Noah's Diary- 19th Day of Realization

"Water in the Wilderness"

Didn't I express fear of the completion of "my house" ,
knowing that once my survival was guaranteed
the "really serious" work will begin,
which is
to midwife the creative powers
of both Israelis and Palestinians
on the training-ground
provided by the project of "Noah's Shore"?

Well, I didn't complete my house,
on the contrary , what I had completed,
got undermined
- literally - by water!

Isn't this significant, since "water" is the element of feelings,
and "water in the wilderness" is the main metaphor for redemption in the Bible?
Have a glance at the vast themes of "Desert Water Vision" in my Overview of "A Time to Harvest".

But let me first tell you about the strange journey to Noah's Shore this time.

I hadn't seen my family in the Galilee for two months. So, after another madly time-pressured week-middle in my flat I took the bus to the main train-station in Tel-Aviv, met my grandson Alon, who came for Daddy's weekend, sat with him on the steps in the packed train next to an Arab family, and - on my way to the Dead Sea Desert - skated on ice in the Galilee... Tomer's birthday party - with six of his class-mates - was celebrated on ice. Efrat, as the director of the local Center for Sport and Culture, got the place for free. If there is anyone on earth, whom I envy, it is those who can dance on ice. Dancing on ice must be close to the feeling of flying in the air, or so I dream. But alas - on the two or three occasions I was on ice as a child, I was stiff as a stick, terrified to break my limbs and neck. A year ago it so happened that I was with Alon and Tomer on this same ice and I actually got into the skate-shoes and dragged myself along the rail, just to see, how my body - so much more flexible than 55 years ago - would take it.

Efrat, my daughter-in-love , Alon, my grandson, and Immanuel, his father prepare for Tomer's birthday skating in the Galilee

Now, in the presence of Tomer's friends I didn't even think of trying.
I wasn't going to put Tomer to shame with being a ridiculous grandma.
But lo! - after a while Tomer approached me and simply commanded:
"Go ahead! Skate!"
And when I skated round after round holding on to the rail with both hands,
a sweet little friend of Tomer's - age 8 or 9 - skated towards me and asked:
"Do you need help?"
I became better in time and managed to hold on with only one hand.
If I could practice day after day - I would....

Tomer and Alon - unlike grandma - can fly

My son and my grandsons and Tomer's friends

But what has my Galilee ice-skating to do with my Dead Sea cave-digging?

One thing was clear even then:
the fear of gliding on ice felt very similar to my fear of starting Noah's Shore.
And then - ice is, of course, water!
And water,
rivers in the desert,
rivulets in my cave,
were going to be my main challenge this time!

The next morning, Shabbat, my son drove me to a convenient place to hitchhike,
and after 3 hours with different drivers,
I saw myself waiting above an actual, real little river, Kharod,
such a rare sight in Israel.
Moreover - a sign of the Israeli Water-Authority and this "Hydrometric Station" said
that there the water was "measured",
just what I would like someone to do at "Noah's Fall".

While for the more complicated part of the route I was given a lift by an elderly couple,
with which there was such fantastic communication about "moving emotions",
that we are continuing the contact via e-mail,
I now - standing at the beginning of the easy part, i.e. the Jordan valley - was waiting and waiting.

Hardly a car came down from the Lake of Tiberias, and if one came, it didn't stop.



[From this passage onward I am re-editing on May 28, 2014, what I wrote in December 2003}
But I soon saw the purpose of this waiting:
Next to the Kharod rivulet and opposite one of the few crossings to the state of Jordan,
I had an excellent view of the Jordan valley.
This made me dream, dream, dream...

I envision the banks of the Jordan between the Lake of Tiberias and the Dead Sea
and the shores of the Dead Sea down south to Ein-Gedi on the Israeli side
- about 120 km from north to south -
as one "kingdom", or better "queendom",
which offers a healing to people
as no other spot and space on earth.
[In 2014 I prefer the Hebrew expression "hafrakhat ha-neshamah be-shmamah" ,
or a - different - expression in English: "creation and recreation in the Wilderness"!

Let's assume, my vision of that new kind of economy/technology,
as exemplified in the model called "Succah in the Desert",
will finally break through.
Have another glance at the equaly vast themes of "Desert Vision" in my Overview of "A Time to Harvest".

[In 2014 it's not the first R&D model - started in 1990 - which will "break through",
but the "Tent-Vision", which is the mobile - and correct - R&D model, started in 1992]

Then all along the 70 km of the river Jordan on both sides
there will be little hosting-healing enterprises,
each one for 12 guests and 3 hosts,
each independant,
each unique according to the creativity of its owners,
each economicly viable,
because each business will be supported by a partnership organization,
like KOA, Camping of America [search for it on the Internet!].
Let's say, that along both sides of the Jordan,
there will be such a business every kilometer,
nestled in the reeds of the river banks,
just a few steps above the water.
Guests would wake up in the morning
and walk down just a few steps
in order to baptize themselves in the holy water.
To make the dwindling and polluted water holy again,
would be the first interest of all those enterprises,
and the desperate call of the Middle-Eastern Eco-Organizations, like "Friends of the Earth",
to save the Jordan and the Dead Sea
would finally be heard.


Wouldn't this also mean,
that at least 70 [enterprises] x 2 [river-banks] x 3 [hosts]
= 420 small, but creative and independent entrepreneurs,
would radiate job satisfaction
and stimulate the economy of all the three nations,
Israel, Jordan and Palestine?

There I stopped dreaming, frustrated with the fact,
that I had never even put a foot into those imagined reeds,
leave alone into the river itself.

