The Woke Yogi – Page 2 – Opening my third eye to injustice.

Austerity

Welcome to Part 4 of Sounding Off: Austerity. If you’re new to the Sounding Off series, you can quickly get caught up on the series archive!

In the past three weeks, we’ve unpacked a variety of premodern yogic traditions, from ultra-orthodox Brahminical Vedic Hinduism (Aurality, Antiquity) to radically subversive medieval Tantra (Alchemy). Today, we’re tackling the vast swath of South Asian history between the Upanishads and today – roughly 2500 years! – as we investigate the tradition of yogic asceticism and its evolutions through to the 21st century.

As you explore the content in the tabs below, consider the question that we seek to answer, each in our own ways:

Should we really be speaking Sanskrit in our yoga classes?

Check back next week, Wednesday July 24 for Part 5 of Sounding Off: Authority!

Alchemy

Welcome to Part 3 of Sounding Off: Alchemy. If you’re new to the Sounding Off series, you can quickly get caught up on the series archive!

In the first two parts of this series, we covered ancient yogic traditions like Vedic oral recitation and guru-śiṣya paramparā (master-disciple lineage). We discussed Sanskrit mispronunciations and debunked the illusion of antiquity in modern yoga.

This week, we’re jumping a few centuries forward, to medieval South Asia – where yogic tantra flourished. As you explore the content in the tabs below, consider the question that we seek to answer, each in our own ways:

Should we really be speaking Sanskrit in our yoga classes?

Check back next Wednesday, July 17 for Part 4 of Sounding Off: Austerity!

Antiquity

Welcome to Part 2 of Sounding Off: Antiquity! If you’re new to the Sounding Off series, you can quickly get caught up on the series archive.

Last week, in Aurality, we began our journey by investigating the Vedic oral tradition. This week, we’ll continue our discussion of ancient India, but we’ll inquire a bit deeper into the structures of power that make this tradition tick. As you explore the content in the tabs below, consider the question that we seek to answer, each in our own ways:

Should we really be speaking Sanskrit in our yoga classes?

Check back next week on Wednesday, July 10 for Part 3 of Sounding Off: Alchemy!

Aurality

Welcome to Part 1 of Sounding Off: Aurality. If you’re new to the Sounding Off series, you can quickly get caught up on the series archive!

This week, we’re diving in with the Vedic oral tradition, philosophies of sacred sound in South Asian religions, and the spiritual significance of Sanskrit in yoga. As you explore the content in the tabs below, consider the question that we seek to answer, each in our own ways:

Should we really be speaking Sanskrit in our yoga classes?

Check back next week (July 3rd) for Part 2 of Sounding Off: Antiquity!

Welcome to SOUNDING OFF!

When I first started teaching yoga, I was adamant about speaking Sanskrit in my classes. I memorized tons of Sanskrit terms and scoffed at teachers who only used the English pose names.

Then, as I learned more about South Asian history, all those foreign words in yoga class just started sounding…off.

Now, I know that there are two (or three, or a hundred) sides to every story. Written history only preserves the practices of the privileged, and yoga is no exception.

That’s why I’m launching Sounding Off, a 7-part critical series on Sanskrit in modern yoga. This series is intended as a practical guide for yoga teachers and casual practitioners, hobby linguists and aspiring Sanskritists, philosophers, skeptics, and long-time lovers of Indic spirituality. If you’re ready to think critically about the spiritual + socio-political dimensions of Sanskrit in modern yoga settings, stay tuned — for the next seven weeks, I’ll be sounding off right here on The Woke Yogi.

The series archive is live NOW. I’ll be updating that page weekly as I release new content on my blog. Each part of the series will include:

Research essays that translate rigorous, world-class yoga scholarship into accessible information for the general yoga community.
Poetic essays & other short creative pieces that ground these critical ideas in my personal experiences and embodied yoga practice.
Practical guide for yogis, including actionable tips, self-reflection questions, further readings, and other resources to help you integrate your learnings.

All this content is FREE & completely OPEN ACCESS! This is part of my mission to democratize yoga through jñāna (knowledge). Our objectives are as follows:

1. Contextualize Sanskrit within broader systems of power in South Asia.

2. Assess the pros and cons of speaking Sanskrit for yoga.

3. Critically analyze the role of Sanskrit in modern yoga settings.

Go explore the archive, find out what to expect, and come let me know in the comments which week you’re most excited for. Part 1 of the series, titled “Aurality,” will be available next Wednesday, June 26. Don’t forget to subscribe (sign-up in the sidebar to the right) and follow The Woke Yogi on social media (links below) to be sure that you don’t miss any new content!

Reflection Questions to Prime Your Thinking:

Do I speak Sanskrit in my yoga classes? Why or why not?
Do I know WHY Sanskrit is so often spoken in modern yoga classes?
How do I/ how can I honor the roots of yoga in my personal practice?

Tourists in Tiger Territory

The morning air in Basanti was warm, with smog draped over the pink-orange sunrise like a thick layer of grey chiffon. After a 2-hour drive southeast from my Dadu Ji’s (granddad’s) house in Kolkata, we had reached the far edges of the state of West Bengal and indeed the outer borders of the country of India, but we had not yet escaped the ring of air pollution that surrounds the city center.

The streets of Basanti town were abuzz with shopkeepers preparing their wares, mother cows bellowing to their young, and tropical birds cheerfully singing the tunes for which they were named: papiha (Common Hawk-Cuckoo), kokila (Asian Koel), kowah (Crow). Their songs were underscored by the incessant thrumming of mosquitoes, menacing man and animal alike as they flitted in search of their next victims. Mosquitoes, I believe, were put on this planet to humble humans — after all, their mere presence reduces us from power-hungry predators to paltry prey.

We unloaded our car briskly, swatting the air vigorously all the while, then made our way to the waterside, where a sign welcomed us:

Sundarbans National Park & Tiger Reserve

A boat and its crew awaited us at the dock: the Delta Queen, captained by a majestically mustached man named Mrittunjoy. The Delta Queen was our ticket into the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest situated within the world’s largest river delta. Spanning two countries (India and Bangladesh) and nearly 4,000 square miles, this region boasts a wide range of flora and fauna, with over 200 bird species alone. But the jungle, we were told, was full of terrible dangers—ranging from tree roots to tigers to territorial bees – and thus the water was the safest place for us to observe its biodiversity.

Mangrove trees are unique in that they have aerial roots or “breathing roots” that grow up and out of the water-logged soil. This incredible adaptation has enabled mangroves to thrive in extremely harsh, saline environments; however, these breathing roots are also very sharp and hazardous for land-dwellers.

Just as the sun began to peek out from behind its ashen curtain, the Delta Queen embarked on its 3-day journey into the Sundarbans Delta, where the sacred Ganges River empties into the Bay of Bengal. Mrittunjoy had a keen eye for spotting birds, and he promptly began to point out Kingfishers concealed in masses of mangrove roots. He soliloquized about the species of the Sundarbans; about the sea and its stringent saltiness; about the sweets that might be served at snack-time. Within only a few hours, we had seen deer, monitor lizards, birds of prey, and hundreds of mudskippers along the canal shores.

This amazing shot of a Black-Capped Kingfisher was captured by my incredibly talented uncle, Partha Pratim Saha. You can check out more of his photography on his Instagram and website.

Then, in the late afternoon, as our boat wove down a wider waterway, my sister leapt up from her seat and pointed excitedly towards land. I craned my neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of an elusive Bengal tiger. Instead, I saw…

A woman. She balanced a pot on her head as she retreated from the riverbank, the pleats of her sari swaying in time with her gait. I squinted at this sight, struggling to see what had attracted my sister’s attention.

“People live out here?” my sister asked in awe.

Despite the dangers advertised to us, people do in fact live out there: 4.5 million on the Indian side and even more in Bangladesh. Much of the Sundarbans is protected as a nature reserve, but this region is still one of the most densely populated in the world. The fertile floodplains surrounding the delta are ideal for agricultural production, and there are small fishing villages on the islands within the delta. These settlements are simple and extremely rural, sometimes only accessible by boat.

