Not completed!

Water in the Wilderness (7)

along the Syrian-African Rift:
Salt Sea
My Salt Sea Springs since 1999
See also the sculpture about the SaltSea experience with my grandson Jonathan on April 24,2003

2002_06_16; last update: 2003_03_08

The pool I dug - to render healing to people with my Watsu (Watershiatsu) skills - is gone.
the excruciating back-pain which made me lie paralyzed next to the pool for 7 days, is gone.
The spring of sweet drinking water gave way to springs with sulphurous water.
But after 3 years, I still feel, that here is my real home.

The Syrian African Rift Valley

2012-03-13

I thumbed through the pages of "My Salt Spring" 2000, and "With Jonathan at the Salt Sea" 2002,
because it was the 13th of March 2000, which was "given to me" in the night of the ~~"Millenium".
The night between Dec. 31, 1999, and January 1, 2000, I spent alone at the shore of "my" Salt Sea.
That night I was inspired to return to the Salt Sea for an undefined time and without a defined task,
without any human abode, even without my mobile home
(which I had bequeathed to Tamir, when I was evicted by the Nature Reserve Authority from the Ein-Gedi Fieldschool)
and that I should do so on the 13th of March, in the year 2000
[also because by then the temperature would neither be too cold nor too hot]


The 13th of March is the date
which ensconces the beginnings of two crucial relationships.
On March 13, 1951, a classmate, Ursel Merz, may her memory be blessed,
saved me from the oppression of another classmate
and "officially" offered me friendship "for all our life".
We were 13 years old then.

March 13, 1994 , was the final beginning of a relationship which we had to intentionally cut off in September 1999.
"Final", because David felt attracted to me ever since a TV report about "the Blooming of the Desert" in 1991.
His army reserve service near "Succah in the Desert" enabled him to visit me in 1992, ~~~with no "results".
When it was time for his reserve service In 1994 he fought for being sent again to that "Connection Basis"
and - just when I was resting on my bed in my bus - I was surprised by his visit and - a deep talk.
Somehow we fixed that we would meet for another time ~~on the edge of the Ramon-Crater.
This occurred in the early morning (before my work as a hostess in the Succah) of March 13.
The following weekend, when he was on leave, and I took leave too, I brought him to a cave.
Since it was on "army-territory" (like most of Israel's desert) , nobody would disturb us there.
When we parted after 2 1/2 days and 2 nights I said: "You know that your wife must know about us."
He is married to Eilat till this day, but our superhuman effort to make this relationship a threesome,
failed...
Ever since January 1998 I knew, that if David could not be totally truthful, love was a fake.
It took us another 20 months to be able to let each other go,
My task had been - like in some other - temporary relationships - to return this man to the woman,
whom he must have chosen - beyond time - as his mate for this life-time.

March 13 - June 2000. My last abode in the wilderness was under a 2-dimensional triangle, which I had designed and stitched. Its materials are like those of the pyramidal tent: 2 kinds of netshades from Nir-Yitzkhaq: black 90% and silvery aluminet 50%. which I spread over poles of branches. The only two photos were taken, when Micha's family visited me. One with view to the sea and one with view to the rocky slope.

From somewhere another photo emerged.
After the sun disappeared behind the towering hills to the west of the sea, long before sunset,
I wrapped up my roof and spent the time from about 3:30 PM to 8:30 AM under the open sky.

This two-dimensional triangle tent served me well for 3 months,
until the persecution of the authorities caused me to do without it.
After that,
during daytime, when visitors are allowed to visit in this nature-reserve,
I sat in a little pond, I made, under an umbrella, or swam in the hot sea.

A tiny water-fall connected the mini-pond in which I sat in June 2000, and which now is almost dry, with this pond, which also changes its size and shape constantly. This photo was taken by another illegal SaltSeaSprings dweller, Shalom, on Nov. 17, 2002, after I had cleaned the tiny pond from its algae.

After 5 P.M.(4 P.M. in winter) Nature Reserves are reserved for animals only.
I left in time and walked north for half an hour, in the still unbearable heat,
to the no-man's-land between Palestine and Israel.
There I had prepared a rocky hiding-place for cooking and sleeping.
But there were no sulphur springs or breezes from the sea to cool me.
I sprayed my gown with water time and again during the night.
But after 2 weeks, on June 30, 2000, I understood,
that learning to survive in minimal conditions
as the last experience towards the future realization of my Desert Vision ,
was done.

Since June 2001 the 2-dimensional tent has become the "roof" of my city veranda. And that little place, cut out and leveled by me and David in 1999, has become invisible under speedily growing bushes of tamarisks, just like the former pond itself, recognizable as a pond only to me. Only the branches I had gathered from far away - for making fire , are still there - reminding me that I still have to move much anger about the heavy fine I got for having cooked & baked on a tiny flame.

Photos from inside my pond 3 years later

The so-called Dead Sea, with its microscopic living creatures,
seems to be the Mother's special physical abode on this planet.
Particularly where sweet water from the Jerusalem mountains
meets the water that contains 33% salt (usual sea-water:3%).

The small lonely "zugan" shrub, above the "tunnel" of my pond, has become a jungle in 3 years.

When I found this place, in 1999, there was even a spring with drinkable water.
That's why I made a pond there to do healing work with people.
The idea was wrong, and maybe that's why the sweet water turned sulphurous.
But this is another story, which I'll tell another time.

"My" place is now 10-15 meter further to the south,
where - since then - ever new sulphur springs appear.
That is the only place on this planet, for which I long,
and if my body had less trouble in traveling,
and the road wouldn't lead through Palestinian land,
I would go there, play and swim there more often.

2002_12_19

I don't know, if I'll ever get around to sculpt my experience with "my" Salt Sea and "her" springs.
But maybe, I don't have to do anything but to insert my photos for those who'll be led to this page.