I was up before dawn, cutting the herbs into small bunches with a sickle. We left them, dewy wet, neatly in piles, then loaded them into rough hessian sacks that we knotted firmly, slung over our shoulders, and flung onto the awaiting tractor. I rode back on top of the bumpy sacks as the sun was rising in the sky, hungrily anticipating the breakfast of hot mint tea or cool milk, pita bread, thick cottage cheese, ripe tomatoes, hard- boiled eggs, and harif sauce. We drive out again to the fields. My hands are scratched but toughened, more effective in slipping the elastics on the bunches and securing the sacks.
Life is a celebration.
There is singing and dancing between the daily chores. The Sabbath Queen will soon return with her assurance of rest before the busy weekly cycle begins again. I lived each day to the rhythm of the rising and setting sun. No mechanical clock marked out modern minutes. This was a prehistoric time, measured by a diurnal cycle of seasonal change.