9. Between Israel and England and life lessons from an Englishman

After the Camden London squat, we started to live in Israel and England. I was in England for six months, then in Israel for six months. In the periods living in Israel, I would write a book. I didn't work outside; I was in a little attic, in the clouds, you know. I wrote a book, came home to England, sold the book, and then spent six months in England doing consultancy work for organizations. I helped set up a couple of major organizations supporting alternative medicine in England in the late '70s: the Institute of Complementary Medicine and the Research Council for Complementary Medicine. I was very much respected, seen as a bit of a wild figure, but they couldn't put me aside because of my scientific knowledge. I was respected for my knowledge but seen as a bit of a wild card, which fits my relationship to society until today.
In Israel, during the six months I visited, I met this guy, John Wood. He was fresh from India and on his way back to England when he visited some people in Jerusalem. These people used to live in the same squatting organization I was part of in London, though I didn't know them at the time. They made a village with a restaurant, a wood workshop, a co-op, and a health food shop, which was basically a free health food shop where you paid what felt right. It was like an alternative society on a whole street in Camden, London.
John came to Jerusalem with his wife Vera to visit people that lived with him in London, in the squat. On the way back to England, he got stuck for two years in ‘Nachlaot’ neighborhood, Jerusalem. He had no intention of staying in Israel. We set up something similar to the squat—a co-op where we bought food together and shared sacks of food. John was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, on fire about Gandhi's social, spiritual, ecological revolution, and nonviolence based on deep Indian ethical tradition. Thus, we too got caught up in this community in Nachlaot. Every day, John baked bread and gave it out for the cost of the flour and gas, and we joined him. Moroccan women would come at 5:00 in the morning to get a loaf for one shekel, the cost of the flour and gas. It was a social gathering, like a little alternative village in the middle of Jerusalem. We made muesli together, sewed clothes together, did woodwork together, and I wrote my books.
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John Wood, he had a cat that became very sick and was dying. I rushed off, “I knew what to do”, I said, and got some ginseng root, believing it could prolong life and revive the dead. I hurried back and said, "Here, give this to the cat. It will keep the cat going."
John looked at me and taught me one of my life lessons. He asked, "Would you give your medicine to a dried leaf? When it's dried in the right season, and it is ready to fall off the tree? would you try to revive it and make it green again? Leave the cat alone, let the cat be like the leaf. When it's the right time, it needs to fall from the tree." This lesson was very much in John's style—always challenging and cutting through the bullshit.
John would just look at me sometimes in the eyes and say: “You're wobbling”, in other words, you are thinking too much. Or he would say: “When you cut a piece of wood, every action needs to be complete. Just stay with it, don't leave until it's done. If difficult, it would be difficult, but it's you that are cutting the wood, you're working on your determination.” So, he was very practical in that sense of telling us. It was kind of tough love, tough guru.