Discomfort settled over me as I realized that we had been observing these villagers with unabashed scrutiny, just as we had been observing the flora and the fauna. They’re not here for my viewing pleasure, I scorned myself. Yet, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The sight of this woman was jarring, I realized, because her life was so necessarily attuned and inextricably tethered to the patterns of the earth: the comings and goings of the rains, the cycles of the moon, the ebbs and flows of the tide. Every morning, while I stumble to my bathroom and turn on the tap, this woman carries a pot down to the riverside and fetches her water straight from the Sundarbans Delta. Though united by our shared humanity, I couldn’t help but feel species away from her, as distant as I felt from the exotic Kingfishers.

Over the remainder of our jungle cruise, Mrittunjoy pointed out local fishing boats and informed us about the villagers’ practices of collecting honey from wild rock bees. He explained that the locals fish the delta from June to December, then pause all fishing activities and collect honey between March and May to ensure sustainable harvesting practices. As he continued to intersperse facts about the local people’s customs with his commentary on cobras and crocodiles, my unease grew. I became acutely aware of the separation between us and them; between our tour boat and the Sundarbans – their home.

Indeed, from the safety of our tour boat, it was all too easy to view these villagers as another species altogether; to assume that they are somehow less susceptible to the forecasted dangers of the Sundarbans simply by virtue of surviving there everyday. This is not the case. The villagers enter the jungle at their own peril, for tiger attacks are common. Yet, they have no choice; aquaculture and beekeeping are the only ways for them to make a living. In this way, the villagers are equal contributors to the Sundarbans ecosystem; they survive on the offerings of the jungle, at any time prone to becoming offerings themselves – whether to tigers or to mosquitoes. Sometimes predators, sometimes prey, these villagers remind us that humans are but one species acting within complex, multi-species ecosystems. They challenge the illusion that humans are always, unequivocally, at the top of the food chain.

Some more breathtaking captures of the Sundarbans food chain by my uncle, Partha Pratim Saha.

But then, if the villagers are prey, what is it that seeks to predate them? Is it really the tigers, prowling innocently in search of their next meal? Or is it the tour companies that ferry paying foreigners out by the dozens, predatory in their promise of ‘exotic experiences’ at the expense of ecological peace? These tour companies are required to hold permits, and they are (in theory) regulated by strict legislation. But the laws prohibiting pollution are not enforced – I personally witnessed a great deal of waste during our three days onboard the Delta Queen. Though I remained firmly on the boat, I was drawn into this larger socio-political ecosystem of the Sundarbans, animated not by waters and winds but by neoliberal greed and corruption. We may have been safe from the jungle, but the jungle was not safe from us.

In climate change discourse, humans are usually positioned against nature — and for good reason! Humans have too often exploited nature’s balance to our gain. However, I reject the notion that humans are always and can only ever be antagonistic forces on nature. As we see in the Sundarbans, humans can be protectors and stewards of their lands; they, too, can contribute to ecological balance. We need only to remember that we are – despite our daily differences – the same species as the villagers of the Sundarbans. We are products of our environments, not just polluters of them.

Though protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the fragile brackish ecosystem of the Sundarbans is extremely vulnerable to climate change, and many of its inhabitant species are endangered—including humans!! Rising salinity levels, coastline erosion, cyclones, and floods threaten to disrupt the precarious natural balance of the Sundarbans and displace the millions of people who live there, triggering an environmental refugee crisis. We cannot allow this to happen!

Climate change is NOT inevitable OR irreversible.

We are ALL a part of this global ecosystem, and we all stand to benefit by saving it.

If you are interested in learning more about the Sundarbans, or if you’d like to donate in support of its inhabitants, please visit the links below:

Read about/ see maps of the Sundarbans UNESCO World Heritage Site

Read Misreading the Bengal Delta by Camelia Dewan

Donate to the Sundarban Foundation to support tiger victims and other humans in the Sundarbans through medical aid, employment, and education.

Donate to The Canopy Project Sundarbans to support environmental conservation and restoration.

Donate to AID India to support natural disaster relief and climate resilience infrastructure.

Photo by Partha Pratim Saha

A Meditation on Yoga

“Inhale, arrive on your mat.”

It was my very first yoga class, and I was there because I aspired to touch my toes.

“Exhale, shiiiiine your love outward like a rainbooowwww,” the Lululemon-clad instructor crooned, “and remember: yoga is whatever you make it!”

Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, westerners viewed yoga as an esoteric tradition: practiced on the fringes of orthodox Indic societies by magicians and priests; shrouded in superstition. But when Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda spoke about yoga at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and when the physical fitness revival of the early 20th century swept the globe, yoga exploded into the mainstream. Hindu nationalists hailed yoga with a newfound vigor, touting its indigenous character. New Age hippies were equally enamored; since the 1950s, yoga studios have popped up around the globe, attracting celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Adam Levine, while brands like Alo Yoga and prAna have seized the athleisure market. Suddenly, yoga is no longer a secretive lineage from the ‘exotic East,’ but a popular fad – a stretching routine. Yoga is…just exercise?

“Inhale, stay.”

I closed my eyes and an ethereal sitar tune began to play, transporting me to the Indian subcontinent of millennia past.

The earliest known definition of yoga appears in India’s oldest text, the Rig Veda, dated 1500 to 1000 BCE. In these ritual prescriptions, yoga means ‘to yoke’ or ‘to connect;’ it is the action of harnessing a horse to a war chariot, therein submitting the horse to the charioteer’s will. Several centuries later, in the Upaniṣadic texts, yoga became a series of exercises for one to restrict the body and discipline the mind, usually as a means to seek metaphysical power or attain mystical union with god. The 3rd century BCE Kaṭha Upaniṣad asserted that yoga is “firm restraint of the senses.” As one harnesses a horse to a chariot, yoga harnesses the mind to the body. I was starting to understand this form of torture self-restraint as the instructor reminded me to return to my breath, even though we had been sitting criss-cross-applesauce forever and I couldn’t feel my feet. Whether the goal is to commune with the cosmos or simply to condition your quads, yoga is control.

“Exhale, downward dog!”

I pressed myself up, relieved to distract my mind, only to discover a new kind of fatigue igniting in my legs and shoulders. My body began to shake, and I fought the urge to collapse back to the ground. Evidently, yoga is as mental as it is physical. In the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna tells royal warrior Arjuna that yoga is “skill in action.” He commands Arjuna to be a yogi to fulfill his divine duty–of slaughtering his own family on the battlefield. Like Arjuna, I failed to see the purpose of my excruciating position, and like Krishna, my teacher was strangely militant about demonstrating yogic willpower – albeit through core workouts, not holy war. Yoga, then, is the discipline to do what you may not want to; the patience to serve a greater good that you may not yet understand. Yoga is control.

“Inhale, three-leg dog!”

The room burst into a silent symphony of swaying limbs. The yogis around me contorted themselves into incomprehensible shapes, touching their toes in a thousand ways that I never thought possible. The teacher rattled off foreign words: śvānāsana, añjaneyāsana, uttānāsana…

Āsana means “seat” or “posture,” and it is one technique by which yogis discipline their bodies in pursuit of spiritual power. Around 200 CE, āsana appeared as the third precept in the Yoga Sutra, an aphoristic text on yoga philosophy. At that time, however, the list of āsanas was limited to those suitable for seated meditation: sukhāsana, padmāsana, and vajrāsana. It wasn’t until much later, in the 13th century Haṭhapradīpikā, that āsana was elevated to a foremost priority. The Haṭhapradīpikā codified 84 total postures, and furthermore recommended bandhas (muscular locks), mudrās (gestures), dṛṣṭis (gazing points) and prāṇāyāmas (breath restraint techniques) to train and constrain the body. Yoga is control.

“Exhale, warrior two!”

The pace of class quickened, and the postures began to flow together, fast and fluid.

“Inhale, reverse triangle!”

The music intensified, matching the rhythmic pulse of breaths in unison.

“Exhale, extended side angle!”

A bead of sweat dripped off my forehead.

“Inhale, half-moon!”

My feet hurt. My breath burned in my throat. I wanted very badly to be done.

“Exhale, chaturanga dandasana!”

