I just saw that the Jerusalem Post posted
an article about the trail of Israel, partially about Tal & Li-Tal walk... It has been 4 years since that life changing experience. This is the part about us from the article:
A life--changing experience
When Tal Shahar and Li-Tal Mashiach decided to hike the Israel Trail on Succot of 2005, they were completely different people. Shahar was already married, working hard as a computer programmer in Tel Aviv, and Mashiach was doing a master's degree and working. They'd both traveled the world, but "I had fantasized about doing the Israel Trail for a while, but every time the opportunity arose, I would end up going abroad," says Shahar. But at 27, "we just decided that it was time to do it - now or never... I felt the need to make a connection with the land, the people in the country.
"And at the time, I didn't realize how right I really was," nor how her life's path would be altered by the experience, documented on the women's extensive Web site at http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~litalma/TheShvig/index.html.
Before they started, Shahar recalls, they planned a couple of days where they would sleep, but fate kept sending them in different directions. "During the first couple of days we both felt that the whole world was coming together to help us," says Shahar. "From the smallest thing of asking someone if they had some water, and they'd end up giving us a whole lunch - all kinds of surprises and gifts and people who'd invite us to come stay with them. We felt that no matter where we ended up, the people we encountered were only interested in making us feel good. And that's what happened... It was an incredible feeling to discover just how wonderful Israelis are, and how much they wanted to give, and how much love they had to share, and openness and warmth."
One example was when the two women got to Neot Smadar, a community in the South near the Shizafon junction. "We got there and as usual we had no idea where we would be sleeping that night. They invited us to be their guests at the kibbutz. It was Succot eve and they invited us for a festive meal, and they had several unusual customs: One of them was that the meals were eaten silently."
The pair were moved by "the experience of feeling this very high level of energy coming from this group sitting together... and the white clothes they were wearing... this quiet and inner peace and feeling of belonging."
The women, used to having their car broken into by Beduin during other trips to the South, this time found hospitality. "We started approaching Beduin towns and encampments on the trail, and they invited us to eat or drink something, sometimes even to sleep. They were incredible people, very open and wise... There's a difference between how we catalog people and generalize about them, and when you actually meet them. It was very hot, and this Beduin woman invited us to come inside and drink and eat. We spent some time with her and her children."
The trek also changed her spiritually. "I come from a secular family, and beforehand I didn't believe in God and couldn't even get used to the idea of a supreme being. But on the trail, I had the feeling that there was someone watching over me at all times," she says.
Beyond that, there was the sheer exhilaration of living off the bounty of the land. "You walk in the North, and that's the way it is: an orchard of pomegranates, trees, grapes, figs, apples... the feeling of a land of plenty was very palpable. It's no wonder the Children of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years - it's really fun and you always get surprises; it was like the manna that the Jewish people got and allowed them to survive in the desert," even if in the women's case, the manna was in the form of a bottle of Golan wine given to them by people they befriended.
The trek "allowed me to get to know myself differently and to get to know Li-Tal better - at times I felt I knew her better than my husband - her movements, expressions."
When they reached the end at the Gulf of Eilat, "we thought we'd be so happy, but then I started thinking about how it would be to go back to the routine after all the amazing things I had done - the traffic, etc."
So she took a fork on the trail of life, and today, now a mother of a daughter, she gave up computer programming and works as a healing coach. "It took some time, but it wouldn't have happened without the trail. I became more spiritual and adopted the principle of trying to spread good things. Just as on the trail I received only good things, I decided I wanted to pass it on... It's this difference between being in a place where everything feels so right to you, and a place that isn't. I didn't know how to express that before the trek... the giving, a place of love and happiness."
Full article from the Jerusalem Post And I wonder, which fork on the trail of life did I take...
