Noah's Diary- the 33rd Day of Realization

Second Page

2003_12_29; written in Noah's cave on Immanuel's laptop

21:30 Another day of hard physical work,
digging, carving out the steps from the cave down to the dust-road,
and from there into the direction of the sulphur spring,
and in between - coping with the nylon curtain and the strong wind all day long,
inventing ever new little solutions.
I also made a "wall" to protect the gas-flame from the wind,
from a board - not real wood, just fibers - which I once had brought from the street for the kids.
They had painted it and used it for numerous creations and performances.
Now a corner had broken off,
which gave me the idea, that the hole may just fit the rock in front of the veranda.
I added a little shelf on the inside of the wall and other smart devices for reaching utensils more easily.


In kerosine light and in sun light

It took me 4 hours to find the strength to set up the stage for typing on the computer. When I just now had finally written the date, the kerosine lamp died. I got my flash-light, and just when I had set up the stage for refilling the lamp with kerosine, the flash-light weakened. and I had to retrieve full AA batteries from the basket with the most vital utensils. Shim'on left me two bigger flash-lights, but they are not helpful in this case, since - to fill the lamp - I need both hands, and my teeth to hold the flash-light. I had bought this one with all kinds of considerations in mind, when I set out to live next to the - then sweet - spring 2 km further south, in the year 2000.

Who were the only people I met today?
Once, when I appeared at the right side of my cave,
a little stone hit me from above.
first I got mad and yelled at the boys up there to stop it.
Then I got scared, assuming the boys were Arabs.
I ran up the 190 newly swept and repaired stairs.
Towards the last third some boys yelled:
"Slikhah, slikhah", which means "Sorry" in Hebrew.
But others went on throwing little stones at me.
I hesitated, truly afraid, watching how I too was imprinted with the "Intifaada".
When I reached the top and confronted the group,
the head-covered women, who seemed to be responsible for the boys, apologized.
As if this wasn't enough, a younger, unmarried woman then hit one of the boys.
This pained me, seeing that he wanted to hit her back, but controlled himself.

I remembered Ron , a guest in "Succah in the Desert" , two days before.
He belongs to a group which wants to manifest the real essence of males.
One of their activities is a hot line for men who fear they will hit their wives.
"A man does not get any support from society.
Nor is there an institution which supports men, like "Na'amaat" in Israel supports women ."

I wasn't angry, when I said:
""I only wanted to know, if this was kids' play,
or if the stones were thrown on purpose."

[my desert-mouse - the smaller kind, called "Kotzaan" - "tramples" over my foot ...]

Everyone took care to make me relaxed.
They were from Yarka, a big Druse village in the Galilee.

I showed them my rock, asked them to pray for my goal
and skipped down again as fast as the still precarious steps allowed.

I'm determined to find a more convenient route,
this one is too dangerous or - for my guests on Shabbat, - not viable at all.
Since they couldn't bring the car through the water furrowed dust-road,
they had to walk all the way.

Why were those Druse kids and women the only people I talked to today?
Because for the first time my cell-phone ran out of battery.
After all I had left the town flat already on Thursday afternoon and now it was Monday.

This brings to mind an encounter which caused me some pain and shame.

Yesterday morning, when I did my Baobab-work on the steps,
I photographed the glorious light over the Dead Sea .
Just then a car turned into the space between the rock sculptures.
They were Israeli Arabs.

I approached them, asking politely, where they came from.
"From Sajour in the north", was the dry answer.

That minute I got a phone-call from Micha, my younger son.
He warned me, that "Flooding in the Judaean Desert" was forecasted again.
The interruption - a sign from my "angels" - should have indicated to me,
that the continuation of my initiative was not advisable.
Instead of listening to this sign I returned to the man, who was busy repacking his car,
told him about the warning,
and again - did not heed the undertone of what the man was saying:
"It means, we have to hurry up."

Instead I volunteered even more information.
I said I was working on a peace project
and that for this purpose I was living in a cave down there.
"The woman of the cave", said the man, as if quoting the title of a movie.
I wasn't sure, if there was scorn in his words, but volunteered to share more:

"Do you know, what spot this is, on which you are parking?"

"No", he said, without looking.

"It's the Palestinian border."
No answer.

The devil pushed me:
"Do you want to see my cave from above?"

"Not now"...

Finally I "got it", and even while writing this I am ashamed for having been so insensitive.
"I won't disturb you any longer", I said and went down,
holding my carving tool and my messy gloves in my hands.

While doing more of the baobab work [this is a metaphor from "the little Prince"], I felt very bad.
In my mind I was absolutely sure, that the man's reaction was entirely innocent.
He just wanted to move on.
But the imprinting in this country even takes its toll on me, Christa-Rachel.
The imprint said: "He behaved like that because I am a Jewish Israeli".

I laughed at myself, remembering the joke:
"A Jew in exile (i.e. not in Israel) walks along and a bird shits on him.
He looks to the sky and says to the bird: "Even you are antisemitic?"

As to the incident itself,
I understood, that there was something to learn for me:
I should not address people.
I should only make myself available for them to address ME.
But I do not yet understand, what this implies.

