Not all those who wander are lost: Little lamb’s family reunion in Middle Earth

Rachel, in Hebrew “little lamb” and also the lovely matriarch of two biblical tribes, journeyed as far as one can go on this globe without eventually taking off into space.

She chose the legendary ‘Lord of the Rings’- country New Zealand as the destination for her ‘after the army’-getaway, inevitable for most Israeli youngsters after 3 years in a tight, un-personal and demanding military set up.
Free at last and far away from our complex Middle Eastern afflictions she sought to rid her mind of unfavorable impressions and find fresh dimensions and inspirations on foreign ground before settling again into a steady framework of studies and survival.

In early January she took off to catch the summer season in Oceania, with a backpack sporting a few clothes and utensils, a forlorn sleeping bag attached by a shoe-string, hiking boots and her credit card backed up by substantial savings from her army years, first stopping over in Hong Kong and then continuing the jet leg prone tours de force to the remote former British colonies.

In Wellington she reunited with her childhood girlfriend Tal and the two best buddies, after initially checking out the local bus system, soon nonchalantly opted for renting a sleek Mazdah limousine for invading the wildlife as motorized 21st-century ‘backpackers’, carrying their load on four wheels and unfolding their tent somewhere in the heartland of Middle Earth.

Presently our communication pipelines are e-mail, Facebook and the occasional phone call, when our lambs are brushing up their furs in the vicinity of modern civilization.

But if they blissfully graze on the fenceless, sweeping green pastures amongst their wooly brethren, joining the flock of thousands of their kind by roaming the meticulously protected New Zealand outdoors, releasing in a mischievous joined effort some powerful gastric blasts to widen the ozone hole to unprecedented dimensions, we can only imagine their detached, intoxicating adventures in the Shire of Hobbiton, in Elf- populated Rivendell and in the glorious Kingdom of Rohan. Pony-tailed Legolas Greenleaf might utter his enchanting, memorable lines of poetic verbiage and make our lambs' innocent hearts flutter and Shadowfax, the whitewashed sorcerer's horse will volunteer to take our sheepish tourists for a rocky ride.

They will be tempted by Gandalf to immerge into the strange world of medical herbs and pagan magic, absorb the picturesque culture and folklore of the native Maori and we breathe a sigh of relief, if they return with feathers alone adorning their furry scalp and not have their faces elaborately tattooed in colored ornaments.

And if our lambs wander on more challenging trails, balancing their little hoofs on dangerous bold mountain tops, dangling from ropes while crossing a sparkling glacier named "Franz Josef", who surely is an Austro-Hungarian invader to Middle Earth, picking their way through the eternal ice, we might not even want to know about the gruesome risks, to which our little lambs are exposed when attempting to destroy the evil Ring in a sooty Mordor crater, before Gollum gets there.

And when the nightmarish task is done and Aragorn still hasn't washed his greasy hair, will they accompany him for a makeover to a bathtub and Laundromat or will they prefer to roll and rub themselves on the velvet lawns of their Kiwi hosts, nuzzling the feline and canine members of the households?

How is it possible that our notorious black sheep Rachel, born on Friday 13th on Purim 22 years ago and nearly strangled in a dramatic twist of fate by her own umbilical cord, seems such a lucky little bugger amongst the furry population of this environmental island?

Here all of her most favorite things are present under one heavenly roof: women’s rights, a rather restrained male population, vast unspoiled outdoors, legends of subtle elves, soft-spoken horses, princesses with an attitude, Shawn the sheep and his bashful relatives and never a doomed stray cat in the clean-swept small towns along the coastline.

Here she is pampered by friendly, laid back people with a distinct British slant, surrounded by the global, easygoing community of environmental tourists in shorts and bandannas, and clouds, lots of lofty lambs , mirrored from the impressive sky onto the lush grassland crowned with snow covered mountains, forming flocks of thousands of bulgy, wool-laden sheep, whose coats give such a primal texture to a hand knitted sweater.

'My precious' Rachel, defender of animal rights, veterinarian and animal whisperer to be, will emerge from Middle Earth with the ingredients of her dreams rolled up into balls of wool and will try to weave these into a soft cloudy carpet lining her future path.

Hopefully she will team up with people of her own gentle kind and make the world into a place, where animals, trees and waterfalls, the sky and the earth are allowed to tell their intimate stories and sing their soothing songs to open eyed and open mouthed children, who might elate their parents and grandparents into opening their hearts as well towards such powerful messages and connect their souls to these eternal images and be satisfied with just listening, watching and wondering about it all.