Really? Push-ups? I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.

“Inhale. Pause.”

I laid down on my back. The sensation of movement lingered in my tissues as my breath slowed.

In the Yoga Sutra, āsana is merely a step taken to prepare oneself for samādhi: a pure state of meditative consciousness. Yoga is citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ: “the stilling of the turnings of the mind.”

“Exhale. Rest.”

I dropped into śavāsana: the pose of the corpse. The air in the studio quieted. My body softened, my mind stilled. For a time, I was neither sensing nor sleeping, but simply experiencing. Yoga is the absence of sensory intake; both this moment of uncanny stillness and every moment that builds up to it. First, yoga is just exercise, and then it is control. But ultimately, yoga is surrender.

Ten Things I’ve Learned from Mycelium

Happy National Mushroom Month, everyone!!!

I am a massive mycophile—that is, I’m obsessed with mushrooms! My passion started from a young age; a lot of kids despise the taste or texture of mushrooms, but I would happily devour them. As I got older, I learned that there are so many more options than the bland button varieties that you can find in mainstream grocery stores, and I began to experiment with gourmet mushrooms in my cooking. To date, my favorite recipes include oyster mushroom shawarma, lion’s mane “crab” cakes, trumpet mushroom “scallops,” ramen noodles in shiitake broth, and cremini risotto.

Oyster Mushroom Fried Rice

Lion’s Mane “Crab” Cakes

I developed a craving for gourmet mushrooms that could not be satisfied by my local Kroger, so visits to Asian grocery stores and Saturday morning farmer’s markets became a weekly pastime of mine. I loved arriving at the mushroom vendor’s stand early in the morning so I could have first pick from their discount bin!

Yet, I also love to hike, and every time I wandered into the woods, I noticed little mushrooms cropping up along the trails. For years, I wondered if it might be worthwhile to venture into the alluring, unknown world of mushroom foraging. Every time I brought it up, though, I always got the same cryptic, bemused warning: “every mushroom is edible once!”

For too long, I waited for an experienced forager to come along and show me the ropes of their dangerous hobby. I thought that I couldn’t possibly teach myself; I needed an expert to show me how to distinguish between the yummy varieties, the deadly varieties, and the mind-melty varieties. After all, there are thousands of mushroom-producing fungi out there—I would have no idea where to start!

Enter Skyler, my partner and self-proclaimed mycologist. Skyler doesn’t believe that silly things like “scientific qualifications” should dictate what a person can and cannot do. Early in our relationship, we bonded over our shared interest in fungi, and he encouraged me to get out there and start foraging. So, we did. Armed with our brand-spanking-new copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America, we headed up into the foothills of Boulder, Colorado and commenced our search.

Our first major victory was a gorgeous family of oyster mushrooms piled together on a stump beside a creek. At the time, we still lacked confidence in our identification, so we left the bunch there for the next round of hikers to enjoy its beauty.

Several months later, we were visiting Sky’s family in Pennsylvania when we drove past a tree with a mysterious white blob growing on it. Personally, I didn’t give it a second thought, but Skyler’s mycelial senses were tingling. He insisted that we return to the tree the next day, and sure enough, it was a massive growth of the alien-like Hericium Coralloides, or Coral’s Tooth Fungus! We still weren’t positive about our ID, but our meager few months of foraging had taught us that there are no poisonous Hericium varieties; even if we were wrong about the species, it was still edible. I cleaned the mass thoroughly, sliced it into thick steaks, and fried them up with some butter. It was on that day that Sky and I tasted our first wild find. I lifted a forkful of the mystery mushroom to my mouth and took a cautious nibble. It tasted like…chicken? I waited a moment to see what would happen. When I didn’t immediately pass out, I took another bite, and then another. It had a crisp, woodsy flavor that I had never experienced before—similar to the button mushrooms I had grown up with, but stronger, more intoxicating. I offered a plate to Sky’s parents, who graciously declined; they were obviously not as confident in our foraging abilities as we were. Fair enough.

Well, I am pleased to report that I did not die from eating the fruits of that forage. Ever since that day, I have been honing my foraging skills and growing more confident in my ability to identify edible species. The mycelium have taught me many things over the past few years, and I am happy to share some of their wisdom with you, here:

1. Looks Can Be Deceiving

One of the trickiest things for new foragers to navigate is the many mushroom lookalikes. Sky and I often refer to this meme when trying to identify a new species:

Take, for example, the loveable oyster mushroom. This fungus is prevalent throughout North America and considered a “choice” edible—that is, it’s delicious and versatile! But it closely resembles the Angel’s Wing mushroom, which is deadly poisonous, and the two are not easily distinguished by visual markers.

Can you guess which one is the Angel’s Wing?

Similarly, there’s the sought-after chanterelle, identified by its vivid orange color and concave cap. Yet, it is easily mistaken with the toxic Jack-O-Lantern mushroom, which shares those very same characteristics and can also induce severe gastrointestinal distress.

This is a trick question; neither of these are chanterelles or jack-o-lanterns 🙂

Take heed, amateur foragers: even if you feel quite confident that you’ve discovered a well-known, safe species, you should always cross-reference between at least two sources. I prefer to compare my Peterson’s Field Guide, which has illustrated images, with my regional guide, All That the Rain Promises and More, which includes color photographs. If I’m still unsure, I take a spore print and turn to my trusted mycological Facebook groups.

Besides, looking at a mushroom is rarely enough to positively identify it. If you ever flip through a fungal field guide, you’ll notice that identification often employs many senses. For example:

The Gap-Tooth Webcap smells faintly of radishes, and the Ivory Cavalier has an odor of cracked wheat. The Beach Brittlegill smells like maraschino cherries!
The Orange Stump Mushroom, despite its name and corresponding color, drops purple-brown spores. The Lilac Bonnet has spores which are white or cream in color, even though its cap and stem are a light purple.

The Fragile Brittlegill will crumble easily in your hand, as its name suggests; the Scarlet Brittlegill has a thin layer of pink skin that can easily be pulled off its cap.
The Greenspot Milkcap has a tacky texture while young, which dries as it matures; the Almond Waxycap is sticky and smooth, but only when wet!

Too often, my friends send me blurry photos of mushrooms with their ID requests. Regretfully, I can rarely identify a fungus without investigating its texture and durability, the color of its cap, stalk, and bruises, the way its gills connect to its cap, the earth or wood which it grows from, or its spore print. Just as you should never judge a book by its cover, you should never try to identify a mushroom by a first glance.

Here, I must make a disclaimer: DO NOT EAT ANYTHING THAT YOU ARE NOT 100% SURE ABOUT! And please do not hold me liable for your foraging fumbles 😊 This article is purely for entertainment purposes: I encourage all aspiring foragers to first venture out with a more experienced hobbyist.

2. Water Gives Life; So Too Does Fire

The best time to go foraging for mushrooms is after a good rain. Mushrooms are merely the fruiting body of a much larger organism, the mycelium, which grows underground. Moisture seeping into the soil creates perfect conditions for mycelium to reproduce, indicating that NOW is the right time to push mushrooms out of the ground and spread spores, with the hopes of spreading or strengthening the mycelial colony.

Yet, mycelium is a complex organism that responds to many ecological factors, not just water. And of course, with hundreds of thousands of species of fungus out there, they each respond to a different set of factors during different seasons. Some need light, while some prefer to be shrouded in darkness. Some are particularly picky about soil pH, while others will literally grow out of concrete. An excellent example of this complexity is the coveted morel. Morels are notoriously hard to cultivate, hence their high selling price, but we mycophiles get quite a laugh every spring, when unsuspecting gardeners find massive patches of morels in their landscaping beds. They’re unpredictable, as mushrooms are wont to be.

NOT a morel! This is a stalked puffball.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful facets of the fungal kingdom is the Burn Morel. As its name suggests, this morel variety appears in burn sites in the years following a wildfire. The morchella fungus maintains a mycorrhizal relationship with conifer trees at any given time, just as other mycelium live in harmony with other types of forests. However, morchella (morel) mushrooms only fruit after a wildfire! Professional mycologists remain baffled by this phenomenon. However, it is safe to assume that wildfires return certain nutrients to the earth, such as carbon, which create the necessary conditions for burn morels to flourish. Unlike “natural” morels, burn morels are remarkably reliable and incredibly prolific in fresh burn scars.

