The conference is happening right now. I have the audio on, while I work in a little room off to the side, getting things online. It's a hard job, but I'm cool with it. Right now they are reading the list of women from what countries are here. (Live quote from Gila: "That's not America, that's New York.")

There has been politics since I got here--drama over lesbian representation/visibility, and the normal working things out. I might blog more about this later, when I have time to write at leisure.

I went this morning to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I was all ready for a religious experience, because I like dark churches, I like holy spaces, I like sanctity. But I went, and it was unmoving. First, most of the beautiful parts, including the ceiling, were totally not visible. Second, it was a huge reminder of how servile Christianity can be. People bowing and scraping to enter holy spaces, prostrate across the actual sepulchre. I've been a Christian my whole life, but I refuse to bow like that before God anymore. She's better than that. There's also the fact that I never felt the Spirit while I was in there. No one moved me, no Light touched me. I was just a person in a building.

The experience at the Sepulchre was the exact opposite of my experience at the Western Wall yesterday. I walked onto the women's plaza, and an immense wave of emotion came over me. Rather than being subject to the wall, the women praying were active, rocking, weeping and wailing, reaching out. They reached out their hands, touched the stone, and kissed their hands. And when they were done, they backed away from the wall, refusing to turn their backs to it. But I never felt they were powerless before it, that they were subjected to it. They were participants in the experience, full ones, and their interaction with the holy was consentual and beautiful. I sat and cried with them for a while (not that I'm even sad about anything, but the mojo was so strong) and then I left, still me.

It's funny, I don't have a problem with ritual bowing gestures during prayer--Muslim raka'as, or the bowing that some women did while davvening at the Wall. It's being servile in the face of divinity that makes me cringe.

I did kneal in front of one altar in the church (it was in a room only 3 feet high) and also by the actual sepulchre. The altar was disturbing, because it was set up to venerate the host (the consecrated communion wafers that are said to be in Catholic tradition the actual real body of Christ), and I'm not ready to do that anymore.

Tomorrow I think I'll hit Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. So I'll let you know how God is doing up there.

I know, you're not looking for me to be religious here. But hey, I'm in the old city, whaddyu expect?

In other news, I love eating hummus for breakfast, with cucumbers. I love walled cities. I love palm trees. I love speaking al-'arabiiya. I love being here. I'm just getting settled.

Check out the blog and video and audio: go to wibjerusalem2005.blogspot.com to see what's there.