Shnat

Shnat is coming to an end. I'm not really sad for it, although occasionally stressed about time and how little there is, but enjoying every moment I'm having, all the people I'm with and the experiences we have, and at the same time incredibly excited to come home and see Albany, my family, my friends, my puppy, and everything I'll be doing with all that.
We just had a peula as a part of our closing of the program where we painted all over each other, different things about how we've grown, our relationships with others and our views on the kvutza. I feel beautiful, even though I'm dirty and not all these paintings are necessarily pretty, because I'm covered actually with so much beauty.
I've had a lot of interesting experiences in this time since I've last posted. A lot of things I really wanted to and tried to write about, but now it still makes sense in retrospect to write about them because they are the people, experiences and feelings plus all the things they've changed and grown in me.
I went with this group called The Walk About Love for almost a week. They're a group of people hiking across Israel on the national trail. With them, I learned and relearned many things, among them the beauty of this country in its incredible natural world, the power of a positive and loving outlook on the world, and how good it is to be my crazy, unique and weird self without self-consciousness of what is okay or not, not to have stigmas about certain behaviors or feelings I have that make them look bad when in reality, everything that you challenge and embrace, all that comes from you, is beautiful. At first the Walk really seemed to conflict with my presence in Hashomer, that if you focus on feeling instead of thinking and believe the world to be perfect while perfecting, you can't be so critical of your surroundings, but I've come to see now that there really is no conflict, and that the Walk showed me a vast group of partners I have in the world that, based on ideology or not, are committed to having a positive, loving and nurturing impact on the world. When we talk about how to actualize our Shomeric ideology, we come often to the issues of violence in forcing our thoughts upon others, even though we don't want to be relativists, and of finding goals progressive yet reachable, meaning that snapping your fingers and watching a revolution is neither possible nor desirable, because something like that could not be the revolution we want. In the end, having this positive, nurturing impact on the world, where we influence others to participate in their surroundings, understand themselves and their relationships with others more, and on and on and on in this Shomeric route of education, comes to the same effect as any other active lover of the world, such as the Walkers and so, so many others. It is not to say that we shouldn't hold on to our specifically Shomeric values and beliefs, it is not to say that we should accept all differences in all opinions of people instead of working towards what we may know to be true good things for the world, but that when we work for these things, the work we do can, should, and if it is effective, does come from a positive outlook, where all people are to find their own meaning and opinion on things, where all people are worthy of respect in this regard, and where all potential good is possible, because we live in that perfect and perfecting world.

I have a lot more to ramble about, and I really don't even know how much coherence is or isn't in that paragraph, plus lots more experiences to share, about the Walk, about our play in Barta'a, about the wedding of our beloved madrich Oren, about our visit to Holit for Shavuot, our trip to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi, about our final days and my plans for the end, but those posts will hopefully be upcoming.