Burn morels draw a striking parallel to one of my favorite aspects of Hindu/ Yogic mythology: The Destroyer. Unlike many Western philosophies, the Hindu tradition acknowledges death and destruction as an integral part of the cycle of life. There are two main destroyer gods: Shiva (male) and Kali (female). In their respective myths, both gods are responsible for burning the cosmos at the end of each age to make way for new creation. Much like the burn morels that surface after a period of great ruin, Kali and Shiva destroy the world so that life can begin anew.

3. Manage Your Expectations

Early in my foraging journey, I had such high hopes for every expedition. I thought that the choice edibles must be out there, if only I looked hard enough. I turned over every log, peered under every leaf, spent half of my searches clearing brush in the hopes that I would find just one morel.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how hard you seek—there’s simply nothing to be found.

As I mentioned before, mushrooms need precise conditions to fruit. Usually, it’s too dry; sometimes it’s too wet, or too hot, or too shady, or the mushrooms just aren’t feeling it that day. It pays to know where and when to look, but it also pays to manage your expectations. There will be days when you don’t see a single fruiting body, and there will be others where you can’t take three steps without seeing one. It all balances out.

Moreover, I have come to learn that a successful foraging journey isn’t always one that ends with a basket full of edibles. Yes, it’s nice to have something to show for my hard work (and to save some money on groceries!), but the fungal kingdom is a wild, whimsical world, full of plenty of fantastical species that are not meant to be eaten. Consider, for a moment:

A freshly emerged Amanita, the remnants of its veil stretching and tearing as it reaches towards the sky?
A velvety bolete, its stem bruised blue from close encounters with its forest kin?
An aged inky cap, its gills auto-digesting into pitch black sap that drips down in slow motion?

A razor-thin row of mazegills, curling themselves into a pristine Fibonacci rosette?
A series of fluted bird’s nest fungi, their tiny cups filled with impossibly small spore eggs?
A blood-red russula, its cap melting and disintegrating into grey ooze as it is reclaimed by the earth?

When you stop searching the forest for only the things that benefit you, you can start to recognize the magic inherent to the natural world. In this way, you are sure to be amazed by every romp in the woods, whether or not you come home with dinner.

Come roll in all the riches all around you, and for once, never wonder what they’re worth!

4. Strive to Be Misunderstood

Mycelium is the primary decomposer of nature; its role is to break down decaying matter and return its energy to the ecosystem. As such, mushrooms tend to get a bad reputation as being associated with death and decay. While that may be true, we could not survive without mycelium—toxins would build up, poisoning our planet with stagnant compounds and odors of rot. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred. Mycelium is the OG recycling facility—it undergirds all biological transformation and enables all life to continue.

Besides that, mushrooms are neither plants nor animals—they’re a secret third thing: fungus, of course!

We humans have more in common with fungus, genetically speaking, than we do with plants. That is because animals and fungi evolved from a common ancestor about 1.1 billion years ago. We also have fungus to thank for plants; when plants were first migrating out of the oceans, they lacked the root systems necessary to survive on land. They enlisted mycelium to act as their roots, transporting nutrients from soil to foliage, until the plants evolved to do so on their own. Mycelium is truly magical!

I am totally and utterly enchanted by fungus, but not everyone feels the same way. Many people turn their nose up when I mention mushroom pizza; still others’ eyes bug out of their heads when they hear that I’m serving up my fresh wild finds. If I’m honest, I like it that way—more mushrooms for me!

5. The Devil is in the Details

Mushrooms are sneaky! You’d be hard pressed to walk through the forest and not spot a tree or a bird or a rock. On the other hand, you could easily hike for several miles without ever spotting a fungus.

Mushrooms thrive in the moist, shadowy undergrowth: some live lonely lives underneath the leaf litter, while others crowd together in cramped clusters on the dark side of fallen logs.

Sure, some mushrooms are divas, like these scarlet bonnets that appeared in the middle of the trail near my house in urban Seattle:

But most mushrooms are shy things, hidden away behind brush and brambles. If you’re looking for the good stuff, you better be willing to wander off the beaten path and get your hands a little dirty. Sometimes it’s all about the angles—you may not spot a ground-level mushroom from your usual standing height, but if you crouch down, peer through the vegetation, tilt your head, close one eye…okay, close the other eye, visualize it in your mind’s eye…and then, poof! You may just spot something that you never could have caught on your casual forest stroll.

6. Every Day is Precious

Beyond the gamble inherent to eating mushrooms, I know many foragers who avoid mushrooms because they prefer the longer harvest seasons of other edibles: 2-3 months for blackberries, 4 months for rosehips, and 6-9 months for dandelions, to name a few Washington natives. By contrast, mushrooms are ripe and ready to harvest for a much shorter period: typically 1-3 days. This, of course, depends on the mushroom species—some amanitas, for example, take 24-48 hours to fully unfold.

Two photos of the same mushrooms, taken 24 hours apart.

Polypores, on the other hand, may live many months to many years, but their tough, leathery form makes them unsuitable for eating. It’s best to leave these fungus friends to their important ecological roles: parasitizing and breaking down dead trees.

Regardless, after the first flush, foragers have a very quick turnaround to get to fungal fruits before the other critters do. Day 1 is prime time to harvest your finds, which is why you should always head out on that first day after a rainstorm. Day 2 is when various forest factors begin to take over: bugs, mold, and dirt, among others. By day 3, most mushrooms begin to decompose, their fragile parts overtaken by the elements. Spores scatter; stems splinter; caps crack; the fruiting body liquefies itself, all too ready to rejoin the pine needles and crisp leaves marinating in the morning dew. By this point, it simply isn’t worth your effort to harvest, and you’d be better off waiting for the next flush.

7. Never Mind a Hitchhiker

If you can’t handle a few bugs, mushroom foraging probably isn’t for you…

…’nuff said.

8. Not Every Mushroom is Magical

8. Every Mushroom is Magical!

I think I speak for every mushroom forager alive when I say…

Stop assuming that we’re searching for psychedelic mushrooms! Psychoactive mushrooms constitute an inconceivably small fraction of the entire fungal kingdom. While psilocybes are native to every continent, so too are thousands of other fungi, many of which have amazing edible and medicinal properties that oft go overlooked. Fungus is the future: from cleaning up oil spills to curing terminal illnesses to protecting honeybees to solving mazes to crafting sustainable materials, the benefits of fungus far surpass the mental/ emotional/ spiritual benefits that may be gleaned from psilocybin therapy—although I do not at all mean to downplay the incredible healing potential for psilocybin medicines!

What I mean to say is that all mushrooms are magical, not just the ones that make you see God. Besides, if I always went out searching for magic mushrooms, I would be disappointed nearly every time.

9. Trust Yourself!

You don’t have to go foraging with the intention of eating whatever you find. Why not just venture into the woods and see what you encounter? Trust that you’ll see something incredible, and you will!

If Skyler had never convinced me to call myself an amateur mycologist, I might never have gone out in search of mushrooms. If I hadn’t worked up the nerve to try that Coral’s Tooth Fungus from a random tree in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, I might never have developed the self-confidence to make my favorite meal, oyster mushroom shawarma, every time it rains near my house. If you never try, you’ll never know. Trust that you’ll learn as you go—and if you don’t, at least you’ll have gotten out of the house.

10. We Are All Connected

Mycelium is the largest organism in the world. It weaves neural networks in the ground, stretching and winding for miles underneath every step we take. We may only see it when it fruits, but trust and believe that there is fungus among us—literally everywhere we go, from the untouched old growth forest to the most densely populated metropolitan hubs.

Even more incredible is the wood-wide-web, a network of mycorrhizal fungi that maintain a symbiotic relationship with tree roots. Trees and mycelium live together harmoniously; the fungi feed on decaying plant material, while the plants use the mycelium to communicate, warning one another of pests, drought, disease, and even allowing mother plants to share nutrients with their offspring, thus ensuring the longevity of the ecosystem. Mycelium connects the forest just as it connects us; by learning from, using, and loving fungi, we enter into symbiosis; we partake in the massive mycorrhizal network that links forest to forest, region to region, continent to continent. Indeed, we are all connected, and my short stints in the woods are mere reminders of our implicit interconnectedness.

