Spiritual Jet Lag

It hit me hard around an hour ago: that lightheaded, slightly dizzy disoriented feeling. It scared the hell out of me, normally it means we are about to have an earthquake (yes, I am occasionally one of those seismic psychics) or that I am about to get the flu.

But just now I figured it out: I have Spiritual Jet Lag. Today is Shabbat, I just spent my two past Shabbat's in Israel: the first one in Jerusalem at the communal Orthodox dinner provided by the Dan Boutique Hotel, and the second one in Tel Aviv at a formerly lesbian now straight Persian restaurant and dive dyke bar--- but it was still Israel. Tonight I will go to my parents for dinner and light candles (using the new candelabra I bought for them in the Carmel Craft Faire in Tel Aviv) but it's not the same. I'm in LA, the place where spirituality is a commodity to be purchased along with great abs and pseudo-blessed red string around your wrist. I'm a million steps removed from the real deal.

I am born and raised in Los Angeles but it's never ever felt like home. I don't jive with the energy, never felt like I belong, I can't seem to really hit my stride to be fully, daily, passionately alive, and I can't relate to most of the people or priorities here and all of the time I have that deep cavernous ache inside of knowing these painful things.

I want to live where I just naturally know the streets and my way around even thought I've not been there before. I have that feeling of being finally at home intensely in Cape Town, South Africa, and to a bit lesser extent in Nairobi. The times I've been on the African continent calm my entire being down immediately upon landing. Everything just settles, even in the various just ended war/famine/genocide zones I've visited, Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda. Every time I leave Africa I can't wait to come back. I feel fully alive, all my senses are at once calm and on alert.

But in Israel, it's different. Everything doesn't settle: it's stirred up the way the Jerusalem winds coming in from the desert kicked into high gear every afternoon to coincide with the 4:30 call to prayer. There was no calming feeling the whole time I was in Israel, for me there was the complete opposite. This time all my senses were on high alert, so much so that I was on sensory overload and had to shut down some of my hearing just to maintain a sense of distance and to be able to hear my own thoughts and listen to the stirrings of my own soul. But even with all this internal Balaghan (Hebrew for Chaos) there was this overwhelming feeling that I was finally where I was supposed to be. I was in Israel, a descendant of the 600 people at Sinai, linked genetically and spiritually and everything in between. Going to Israel was my soul gone on safari, and as with any journey, ultimately the goal is to find your inner, spiritual, psychic home while wandering.

I've always been a religious tourist--calling myself a seeker would be way to intense for the truth, I bail as soon as any aspect of the practice threatens to seriously impact my comfort zone. So doing Yoga with the Sikhs here in LA--got those great abs---but give of coffee and meat? No way. I did the same thing with flirting with the Chabad form of Judaism...no great abs, but nearly a trashed liver, given the endless L'Chaims and drinking each Shabbat and celebration requires. But give up brewed coffee and driving? Not a chance. And don't even go there on the whole gay thing, seems all religons have issues with that, except maybe Wicca or Paganism...(more about my forays there later).

Earlier this afternoon, I had a lovely mixed ethnic lunch of Tikka Tacos with my BFF Paul, and he was excited to hear about my trip to Israel and Jordan. We were comparing notes and impressions, and I found I was almost unable to relate anything of mine. I'm still making sense of all the sensations, and I found it hard to describe all that I'd felt and seen in a mere two weeks in Israel and a couple of days in Jordan. I was enthralled by Paul's accounting of his journeys there, and his wrestling with the idea of making aliyah--to emigrate to Israel-- or not. I look forward to hearing more of the story soon. Sharing those stories are grounding because you looking into each other's eyes and try to make sense of the Israeli experience and then give a Middle Eastern shrug with the realization that you can't.

So I am still reeling. I was gone only two weeks, and it feels like I was gone at least a lifetime. Seriously. At least one lifetime. (One of the theories on my hearing loss is that it was part of a past life experience that kicked into high gear.)

Israel changed me in ways I cannot even begin to understand, and truthfully, when my rational mind tries to tell me that I am having a cliche reaction--not another one, gone native--it's just a place with an incredible bloody and miraculous history but still just sand and rock, my spiritual jet lag kicks into high gear and I've got to sit down before I fall down. It's that simple and that complex. It's that hard to fathom and that easy to get. Whereas before I felt a vague longing to go and experience the country I'd heard about for most of my adult life, now that I have been there, even for a short visit, there is a very tangible ache to return as soon as possible to soak up more of this incredible place.

After all, it's home.