D E S E R T      V I S I O N

In Abraham's Bus-Steps
My mobile life and my dreams
An Overview
1984-1999

including a summary of my self-victimizing "problems" with the authorities.
2002_06_03 ; last update: 2005_11_16; latest update (scroll to the end): 2007_11_21; still later: 2008_07_08

2010_12_23: See two pages with compositions of my bus-life in Closeup to my Past 2 and 3

The destination of my old army bus,
painted by Mona in Hebrew and Arabic
under palmfronds and solar panels :
Thousands of Paths.

Timeline

[see also pp33 ; 2002_09_14]

July 1983:
My sister in Germany brought my mother to me straight from the hospital, where she had almost died.
During the 2 days of my sister's stay I told her about my vague idea
of literally, physically following in Abraham's footsteps, maybe by living in caves.
She said: "Why not live in a caravan! But would you take mother with you?"

July 1984
I resign from my work as a teacher of teachers,
in order to fully dedicate myself to preparing another "lekh-lekha" .
My first encounter with the authorities taught me, that I would not be permitted to park my caravan anywhere.
I decided to become mobile and made my license as a truck driver.

December 1984
I buy an old army-bus and start converting it into a mobile home, with the help of two "men with golden hands",
Itzik, the husband of a pupil, and Immanuel, the pilot and carpenter, of whose work I have not one single photo.
My son's first carpentry is a special bed for my sick mother, above drawers for her diapers, next to the shower.
But on February 20, my mother chooses to die, content that by having taken care of her I had healed so much.

July 1985
I move out of my rented flat and away from two children still living there - into an incomplete mobile home.
My closest friend, Yanina, and her husband allow me to park next to their greenhouses and use electricity.

November 1985
The winter rains put a stop to my son's carpentry under the unfolded roof attached to the bus.
I fly to Kassel in Germany to help Mona, who had just emigrated there, getting acclimatized.

April 1986
I start to move. My first night away from Yanina's security is at Kibbutz Ga'ash [pp33; 02_09_15].
The "destinations" often had to do with someone who could repair or install something in my bus.
Months of superhuman difficulties. The angel at the edge of abyss gets me an invitation to Berlin.
Following my occasional seminaries in Kassel, I know, I still need to integrate my two identities.

October 1986
I leave my bus at my son's airforce base, take my dog with me again and start to work in Berlin.
I now make a living as a guest lecturer, both for teachers of religion and for students of theology.
I also organize 4 different weekly workshops at my flat, and fulfill my desire to learn Rebirthing.
During a Ski&Rebirthing workshop at Aschau in Bavaria I encounter the first book of RUOW.

March 1987
I fetch my home from the airforce base, - with phantastic improvements, which my son had created.
While parking in a field, the only Berlin pupil from among a hundred, whom I could not stand, comes.
Against any logic or desire I fall in love. A choice made before this life, starts to unfold its LESSON.

June 1987
A month of satisfaction and income in Timrat: I teach Wardit & her husband and others Co-Counseling.
Then 5 weeks with Channah on the beach of Ha-bonim make me encourage her to join my mobile life.

November 1987
To be completely alone before entering this relationship I drive to the desert and live there for 40 days.
In "Wadi Karkeshet", 2 km north-west of Merkaz Sappir.

February 1988
After 2 months in Berlin, helping Channah to burn her bridges, we arrive in Israel with her minibus.
By then I already knew, I had made a fatal mistake. But it was too late to go back, and no way out.

June 1988
My daughter: "Mother, if this is a lesson, I hope you learn it soon." - Hysterectomy. - Depression.
My daughter brings an angel to me, the director of "Manpower": "Come on, work as a secretary!"
I learn computer. I get a job for 6 weeks. My spirits rise. My creativity sparkles. The first vision:

November 1988
To change the planet with sun and sand, or solar energy. I gather info, meet experts, learn like crazy.
After 3 weeks I bring my ideas to Wardit. She causes the Succah Vision to land on me from above.

January 1989
I get a "permanent" job as the secretary of a (kind) secretary in the legal department of "Koor".
12 hours a day I'm free from Channah, free to work for my vision, using computer and phone.
Meetings with experts, potential partners, excursions, intense R&D of every aspect of the vision.
Channah's growing resistance gives me hope, that she will stay behind. But she comes with me.

Rosh-Hashanah, September 27, 1989
We park our homes at the edge of the Ramon Crater. Fight for permission to stay for 7 weeks.
The rollercoaster between insurmountable problems and miraculous help runs faster and faster.

