Noah's Diary- 12th Day of Realization
(needs completion, but I have to leave,
back to Noah's Shore: 2003_12_12-9:30)
I woke up with images of the Death-March of those
who were still alive,
when the extermination camp of AUschwitz-BirkenAU was
liquidated.
Helena survived it, but most collapsed exhausted and were trampled
to death.
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Yanina sent
this photo
right now
and asked:
"Am I
the only one
who saw
this scene
[ in BirkenAU] ?"
Peter,
another participant
in the retreat,
replied by sending
two other
perspectives
of the same scene. |
In between these images - and without seeming connection - I felt
swept by great fear of the coming week.
For by the end of this one my rock home will be completed -
10 minutes later:
I wanted to write: "including a solar system, which might
allow me to use a laptop computer",
when Tamir's father Shim'on,
who intended to come to my cave on Shabbat, to install the system,
called from his desert town Dimona.
"I turned to the local, quite special Rabbi
Hed Ofeq (means "Echo Horizon"),
asking for a 12 liter gas bottle and a gas-flame for someone in a
cave at the Dead Sea.
He is with me now and wants to talk to you."
Then I heard a pleasant voice:
"I hear, you became Jewish long ago.
Do you know,
that whoever secedes from the community,
the community will not help him?"
"I know this , indeed!"
"But I am not seceding from the community,
I am attracting the community to the SaltSea."
"In the name of whom are you attempting this?!"
"Have a guess!"
He recoiled, but understood, and
In the end he suggested:
"provided you can convince Shim'on not to travel on Shabbat,
I'll even invite him to my own car and bring what you need."
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Shim'on and Hed agreed to come on Monday,
which postpones the installation of vital electricity and vital heat
by two not easy evenings.
The one, who visited
me already,
was Tamir,
Shim'on's son,
my closest partner from among the former "RedSeaPartnerSHIP"
during its time at
Metzuqee-Dragot
in 1998
and in Ein-Gedi
Fieldschool
in 1999.
[While I'm updating
the pages about that time,
I feel the same sadness
and the same excitement,
which both of us felt,
when we now revisited
"Metzuqee",
as the locals call it.
which reminds of
"metzuqah"= terrible distress]
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The next day, Thursday, 2003_12_12
I felt comforted and happy with this interruption
of my sculpting,
but I still have to do a lot of sounding and moving of my anxiety.
For once my personal survival is secured, the real job begins ...
As to the past four days and four nights on Noah's Shore,
I feel content.
I managed to do both: to complete digging and shaping my "house",
and to interact with a surprising number of visitors,
as I desire to do -
as a trainer of dreamers.
Also there occurred again little miracles.
One was, that Yuval and Paz suggested to visit the SaltSea
and to take me and my heavy equipment on their way.
A pause for peeing on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho gave us the
surprise of this site:
Also on the road down to Jericho,
Yuval had given me some remarkable appreciation:
"It is said, that God is in the small things.
You truly demonstrate that."
What follows is a story about the cooperation between seven people
concerning "small" things.
Even before I knew, that my problem of transport
would be solved by Yuval and Paz,
another friend of "the circle" had re-entered my life: Erez
(which means "cedar").
Suffice
it to mention, that before we had to part on October 31, 1999,
I added a line to a famous ancient proverb with a famous tune
in honour of Erez:
"When
into cedars has fallen a flame, what will say the mosses on
the wall?"
(meaning: if the great stumble and fall, how will the small
people manage?)
"When
the cedars will love themselves,
also the mosses on the wall will raise their heads."
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In the Fieldschool Erez had been responsible for
maintenance,
and it was because of his fantastic skills that I turned to him now.
I posed the problem of how to insert screws into my rock
in order to attach a kind of nylon curtain against the cold at night.
[I'm lacking the English terminology for
technical things and procedures]
"No available tool will
drill a hole into that rock!"
He pondered for a minute and came up with an idea:
"We must use Epoxy Glue".
From then on we developed together the whole process.
I was not only surprised, that Erez could grasp the problem without
ever haven worked with a rock.
And I was surprised, that I could grasp what he explained and even
add my own ideas,
and all this on the phone.
Then I went to a shop which sells equipment to artisans.
Yosi and Sima always call me Miryam for a reason unknown to them.
They became excited and extremely inventive,
when I told them about my rock home.
I could watch, how they started to dream...
All their advices, their wishes and even a little reduction in the
prize encouraged me.
Then, on the second day of my guests' stay the finest
cooperation took place.
Yuval and Pazit had put up a small tent at the foot of the slope.
