place in which you knew only one. To the protection of your creator. Once parting me from salvation, themselves now parting, the labia invite my entry. I oblige. For a wink, my body follows. Now I am become train. But that eye can only open on the platform.

January 28th, 2023

Haifa Demonstration

Protest opposing overhaul of judicial system; rallies also held in Jerusalem,
Tel Aviv, Beersheba and other towns.

January 29th, 2023

Akko/Acre

Jan 31st, 2023
Baha’i Gardens and Shrine of the Bab, Haifa

I was Baha’icurious.

Our tour guide using male pronouns when referring to god provoked me to ask if Bahaʼu'llah did the same. His explanation recalled to me one made by M.A.S. Abdel Hakeem in his translation of the Qur’an. The Arabic pronoun often used by both Mohammed and Bahaʼu'llah is, as it turns out, not gender-specific. “A God defined is a God confined.” I think. A quote of Ram Kirs. The guide, then, continued to anthropomorphize God as a He/Him kind of guy.

I am glad that I am not likely to ever really identify with any religion. Still, I was a little disappointed when I finally and inevitably learned that even the Bahaʼi Faith was out of my reach. I certainly don’t condone a religion that prohibits its members from using drugs. See Jan 5th, binyamina-giv’at ada



Tikotin Museum of Japanese art
The exhibition "Time Tunnel – Japan and the Jews" marks 70 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Israel.



Church of Annunciation, Nazareth

February 1st, 2023

Human Animal is channel in which River’s roaring drowns that of Human Animal. Her irrigation of celestial design directs the great torrent’s overflow to exit two small windows.

Beyond the open panes, spectacular murmurations frolic in the liberty of the law. This, alternating with anarchist swarms which parade in pandemonium.

Magma are the tides which frequent this place. And to the other place of conception.

Sweet cloudbursts roll over flesh of Earth’s Enchantress. Beneath striking transitory terrain, lightenings of passion write thunder symphonies which fill all void.

From bone to boundlessness,
On every rung,
She is dance.
A declaration of life itself.
But beneath the whole tumultuous totem,
the solid ground on which the ladder stands is where her spirit lies.
What she truly is, in essence.

Equanimity.

February 7th, 2023
Larnaca, Cyprus

February 10th, 2023

Gary Barwin’s Birthday

February 12th, 2023
Nicosia, Cyprus
Lefcosa, Cyprus

February 17th, 2023

Gambling, I see you and I raise you as my own.

February 23th, 2023

February 24th, 2023

February 25th, 2023

February 28th, 2023

February 28th, 2023

The Intrusive thoughts which enter my mind are always closely trailed by my favourite Carl Jung quote:

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
The following text was written purely out of catharsis and is not indicative of my over all state of being. Along with the design, which I made to accompany the quote, it is uncensored.

A Suicide Note From The Devil. “Even Siddhartha had to live Kamala’s Hedonistic lifestyle before returning Ohm.” I think, while smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.

I had another of those conversations that lasts for hours. Not the type that I want to have. I know “everything is a valuable lesson” and all that, but I do have to allow my ego to assign it a value in order to avoid perpetually repeating ‘bad’ habits. The first identifier is that my fellow interlocutor wasn’t someone with whom I have any interest in forming a relationship past that of being cohabitants of this hostel. To find a good reason for that, I needn’t look any further than his manner of speaking. A painfully present ego is eager to produce any fragment of information, regardless of whether its contribution to the conversation is of any value. I wouldn’t call him dumb. Certainly, he has at least enough intelligence to be able to determine whether a remark is worthwhile. The variability in the amount of passion with which he conveys his ideas indicates as much. Even so, he refused to allow the silence to breathe, and instead found any way to kill it. Not so important that it be filled, more that he be the one to do it. An infant, at least, appears to be learning about itself when it makes noise. Here’s a man who feeds upon his own pontifications as though fuelled by the very thing on which he expends energy. I am tempted to see him as nothing more than a mechanical narcissist, but such reduction doesn’t quite feel encompassing of his desperate and pathetic yearning for human interaction. He continued to shower me with his accomplishments and understanding of everything, while I pretended that my inability to end the discussion was polite. It isn’t completely a lie, but it is my responsibility to not become trapped in avoidable situations. Why, also, would I want to engage with the sort of person who wouldn’t understand if I had other things that I needed to do? This is who I was choosing to be with because don’t want to be here.
“Here” meaning on vacation in this paradise of a liminal space. The beautiful and sunny island of Cyprus. One disjointed country to which I have been exiled by the cumbersome bureaucracy of another. This heavenly prison, where I now remain stranded, is only $100 away from the land which I was supposedly promised. But, alas, I cannot yet return. My hands are as cold as Lefcosa allies are dark. My dreams are of losing money that I don’t have, while awake I lose the money that I do.
Furthermore, my mind has gradually become plagued by the repetition of seemingly random phrases which I use inadvertently as mantras of insanity.
The subjects of this new and Inordinate fixation are lines such as “all mimsy were the borogoves” by Lewis Carroll. One line which makes a little more sense is Gogol Bordello’s perfect description of my hypothetical and half-hearted, yet ever-recurrent foreboding of my future, “A purple little little lady will be perfect for dirty old and useless clown.” But I know that to be nothing more than my… Barwinian? Insecurity... (Please do not take offence at my projections, they’re merely speculative and only as defendable as they are cathartic)
What’s more, ever since I first self destructively indulged that wretched soul, my days are filled with anguish. I have made myself known as pray, and every time he sees me it begins again. I try to hide in my bed, but everywhere I go he follows. Unavoidable and insidious. I am in a trap of my own design. But do not pity! For even by the end of this sentence, my disillusioned and lamenting antagonist and narrator becomes none other than yours truly, a now fulfilled and prospering champion. I have just now, you see, finally and resolutely decided to kill him. I simply have no other choice. So now to devise a plan.
The first step for a man of honour is to leave no doubt as to who committed the crime. So let this serve not only as evidence of premeditated iniquity, that is to say with malicious aforethought, but also a sort of manifesto. It is, after all, essential that my intention be understood clearly, as well as my motivation and sentiment. Only then will I be implicated fully and held to my word. A word which goes something like: “I hereby promise that, no matter how long it takes and by any means necessary, I will not only kill, but also diligently prevent any and all resurrections of that certain miserable unnamed egomaniac…” Or… some other such nonsense. And there you have it. The task has been completed. As surely as he was written in to existence, he has been written out. Blinded in the mirror of catharsis and crushed under his own weight. I am once again healthy and balanced. Time goes by much quicker here.

March 10th, 2023

March 11th, 2023