2004_01_07-11

Noah's Diary- 40th Day of Realization

I am sounding five times a day:
Y e s h !   T h e r e   i t    i s !

There is a laptop computer with Internet connection "rushing" towards me.
The past week has prepared me for this,
through both: irritating problems and illuminating miracles.
But far beyond the technical and financial level,
I was flooded, enwrapped, permeated by an amazing phenomenon:

"It is happening already", Yuval said.
Noah's Shore
- as a situation for people to train
to train in dreaming
and to train in realizing dreams -
is already working.
"There might be setbacks", says my fear of falling for a fata morgana,
but together with my limping companion - my fear - I spread out my arms and yell across the living Dead Sea:

Yesh!

 

As opposed to the nightmare of my journey back from the Sea on January 7
(read about this and its message at the end of this diary),
the journey down to the Sea on January 2 was wonderfully convenient and pure pleasure:
Micha, my youngest son, and the kids agreed to take me there.



I feared for kids stepping down the steep 190 steps, but they enjoyed it.
And they enjoyed every detail in the cave, especially the bed above:

Arnon and Ayelet to Yael and Itamar on Grandma's Wednesday:
"We have been in grandma's cave already 3 times and you not even once!"


They left at 4 PM, an hour before sunset.
Even my son and my friends are afraid to use the road to Jerusalem at night,
since it passes through - unrecognized - Palestinian land..

I settled down for the first Shabbat since the 29th of November,
on which I could rest.
Or so I thought.
When my home was in order and before dusk was turning dark,
I climbed down to my spring, passing a lonely car on the dust-road.
A voice reached me:
"May I sleep down there tonight?"
I discerned the figure of the talker, but said surprised:
"Why not?"
"Because it might disturb."
"So far you are not disturbing",
not believing, that the person did really care.

After about an hour of alternating between savoring the hot spring
and spinning and singing in the salty sea,
I approached the fire which by then had emerged nearby.
"Do you want a cup of coffee?" I was welcomed.
Still suspicious, I said: "Let's first see, who you are and why we meet."

After I realized, that the two Israelis hadn't simply picked up some Dutch chicks for a pleasant night on the beach,
and that the encounter was no coincidence,
I snatched my camera from my waist pouch:
"That's the last thing we expected", they laughed:

And then we stayed together for the rest of the evening:
watching the configurations of the fire and the unusual glow of the salt-soaked logs,
and thinking together about each one's life and each one's dreams.

Dor Havkin, like his childhood friend Erez born in the desert town Arad,
is one of the dreamers and activists of "Permaculture",
therefore a colleague of my close friend Yuval ,
who would turn out to be the main actor in this week's drama,
my "angel on duty" in the Ein-Gedi Fieldschool in February 1999.
Karin and Marlene, friends as well, had been several times in Israel before,
and had known Dor for nine years already.
Karin is a journalist, who doesn't cover the news about killings,
but seeks out the little lights of human dignity and self-determination.

When I shared with them my quest for an international agency,
which would address the two governments in Israel/Palestine
and win them over for "Noah's Shore",
Karin came up with a strange idea,
which struck me,
and which struck Erez, when we translated it to him the next day:

"I just attended the festival of documentary movies in Holland.
There were 10 movies from Israel, 3 about the I/P conflict,
which would revolutionize people's thinking,
if Israel would dare to show them, but it doesn't.
The most touching movie was "Arna and her children".
It was created by the (well-known) actor Juliano Mer.
His mother Arna was a Palmakhnik
(i.e. a member of the elite defense unit "Palmakh" before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948),
and his father a Palestinian.
During the first Intifaada (1987) Arna went into a refugee camp in Jenin
won over children and made them play theater.
Arna died some years ago.
Her son Juliano wanted to see what happened to those children in the present Intifaada.
Most of them are dead.
Some became suicide bombers, others were killed in collisions with the Israeli army.
The documentary is moving,
because it was created by someone who belongs - by blood - to both sides."

This is what I understood from Karin,
and while reporting the last line, tears well up in my eyes and I sob,,
thinking of Juliano and what must be an unbearable life situation.

Karin said, that - following this movie - an organization has started to take roots
and that this organization might be the link to the international agency I'm looking for.

Two days later I called the information to get Juliano's phone-number in Haifa,
but the information was on strike.
And the next day I heard Yuval saying,
what will be the central theme of this week's Diary:
"You do not have to turn to any agency,
you just have to BE.
You will attract people
you will inspire people
by just living in this cave
and interacting with the world via e-mail and your website."

There was a deeper message in that fire encounter,
which was brought home to me the next Shabbat morning.
Since I now could charge my cell-phone with my solar energy (or so I thought...),
I had a long talk with my friend Yanina.

A week earlier she had - contrary to her allowing nature - "commanded" me
to take part in a workshop on January 10,
a Shabbat, on which I am "supposed to" be in my cave .
To justify my commanded absence from the Dead Sea,
I sought more motivation by writing directly to the facilitators of the workshop.
"Of course", they did not answer me.

"Of course NOT! Rachel! When will you ever learn!
You are flooding people with your whole life packed in 10 sentences.
People can either not grasp anything or will run away to save themselves.
It's like the entry to the series "Hawai o17 (?)" which I watched many years ago:
a gigantic waterfall rushes right into the screen."

I cried.
I know this.
I have known this for decades.
And as hard as I tried and cried,
I never succeeded in changing it.

"I am always too much."

"Give people one sentence they can relate to,
one question, one information ,
and leave out the rest."

