GOP VP Pick Gov. Sarah Palin - a Powerful choice

Within the last few hours the McCain campaign has announced its pick for VP candidate and brought Alaska Governor Sarah Palin onstage for her first appearance with McCain in Dayton, OH. Obviously there's a lot to be said about the historical nature of her candidacy as the first female GOP VP candidate. And the question of whether Hillary Clinton's female supporters will be swayed to vote Republican in November is a significant question. But what struck me about the choice as she walked onstage with her husband and children was the brilliant and potent connection she has to small-town America. It's nothing new that the Republican party has historically spoken louder to small-town America than the Democratic party - but with this choice, McCain may have officially eradicated Obama's chances of winning over any significant portion of this demographic.

Why am I so struck by Palin? Follow the jump and I'll tell you...


As McCain's pick for VP became increasingly apparent, I was intrigued by Palin's story - born in Sandpoint, Idaho (a small, wonderful community that I call a second home) and raised in Alaska; an Alum from the University of Idaho (a partner in my AmeriCorps stint after college) and of course her rise from city council member to mayor to governor.

But it wasn't until she appeared onstage with her husband and children that I thought Shit. Small-town, middle America is going to LOVE Sarah Palin.

First of all, her family is beautiful. Not in the rich, manicured sense often seen in political families, but in a manner which will resonate in the hearts of an awful lot of townfolk across America. Her husband is handsome, grizzled, tall and has an easy smile - and has no problem letting his wife take the stage while he stands with the kids. Her daughters are beautiful, and while I haven't seen what her oldest son looks like, he joined the US Army a year ago (on, um, Sept. 11) and, well, who doesn't like a young man in uniform? Oh, and did I mention her youngest son, born just a few months ago, has been diagnosed with Downs Syndrome? It's like something ripped straight out of the human interest section of People Magazine..except they're all standing on stage with Senator John McCain accepting the GOP VP nomination.

Her husband has been a commercial fisherman, in the steel-worker's union and is a classic back-woods outdoorsmen. She herself is a former union member and, Jesus, used to get up at 3 am to hunt with her father. I can't speak enough to the ways in which she, her family, and their stories will resonate with small town residents with whom I've celebrated bagging a 6'3" bear a fireman has been tracking for 5 weeks or a moose big enough to feed the family for two years. And, by the way, whose teenagers are the ones shipping off to Iraq.

And what was the Obama campaign's first response? To belittle her as a "mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience." Yes, this is a true statement. And it's also a statement that, combined with his image as an elitist, foreign candidate, I fear will push away any of the small-town Americans who may have been warming to his candidacy. When held up with the image I saw of Gov. Palin as a strong executive leader, warm mother of a radiant family spread between Iraq and Downs Syndrome and gracious supporter and ardent champion of the American people - including those who don't live in the cities but often struggle as much as any impoverished urban community - I can't help but think that John McCain has made a brilliant choice in his selection of GOP running mate.

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What would Shacharit-Yoga look like?

I'm sitting here with all this excess energy manifesting itself as heat radiating from the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet -- hardly the first time this has happened, and not the first time I've wondered whether there was some useful outlet I could channel this energy towards, perhaps along the lines of Reiki or some such. At any rate, I thought about the idea of "spirituality through movement," which is an idea important enough to me, in theory at least, that it is part of the reason behind the Lotus flower tattooed on my back.

So I began to think about morning rituals.


The first that came to mind was Shacharit, the traditional Jewish morning prayer. Before this thought, I should say, I spent some time attempting to channel this excess energy out of my body and into the world where perhaps it could warm someone in need of warmth while simultaneously cooling down my body. So I began to think of how, for many, the favored time for meditation is in the early morning...which in turn led me to think of the Jewish form of morning meditation - Shacharit.

Built into the structure of the Shacharit service is a scaffolding of prayers often compared to the ascending of a mountain. The initial prayers begin the process of removing sleep from the eyes and warming up one's soul as the prayers continue their progression towards higher planes of spirituality and kavanah (intention). At the peak of the service is the Amidah, during which one draws into his most introspective, personal self while at the same time attempting to open up to the sense of awe and connectedness to the world (at least, that's one way that I see it). Just as a climber cannot remain forever at a mountain peak, though, Shacharit continues into the "cool-down" prayers that gradually bring the davener back into the normal, physical space from which he or she can continue their day.

The previous paragraph is of course a hugely understated summary of the structure and progression of a traditional Jewish t'fillah, but serves its purpose in that there are parallels between its structure/progression and that of meditation and movement practices such as yoga or tai chi whose goal is to integrate body, mind and spirit - moving between planes and from physical spaces into spiritual and back. After all, one doesn't begin an hour of yoga by jumping straight into intricate twists, back bends or balancing acts. And in Shacharit (or any t'fillah, for that matter), one does not just jump straight into the Amidah. Just as there are bows and rhythmic movements during Shacharit that help stimulate blood flow to the muscles as well as the brain, Yoga often begins with sun salutations and forwards bends. So I begin to think now about ways in which a practiced yoga-practitioner could develop a progression of movements that parallel the progression of prayer during Shacharit, and how, with practice, the two could become an intertwined practice of morning meditation, movement and spirituality.

This is a very early thought, and I certainly don't have enough yoga experience to put something like this together just as yet. But as I consider arenas to explore during this fellowship year in Israel, this strikes me as maybe not a bad use of some personal time to begin peeling into some deeper layers of the ideas and motifs I have deemed personally important to who I am and what I value as a Jew and as a person.

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Ok, so it's been awhile - this is true. My apologies for my protracted absence. That said, it's about damn time for an update, so here goes.

Since my last post, I've spent a couple winter months working at Schweitzer Mtn Resort as a ski instructor, which was wonderful and during which I felt probably the healthiest I've felt in at least a few years. So, that was hard to leave, but leave I did before the season was over, to return to Olympic Park Institute where I continued as a field science educator through the spring season. The weather was, well, less than optimal at the start of the season (let's just say that late january-february isn't the best time for olympic peninsula weather) but by the end of the season it was spectacularly gorgeous and, again hard to leave. Follow the jump to find out where I went next :-)


Immediately following a great visit from my sis the last week of May, we drove back to Spokane where I spent a couple days before flying east to Ohio where I spent the summer as Teva Supervisor at Camp Wise, a JCC camp outside of Cleveland. I could write an entire post, or several, about my experiences there, but in short it was a great summer with some very warm and wonderful people, filled with campers small and large, many hikes and hours spent in front of campfires and even a few canoe and backpacking trips thrown in.

Last Sunday, I left camp a couple days early to head to NY for the stateside bit of orientation for the Dorot Fellowship in Israel, which occupies the next ten months of my life! Orientation was both enjoyable and intense, not for it's schedule, which was blessedly relaxed (a welcome change from the hectic pace of camp) but appropriately evocative of both the excitements and the challenges we are set to experience throughout the year. As such, I left orientation with excitement and a head full of thoughts for the challenges the year will bring.

A few other relevant bits of info: there are 12 fellows total, I will be starting off the year in Jerusalem doing ulpan and studying, but may spend time elsewhere after a few months. I'd like to get involved in some environmental work and education, spend as much time as I can traveling, hiking and backpacking (including hiking as much of the Israel National Trail as I can) but will undoubtedly find myself involved in a myriad of other projects and experiences that I have no way of anticipating yet. I have many, many more thoughts both on orientation and the coming year, and fully intend to express them in future posts that will be much more frequent from this point on! So tune back in regularly and if anyone is in Israel then look me up, because I would love to see you!

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