Journey into the Middle East

For the past two years I graced the mainland of one of the most inflencial areas right in the centre of the globe, that place is known as Israel. I was struck by such incredible diversity geographically ranging from luna landscapes in the south to lush forestry in the north. These plains have bared alot of bloodshed, birthed some of the most provocative thinkers and revelutionised social consciousness for the past 4-5000 years. Moving from place to place I found myself most at home in a small village outside of Jerusalem called Ein Karem. Such a magical valley, surrounded by the chanting prayers that sounded in the distance from the Russian monastery as church bells rang overhead in succession. I stood there feeling as though I had just come home. Jerusalem has an energy that is unlike anywhere else in the world, it is a feeling that is so profound whether you are religious or not it doesn't matter, all encompasing a spirit of a land that has sacraficed, flourished and maintained a massive influence over millions of people all around the world for many thousands of years. These beautiful Semite cultures, Arabic, Jewish and the influx of Jewish migrants from the diaspora has created such an amazing, abundant, rich, ecclectic melting pot of poeple that you find yourself on a daily basis enveloped with the tales of peoples life stories. As a musician and a wandering minstral I found this news the most appealing, the peoples story nothing is glossed by political propaganda, nothing is polished by radicals agendas, it is just real people telling how they viewed cirtain situations and what they experienced at a personable level. I found myself stripped... and touched on a very deep level. I realised that the media can be a danger and not so informative as well, as for a person to hear about an event from another land and try to understand that as a truth is not so positive for poeple living half a world away. This brings me to the point of where I wrote a new song called Half a World Away, it questions how many of us are aware of our individual actions influencing people half a world away. What can we do at an individual level in action to help?