The next morning - Shabbat - they would not get up for sunrise.
I worked and dug deeper into my cave and more steps up to the road,
Being equipped with yet another fine tool - thanks to Yosi - an ash
scraper,
I became more and more professional.
And now and then I gasped at the beauty of the rising sun:
At eleven they finally appeared, together with Saalekh,
who had joined them
and Yuval burst forth:
"Maya, the wife of the ranger just drove
by in a jeep..."
So what?
This wasn't a nature reserve , this was no-man's-land.
And if she would tell the army,
the only authority which had control over this site,
and the army would discover me and drive me away,
well~~~~ this was really up to God to tackle.
I wasn't aware of the great fright in Yuval's announcement~~~
nor that we were about to experience a "classical" example
of what happens, when feelings are not moved.
I suggested to make tea and have breakfast,
but Yuval refused, no, he would go here and there to visit people
etc.
Taken aback I said - not without reproach in my voice:
"I wanted to ask you to help me at least for one hour with gluing
the curtain hooks."
No, he said, he didn't feel like helping and he didn't like that I
took him for granted.
I stood aghast, my mouth like a fish's, and couldn't believe my ears.
"But why shouldn't I take your help for
granted!!!
Aren't you my friend?
How can you see me in this difficult initial stage and not help me?"
I started to sob.
Paz came to my rescue and said, for her it was clear,
that they had come to help me,
while Saalekh felt so embarrassed that he looked for an excuse to
escape from the scene.
Saalekh had been with us already the night before,
the Eve of Shabbat.
When he shed his frustration and despair about the situation with
his boss,
I started "to train him in self-respect and self-determination",
as I always do, if a person can somehow stand it for a while.
From now on, I'll be even much clearer about this purpose.
"Even if you should never return, Saalekh,
I must give you and all of us this chance.
For even one person, who stays stuck in victimhood, will impede the
process of liberation for all of us,
And even one person, who does the first step towards self-determination,
will speed up this process."
He hated it and loved it at the same time
to be challenged like this, challenged like never before.
But to see his friend Yuval at odds with this woman, this was too
much for him.
These three reactions, my sobbing, his lover's consoling, his friends
escaping,
caused Yuval to become conscious of what had caused his "farting".
For that's what we call it:
If anger or fear has been denied, or not expressed through the mouth,
it will twist itself through the body and evade like a stinking fart
from behind,
hurting some one without intention or awareness.
"I think my behavior has to do with having encountered
that Maya.
I was overwhelmed with painful and frightening memories,
concerning my own experience in the Fieldschool,
but much more my involvment in your, Rachel's, history with that place.
There was just one panicky reaction:
the wish to disconnect myself from you,
so as to tell everybody:
"I have nothing to do with this woman."
He saw and said this so clearly, so honestly,
that my tears gave way to relief and laughter
and we shook hands as a gesture of peace.
A pity, Saalekh wasn't there to witness this fast healing.
But then we started to work together.
Paz kneaded the glue and cut iron wire and twisted tiny hooks,
Yuval first attached a basis of glue into the cracks and holes of
the rock,
and later stuck a hook in each basis , with another patch of kneaded
glue.
While the greyish glue was still fresh, Salekh masked each one with
earth.
And suddenly the sun painted light on the shaded
mountains
and
a rainbow appeared, becoming ever more intense, until a weaker double
placed itself east of it
We felt happiness with each other as much as we felt satisfied with
our hooks.
And as if this wasn't enough:
Dear visitors climbed up the slope - my son Micha with the kids and
their friends with their kids.
They had gone further south to see the rain running down as waterfalls
and flooding the streets,
and now they stood in awe of my abode.
"Tell us, tell us, what this is,"
but they interrupted every word I said with excitement,
which prompted Arnon to beg:
"Please let my grandma talk."
Notice the hook on top of the photo with Yuval and Daddy Micha
Granddaughter and Son and Grandmother
It had been dark already for 4 hours, when Tamir
finally arrived.
This is Tamir. He hitchhikes and you never know, if he'll make it
before the night.
When we were alone, I asked him:
"What was it really what prevented you from being with me from
that first day, the 29th of November, until now?"
During one of our phone-calls during his illness through the whole
week we had been screaming at each other.
But now the time for awareness had come.
The real reason was, like in Yuval's case, unconscious.
Now he said it bluntly:
"I think, it was the fear,
that coming here would lure me again into that "savior of the
world" business.
I have had enough of this, when I first lived here , alone, - remember?
- before I met you."
He knew, it wasn't me who had put any expections of
a longterm commitment on him.
