The Hayan Culture

The first week that I was in Israel, as time was chaotically swimming by I found myself down in the desert sitting on one particular solitary haystack looking out over the sprawling trance party going on around me, observing the disciples of trance dancing their hearts out to try and raise the trance gods which everyone knew, must surely come soon. I was surrounded by camels, donkeys and Aladdin and Blackberry - two incredible souls, it was here that we were first introduced to The Hayan Culture. We were deep within the rabbit hole contemplating time, existence and the utter meaningless paralleled by the wholly overwhelming significance of everything when we suddenly realised everything around us, that we talked about in day to day lives, objects that we used/objects that we didn't, everything, was just a load of hay. Pure and simple, with only as much significance given to anything as you want to attach to it. There is no concept of time, or of numbers in the Hayan culture, there are just infinite moments of truth, although even this it has to be said is hay.

5 months after that perspective slanting finding I am happily residing in the Shakzuka Project commune (Shakzuka Project), its a house near Tel Aviv with a reasonably big garden, about 500 meters from a beach taken almost from paradise, quite a few of my nights involve swimming in this zen Mediterranean sea watching all of time stretch out before me into nothingness. At the moment there's about 4 people living at the commune, but this number can change from anything up to 10 - 15 people. The whole of the first month of Israel I went to trance my head off pretty much every single night. Or at maximum every other night. The Shakzuka Project were starting up a line of parties in a local club. The line is called Eyeawaska and at first we threw them every week. I joined Aladdin to help decorate the club during the day before the party started. Typically we would be there for about 8 hours before the party, but each week the decorations got crazier and so the decoration time got more intensive and slightly longer.

The night before the Galactic Rave - one of the best festivals I have ever been to - was one of these Eyeawaska induced nights. We were decorating in the club for 8 hours or so, then partying for 6 hours and didn't get back to the commune till 5 in the morning. At which point Aladdin made a sign for me to hitchhike down into the desert for the Galactic Rave. I was stupidly tired but only 13 hours and 8 cars later when I entered this amazing wonderland full of exotic tales of beautiful souls could I actually get some sleep.

After the unbelievable mind rushing joy that I experienced at that Galactic rave the next one a few months later jumped upon us like lightning. This one was going to be bigger for the Jewish holiday Purim (a holiday where everyone dresses up as madly as possible and is ordered by the bible to get so drunk they "cant remember" ) and we received some amazing news. Me, Aladdin, De Leche and some other friends were going to do decoration for the whole of this 2000/3000 people festival. The festival was at an Osho Ashram, a small beautiful oasis in the middle of rich, seemingly hand chiseled desert mountains. We were there for about 1 week before the festival began and we actually managed to forget that there was a festival at the end of this amazingly intensive week of creation. The festival came and went in the same vein as the last one.

We were on our way back to the commune from the ashram. Our car, Mr D, jam packed to bursting point with all our decoration equipment, at about 12am when we were changing lanes on a stretch of road, suddenly a car comes out of no where and sends us swerving off the road. Time seemed to slow down as everything started moving about the car from the abrupt confusion of physics. It seems like we were spinning for ages before hitting into the road barriers and a few other parked cars. All our decoration went flying out over the road in a grand display of psychedelic casualty. No one was really hurt luckily, but I did bruise my ribs a little and the car was a complete write off. Some of the Shakzuka guys turned up shortly after to take our equipment and to take us to the hospital.

A few days after that we were making a nature party up in the north at a beautiful old fort. I was serving the chai at Rabbits Chill & Chai stand within one of the old buildings of the fort when all of a sudden Ortal another amazing soul starts leading me to a small cage. Inside that cage was my new daughter, Acid, the black bunny. We bonded instantly and she is one of the most jammed, peaceful rabbits I have ever met. At the moment I am in the process of training her to come when she's called. Which surprisingly is working quite well. Hopefully she will find the mental stability within herself to travel with me around Europe back to England.

Craziness of Israel continued to sweep me up in its eternal path of chaotic delight and sometime in April I found myself travelling for a week into the desert. This was no exception to the chaotic delights that this country had in store for me. I passed through Jerusalem on my way to the dead sea after being taken on a tour of the old city by a semi-religious guy who made us read the torah at the western wall. I got down to the dead sea late and one of the people I was hitchhiking with had a zoola on the beach (a big camp with shade netting swarming overhead to block the harshness of the sun) and invited me to stay there. It was beautiful, I was right on the dead sea and next to some natural springs. I woke that first morning to see a woman in billowing white robes sitting on a cliff looking out over the dead sea playing a melancholy Persian violin.

After a few days there I went walking into the desert, I walked on a tourist trail having hitchhiked with a guide of Israel the day before who said if I tried to go anywhere other than this particular trail, due to my lack of un-preparation for the desert, I would probably die. After I got pretty far into the desert I climbed a mountain. At the top there was a cliff over looking other mountains twisting and swaying, reflecting darting rainbows back at me. I sat on the cliff for sometime with the golden eagles enjoying the thermals around me. It was here that I felt, for the strongest time in my life, the presence of eternal beauty that has shaped the history of man kind in such a strange way. It goes by many names, the universe, nature, god, the soul, whatever you want to call it. Ever since this experience I have felt much calmer in my life and more centered.

My time in Israel has been spent mainly doing decorations with the mind blowingly talented OCD Designs team OCD Designs
having more fun that I thought it is possible to contain in one human form and has changed my life so dramatically that I don't think I could imagine my life now without all the astounding family I've made here. Having said that, I do feel the pull of England and further travels, so hopefully the road can expect to shelter me once again very soon.