In May, 2024 my son, Eitan, my nephew, Tal and I went on yet another off-road challenging and exciting motorcycle adventure, this time, in the awesome remote magical Gobi Desert in Mongolia. For many years I have been intrigued with the 12th century phenomenal-legendary-controversial Mongolian leader, Genghis Khan. Sample of the riding off-road motorcycles in […]
Toward the end of 2023, my son, Eitan invited me to sail, hike, ATV, and explore magical caves, gorgeous water-falls and beautiful trails with him in Fiji, where he sailed his monohull sailboat across the challenging stormy Pacific from the US a year earlier. It was hurricane season in Fiji and most boats were out […]
Family Bonds across Borders: the Negev Desert, Israel & Petra, Jordan, 2023 Dangerously steep rocky cliffs brought us together: my 2 sons, my 3 nephews, and I, rode our motorcycles off-road in the Israeli Negev Desert, to find much more than a wild, majestic landscape. It was amazing to experience the 6 of us getting […]
Going too far in the right direction was not new to me. Through many years of traveling in Africa I was drawn to visit a fascinating and unique ruined old spiritual center in a country in Africa where I was clearly unwelcomed. Needless to say I was drawn to this destination, or better said driven […]
In London 1976, I was fortunate to meet Lady Lorna Gore-Browne (77 yo) wife and Penelope, granddaughter (25), of the famous British/Zambian legend, Sir Stewart Gore-Browne (1893-1972), called ‘Black heart’. He was the only white man to serve on the newly indepedent government when Zambia got its independence in 1964. He was also the only white man in the history of Zambia to have been given a state […]
In 2022 at 72 years old, I have decided to confront fear, challenge, and adventure by going to Brazil and spend time in gorgeous, adventurous Rio de Janeiro, on the magnificent enormous Amazon River and encounter unique personal challenge with the legendary dangerous awesome Piranhas. I travelled in this 3 weeks adventure with my beloved […]
I went on a challenging and equally exciting adventure in the Negev Desert on 250cc off-road motorcycles, with my 3 nephews: Tal, Leor, Shai and Tal’s Son, Ben (16). I was determined to enjoy the awesome (challenging) beauty of the dessert, its rough terrains, and the (unavoidable) falls off the bike, and keep away from […]
Spending time on the car-less island of Lamu, situated off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean, was a remarkable experience. Built of coral and mangrove timber, the unique town of Lamu, is the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa. I still vividly remember the simple and beautiful construction of the city […]
I was around 27 years old traveling in East Africa, hiking, climbing mountains, scaling rocks, riding small motorcycles (pikipiki), studying fish-ponds, driving safaris, canoeing on the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria and ‘socializing’ with crocodiles in Lake Turkana. I found out that, apparently, the anti-malarial Chloroquine pills that I had been taking were no defense […]
In Sept. 2021 Jennifer and I joined Eitan and his friend, Amanda, for a fantastic sailing week on a 46ft catamaran on the Sea of Cortez (Mexico). It was a wonderful break from a tormented and hostile divided world around the complex coronavirus related issues of life-death-health-fear-trust-responsibility and much more. Sailing, swimming, snorkeling and some […]
Selling the Zur Institute, Inc. after a quarter century of intense, challenging and highly rewarding engagement, opened up a huge psychic space and time for the ‘new’. Then, launching Project Insights has been a creative challenge and exercise in the rare commodity of… patience. I have been training for a potential dream-challenge of posting a stake in the South Pole […]
Mid-March 2020 was a perfect time to fly to the Bahamas for another long weekend of sailing with Eitan on a 40 ft catamaran, this time around the Bahamas Islands. It was an odd time on the planet, as the worries and concerns around coronavirus pandemic had not taken hold yet. Eitan got a few […]
My 2019 trip to Israel had a different flavor than previous ones, as this time I traveled alone. This afforded me the chance to spend quality time with my sister, and to fulfill a yearning to revisit and re-experience the Negev desert via off-road motorcycle. My body and psyche clearly remembered the long and exciting days that I […]