I started to walk.
I never stand and wait, I always walk into the direction of my destination.
The chance to get a lift while walking is much better.
It is, as if the drivers think:
"If she does her part of moving ahead, I'll help her with the rest of it."
And though my backpack and two more bags were really heavy,
and included even my son's laptop - to be connected to my future solar system,
I walked up the winding road , until I passed by the cemetery of Beit-Shean,
an ancient and modern town in the Jordan Valley.

I found great interest in the gravestones, the reliefs of hearts and of palm trees, especially the palm tree next to the name of a woman called Tamar Peretz. Tamar means "palm tree" and Tamar was that amazing widow in the Bible, who demanded her right to child by seducing her father-in-law as a whore. The child she gave birth to was called Peretz, Break-Through, and he became the forefather of King David, the metaphor for the Messiah.   While pondering this beloved story again (Genesis 34 + Ruth 4:18), I was picked up. It was a short ride, but the kind driver made an effort and drove further than he needed to to a convenient spot past the outskirts of Beit-Shean.

There my very good fortune came towards me, or so it seemed,
and stayed with me for the hours until darkness.

Shlomo was the name of the man who had fetched me from the Dead Sea the last time,
and Shlomo was the name of the man who now brought me back.
Shlomo, Salomo, is derived from "shalom" = wholeness>peace.
Not that the Dead Sea was Shlomo's destination.
After 50 km he was supposed to turn west.
But he drove on, for another 60 km, till Noah's Shore.

There was such a click between us,
that I heard myself sharing my Jordan dream,
and since - as a soldier in the reserve - he had often patrolled the Jordan,
I could get much of the information, which I had been missing before.
Like where the fence and the army road pass, at least on the Israeli side,
and that there grows indeed a thicket of plants all along the river banks.

When we came close to Qasr-al-Yehoud, the "Place of Baptism",
the only place, where it is sometimes allowed to come near the Jordan,
we tried to do just that, but to no avail.
It was the third time in 5 months, that I tried to get through and couldn't.
There is a parallel baptism place on the Jordanian side,
and I vividly remember my escapade of creeping through the Jordanian army control in 1998.
They caught me and were nice and drove me closer to a hill to see the river--- far far away.
There is supposed to be peace between Jordan and Israel on both sides of the Jordan, isn't it?
But there is no access to the river from either side.
I believe, that this is, what the river wants:
to guard itself until the time will be ripe for nature-compatible healing tourism...

My driver was infected by my dreaming.
[2014-05-28-I'm re-reading vision-poetry on a 2004 page about Noah's Dead-Sea-Vision]

It connected him to the dreams, which he had been denying in himself for much too long.
And as to the dream of Noah's Shore,
i.e. a healing space for war- and terror-stricken children,
he contributed to fulfilling it rightaway, or so it seemed.
He works for a company which produces machines for chemical analysis.
"How wonderful!
You could analyze the water of Noah's hot sulphur spring, couldn't you?"
"Yes I could,
and I even would be personally interested to do that,
and I think I'll simply take a sample right away."

By the time we reached the border sculptures,
he had entered my dreams enough in order to be interested in the envisioned water system.
I showed him the waterfall, which I would - after the flood two days later - name "Noah's Fall".
He investigated the fall on the mountain-side and then on the sea-side and I said as if joking:
"You know ~~~ that other physicist, H. , I told you about~~~
~~~ I offered him to re-invent the rain-water system,
~~~ he could do the theoretical part and you ~~~ you would do the practical part."
"Yes, that would suit me - to do the practical part."

I'm surprised about my shameful shamelessness to sculpt this dreaming here.
It may be another fata morgana, like so often, when I seem to have found a partner.
But then, what does it matter, if you'll judge me and even mock me for my "partneror-pattern".
Isn't it worthwhile to feel exhilarated and exuberant, while I believe and hope,
even if this belief and this hope will turn out to be a fata morgana?

Equipped with a bottle for a sample of the spring water
and another bottle for a sample from the Dead Sea water -
we descended to the peninsula, where I photographed him checking a salt-crust,
passed by the peninsula's guardian, the "AUschwitz Childless Mother",
and then bathed in the hot spring,
happy and hoping...

Since then I haven't heard from him,
nor of the result of the water analysis.


A fata morgana?

After we had parted, there was only little day light left
and I hurried to reorganize my place, which I had left in such an order,
that eventual rain or wind could not harm it.
Or so I thought...

The following night became so overwhelming,
that concerning that first night after my return
I remember only what my camera caught:
my sweet, though annoying animal subtenant.
Or maybe he is the tenant and I am the subtenant.

I also remember, that I didn't dare to open Immanuel's laptop,
which I could have done, since - even without the connection to the solar panel - its 2 batteries were supposed to last for 3 hours.
Finally, the next evening, after all kinds of seemingly more urgent things, I switched the computer on.
It started to boot alright, but after a minute the thing died, absolutely, and nothing could revive it.
Of course, my fear of technical devices forever fulfils itself ~~~
So I humbly pulled forth H's miserable 1961 type-writer
and started to work on the promised translation of Yanina's he-art-ful holocaust testimony.

Water in the Wilderness, Water on Noah's Shore, Water in my Cave And then ~~~~ the far rumbling of thunder, and drops on the nylon curtain, only drops, not more. I went to bed. Going to bed is not as easily done a said. And once I am neatly dressed in pyjamas and covered well by a blanket and even comfortable with my a bit twisted lying position (since my body is longer than the space I could carve out between the rocks), exactly then the rain started, still - compared to what would follow - a gentle rain. I climbed down my fragile "stair-case" of sand, held in place by one of those "desert-carpets", which I now must describe to you: this kind of carpets is woven with leftover strips of fabric, strips in every color and quality. They are cheap, dirt is not seen on them, they are plyable and relatively light, at least as long as they are dry...