It sounds simple and I don't know, why I just cannot do this.
Around the fire yesterday I once turned to Erez and said:
"I don't know anything about you."
"But you are talking all the time."

I felt guilty and during the morning I decided to at least apologize.

"You may not remember, Yanina,
but already 35 years ago I accused my beloved prophets,
Moses, Elia and Jeremia,
that they didn't endeavor to communicate,
but simply "spilled out" their message.
I truly believe, there is no one on this planet,
who has given as much thought and effort to communication as I have.
"Communication IS the message", I learnt.
I've worked incessantly on improving my communication,
both in writing and in talking.
And the result is shattering:
I am always too much."

And I sob and sob, while sculpting this now.

During my peace work in the seventies a good friend said:
"You should need an Aaron beside you, like Moses.
The message would come through you,
but an Aaron would have to translate it to the people."

"This brother of Moses was really an idiot.
But without him Moses could just as well have not existed at all.
So why don't I have an Aaron beside me?"

Yanina pondered for a while and said:
"You must find your Aaron inside yourself.
And you can only find him, if you accept him.
How can you accept him, if you call him an idiot?"

After this talk I was not capable of simply resting.
I did physical work on improving details under my rock.
And I started to realize,
that those four people had come to support me.
To support ME, Bat-Adam, the "Daughter of Man".

In the afternoon they climbed up and nestled in my cave.


They had brought coffee,
and we inaugurated the tiny brass oriental coffee set,
given to me by Paz on that foursome second weekend in the cave.
"This symbolizes the hosting of Palestinian folks on Noah's Shore."

After some chatting about the beauty of the site and the coincidence of our meeting,
I asked them for their support in two matters.

The first was about how to turn the need for drinking water into a benefit for Noah's Shore.
It's one of my really good slogans:
"la-hafokh mafri'a le-mafrae",
to turn something frightful into something fruitful.

I shared my idea - not hiding my shame:
"I thought of sitting up there between the sculptures.
People - mainly Israeli Arabs - often park there and watch the view.
I've prepared for an unusual kind of posture, unusual as a screen
and more unusual in content:
I would write on it in Hebrew, Arabic and English:
"Do you have water?"
I would not write: "Do you have water for ME",
since the question would not only communicate my physical need for water,
but hint at the deeper meaning of "having water":
are you in contact with your feelings?
Do you accept, move and evolve your feelings?
But people would, of course, only understand that I ask them for a bottle of water.
If someone would respond to this quest,
a conversation might start
and with it the chance for me to attract people to realizing Noah's Shore.

I was giggling all the time while sharing my crazy idea.
My guests did not ridicule it, but thought about an alternative.

And this is, where my training of this week started:
"You do not have to address people.
You just have to be under your rock.
And all you need and all your partners will come to you."

Dor and Erez started to dream about a hose for channeling the water from the road above to the cave below.
They explored the slope, they exchanged observations and ideas, they came up with a common solution.
It was hilarious to watch this cooperation, this dreaming.
Even if they will not translate their idea into reality,
this scene will now symbolize what I see in my vision:
"People training in dreaming and in realizing dreams."


This photo - which shows the woundrous interaction between two seemingly incompatible friends -
was taken during the discussion of my second theme: Moses and Aaron.

And it was there, that Erez, who rarely seemed to talk to the point,
and who himself flooded his collocutors with information,
mostly from his well of Qabbalah (the Jewish mystical tradition),
astounded not only me, but the others too.
In a nutshell:
"Like Moses - you must not water down your message.
You must always be YOU and say always exactly what you need to say.
What people are capable of hearing and understanding will not help them.
What you have to say, needs to be first interpreted by them, that is true.
Moses' message has been interpreted for more than 3000 years now,
over and over again by more and more people.
Aaron is necessary, yes, but as a separate person, not as part of you.
You must be YOU."

Darkness fell. We took the empty water container, which Shim'on had got hold of somewhere, gathered whatever empty mineral water bottles we could find and drove - via the hardly passable dustroad - to the Youth Hostel 3 km further south. Everyone worked on filling water from lazy taps. Then we drove back to the sculptures which indicate the Palestinian border. And now? How are we to carry this precious load down the 190 steps in the darkness. "Leave it to Dor and Erez", said the women, "they are men after all." Erez carried the 19 liter water container, squeezed into Achinoam Nini's backpack, and Dor loaded another backpack with 14 bottles, each with 1 1/2 l of water. "They are men after all".... As if this hadn't been enough of a big favor, Dor - mounting the water container on Ilana's stand - had to figure out with Erez, how the tap would be free to give water, without the container tumbling down from the rock in front of the cave.

When I was alone,
I sighed with deep gratitude.
Not only, because I now had water for two weeks,
but because sitting and begging for water,
i.e. the sacrifice of my shyness,
was not needed, not demanded.

I would have asked for 2-3 bottles at a time,
since this is what I need:
a minimum of 4 liters per day,
3 for drinking and cooking and 1 for cleaning.

And there I had been given so much more,
and without any physical or emotional effort on my part.

Was this a one-time "incident"
or is it a message,
that I truly need "just to BE"?

The next day - 39 years after I had given birth to my daughter -
I glued a hook to the ceiling - exactly above the water container
and hang on it my wooden, moving spiral, once a gift from Ronnit.
And on the oval sticker of the mineral water company I glued a composition,
cut out from one of Immanuel's brochures about "Succah in the Desert",
which says:
"What makes the desert so beautiful,
that somewhere it hides a well".
The Little Prince.

And to the left, down there at the sea, the little peninsula is the place,
where a well is hiding.

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