Not too long after crewing for Eitan on the majestic Panama Canal in 2019, he and I joined up for another fantastic nautical journey, this one off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island. On this three-day trip I enjoyed the great pleasure of crewing for him on a 44-ft. catamaran headed to Martha’s Vineyard, passing […]
In 2019 I had the golden opportunity to fulfill a dream I have had since I was a 21-year-old Israeli merchant marine wishing to sail through the majestic and iconic Panama Canal. I was thrilled to be invited to crew for my son, Eitan (who lives on his beautiful 36-ft. sailboat in San Diego), who was hired to transport […]
I taught my second 14 hour workshop on Ethics aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas That same year, in December, I taught my second 14 hour workshop on Ethics, this time aboard the Royal Caribbean’s “Allure of the Seas” (2015), and this time in the Caribbean. It was a unique experience being among 8,000 (yes, 8,000!) passengers […]
I took my first ever cruise in July 2014, where I was the teacher of a Continuing Education Ethics class, “Conducting Therapy in the Digital Age”, on a cruise from Seattle to Alaska. Teaching a large, lively class of 40 mental health professionals was intense and rewarding and being on a cruise ship was ‘anthropologically’ fascinating as I […]
The enormity and grandeur of the Himalayas are incomparable and so are the centuries-old sacred Buddhist temples and monasteries we visited. Sometimes it felt like we were riding the clouds. The trip evoked in me such humility and helped me come to terms with physical and age-related limitations (age 62). Ultimately, once again, we looked […]
In August 2012 my son, Eitan (19), and I (62) went to the highest ‘ridable’ road on earth at 18,380 feet above sea level - in the Himalayas on … motorcycles. The two-week adventure turned out to be one of the most physically and mentally onerous experiences of my life. Driving the narrow, rocky roads often bordered […]
Being in this part of Asia, I also could not miss the opportunity to experience that wonder of the world (age 60), the Great Wall of China. (Reluctantly, I had to give up the idea of retracing the steps of Gengis Khan and his journey from Mongolia towards the Great Wall.) Stretching over 5,000 miles through treacherous terrain, this wall is […]
With the motorcycle, I also acquired an 18 foot ocean kayak that gives me freedom and much needed humility. I found keeping myself in the kayak in rough water simply impossible. Paddling on serene waters That lay under a canvas of teal sky My hands delicately grip oars That propel me onwardMy spirit soars Gently as I move […]
Turning 60, and now living closer to the Pacific Ocean, I purchased a 2007 classic-looking Triumph Bonneville motorcycle (850 cc) that I could ride along the ocean and also teach my boys (15 and 18) the love of motorcycles as my dad did with me. […]
When I was invited to speak on the Digital Divide in Singapore in 2009, as usual, I looked around for possible local adventures in that part of the world and decided to do some jungle trekking in the tropical forests of Malaysia. Endless drenching by the monsoons in a remote jungle area gave me a new sense of […]
While my keynote addresses focusing on introducing psychotherapists in Alaska to the legitimized view of flexible therapeutic boundaries (such as unavoidable multiple relationships, home visits, therapy sessions outside the office, gifts, bartering, etc.) the subfreezing temperatures and bone-piercing windchill factor while camping on the ice gave me a glimpse of the edges of human endurance. I was […]
In 2008 I was invited to give a keynote address at the Social Workers Annual Convention in Anchorage, Alaska. Being there, I heard ‘the call of the wild’ and took the opportunity to go embark on another adventure, this time backpacking on the vast glaciers of Alaska. For a person who thrives at 114° F, the subfreezing temperatures of the glaciers, […]
As Eitan and I were training for the Kilimanjaro climb, many friends and acquaintances confronted me. They wanted to know why at the age of 57, after having suffered a major cardiac arrest, I was so keen on risking my life with this climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro alongside my 14-year-old son. After growing tired of […]
In 2007, after finishing my fourth book on Boundaries in Therapy, published by the America Psychological Association (APA), watching the movie Motorcycle Diaries threw me into an “existential funk” that sent me searching for meaning and new experiences of beauty, adventure, connection, and heights. The result was my resolve to explore the challenging ‘altitude boundaries’ of air, or […]
