Kabbalah Worlds

I look out at cactus and scrub, whitewashed houses clinging to the side of a hill, ancient stones fortifying terraced vegetable plots. Only the olive trees remind me that I’m in Spain. I’m in the least-visited part of the Iberian Peninsula, the southeastern tip of...

OK. Let’s get her out of the way. You know who I mean. The celebrity who is to kabbalah what the Beatles were to Eastern religions: simplifier, popularizer, provocateur. Would the world know about kabbalah if it weren’t for her music videos, her tattoos, the...

It’s such a simple question. When people learn I’m on the trail of the father of kabbalah, they invariably ask: “Are you a kabbalist?” It should be easy to answer; but it’s not. I can say I’m a mystic, sometimes; but many writers, lovers of literature, can say that. I...

Salmon Rushdie wrote that the 20th century was the era of vast migrations. True. But it’s not as though it didn’t happen before. In fact, movement was the hallmark of Mediterranean life, and not just for the Phoenicians. Here in Mojacar Pueblo, in the southeastern tip...

Those artists who work in the non-verbal media have an easier time connecting to the cultures of the countries they visit, to their fellow artists abroad. Music, visual art, dance, move easily across cultural borders to touch our hearts, even our minds, certainly our...

A creative residency offers many pleasures – uninterrupted time, freedom from domestic chores that allows for deep connection to work, stimulating company of fellow creative artists. One of the greatest pleasures is connecting with artists from other countries, and...

That’s what the American writer Thomas Wolfe said, and I’m learning that it applies to artists’ residencies as well. My first visit to Can Serrat was less than three years ago – I was charmed to be in the 300-year-old Catalan farmhouse near El Bruc, a town less than...

“So the first kabbalist was European, not Middle Eastern -- that’s interesting.”  Amund is a communications consultant from Oslo, and he’s trying to understand why I’m here in Catalonia.  It’s complicated, I’m thinking, as I search for a simple way to explain – at...

When I was in public school in Montreal, we learned an old hymn that began “Follow follow, follow the gleam, Banners unfurled, for all the world…” It had a wonderful melody, and I still sometimes find myself humming it mindlessly. I had no idea, then, that I was...

ok, first it was impossible to find a room in Montpellier, then it was impossible to find a room in Vauvert (in Vauvert??), now I can't find public transportation between the two (something about different French Departements)...Isaac, stop being coy! *** I learned...

I don’t know when books and stories became my preferred reality. It seemed so normal for so many years, that I never even questioned it – books seemed more real than life. Even stories that others told me seemed more real than the life I was living. Only recently has...