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Reflections on the sacred sites of the Holy Land during a Fellowship visit to Israel and Palestine in 1999. First published in Northern Oak, newsletter of the Pagan federation North East. Scene: The Temple of Pan at Banias, northern Israel. The best-preserved and probably the most important pagan site in the country. The actors: Elderly American tourist and his long-suffering middle aged daughter, participants in a Christian bus-tour pilgrimage round northern Galilee. Dad: "Gee, if it wasn't for the Church maybe we'd all still be worshipping goats like these guys did." Daughter: "Well, everyone's gotta worship something, I guess!" Eavesdropping English pagan: Wrestles with whether or not to declare himself a secret modern goat-worshipper, then bottles out. At the end of 1999 I was lucky enough to spend four weeks touring Israel after winning a travelling Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (see here for how you could too!) My working time was spent looking at psychotherapy and mental health services, but my free time and a hire car allowed me to tour the country in more depth and with more independence than the average holidaymaker. These are my reactions to what for many people is "The Holy Land". THOSE PESKY GOAT-WORSHIPPERS Banias is an Arabic name, originally Paneas - the city or region of Pan. (Apparently Arabic speakers find P hard to pronounce and the sound often shifts to B over time.) It's right in the north of the country, in the foothills of Mount Hermon - the highest and northernmost point of Israeli-controlled territory. In what is essentially a desert land, this little patch is a cool, moist haven. A south-facing cliff wall catches the sun all day and reflected it back with a gentle red glow on the afternoon of my visit. In the cliff face is a large cave, thirty feet high, and about as deep and as wide. From the cave springs a strong, cool, never-failing stream that is one of the main tributaries of the River Jordan. The place felt good even before I approached it. My guidebook called it the foremost pagan shrine in Israel, and my expectations were high. Even before I parked the car I felt a light, bubbling feeling which brought a smile to my lips - I almost wanted to laugh out loud for joy and exuberance. An artist's reconstruction shows how the Temple looked in Classical times; in front of the cave was a Roman-style temple, through which worshippers would have processed to gain access to the cave behind. The stream in turn would flow out through the building. To the right (east) of this temple a series of niches are carved directly into the sandstone of the cliff - empty now, but known to have contained statues of Pan, Jupiter, the nymph Echo and others. East again, still with cliff as a backdrop, and we get to the dancing floor, scene of our opening dialogue. Here the laughing spirit is strongest, and the information plaque reveals why. This was the place where, every spring, a pair of goats was brought to dance. The more vigorous the dance, the better the omens for the coming growing season. (Presumably the goats were two males, engaging in some pre-courtship conflict.) East again and there are the foundations of a small building which contained the remains of goats - probably each pair was sacrificed and the bones were treated with such reverence that they were kept in here. East again and the final element of the complex was a small temple where, presumably, the goat cult met, worshipped and sacrificed. Pan was apparently the last god to be actively worshipped there - in the days of the Eastern Roman empire 1500 or more years ago. 500 years before him it was Jupiter, and before the Romans got there, it was Baal. I longed to tell the American couple that the spirit of the place was still alive, well, and full of bouncy goat energy. But I contented myself with a coin thrown to the back of the cave as an offering to the god, hoping that its modern date would not unduly confuse the archaeologists of the future.