Eitan’s bar-mitzvah reminded me how as a young man I often spent time in the desert, enjoying the dry heat and powerful, arid landscape. I rode motorcycles (and camels) and drove jeeps in the Sinai and Negev Deserts, as well as hiking and backpacking. I was once drawn to a sacred place there: Saint Catherine’s […]
Eitan has always been adventurous. Here he is at age 11, fearlessly joining me (the first time for both of us) paragliding in tandem off Sonoma Mountain. And there was another mountain in our future: It was with Eitan that I summited Mount Kilimanjaro 2007, as we shall see. In later years, Eitan pursued skydiving, catcher in […]
Another boundary to be experienced was the Na Pali coast in Kauai, Hawaii, which is considered “the Everest of sea kayaking”. My son, Eitan, who was only 12 at the time, and I went on a demanding, 17 mile kayak trip, where the cusp of the Mammoth Mountains slopes into the ocean. It was an incredible day with […]
In 1987, I was honored to be invited with my friend and colleague, Sam Keen, to Moscow, Russia for a symposium on “Soviet-American Images: A New Perspective,” organized by the Soviet Peace Committee and the Center for Soviet-American Dialogue. Our guest appearances included working sessions with scientists from the USSR Academy of Science. These were […]
After my adventures in Africa finally came to a close, I spent some time in England and northern Europe. In London, living in the Kilburn area, I spent a few months exploring this historic city in all its surprising variety. I had many memorable moments there - afterall London is a world center of all the […]
There’s never a dull moment living in Africa, and not just in the wild. One can encounter wonders in the urban landscape, as well. On one of my morning jogs in a Nairobi suburb, I bumped into a woman feeding a … giraffe. In this photo, her family was visited for dinner by the young giraffe, […]
Living among the Maasai in Kenya and observing their relationships to the land, animals, each other, and the spirit world was a fascinating anthropological adventure. The photo depicts a ritual of drawing blood from a cow and mixing it with her milk to come up with the ultimate ‘protein shake’. The Maasai, with their thoughtful and inquisitive observations […]
Some time later, I returned to Lake Turkana as the driver of a safari (age 27) made up of Israeli tourists, where, against my judgment and instincts, I followed the guide as he walked the entire group through the crocodile-infested waters of the shallow lake to El-Molo Island, rarely visited or touched at that time by Western […]
Spending time by Lake Turkana (age 26), also known as Lake Rudolf, fishing for Nile Perch and Nile Tilapia and encountering Nile crocodiles was another transformative experience. The surrounding desert was harsh and awe-inspiring, as were the crocodiles found in great abundance in the lake. The scorpions and vipers that ring the rocky shores completed the cruel and […]
In addition to my scientific activities (age 26-27), I also drove safaris in Kenya and Tanzania across the vast savannahs and landscapes of the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Nakuru, and Lake Turkana. The parade of life and the seemingly endless herds of lions, giraffes, zebras, elephants, wildebeests, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and buffalos were everywhere. To […]
At the age of 26-27, my work with growing fish as a protein source eventually brought me to East Africa where I tried to put into practice some of our theories in regions where the people’s diet was poor in protein. I had many humbling attempts to alleviate suffering and starvation by developing small, family-sized […]
As part of me being an oceanographer, I was also a deep-sea diver where I regularly dove the spectacular coral reef in the warm and clear waters (up to 300 feet visibility) amid brilliantly colored fish, turtles and eels. I also dove with sharks in Ras Muhammad off the tip of Sinai next to beautiful and rarely visited or touched coral […]
One of my many assignments in the army was patrolling the Arava and the Negev desert from the Dead Sea in the north to the resort town of Eilat in the south, situated at the northern tip of the Red Sea. I loved the desert; I always did. There is something in its vastness, dryness […]