It was his own inner voice, his vocation stirring him violently,
which made him escape from being at my side, and then even fall sick.
There was no wind that evening!
What a gift considering that the curtains were not yet ready to be
installed!
And even more so, since all these wonderful people gathered on the
veranda,
not only Tamir, Yuval and Paz,
but Saalekh came from the Fieldschool with three young people,
one of them well known to Yuval, whom I shall call Tami.
Determined not to play it "social", I let Yuval and Tami
have their exchange about each other and about common friends,
and then I said bluntly:
"Forgive me, I'll have a very needed rest
upstairs,
call me, when you'll be through with this part of interaction."
It was as if I had rescued them, for Tami said eagerly:
"We can move on right now",
and the others agreed just as eagerly.
"Then know, my three new guests, that you
fell into the lions' pit.
You may decide to never come here again,
but while you are here, work has to be done.
Look at poor Saalekh, he had to suffer being the target yesterday."
Tami had mentioned the ecological group "Keepers of the Garden".
"You are having an ongoing training, haven't you?
I heard about their training farm in my town Modi'in and about the
training itself from Haggai,
who was also a partner in our "Circle"
in the Fieldschool in 1999."
Tami was excited about this connection:
"Since you are looking for someone to share
with you your flat, you might find it at the farm."
"That was exactly the reason why our friend
(who now works as a hired shepherd
near Beit-Shemesh) mentioned the farm
to me.
By the way, Haggai said, that the training is useful, except that
you don't deal with feelings."
"Oh quite the contrary!" Tami jumped.
And then the cross-firing started.
She told about a recent workshop about feelings with a facilitator-
from Surinam out of all places.
Her very first sentence made me judge the method as
"another device of the spiritual people to
melt feelings spiritually
instead of breathing, moving, sounding them physically".
But I did not voice this judgment until much later.
Nor did I interrupt her, when she differentiated "lower"
and "higher" feelings,
a descendant of dualistic ideologies ("good" and "evil")
and another device to deny the
Mother, God's emotional aspect.
Instead I "trained" her in becoming more aware of how the
workshop had changed her life.
I had a hard time making her share with us concrete life situations
instead of only the theory.
When she finally had the courage to expose herself,
my judgment melted away and I filled with compassion and loving acceptance.
Her second example was right to the point of one of my goals with
Noah's Shore,
though she could not have known that at all.
"Yesterday we came from Neot Smadar
(a spiritual, ecological community in the
Negev , where she now lives),
and took the road that would end up in leading
us along the Dead Sea to Jerusalem.
I never ever drove there.
My parents refused to use this road even before the beginning of the
present "Intifaada" 3 years ago."
"Why?" someone asked, "because
of fear or because of political principles
(i.e. not using a road on Palestinian land,
as long as the territory is occupied by Israel).
"Because of fear."
Then she described, how she applied what she had learnt at the "Keepers
of the Garden" Emotion Workshop.
The part, Tamir and I later remembered as agreeing with us, was,
that she first felt into her body to find fear there.
But what followed then, "of course", was the mental
"transformation" of that low feeling into some higher feeling.
After her sharing I took over the talking and explained,
why I needed to be so "unsocial" and so focused on my work
of Training Dreamers.
While with the children in the afternoon I had been very simple about
the puprose of Noah's Shore
("Imagine that the road from here to Jerusalem
will lead through a state, which is not ours,
but we will be totally safe and secure....")
I used - misused - this opportunity to open up the broad and deep
spectrum of our togetherness in this cave.
When I felt - after some 10 minutes - that I had overwhelmed them,
I asked laughingly, if they wanted a break.
They wanted~~~
Poor Saalekh, whose presence had given me so much
strength, used the chance and said,
he had to go home, since one of his guests had stayed there and not
come with Tami and the other two.
I felt, that it was probably right, to leave my thread cut off,
and to not even "come to the point" of my goal with the
road to Jerusalem.
So except for Tamir everybody vanished into the dark,
including Yuval and Paz, who wanted to finish some painful unfinished
business in the fieldschool.
They had never been there since they had left it, Yuval about 6 months
ago and Paz already a year earlier.
A time for healing.
After a cosy togetherness with Tamir under the still rock,
I went to sleep inside the cave on the "upper floor" and
Tamir slept in my sleeping-bag on the veranda.
The piece of the curtain which I had hung up as a test, made small,
but annoying noises in the slight wind.
After an hour of fighting with myself, I finally crept down and over
Tamir and took the nylon off.
There was more noise coming from my desert mouse, and discomfort from
the still primitive bed.
But I was happy, that Tamir was my first overnight guest.