A CRAZY COCKTAIL The place was identified as the location of these events in the first century AD. Herod and his successors apparently got there first and built a temple to Diana somewhere nearby in the immediate years after Christ's death, not wanting the newfangled religion to get a foothold. But in 326CE Queen Helena arrived. (Emperor Constantine's mum - and he's the one who made Christianity the state religion of Rome.) She, so the story goes, was shown some likely spots outside the city wall and decided which of them was the place of crucifixion. She caused the first church to be built and then the schisms started. Copts, orthodox of various nationalities, Catholics ditto - each new group wanted a piece of the action. The Catholics, being a relatively recent sect, (ie not that much more than 1000 years old) have a relatively small slice. Johnny-come-latelies like the Protestants don't even get a look in. While I was there the Dominicans held a rather ostentatious procession to the Tomb area, brushing aside worshippers of other sects because this was their allotted, fought over and much prized time on centre stage. I gather that priests of competing sects interrupt one another's devotions constantly in a petty tit-for-tat which has been going on for over 1600 years and shows no sign of stopping. The building was badly damaged by an earthquake in the middle of the last century, and they still can't all agree on how to go about the repairs. I was moved by the effect the place obviously had on one or two people. An African woman - perhaps a Copt from Ethiopia - knelt in rapt oblivion and ignored the crowd. She poured water onto the stone of anointing, ran her hands over it, lay her cheek against it. Tourists gazed at her like an animal at the zoo. She obviously found something deeply moving and spiritual in the place; I think she must have brought it with her, as I found nothing. A WALL OF LOSS AND PAIN My first visit to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall or Ha Kotel to Jews, was on the birthday of my son, who was stillborn nine years ago. This coincidence - if it was one - powerfully affected my experience. To enter the enclosure next to the Wall I had to put on a skull-cap (after trying and failing to enter the women's enclosure by mistake!) and I joined a crowd of other men approaching the Wall itself. Every step towards it seemed to be made through treacle, or as if I was trying to push my way through some kind of force field. As I neared the Wall the feeling intensified and I became unaware of others around me, noises, anything but the stones of the Wall and an answering heaviness inside me. I lay my arm on the stones, lay my head on my arm and wept. Now, I don't weep at Jake's grave and haven't wept for him at all for years now. But the stones seemed to be saying that this is a place for sadness, for grief, for loss, for regret and for tears. Nobody seemed to notice me as I stood bowed over, my shoulders heaving, and yet I felt at one with the generations who have wept for their losses. I imagine soldiers have wept here for lost comrades, holocaust survivors for lost families, devout Jews for the loss of the Temple itself back in AD70. I went to Israel with a position of scepticism towards the Jewish state and in favour of the Palestinian Arab position in politics. Everything I found there confirmed my view on the political level, but this experience at the spiritual level was a revelation and cast my black and white thinking into confusion. Nearly 3000 years have passed since some of those stones became the foundation of the first Temple, and they seem to have absorbed all the mana, the longing and the prayers since then. I pushed my written prayer into a crack in the wall and left slowly, more affected by this sacred space than by any other I have ever visited. WAS IT HOLY FOR ME TOO? How do you name the place I visited for four weeks? Naming it Israel offends Palestinians who thereby become foreigners in the land of their birth. Calling it Palestine ignores the reality of the last fifty years. "The Holy Land" is a polite euphemism available to Christian visitors who do not want to offend either Israelis or Arabs. But was it holy for me? I found sacred space in unexpected places there. I had never heard of Banias, and had never expected the Western Wall to affect me as it did. I even held in my hands, in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem, an image of the Goddess made nearly 4000 years ago. She was suckling a baby at her breast, as that part of the world has suckled and sheltered civilisation itself. But it was only coming home, circling the Thames estuary before we landed, that I felt anything other than a visitor. Pan and Yahweh are active and powerful gods in Israel still, but they are not my gods. But the green of England, even in November, the grey glint of water standing in fields - an astonishing sight after a month in the desert - this is my Holy Land. KIM DENT-BROWN Note: The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust funds international travelling Fellowships of 1-3 months duration, with all expenses paid. A wide range of categories of Fellowship are advertised in June each year. Contact the Trust on 020 7584 9315 or visit their website at www.wcmt.org.uk for an application form.
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The
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is stark, staring bonkers.
In an hour there you can witness the whole range of behaviour from
confrontational power politics and gawping flash-gun popping tourism
to trance-like devotion and tears of heartfelt joy. It didn't do a
thing for me, beyond making me shake my head in disbelief. It's
supposed to be the site of Christ's crucifixion, anointment after
death, entombment and resurrection, each event having its own place
somewhere in the building. You can even get down and put your hand in
the socket which held the cross, or prostrate yourself on the slab
where he was anointed.
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