Memoirs/Journals

This section is still a work in progress. I’ve kept journals, diaries since my mom encouraged me, beginning at five years old! I would wrote notes at random times and not very regularly. Then, when I turned 16, she bought me a five year journal (ages 16-21) and I would record something every day. The habit still continues :)

This first entry is when I left the “womb” of college and decided to “venture forth.” It was six months until graduation, and only needed 3 more units. I arranged to take an independent study and write about my reading the Bible, book of Genesis. Here is what came forth during that time.

Genesis

Portrait of Genesis is really excellent – Portrait of the young man in search of who he might be! Very well-written. Good questioning, and good thinking.– the existential/spiritual quest toward knowledge, and perhaps toward meaning. It acknowledges going forth in fear and trembling but the absolute necessity of going forth. You cannot hide yourself – or from yourself. Well, my Bible holding, pipe clutching wanderer, I really liked reading it; an honest, authentic, thoughtful narrative of that unsettled, questioning period in your life. You can be proud of this work – it is deep, insightful, and full of heart and courage.

Johanna comment (2023)

Very interesting and useful, I learned a lot from your interpretation….you have real skills in this area, …and you present your ideas well.

Joseph Katz, Ph.D. Associate Director,
Institute for the Study of Human Problems, Stanford University.

G E N E S I S

(Sefer Ma’aseh Verishit – The Book of Creation)

Editor’s note: I feel more like an editor than an author. I found a bunch of pages messily typed and stacked in a desk drawer. The person who wrote these pages lies in the pages. I feel like a stranger as I read them. I am not the same person that wrote me. That person lies in the words. I am the product that is left after the words have been written.

Read Genesis

OTHER TRAVEL RELATED WRITING/PICTURES

More about aspects of the Israeli Experience trip can also be found in J’s the Novel.
JAPAN We lived in Japan for six months in 1970, including time at the Zen Monastery Dai-Tokuji in Kyoto. There are pictures from that period as well as images from Japan (including a movie snippet). See also the poem “Left.”
BALI I lived in Bali for two months ((1982) on A Kellogg Fellowship studying stress management via Trance Dance. Pictures are from these trance dances, as well as the art of Bali.
SOVIET UNION Johanna and I were selected by our Temple to visit Jewish Refuseniks in the then Soviet Union. The pictures range from the horrors and challenges of the Latvia memorial commemorating the Holocaust to an exploration of Jewry in the former Soviet Union.
RAMAKRISHNA MONASTERY in the US. A photo journal sharing.