When we came to the cave an hour before darkness on Friday,
there was no electricity at all.
Parallel to the little miracles there are always these little setbacks.
I was terribly disappointed.
My friend had promised me to help me attach the cables of the three lamps to the ceiling of the rock.
Shim'on had left me a hot-glue gun for this purpose.
Its consumption was indicated as 40 Watt,
and since the converter from 12 Volt to 220 Volt, needed to power the computer
(so ridiculous, since the computer originally works on less than 12 Volt)
covers up to 300 Watt,
this would have been a perfect tool.
But neither was there light in the lamps nor power in the converter.
Shim'on had wanted to save the money for me
and somehow got hold of two used, "but still good" batteries,
but both were empty after 3 days, without having done any service at all.

Like the unexpected miracles, so the unexpected setbacks serve a purpose.
In this case, maybe, to make my friend, who witnessed my distress, more involved....

Three days later I am still without electricity, but the gas stove brought and installed by Shim'on, works fine. Tea is ready in no time, and the one flame which I need - out of the four available, even manages to warm the complex space of the nylon protected cave . It was Yuval-David's idea, that I shouldn't fumble with camping gas, but get myself a proper household 12 liter bottle and bury it in the earth. The rabbi in Dimona didn't have one flame available, but the four flames device suits me well, I simply turned it into a table.

The gas story is exemplary for the manner
in which my angels help me to break through the limits of my imagination.
In the winter 1998/9, when I lived in my tent at Metzuqee-Dragot,
I had purchased a camping gas device mounted on a 4 liter bottle,
with an extra bottle as reserve.

This also heated my tent,
when I lived in that tent in the garden of my daughter for half a year.
This was in Modi'in, and it was the winter of 2000/2001.

After that a bottle and a half were left unused,
and when I saw that my neighbor above my flat had nothing to cook on,
since they had cut off her gas for not having paid for many months,
I offered the camping gas to her.
A month before I left for Noah's Shore I had told her that I needed those bottles back.
The story of how she did not manage to return what I thought I needed,
and the story of how she - like in cases before - could not face me and tell me this,
triggered me a lot.
I still have little compassion for people's "cowardice",
which I probably attract as the reflection of the denial of my own cowardice.
People call this "to overcome cowardice", but "overcoming" is mostly denial.

As to the practical need of that cooking and heating device,
I could have understood sooner, that if I didn't have it any longer,
I didn't need it any longer.

What I have now, is so much more convenient, so much saver and so much cheaper,
even if I had to buy the bottle and the stove.
Thanks to Shim'on and Rabbi Hed Ofeq in Dimona, I got both for free
and had only to pay for the regulator.
"Until when do you intend to stay here?" Shim'on asked,
for this bottle may last me an entire year.
"At least a year, I think, but it may be much longer." I said.

This is the last of the sunset photos, the sky above the Observatory, 2,5 km from the Succah

To break through the boundaries of my imagination
I was given another symbolic experience:
My friend's kids worked on the water flow from the spring to the sea.
I too had canalized it, so the water wouldn't spread out over the shore
but run in a neat, focused way straight to the sea.

Why "straight", I laugh at myself now?

For the kids let the rivulet of 5 meters meander through three tiny ponds,
a canalization which is not only prettier, but more efficient:
The banks are less likely to wear away.

I knocked on my brain:
"Where else are you too straight, without imagination?"

I soon was to find out:

My friend came up to the cave from the southern side:

"Why do you come from there?

"I missed the right path."

But the next time he came with his son - again from the southern direction.
This time I didn't ask him, but asked myself:
"If they come from there, they may have hit upon a more convenient route."
The next day I wandered around to let intuition find the optimal track.
And indeed I found one, which was less steep
and less prone to destruction by water
or by people stepping on the sandy edged of my steps.
Today I started to carve it out.

A similar message came later that day:
When H. and E. came to see me and the waterfall,
they brought a friend with them, Ilana.
(See the mystical meaning of that name later)
This woman had enormous difficulty with the steep terrain .
When I tried to help her get down to the spring
and used my usual "entrance" down from the dust road,
she said:
"Maybe we should try the slope a bit further south,
next to that nice triangle rock."
Today I checked the path from that rock
through the different levels on the slope
down to the spring.
It was indeed a better route.

Listen! , let me always listen!
Every tiny incident may have a meaning or a message.

This day, as I said, I could not be reached,
since there was no way to charge my cell-phone.
My friend was supposed to come towards the evening after a meeting in Jerusalem.
I even had a meal ready for us:

The day before Shim'on came a week ago , I asked him to bring one onion.
Together with the multiple equipment for gas and the installation of the solar electricity.
Of course, he couldn't help bringing not only one onion, but ten,
together with vegetables, fruits, cakes and other food stuff,
also half a glass with peanut butter, which I like so much.
[It was eaten up to the last trace by my animal cave owners,
I hadn't noticed, that it had a plastic lid easily gnawed away...]

As if those ten onions weren't enough,
Yuval-David and Paz, who passed by two days ago,
brought some pomelas (huge citrus fruits) and --- four onions.

There is so little space in the cave,
and even though the animal owners
- constantly busy to find a crumb -
leave the onions alone,
I had to do something about those onions.

E. and H. had left me some yellow cheese,
I came up with the idea of cooking a magnificent onion soup.
Years ago, when there was an opportunity to dine in a restaurant,
I would order "onion soup".
But no onion soup was as delicious as this one in my cave!
So when my friend did not come after all,
and he couldn't have told me, what prevented him from coming,
since I was cut off from the world,
I ate my part alone,
and also the entire Pomela, intended for two.

YHWH - It IS HAPPENING
y e s h  !    -    i t    i s  !