November 17, 1989
We install our homes in the "appointed" wadi- at a distance of 100m according to my request.

January 1990
When we start building the succahs, I move my bus out of the wadi and hide it behind a hill.
The minibus with Channah stays next to the main succah, to give security to the guests.
A trigger occurs - strong enough to make me tear the personal tie. But Channah stays on.
After a year I threaten her with violence, should she enter the Succah one more time.
She heeds my threat, but she stays in her minibus around the hill, next to me, for years.
Even after she leaves to live in Mitzpe-Ramon, I have to endure the sight of her minibus.

Pesach 1996
I move my bus about 6 times in these years, for different reasons and to practise its mobility.
The time has come to move OUT. Permission to park next to the Alpacca-farm, 3 km away.

June 1996
After 7 weeks of repairing the bus and trying - in vain - to renew its license, I risk driving.
It's after midnight. Down the slopes of the Crater. I haven't driven on a road for almost 7 years.
After 6 hours I park the bus close to an army base, Uzziah-mountain, 30 km north of Eilat.
I get a license for 3 weeks, as long as David absolves his annual reserve service on this base.
Another reservist, an ecologist, asks permission from his Kibbutz to let my bus park there.

July 1996
In the irrealistic hope, that later I would be permitted to take my bus to Egypt, I leave it at Lotan.
On July 3 I hitchhike to Taba, cross the border, and start my descent into Hell, without any home.
A tourist visa was given for 2 weeks. But often I hitchhike north to the children, not to the kibbutz.

November 1996
No permission to cross to Egypt any longer. I move my bus out of Lotan, the solar batteries are gone.
Praying to God not to be caught, I drive to and through Eilat, and park on a parking lot near Taba.
Maybe friends, who would go to Sinai, would pass by and mediate between me and my team there.

October 1996, Festival of Succot
Following the new initiative of the RedSeaPartnerSHIP, I move my bus, covered with palmfronds, at dawn.
I reach a beach next to the border of Jordan, but - evicted after Succot - I try my luck on an empty field.
The field of Kibbutz Elot is next to the Israel-Jordan checkpost. Though I had a friend there, I get evicted.

December 1996
An inspector of Eilat helps me to install myself at the "hippie beach", which is still not confiscated for a hotel.
It's the most beautiful spot among all the nice spots, I've inhabited with the bus. We erect the 4 Nations-tent.

May 1997
We were 6 partners then. Only Tamir, age 27 then, started to live next to the bus in one of our pyramids.
In time he won me over to his understanding, that we had to exchange the Red Sea for the Dead Sea.
We packed the bus together, waited for the night to drive, but after 30 km the police got me nonetheless.
That was the end of my home's mobility, the end of living in it altogether. We turned it into a public space.

February 1999
I'm evicted from the place above the Dead Sea, Metzuqe Dragot, where Tamir and I lived in tents.
Albert and Mali, 2 of our partners had wanted to live in a minibus, for which I gave them a loan.
They joined us in that hosting village, but wanted to sell the minibus. No one bought it, so it stayed.
Tamir and I built a great hosting space with bus, minibus and tents, but now we have to tear it down.

October 31, 1999
I'm evicted from the Ein-Gedi Fieldschool and bequeathe bus, minibus, 3 of the 4 tents to Tamir.
With my last money from my grandfather's house in Erfurt, which reached me in August 1997,
I had renewed and greatly upgraded the solar system and bought an oriental electronic organ.
My old organ I bequeathe to a Catholic Church in Jericho. I take my tent and what belongs to it.

From now on I walk in Abraham's footsteps

Tamir moves his home to the Southern end of the Dead Sea, where he got hired as a worker.
In 2001 he left Desert and Dead Sea and moved his home to a cliff above the Mediterranean.
When the authorities put a veto to this, he moved the bus to a private farm 10 minutes from the sea..
He is still there - amidst a dead orchard, revived a little by his sewage - and pays 200$ rent.

[Addition on July 8, 2008:
Sometime in summer 2003, I think, Tamir moved his home again to a cliff above the Mediterranean.
He got permission to stay there provided he would report to the authorities every week.
Yet - one day, when he traveled south to Dimona, when Shim'on Peleg, his father, underwent an operation,
he got a call from a friend: "They've towed your bus away!"
It took 5 days, until Tamir found out, where the bus was "quarantined":
on a garbage plant in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa Bay area.
Tamir went there once, just to take out his underwear and the like.
From then on nothing, not even my worst manipulations, could make him go there ever again.