Just a few days ago, I visited Mount Rainier National Park in my home state, Washington. As I wandered along a low elevation trail in the dewy morning air, I encountered a small bolete. I was fascinated by the way its yellow stem bruised deep blue under my touch; I crouched to snap a picture of its brilliant polychromatism.

Just as I did so, a family of three walked up behind me: a mother, a father, and a young girl of about 10 years. The girl bravely asked,

“Do you know what kind of mushroom that is?”

I admitted that sadly, I had forgotten my field guide at home; I couldn’t be sure of its edibility without a positive identification. After asking her what she knew about mushrooms, I showed her the bruising on the stalk and explained the process of fungal auto-digestion. She listened carefully, wide-eyed, nodding along occasionally. Then, she turned to her parents and said, with an air of self-assuredness impressive for a girl of her age,

“I told you she was a mushroom person.”

I will carry this title like a badge of honor: mycelium has taught me so much, and I am very proud to be a mushroom person!

A Visionary Experience

“Organic…wheatgrass…smoothie stand…” I muttered to myself, my breath hitching as I trotted along the uneven dirt path. I had been walking for maybe 20, max 25 minutes. The journey wasn’t long, but I didn’t exactly know where I was going, and after twenty-some minutes alone with my own thoughts, I began to wonder if I had already passed my destination. I peered over my shoulder and saw the same stretch of road I had just walked. No smoothie stand. It must be further ahead, then, I thought, and kept walking.

“Smoothies…organic smoothies…”

I wasn’t craving a smoothie. No, I wasn’t really looking for the smoothie stand at all. Rather, I was seeking what lay behind the smoothie stand; an elusive treasure promised to me by a stranger…

I had arrived in Tulum the night before, with only my yoga mat and a small backpack in tow. For the three weeks prior, I had been living with a Mexican host family in Merida.

The bus ride between the two Yucatecan cities was a few short hours, but transportation delays and my own neglect to consider time differences caused me to nearly miss the check-in window at my hostel. Luckily, the staff at “Mama’s Home” took pity on me.

After a good night’s rest in my shared dormitory, I woke early, intent on making the most of my weekend in Tulum. Mama’s Home Hostel served delicious homemade breakfasts every morning!

Mama’s Home was in the heart of town, but the locals insisted that I check out the beach. So, on my first visit to Mexico’s East coast, I boarded a local bus. The beach in Tulum is lined with resorts, boutiques, cafes, and art installations; I took my time meandering along the street and observing the city’s unique aesthetic.

It was during this wander that I first encountered the work of Daniel Popper, a 3D-multimedia artist who specializes in larger-than-life feminine statues. After this trip, I sought out Daniel Popper’s astonishing works at music festivals, a conservatory in Vegas, and a pop-up exhibit in a Chicago arboretum.

This installation served as my gateway to the white sand beaches of Tulum, and I stepped through the statue’s heart space towards my first glimpse of the Caribbean Sea. Almost immediately, I was greeted by a spritely vendor with a massive load of fresh coconuts.

“Veinte pesos!” he offered, and I couldn’t resist. I watched with glee as he picked out my coconut and hacked off the top with his machete. He plopped a straw into the hole, handed it to me, and quickly took off down the coast, his coconuts clanging cacophonously as his feet plodded against the sand. I settled into a resort chair—though I wasn’t a paying guest, no one seemed to mind my presence—and sipped the sweet coconut water.

After my refreshment break, I set off down the beach in search of a yoga studio. Tulum is notorious among Western yogis for its selection of top-tier yoga classes and instructors, so I was eager to check out the scene for myself. Indeed, I found several options within a half-mile stretch, ranging from sound baths to Yoga Nidra to Kundalini. I eventually opted for a familiar offering: slow vinyasa flow. The studio was breathtaking: a free-standing room on the beach with floor to ceiling glass windows and a pristine view of the ocean. I was the first to arrive, and I enjoyed the ambience for several minutes in blissful solace.

When the class time rolled around, the instructor appeared to let me know that I was the only one enrolled! We chatted for a bit before beginning my inadvertent private lesson. I was surprised to learn that my yoga teacher was not from the Yucatan Peninsula, nor would she be showcasing a unique Tulum style of yoga—rather, she had grown up and completed her yoga training in California. Nonetheless, her class provided exactly what I had been craving: a dynamic yet gentle sequence of postures and transitions, enhanced by the sound of waves lapping against the shore.

After savasana, I thanked the instructor, and we shared tidbits from our respective teacher trainings. I learned that she, like me, had traveled to Tulum in her early 20’s and fallen in love with the slow-paced, ethereal atmosphere. When her husband received an offer to relocate for work, she was all too happy to leave her life in the States and open her own studio in Quintana Roo. Our conversation eventually lulled, and I prepared to bid her farewell. As I rolled up my mat, though, I hesitated. I had an inquiry for her, though I did not know whether she would have an answer for me. Worse: I did not know whether my inquiry might be seen as tacky or even offensive. I chewed my lip for a moment, contemplating. Finally:

“Do you know where I might find a plant medicine ceremony?”

I expected a grimace, an eyeroll, or a gasp, but I received no such response. Instead, the instructor paused for a moment, deep in thought, and then said,

“Try the organic wheatgrass smoothie stand.”

So, that’s how I ended up on the roadside, clinging desperately to a blind faith in my yoga instructor’s vague directions. This was a new experience for me, and I had known coming in that I wouldn’t find a clear list of options on Tripadvisor. Even still, I was a bit unsettled by the prospect of approaching a random smoothie vendor and asking them for mind-altering drugs. Would they scorn me? Would they laugh? Would they turn me into the local authorities? I truly had no idea what to expect.

At the ripe age of twenty-one, I was no stranger to the world of psychoactive substances. I grew up in Colorado, where recreational cannabis was legalized just after my 14^th birthday. By the time I went to study abroad in Mexico, I was a certified psychonaut, but I had never undergone a psychedelic experience with a guide, save for the rare occasions when my roommate happened to be home and offered, jokingly, to be my “trip sitter.” I was, as drug users go, quite responsible; I was careful to always assess the risks of each substance, measure my dose meticulously, and prepare a safe setting in the event of a bad trip. I had never seen a need for a guide. However, I had journeyed to Tulum seeking a spiritual release, and I knew that this city would be the perfect place to dip my toes into the waters of sacramental drug use.

After another ten minutes of walking aimlessly, I encountered the first marker of my destination: a hand-painted wooden sign with the words “Vegan Organic Wheatgrass Smoothies.” The smoothie stand itself was only a few meters off the road, a quaint wooden hut with a roof of dried palm fronds, nestled within a lush garden of tropical plants. I approached hesitantly, still not knowing what or how to ask for what I desired. Luckily, I didn’t have to—a middle-aged Mexican woman behind the bar flashed me a comforting smile and handed me a menu. Internally, I facepalmed—duh, I should order something, I thought to myself. In feeble Spanish, I informed the woman about my vegetarianism and asked for her recommendation. She pointed to one of the specials, barbecue jackfruit tacos, and I nodded eagerly in agreement.

Within minutes, the woman had served me a stunning plate of plant-based tacos, complete with freshly squeezed orange juice and their house salsa. This meal was a welcome sight, for I had already learned that Mexican cuisine is not the most vegetarian friendly. Back in Merida, I had repeatedly told my host mom “no como carne!” (“I don’t eat meat!”), only for her to serve me ham sandwiches and arroz con pollo. She was such a gracious host that I was happy to eat whatever she offered me, but I was incredibly grateful to finally have some animal-free dietary options.

As I savored my meal, I basked in the beauty of the surrounding garden and worked up the nerve to ask for what I had come for. At last:

“Do you know where I could find a plant medicine ceremony?” I gulped my orange juice nervously, awaiting her response.

“Ah, si,” she replied immediately. “Go talk to the man in there.” Much to my surprise, she pointed to a small building behind me.

