Landed here for 5 minutes

Jan Nevelius has been here again and we have had five days filled with wonderful aikido revelations. He also visited Tivon one day, as well as our own little hojo, which was an honor. What happened there will stay there, but it did involve aikido, yes. The result from everything is that we have a lot of new material to work on, mostly in our own dojo, where we are more free to express what we want for ourselves.

On Wednesday I go for my annual February vacation in Sweden, which will span over four packed weeks, in Malmö, Stockholm and Västervik. I will manage family, friends, as well as a week with Endo Sensei.

My new job has somewhat eliminated my efforts to keep a steady pace on this blog, and my boss would probably be happy to know that. Nevertheless, I am not planning to shut it down just yet, since we are living in interesting times here in the Middle East.

Review of our move...

My guardian angel, Goshen

More than 10 days without any post and I do feel that I have neglected the writing, but for a good reason. Moving takes time and energy, and on top of that we have both been working full time. Destiny was however working in our favor, and our dear friends, the Jaeger's, had a visit planned since months back. Then all of a sudden it happened that we needed to move over new year, and "chick chack", we were blessed with the greatest support, both practically and spiritually, in the middle of all the mess.

We have moved to another neighborhood in Tivon, obviously a very nice one, if you ask the ones who know. We have a nice garden with great potential, and we are only 100 m from a descent into a wonderful wadi. That is also what I value the most, garden and the closeness to nature. We moved on the 30th of December and when we woke up on new years eve, me and the Jaeger girls went straight out into the garden and started raking leaves, completely procrastinating the kitchen than needed a basic unpacking to be able to handle the little come-together that we had planned to welcome the new year. Yoram came back from some errand and told me in his softest fashion that maybe there were more important things than leaves, right there and then, upon which I hissed at him a bit, but then went in and rolled up my sleeves. As it ought to be, since I would not have wanted him to arrange the kitchen under any circumstances.

The TV is according to my wishes squeezed into the smallest room, and the largest living room we are turning into a permanent hojo = home + dojo! But the hojo part is of course a joint desire! We came over some used, but decent, white tatamis and we have already laid out some of the mats on the floor. We will decorate the room in a dojo kind-of fashion, but the room will also serve as a cozy corner, with lots of pillows and blankets for good moments between aikido practices. On Tuesday evening we made our first aikido moves in the room, a completely spontaneous moment with the kids. We taught them to roll and me and Yoram threw each other in a few strong tenchinage's. When we started we were cold (houses here are freezing in the winter time), but after a few rolls, all of us took off the warmest clothes. Immediately, I had the idea that tatamis in the whole house would heat up the whole house... ;) Then we made dinner. This is the spontaneity that I have been dreaming about for so long, having the aikido as a closely integrated part of your life, enabling you to practice whenever you want, however you want, in addition to the scheduled practices.

The garden was not completely enclosed by a fence when we moved in, and that was one of the things that we needed to fix, since having the dogs in the garden will enable me to work full days without taking them out for a pee. However, some of the parts of the fencing area turned out to be more difficult than others, with heavy vegetation and other stuff, so the security of the fence is growing gradually. Goshen is not the problem, Barak is. Goshen showed already during the first few days, that she would stay in the unfenced garden as we left in the car, while Barak was leashed to a tree in the back yard. Goshen accepted, went back to him and came out and greeted us as we returned. Barak, on the other hand, turned out to be more difficult to contain, as we expected. He is after all a male, with intact balls (although they right now hang on a very loose thread), and he has the "vagabond gene". He wants to roam the neighborhood, and hadn't it been for his notorious prey drive on cats, then I would not mind if he took his tours ones in a while. He is of no danger for humans or dogs, but the cats should watch out. In the garden, his focus is on finding the weak spots in the fence, and we keep closing them. I think that this weekend we will close the last one, by cutting down a big bush and extending the grid fence in its place.

So, we are busy settling, exploring, decorating and placing our scent on the place. On February 2 I leave to Sweden for four weeks, and when I get back, the spring is here. I cannot wait to really dig my fingers down in the garden...

Jojo is quite busy...

Happy New Year from the Shanir Sanctuary!