In November 2004, when I realized, I could no longer live in my storm-whipped tent on Rakhaf,
Saar Carmieli, the owner of Rakhaf, suggested that I bring my bus back and live in it on Rakhaf.
So I phoned around , asking for permission to at least see the bus at the garbage plant.
When I got it and was shown the place from afar (nobody dared to come with me),
I approached my old home with great fear.
But what I saw was more horrid than I had imagined.
Robbed off everything movable except for the books,
the door, the windows and much more - destroyed .
the floor littered with torn blankets, garments etc.
My heart broke over all the furniture,
which Immanuel, my son had worked on with such superhuman effort.

I had to make my peace with the fact, that the bus was forlorn, dead.

I took Tamir's diary, for which he would be grateful , and a few books for myself,
and then smashed the glass of my brother's painting,
in order to be able to free it from the frame of the window in the ceiling, into which it was squeezed.

And that was the end of the saga of my bus - bought in 1984, built in 1985-86, bequeathed in 1999, dead in 2004

[Later today - on July 8, 2008 I came - by chance... - across a page, where I told this story and much more!]

A sculptress in Kibbutz Ga'ash to her psychologist:
"Not only does she live in a bus, she even drives the bus herself.
And if this isn't enough, - she has a solar-powered electronic organ in her bus.
Why does this make me so angry, that I can't bring myself to visit her?
"Because you too have dreams, but you don't fulfill them as she does."

Most of my own photos got burnt or otherwise lost.
Maybe those that were spared, were meant for this website sculpture.

ON November 19, 1989 I dared to drive my blue-white home into this little wadi. And against all the overwhelming odds {which included the implications of that minibus ~~~} - it's where the first step of my Desert Vision manifested. On the horizon the best-equipped observatory in the MiddleEast is seen between the two hills I came to call: 'giv'at ma'of ha-mal'akhim' = "Hill of the Angels' Flight" and ' har lekh-lekha' = 'Mountain of Go-to-Yourself' [Bible, Genesis 12,1]

From "God's Page: Turning Backward to Face Creation"

"Another, perhaps more useful metaphor is
that we have been on a long bus trip through Creation.
Like the bus which you drive
in the way you do
through your own life,
I am the driver of a larger bus
and you are aboard.

"Throughout all of time
I have been sending messages to you,
both from inside of you by way of experiences
and from the 'outside' by way of my messengers,
inviting you to come up from the back of the bus
and visit with me here by the wheel.

"Now you can do that more easily than ever.
Let's use this opportunity to visit together
and share our perspectives on the journey.
As we get comfortable with each other
I'll show you how I drive.
Perhaps we will even find a new way of driving together.

.....

"If you would like to learn a better way of driving,
I'll share a secret and show you
how I am positioned here at the front of the bus.
I am facing backward.

"Yes, I drive backward.
I am certain that our destination is wholeness,
and I know all roads lead there.
I cannot second guess
which turn will be for the best.

"In not facing toward the future,
I follow the deepest guidance available,
the miracle of Creation itself ...

....
"What is ahead is unmanifest,
it is the Void.

Ahead of me there is nothing.
Behind me is everything,
all of Creation.

"If I was facing forward
I would not be able to see anything,
I'd be staring into the Void.
Facing backward, however,
I experience all of Creation
streaming out behind like the wake of the swan,
or the flow of a river where I am the source.

2005_11_16
I discovered a long letter to the legal department of the "Israel Nature and Natural Parks Authority "
written in July 2001, after the foreclosure of my bank Account, because I hadn't paid the last fines.
This summary of my "problems" with the authorities during my mobile life
demonstrates my victimhood, I am sorry to say,
but I am still not healed enough, to cast away this story....

[I started to re-edit it on February 18, 2008, but haven't completed]

2007_11_21
I re-discovered a quote from a book by Albert Schweitzer,
which I read in 1973.
He talks about the way people related to him,
when he - a successful theologian and musician - felt the calling,
to study medicine and go to Africa to help the sick (Lambarene).

Schweitzer had been my idol for all the years of my youth,
ever since I had seen a slide-show about him, when I was 12.

In this passage he advices people to choose extraordinary doing only,
if they can value any doing, be it ever so simple and ordinary.
"There are no heroes of doing, there are only heroes of renouncing!"

This advice had been guiding me still, when I started driving in Abraham's Bus-Steps.