I quickly finished my meal, walked over to the modest hotel, and repeated my question to the man behind the desk. He confirmed that I was in the right place. Before I could even process what happened, we agreed that I would come back the following morning at 7 am—“just as the sun is rising,” the man said, “it will be beautiful.”

I went through the rest of that afternoon and evening in a state of slight disbelief and gripping fear. What had I signed up for? Should I even trust this man? Was I putting myself in danger by agreeing to this? In hindsight, my concerns were perfectly valid, and perhaps I should have asked more questions before I paid the man to reserve my ceremony (a measly $100 USD for what I perceived as a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience). Even still, I am glad that I calmed myself and embraced the unknown. The next morning, I awoke before first light and tiptoed around the hostel to avoid waking my roommates. At 6:30, I set off down the same road I had walked the previous day, this time knowing confidently where I was headed.

Just as the sun’s light began to peek over the horizon, I arrived at the hotel and greeted my facilitator, whose name I learned was Valtteri. He led me through the garden behind the hotel towards a lone tipi nestled within the lush vegetation. He then introduced me to his assistant and invited me to get comfortable amongst the many blankets and pillows laid out on the tipi floor. He began to explain the medicine offering: 5-MEO-DMT, not a plant medicine after all, but in fact the venom of the toad known as Bufo Alvarius, which is native to the Mexican Sonoran Desert. My heart was racing out of my chest, but he spoke slowly and steadily, and I began to feel calm by listening to his voice. I tried to focus on my breath in an attempt at getting my heartrate under control.

Valtteri asked me if I had ever experienced the toad medicine, and I shook my head. He smiled knowingly but did not say anything; I imagine he did not want to create any expectations for me. Instead, he explained the method of ingestion. Though he gave clear and concise instructions, I could feel my stomach twisting into knots. What if I did it wrong? What if I missed a step? What’s the worst thing that can happen?

My facilitator did not give me time to dwell on my anxieties. He immediately launched into a guided meditation focused on the breath. Those ten minutes felt like an eternity. I attempted to clear my mind and listen only to the sensations in my body, which were clouded by the overbearing thump-thump of my heart in my chest. My logical mind fought for dominance against my emotional center, and I tried desperately to suppress my panic without tensing my body or losing the rhythm of my breath. Finally, Valtteri asked me to open my eyes. His assistant handed him a small glass pipe, which he promptly held up to my mouth.

“Breathe in,” he instructed, and began to light the pipe. I did as I was told. Almost immediately, a burning sensation erupted in my lungs. My years of smoking weed could never have prepared me for that moment—I wanted to exhale, to choke, to cry out, but Valtteri said firmly, “keep going.” I did as I was told. I inhaled until my lungs were full of red-hot air, swirling and smoldering and igniting my airways. I inhaled for a thousand years and felt my chest imploding with the shape of smoke, my blistering breath combusting inside me. And then, when I thought I couldn’t possibly inhale anything more, Valtteri said, “hold it in.” I did as I was told.

I must have exhaled at some point. I vaguely remember seeing a cloud of wispy smoke dissipating before me. I believe Valtteri guided me through one more inhale, though my memory of the ingestion disintegrates into conjecture after the first hit. Valtteri’s voice began to sound very distant, as though I was falling down a deep well and he was calling to me from the top. At some point, the blazing fire in my lungs faded away, overtaken by the more pressing concern of my rapidly dissolving consciousness. The edges of my periphery blurred, followed soon after by my entire field of vision. I began to vibrate.

At first, the vibrations were gentle and low, emanating from deep within my gut. Then, the vibrations grew stronger and stronger, crescendoing in a symphony of high-frequency tremors that resonated outwards from my being and caused the earth beneath me to quake and tremble violently. Just as the pulsations arrived at a deafening throb, I heard Valtteri speak to me from someplace far away: “lay back.”

I did as I was told, and I immediately slipped into the warm embrace of the visionary realm.

My blurry, precarious grip on reality exploded into unprecedented clarity. I was suddenly drenched in the full spectrum of color, swimming in a pool of blinding saturation. Every shade of the rainbow splintered into fractals simultaneously. Each hue gave way to a new shape in succession: circles, stars, spirals, supernovas. They blended into one another seamlessly, creating a harmonious cinema of kaleidoscopic beauty.

I was no longer in my body. I was not merely a detached observer; I was not separate from the kaleidoscope at all. Rather, I was careening down its center, being absorbed and resorbed by a boundless pattern of pigmented particles. My limbs, my torso, my head, all these parts of me had ceased to exist, and I rode the current of colors like the high soprano of a violin, ringing amidst its counterparts in a bright orchestral swell. The energy within my prismatic world surged and softened, crested and calmed. I floated above it all.

Magenta rings shattered into lavender mandalas; rust-colored rhombi fragmented into scarlet diamonds; cobalt crosses fractured into dazzling lime angles. Each mosaic ruptured into one more breathtaking than the last, weaving a never-ending polychromatic tapestry. I had never seen such color before. Formless, limitless, I traveled through the tunnel of my fulminating consciousness.

Time did not exist here. I was wholly immersed in my altered consciousness, unaware of my physical surroundings. Eventually, I was ejected from the kaleidoscope into a realm inhabited by prismatic nature spirits. These creatures were equally as colorful as their polygonal predecessors, but they resided within the third, fourth, and fifth dimensions, shifting between planes and challenging my depth perception. At one moment within reach, and the next light years away. Rainbow-colored elephants zoomed in and out of focus with the vibrant contrast of a neatly lined color-by-number painting. Jungle cats folded symmetrically along their mid-lines, their whiskers aligning with perfect precision, only to stretch and elongate, abstracting and deconstructing through countless reflections. Polyhedral parrots, geckos, frogs, and fish stacked themselves on top of one another, forming infinite totems that stretched beyond my comprehension.

The final spirit was that of a lone wolf, crisply defined in all his chromaticity. He dominated my mind’s eye, strong and stationary. Rather than standing opposite the wolf, it seemed as though his face was presented to me: a page in a book from which I could not and did not want to look away. I stared at him; he stared at me.

And then: white. My awareness was subsumed by a blanket of heavenly nothingness. A choir of angelic voices rang out in unison. In this blank space, I had no body, nor thoughts, nor feelings. I simply existed. Unfiltered sunlight poured in from all directions, purifying and crystallizing the emptiness. I remained there for quite a while, basking in a sensation of peace that I had never before experienced.

Upon opening my eyes, I first saw the blue day sky through the open top of the tipi. The sun was fully risen now, indicating that some amount of time must have passed during my ceremony, though I had no conception of how much. The sounds of my surroundings came next: the gentle yet steady percussive thrum of Valtteri’s assistant as he struck his drum and chanted in Spanish; the wind whistling outside the tipi; my own breath. I slowly became aware of my own body on the earth, bolstered comfortably by the pillows and blankets onto which I had collapsed during ingestion. I felt my bones first: my hips, spine, and skull pressing against the firm ground. Then, slowly, I regained sensation in my soft tissues, felt my muscles reawakening, sent subtle movements into my extremities. My vision gradually sharpened, and I began to remember where I was and how I had gotten there. I rocked my head from side to side and swirled my tongue around my mouth. I returned to reality.

I pressed up to a seat and looked to Valtteri, who was smiling softly.

“Lost track of space and time, hm?” he asked with slight amusement. I nodded, bewildered. The details of my journey were already beginning to fade from my memory, but the integration of what I had learned would take many months to follow. I could only begin to process my visions in those first few moments after reemergence.

We took our time exiting the tipi, as my legs had seemingly forgotten how to work. Valtteri wished me luck and sent me deeper into the garden, where another member of the hotel staff was preparing a fresh vegetarian breakfast for me. Having just encountered a multitude of divine beings, eating was the last thing on my mind, but indeed my body was grateful for the nourishment. I ate slowly, chewing each bite a hundred times as I lost myself in recollections of my trip. And then, when I had finished my meal, I simply got up and showed myself out.

