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When Your Children Disappear

She was unconscious on the ground and she was snoring. So were the words of two of my daughter’s friends when they woke me up at 1 a m on May 12, 2020. Living deep in a wilderness Moab canyon with no reception, they had driven the cliff hanging hairpin turn gauntlet to deliver to me the latest update on the life of my daughter. A party of many friends gathering for the first time since the pandemic had ended with KIma being found unconscious on the ground., snoring. No one realized that snoring indicated a traumatic brain injury, which was indeed the case. My beautiful , wise, fun, and adventure loving daughter had collided with a fate that threatened to take her from all of us. The ER doctor that first saw her in the tiny Moab, Utah hospital knelt by my car just after the life flight took off and answered the question of whether she would live with…she may not. The driving wheel gripping, dark, dark, dark, push, push, just drive. The 100 mile journey to in the dark a m hours to the Colorado hospital is a memory of the fear of walking into the complete unknown of my girl’s life or death. The most terrifying moment of the ordeal was entering the hospital, looking straight at the security personnel and asking, is she alive? The answer of yes nearly took me to my knees. A no would have.

A touch of drama? Yes. Did she live? Yes. Is she OK? Yes. For months. I watched her go from comatose, to slowly answering questions about who she was and where she was, to taking her first few shaky steps, to walking out of the ICU to rehab and on to her brilliant, miraculous, and rare recovery. For weeks, I walked a narrow line of hope with disaster on the other side. My two brave sons walked it with me as they came and stayed, taking shifts to be sure someone always was with her. A few of her friends from Moab camped out in a van in the parking lot for weeks as to also be able to take shifts. They rubbed her feet and told her they loved her. We spoon fed her fat bombs and made sure she drank loads of protein shakes.

Many people sent love to us. Some of my Muslim friends in Palestine were calling to Allah for her during their daily prayers. A group of women from the Hooper Ridge rural Southeastern Ohio neighborhood where Kima grew up sent love on their morning walks together. I was saying for a while that all the love was a critical part of her almost strange recovery. But recently, a young woman from this same neighborhood also had an ATV accident. And died. And a few months before, the college roommate of one of the other walkers’ son died of head trauma. His family was flying in from Japan, and did not make it to his side. Those kids had prayers. Those parents were taken to their knees.

After my girl’s recovery I had to go away to be on my own for the winter. I had to recover from my own sense of trauma. I was afforded the luxury of staying in my older brother’s house in Sedona, AZ. Sedona is a most breathtakingly beautiful place.

May 2021 Israel bombed Gaza, again. Throughout the week, Palestinian friends in Gaza sent me videos of bombings that they were able to record on their telephones. These videos are complete with their terrified panting as they filmed explosions a few streets away, their panting giving way to screams as more explosions rocked their house. One video descended into dark falling rubble, then ended. My friends all lived. However, at least 67 youth did not. Over 200 human beings murdered so far by these rockets sent into Gaza in just this past war. I am keenly aware that Israel is claiming self defense after Hamas sent hundreds of rockets over the wall that separates Palestinian Gaza from Israel. I am also keenly aware that Palestinians in Jerusalem are being ripped from their homes, beaten by IDF, tear gassed, shot at with rubber bullets, enduring the shattering sound bombs thrown in their midst as they resist with no viable means of self defense. The worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque had no means of self defense as the holy site was raided the final days of Ramadan. Photos of Muslims staying the course of prayer surrounded in tear gas while the Israeli military looks on are astounding. The Hamas rockets, which were mostly caught and detonated in the sky by the Iron Dome, were the only statement of self defense possible to Palestine. If Israelis have the right to self defense, do Palestinians?? Israel calls this ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem “potential evictions.” Who exactly are they kidding? Lots of people, including Joe Biden. Or on a much darker note, perhaps our leaders are not fooled at all.

After Kima’s accident and subsequent miraculous recovery, I lay in bed at night thinking about Syrian mothers and fathers clinging to their children as they were gripping each other in inflatable boats overflowing with fleeing refugees. I thought about Yemeni mothers and fathers watching their babies starve, while grocery stores with food on the shelves were not too far away. Now I am thinking about Gazan mothers and fathers digging their children out of the rubble of an Israeli multi billion dollar a year self defense budget. None of these parents get to go to some serene destination to recover. No. They will endure. They will endure losses we cannot imagine. They will fall off the line into disaster. The survivors will pass on their trauma to yet another generation. We will go on with our lives, many of us, shaking our heads, stating the complications of political situations, and then decide what to make for dinner. Politics are complicated after all. Death is not. What is the point of confusing the two? Are all of these deaths the result of politics? I still have a hard time comprehending the politics of war. Keep your politics where they belong, wherever that is? Stop using the murder of countless lives as collateral damage to your merciless and privileged decision making, your “politics” masquerading as religion.

I am semitic. My father was Palestinian born and Nakba torn. Somewhere in my maternal lineage is a Sarah Robinson, a Jewish Brit. I am not sure she makes me semitic. My father makes me semitic. If Palestine had never been invaded by Arabs in the 7th century, his native language would have been Aramaic, as Jesus spoke. