Noah's Diary- 33rd Day of Realization

Fourth Page

A desert hosting business does not only offer "Space, Purity and Silence",
a dire need of those who suffer from crowdedness, polution and noise in the cities,
but it offers "personal hospitality"
(like: the hosts eat together with the guests)

and a ratio between the number of guests and the space of the land,
which allows everyone to be unique ("Yakhid") and therefore creates real togetherness ("Yakhad").

The happy togetherness between the three brothers brought this home to me once more:
   

We had a wonderful breakfast, with two other families,
and it only now occurs to me , that on this very day,
that they , too, included each 3 kids,
five of them around 8 and 9...
[sorry for that cold drink brought by the kid - this is definitely not served in Succah in the Desert...]

After showing my guests around, up to "Yishma'el" at the end of the wadi,
I walked with them to the Ramon-Crater.
So many memories, happy ones and painful ones.
[See especially the pages of A DESERT PEACE PROCESS - 2002
and there - somewhere - a link to my deeply moving experience with Tomer, my grandson,
who, 3 years earlier, at the age of 5, had functioned as "my angel on the abyss"...]
From this perspective - 5 minutes before midnight - it looks
as if I had been given my past creation in a nutshell.
On the way back from the crater I saw Ya'aqov as the only sign of Succah in the Desert,
"touching as if not touching" the land...

Luckily one of the kids had forgotten his coat in "Abraham",
and while they returned there with the car,
I used the opportunity to walk - one last time? - the 2 km to the asphalt road.
On my way I watched the "Rotem" shrub,
under which my beloved prophet Elia could sleep, and ~~~
~~~ recover from his wish to die ~~~~~~~~~~~
and walk on to new assignments~~~~~~ (Bible, 1. Kings 19).

I photographed three different Rotems - for my granddaughter Rotem (age 10). And this will be the last entry of this year. [2004_01_01 Rotem just popped in for half a minute, to bring pyjamas for Itamar and Yael. She had no time - as usual - and this rushed photo is all I got from her beauty.]

I am blowing "the Shofar", I am sounding at midnight:

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

 

 

2004_01_01. Continuation of the report written in Noah's Cave.

Friday noon we set out to the Dead Sea, a journey of about 3 hours
from the Negev Desert to the Judaean Desert.

There were fascinating conversations with the children....

The more I work on sculpting the life of those 44 hours,
the more I realize their message:
The Children!

I must make a confession:
Though my greatest wish from my earliest childhood on was to have children,
and though I enjoyed raising my children beyond description
and if not for them, Eliyahu's death wish would have conquered me ...
I am not a fan of children...
It never entered my mind to work with children, for instance.
But now they are all around me,
children on Noah's Shore ...

In the evening it was so cosy and intimate in the nylon protected cave ,
that the four decided to sleep there.

How? Calculating the two square meters, it seemed to be impossible.
The kids cuddled together and the father stretched his feet outside under the curtain.
Beyond the curtain there is just a strip of 50 cm before the abyss.
I hadn't planned the cave for 4 guests,
and I had no electricity
and I was not yet familiar with the gas stove.
But everything worked out fine,
even the triggers between me and the seventeen year old.
When my rage flared up at him the next morning,
and his insults did not stay behind,
I suggested, I begged, I implored him to do something practical together:
to fill my empty water bottles from the jerrican, which Salekh had brought,
when he still had his car and was not yet fired from the Ein-Gedi Fieldschool.
I had improvised a funnel from a piece of plastic foil,
the boy held the jerrican and I held the bottles.
After we had filled about 5 bottles, I said:
"We are becoming quite professional.
Maybe, we can now make peace between us?"
He hesitated and said:
"I still think, you are petty!"
I laughed.
Its difficult to be in my presence, definitely for a not-yet-grownup.

 

There is a little boy, ten years younger, who has no difficulties with me - yet! Arnon, my grandchild, keeps following my life and work on Noah's Shore. 2 weeks ago he played with clay, thinking of the environment of my cave. And last week he brought me three presents for Chanukka. (instead of receiving presents from grandma, as is the usage). A bowl with six tiny plates, which he had made in his ceramic lesson. A little sage-plant in a pot, which now gives me immense joy, after I planted it in a protected spot wilth soil I had brought with me. Sage is my favorite tea. And a little lantern, for which a protrusion in my rock was truly "predestined":

So much love!

End of Cave Diary

 

 

The following was sculpted yesterday and will now - on the first day of 2004 - be completed:

Coming and going between my and Julia/Olga's flat at Modi'in and Noah's Shore
seems to be also part of the "project", i.e. it involves people in the dream.

Last week, it was Shim'on who brought me home all the way to Modi'in,
which is situated 26 km northwest of Jerusalem,
while his town Dimona is situated in the south, in the desert, 30 east of Beersheva.
and yesterday - shortly after Shim'on had completed his work and his preaching-
my friend came to fetch me from the cave, from the spring and from the hard work.
In half an hour - before darkness enwrapped the cave - we managed to attach the cables.
W ith his strong fingers he kneaded the "Epoxy" glue much faster than I could have done,
while I twirled the metal hooks and glued them to the ceiling,
so they would hold the cables of the three lamps.


-
The ornamented lamp above the kitchen
I disconnected, with permission , from the old - ugly - Ohel Mo'ed in the Succah.
It was the beginning of the dismantling of that "hangar", an anti-succah structure,
which - for me - had symbolized the pain in the relationship between my partners.
I took the lamp with me as a sign, that we had achieved - not love - but a livable peace.
And that's exactly what my lamp in my cave will achieve with the help of Noah's Shore:
a livable peace.

We had our onion soup after all, though in a hurry,
and in a hurry I took care of protecting the cave of southern winds in my absence.
The moon lit the 190 steps and made climbing easy.
And then we drove up to Jerusalem.

There - after 40 minutes of waiting in the Jerusalem cold among a multitude of religious folks -
scrutinizing a never stopping line of busses, which turned around this busiest junction I've ever seen,
I entered the bus and saw ---- my Arab driver again , the "rain driver".
This time it was 3 hours later and dark,
which means that - "for security reasons" - the bus doesn't go the direct road Nr. 443 through "Occupied Territory",
but the long way, Road Nr. 1, from Jerusalem to the Latroun Monastery and from there to Modi'in.
When the bus emptied during its meandering through Modi'in,
I sat close to the driver.
He remembered my huge load of muddied carpets etc,
and asked, how I managed.
This time I was determined to find out, why on earth a Bedouin from the desert
drove a bus between Jerusalem and Modi'in.
Since I couldn't possibly ask him:
"Is it right, that you are a Bedouin from the desert?"
I asked in a roundabout way:
"Do you live in Modi'in?

"No, I only sleep here."
Pause.
Where do you live?
Almost inaudible: "In Beersheva."
Considering the inconvenience for him , I sighed.
Then - after another pause - I dared:
"Are you living in one of the Bedouin towns around Beersheva?"
The government of Israel, as any government on this planet,
hates nomads , hates, that they claim to possess unbordered land,
and do everything to force them into six towns established for this purpose.
"Yes, in Laqiah".
Pause.
"Isn't it strange, that you cannot find work in your area,
and that I'm riding the bus with you?"
And I told him the "sign from heaven",
which was given to me on that first inquiry walk in August.

On my 65th birthday I walked to the Crater with Itamar,
the man, who had been the messenger to tell me,
that my time to work in the world again had come.

It was his idea, to create a "healing center for war-and terror stricken people".
I didn't like the word "center" and I knew, that if I was supposed to help him,
the right place was not in the Negev, but at the Dead Sea
His call had come from Paris, in April,
but the meeting in the Succah occurred finally 2 hours before midnight,
the night before our common birthday.
He would be 70, I would be 65, and Shim'on Peres would be 80.

Since our verbalizations only triggered me,
I suggested to get up before sunrise and walk to the Crater in silence.
We went to sleep under the sky, on either side of the Lea Succah,
where three of my grandkids had fallen asleep hours ago.

While walking, I suddenly envisioned, where Noah's Shore was to manifest.

Itamar calls his project : "Noah's Village".
I exchanged "village" for "ark" and "shore" and kept the "Noah".
What had Noah to do with a village anyway.
He planted a vinyard after the flood and got drunk, yes,
but it's never said, that he settled - be it in a village or elsewhere.

A few days later I travelled to the Dead Sea to see the place of the vision.
I had seen it in the no-man's-land 2 km north of the spring,
where I had lived from March 13 until June 30, 2000.
The last two weeks were so riddled with persecution by the Nature Reserves' Authority,
that after 5 PM I left the spring in the Reserve
and walked half an hour north - in wet clothes to bear the horrendous heat -
and found refuge next to a rock.
It proved to be too hot during the night,
though I sprinkled water over my light long frock every hour or so.
After 2 weeks I gave up.
Heat and persecution told me to stop this experience
yes - to stop any manifestation in the exterior world,
and to find a place where I could do my own healing,
amidst the 15 souls of my family.

Now I came from the south and walked towards that no-man's-land and that rock.
And what did I see?
A peninsula had emerged from the sinking sea.
God's gift for Noah's Shore, I was sure.

This is a real island - opposite Kibbutz Ein-Gedi - but it is much too small for Noah's Shore.
There are more and more peninsulas emerging,
but only the one between the borders is guarded by the sculpture of "the childless mother",
and by a cave under a rock on the slope above [see Album]
and in it a mother and grandmother who dreams of healing motherless or handicapped children


While examining the terrain and shape of the peninsula, I heard a car behind me on the dust-road.
I had never seen a car passing by then, and had left my equipment in the middle of the road.
I ran back and was stunned to see a Bedouin couple inside a small truck.

"We come to heal our knees", they said.
We come all the way from Beer-sheva [about 120 km],
for here are hot sulphur springs, don't you know that?"

My mouth stood still open, when they drove on to get to the springs.
I looked up to the sky and rejoiced like a child:
"You let this peninsula emerge as Noah's Shore!
And while I am examining this gift, you are sending me people.
Moreover these people are Arabs,
and they came to heal themselves.
And it's because of them, that I discover these healing springs!"



Since the springs 400 m north of the peninsula are too hot to sit in,
We sat together at the effluent of the springs into the sea.

Later they invited me for their meal - chicken on fire.

And then they did not agree to leave me behind to sleep there.
I had to follow them to a recognized camping place, Ein-Gedi.
The next morning they went back to the springs
and I asked them to stop at the rock sculptures and help me find out,
if the peninsula was located indeed between the borders of Israel and Palestine.

Muhammed Nabaari nailed a nylon bag to an electricity pole,
so I could see from below, where the Palestinian border sculptures were above.

While I was telling this story to the bus driver,
a security woman came in to check the bus and asked his name.
He said: "Naaser".

"Oh", I said, "Now I also know your name, Naaser!
My name is Rachel, you might meet me more often,
for it's always on Tuesday - for the time being - that I return to Modi'in."

"And when do you go back to your cave?"
"On Fridays. "
He smiled, as if imagining, that one day he would chose the road to Jerusalem via my cave,
to Jerusalem, from where he drives busses to Modi'in. ....

Ilana and Ilan and Ilana.
Did I write "a mother for healing motherless and handicapped children ?"

A phone-call. A woman demanded: "Ilana, please!" "You got the wrong number!" 5 minutes later another phone-call: I thought I recognized the voice of my daughter-in-love and said: "Efrat?" "No, I am from "Ilan" and..." "Ilan" is the well-known, 50 year old NGO - originally for Polio-stricken children in Israel. Not unfriendly - as usual, when people call and knock at the door to raise funds, - I said: "You probably want a donation, but I need donations myself - for my peace-project at the Dead Sea." When I put down the receiver, I realized, that I had missed a chance! "I could have asked her, if and how they take care of children handicapped because of war and terror!" To emphasize this message, I got another call from another Ilana, the one who had visited me on Noah's Shore on Shabbat. We had fixed, that I would come to her in Modi'in and see, if her stand for a mineral water container would suit my cave. "Ilan" in Hebrew is a poetic term for "tree". I could not but associate the two Ilanas in Eilat. From all the numerous people I interacted with during the RedSeaPartnerSHIP in Eilat from Nov. 1996 to May 1998 I am still in contact only with two very special women. Both are called Ilana.

The end of 2003 - the year in which "Altneuland" was to manifest - is close.
I look - by chance - at the Succah brochure of 1993:
Gadi's photo of the pyramidal tent in light and clouds,

and I feel so terribly afraid,
when imagining more than the next step towards Noah's Shore.
Luckily it's 15:00.
The alert/alarmclock calls me to the "Sound Appointment"
I will now spin with my body and sound my fear.

And now that I have completed this sculpture of Noah's Diary
- on the first day of the year 2004, 9:15 AM -
I'll swirl in the water of the local pool,
and then fetch the water container from Ilana..

 

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