I felt as thought I was putting my human suit back on and resuming the mundane act of theatrical imitation. My head reeled with everything I had seen; my perspective on life felt forever changed; and yet, I had emerged in the same physical form, a mere 45 minutes later. I had no choice – I went on living my life, having captured a glimpse of the otherworldly forces that lie beyond the veil.

The Truth About Birthright Israel- Part Two

In my previous post, I wrote about my “Birthright” trip to occupied Palestine in 2018. “Taglit-Birthright Israel” is an Israeli government program that sponsors ten-day trips for all young Jews. I am Jewish on my mother’s side, so I decided to take advantage of the program.

Before embarking on my journey, I was quite unfamiliar with the socio-political controversies surrounding modern Israel. This ten-day trip certainly opened my eyes, and I was shocked by how viscerally I was confronted with conflict.

Yet, I had several Jewish peers who went on “Birthright,” and when they returned, they were enamored and entirely uncritical of the Israeli government. They spoke of forming lifelong relationships, connecting with their heritage, and of course, the delicious Israeli food. I was deeply disquieted by the differences in our experiences, which appeared to me as blatant indoctrination. Is a free ten-day trip really all it takes for young people to overlook human rights violations?

A Precursory Disclaimer on Antisemitism

Jews have been systematically persecuted since the advent of Judaism, circa 1000 BCE. Around 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Jewish State of Israel, causing Jews to scatter across the globe. In the centuries to follow, Jews were pushed out of Russia, Austria, Germany, and many other countries across the globe, forced to seek asylum in foreign lands where they were despised due to religious conflict and ethnic stereotypes. The most obvious example of this hatred is the Holocaust, wherein 6 million+ Jews were murdered on the sole basis of their ethnic identity. These antisemitic biases and crimes persist today, as evidenced by the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting in 2017 and, more recently, the infamous hip-hop artist’s public hate speech towards Jews.

I provide this context to remind my readers that Jews have been and still are a targeted minority group throughout the world. For this reason alone, I felt it important to write a separate article on the beauty and complexity of Jewish culture that I experienced while in occupied Palestine. By splitting my travels into two separate articles, I acknowledge that I risk conveying a holistic view of Israel as entirely good or entirely bad. To the former, this trip taught me a lot about global politics and Jewish history. To the latter…well, let’s just get into it.

Some Quick Historical Context

Zionism — a nationalist movement that espouses the creation of a Jewish homeland — emerged in the late 19^th century. Jews yearned for a place to call their own; a spiritual center; a refuge free from discrimination, abuse, and violence. The new Jewish state, named Israel, was established in 1948 in the region historically known as Palestine. Zionists claim that this region, often regarded as The Holy Land, belongs to the Jews, for Jewish texts describe Jerusalem and surrounding areas as a sacred site for Judaism—the Promised Land.

One tiny problem: the Promised Land had already been promised to others—specifically, the Palestinian people, who had settled on that land for centuries preceding 1948.

This territory has been a source of conflict for so long that many consider it irreconcilable, and indeed, the conflict continues to this day. Since 1948, Israel’s military occupation has forced Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Those who remain with their homes and communities in occupied Palestine face daily persecution from Israeli Defense Forces, which often culminates in destruction of Palestinian property or bodily harm. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has consistently affected civilians and produced a disproportionate number of casualties from the Arab side, in large part due to Israel’s resources and military power. I implore my readers to research the continued violence against Palestinians in their ancestral homeland. Vox is a good place to start.

The "Birthright" Agenda

NOTE: I will continue to refer to my Taglit trip as “Birthright,” because I do not feel that Jews have any more birthright over that land than the people who have resided there for centuries. Furthermore, I use the terms “Israel” and “occupied Palestine” to refer to the same region; “Israel” in the context of the Jewish nation-state, “occupied Palestine” everywhere else.

Step One: Get them while they're young

In the wee hours of dawn, I stepped afoot an Israel-bound plane with forty other young Jews. In my first attempt to make friends, I struck up a conversation with a girl seated next to me—a fellow brown-skinned, dark-haired, Jewish girl who could, like me, pass for “ethnically ambiguous.” I must have mentioned that I speak some Spanish (studied in high school and later in college) because she exclaimed,

“Cool! I love Mexicans! I love your culture!”

She’s confused, but she’s got the spirit, I thought. Chuckling, I said, “I’m actually half-Indian, half-American Jewish.”

“Oooooh, so can you speak Indian?”

Um…. there are 22 scheduled languages and hundreds of regional dialects spoken in India, none of which are called “Indian.” My father speaks Bengali, and I study Hindi. Common mistake—I didn’t fault her.

Yet, this encounter set the tone for many of my future interactions with my fellow “Birthright” travelers. While many of them proved knowledgeable about Jewish customs and Israeli history, they also turned out to be uneducated, tone deaf, or even willfully ignorant to other cultures—especially Palestinian culture. For many of my peers, “Birthright” was their first time traveling outside of their home state, let alone by themselves or internationally. At age 20, I was older than most of the individuals in my group, who were primarily fresh out of high school and extremely impressionable to the ideas proposed by our tour guide and group leaders. I believe the “Birthright” agenda is heavily targeted towards those who have limited prior cultural exposures.

Step Two: Lure them to Israel

“Birthright” is a shockingly generous program. The Israeli government pays for thousands of Jewish youths to visit every year, and there’s virtually no catch, besides having to stay for the entire ten days. If you leave early, or somehow get kicked off, you only forfeit a $200 deposit. Many travelers take advantage of the free overseas flight and continue to travel around Asia or Europe after the trip ends—“Birthright” makes no conditions as to when you arrive or when you leave the country, so long as you participate in the ten days of organized travel. They’ll pay for your flight home–no questions asked!

Furthermore, the “Birthright” budget is by no means modest. We slept in 5-star hotels, gorged ourselves on gourmet buffets, and engaged in countless cultural activities that would have burned through a tourist’s pocket. The sheer luxury of this free program raises some questions, to say the least. Yet, if you’re Jewish, you would be stupid to not take advantage of this program. In this way, the “Birthright” offer is somewhat irresistible.

Step Three: Make them feel at home

Israel boasts a developed free-market economy, with modern infrastructure that rivals many Western countries. The country’s prosperous economy allows for sophisticated welfare programs, a powerful modern military, and high-quality education systems. As a result, many parts of occupied Palestine feel comfortable and familiar for many American travelers—perhaps even uncannily so. Indeed, the difference between Israel and its neighboring nations—Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt—is stark. The Tel Aviv skyline, the developed roads, the thriving technology industry…these factors point to colonial power, not a young sovereign nation sequestered in the Middle East.

From my perspective, the logic behind this step is quite clear: shower the young visitors with lavish gifts so they won’t ask questions. At the beginning of the trip, I naively wondered if “Birthright” is an innocent ploy to boost Israeli tourism. As time went on, however, I started to feel as though I had been paid for my silence.

Step Four: Promote anti-Arab propaganda

My fellow travelers’ true colors emerged quickly. Upon arriving at our hotel on the first night, one girl became restless and irate. She began to shout about having to sit next to a Palestinian woman on the plane ride,

“I bet she thought she was going to Palestine, huh? Well, she’s not. This is ISRAEL!” She followed her angry tirade with a stream of obscenities, prompting one of our group leaders to step in.

“Hey now, I spoke to a Palestinian man on the plane, and he was actually very nice…” the group leader began weakly, but we all recognized the futility of his attempt. Even he seemed unconvinced. There was no further effort to counter her blatant hate speech.

From that interaction onward, anti-Palestinian rhetoric became commonplace among our group. Other forms of hate speech also went unpunished (the N word was popular among my group—needless to say, none of us were Black), but remarks targeted at Palestinians seemed to be encouraged, even rewarded. These sentiments were propagated by our Israeli tour guide and our American group leaders as much as my fellow travelers.

For example, the Birthright itinerary always includes a visit to Israel’s borders with Syria and Jordan so that travelers can “gain a real understanding” of Israel’s geo-political positionality in the Middle East. This “real understanding” turned out to be a slew of propaganda which cast Jordanian and Syrian people as uncivilized, violent warmongers. Our tour guide, standing with his back to the arid Syrian plains, gestured broadly across the farmlands and said casually,

“We always see explosions over there.” Inevitably, this remark prompted several ignorant questions: How often do they bomb Israel? Have they ever targeted a Birthright group? Are Syrian women educated? Are they all forced to build bombs? The conversation was unproductive once again, serving only to heighten fear and distrust. As for perspective gained on Israeli geopolitics, we were evidently meant to view Israel as a perfect victim, helplessly sandwiched between primitive Arab countries with no means of self-defense. Records of military spending will no doubt have a different story to tell.

At the Dead Sea, our tour guide declared that the Jordanian government is purposefully polluting the saline water to gain control over it. He conveniently neglected to mention that Israel is equally to blame for the Dead Sea’s lowering water levels and rising number of contaminants. In reality, the two countries’ refusal to cooperate threatens the Dead Sea far more than the pollutants of either country alone. Israelites have historically accomplished great feats in water management (see Part 1), but their inability to work with Arab neighbors may cause irreparable damage to their historical and religious landmark.

The anti-Arab discourse came to a head in Jerusalem. On a rooftop overlooking the Old City, our tour guide began to lecture about the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and other sacred geographies. He recounted the First Temple and its fall to the neo-Babylonians, then the subsequent Second Temple and its fall to the Romans. Then he pointed to Al-Aqsa, the plaza beyond the Western Wall. Barely bothering to conceal his disgust, he sneered, “they stole our temple.”

Dominion over the Temple Mount, or Al-Aqsa as Muslims call it, has been central to global religious conflict for centuries. This location is a sacred site for all three Abrahamic traditions–Judaism, Christianity, Islam–whom all constantly vie for control. However, the claim that Muslims stole the Temple Mount is reductive and historically questionable. 500 years span the gap between King Herod’s Second Temple and the construction of the Dome of the Rock; if anything, the Romans should be on trial, for their temple to Jupiter was the first to replace its Jewish predecessor. Our tour guide’s accusation mirrored the broader Zionist ethic, which tends to ignore historical chronology in favor of spiritual entitlement.

All this hateful rhetoric against Arabs was underscored by a bizarrely cheerful spring break energy. Out of all the planned activities, my peers were mostly interested in clubbing in Tel Aviv, partying at the beach, and drinking in our hotel rooms. We were shuffled from marketplaces to gift shops to malls, urged to shop for handicrafts and try authentic local cuisine. Ironically, many of these uniquely “Israeli” dishes (shakshuka, hummus, falafel) are just shameless appropriations from Arab cultures. But my peers were far too busy spending their shekels at upscale boutiques to think critically about colonial exchange networks.

Step Five: Instill Zionist loyalty

Much like American education, the framework of “Birthright” is infused with an Israeli nationalist spirit that strategically penetrates the pathos. The “Birthright” itinerary takes young Jews through Israel’s national cemeteries, war forts, and great historic battle sites. These morbid locations work in conjunction to illustrate the endless plight of the Jews. Simultaneously, the educational core glorifies Jewish history to justify the creation of the Zionist State.

Through all of this, my group was drinking excessively, hooking up with one another, and attending “Birthright”-sponsored EDM mega-events that celebrated the founding of Israel. At the mega-event I attended in 2018, a sponsor implored the audience (thousands of Birthright travelers) to act as ambassadors and sway public opinion in Israel’s favor when we returned home. I was shocked by his bold request, but when I glanced around me, my peers were smiling and cheering—they had been drinking for hours by that point. I guess alcohol makes the propaganda go down easier.

There was also a distinct undercurrent of peace symbolism throughout the trip. I mentioned in Part 1 that we were each given a dove to release for seemingly no reason. Later, we took a tour of an olive oil factory, where the saleswoman really emphasized the olive branch imagery.

And then there were the IDF soldiers. “Birthright” includes a multi-day mifgash (encounter) with Israeli peers, who are almost always active duty in the Israeli Defense Forces. On my trip, our IDF peers traveled with us for six days.

For background, Israel mandates conscription for every citizen over the age of 18. Men are expected to serve a minimum of 32 months, women 24. Arab Israelis are notably and explicitly exempt from service, as are a few other groups such as religious women and married individuals. The Israeli Defense Forces is somewhat notorious with the United Nations for its perpetual war crimes in conflict against Palestine, so I was fascinated (and somewhat terrified) to meet the young soldiers in person and pick their brains.

As it turned out, my IDF peers had little to say because they had nothing to admit. One day, I sat with an American friend and an IDF soldier, a woman named Einav, for lunch. My American friend mentioned a video he had seen the previous week, of an IDF bombing of a Palestinian civilian area.

“Do you support this?” he asked Einav.

“That wasn’t us,” Einav responded immediately, impulsively.

“What do you mean?” my friend asked, puzzled. “You can see the soldiers in IDF uniforms in the video. You can see them, see?” He pulled out his phone and showed her his news source. Her eyes skimmed the screen and without hesitating:

“Video footage can be doctored. Don’t believe everything you see on the internet,” Einav scolded. My American friend looked at me, jaw dropped. Is she required to cover for her country? Or does she truly believe that Israel is blameless?

Further inquiries were met with sharp denial. Trying to convince her felt futile, so the topic was dropped, unresolved.

Step Six: Encourage marriage within the religion

Our IDF peers were not just there to make us doubt the media narratives against Israel. They were also there for our socializing and fraternizing pleasure. They slept with us in our hotel rooms, and our group leaders did little to discourage frisky co-ed behavior. In fact, I can recall several instances when “Birthright” organizers encouraged the development of romantic relationships between group members. We were each slept 4 to a room, but that didn’t stop my fellow travelers from…enjoying each other’s company.

Subliminally, I had known that this is the motivation behind “Birthright”—to promote marriage within the religion. An ongoing longitudinal study called the Jewish Futures Project shows that Jews who go on “Birthright” are significantly more likely to marry another Jew than those who don’t. What I did not expect, however, was their complete lack of subtlety. More than once, we were told to “look around you—your husband or wife is probably standing in this group!” Everyone told us in plain terms to fall in love on “Birthright,” marry another Jew, move back to Israel, and have Jewish babies.

The part they didn’t say out loud?

Those Jewish babies grow up to be Israeli citizens and, inevitably, IDF soldiers. “Birthright” is a soft power tool of demographic engineering and military recruitment, designed to insure the Jewish majority in future generations so that the Israeli state may continue to occupy Palestine.

Despite my tour guide’s efforts to portray the Zionists as innocent victims of Arab violence, Israel has blood on its hands. Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the innumerable war crimes committed against the Palestinian people since 1948, have been solely enabled by Israel’s mandatory conscription law. By participating on “Birthright,” I was a gullible pawn in this master plan.

Step Seven: Lure them back

After everything I experienced during my ten days in occupied Palestine, I could hardly believe it when, at the end of the trip, my fellow travelers were heartbroken to leave. They shared teary goodbyes and sappy lectures about how the trip had changed their lives, how they would miss everyone so dearly, and how proud they were to be Jewish. Many vowed to move to Israel, while others promised to spread the good word when they returned home.

Frankly, I could not participate in their festivities; my feelings were the opposite of theirs. My “Birthright” trip had disillusioned me so completely that I did not ever want to return to Israel. I did not want to advocate for Zionism. I did not want to marry a Jew. When I left Israel, I didn’t even want to BE a Jew anymore. I felt deeply ashamed by the violence initiated by my ancestors and perpetuated by my peers. I could not believe that these geopolitical conflicts, seemingly so ancient and abstract, could manifest themselves before my eyes so tangibly. Furthermore, I could not believe that kids my own age were willing to overlook these conflicts for a free vacation.

Most of all, my heart ached for the Palestinian people—those who still live under apartheid rule, and those who have died in the fight. “Birthright” did not introduce us to those people, nor acknowledge their oppression. “Birthright” relies on the anonymity of Palestinians to tell its twisted tale of nation-making and justification. “Birthright” abets Israeli occupation in Palestine by spreading misinformation and indoctrinating thousands of young Jews every year.

“Birthright” is a violent colonial institution. That is the truth. And while I can only speak for my own experiences, I hope that my Jewish peers will also soon recognize their ethical obligation to speak out against Israel.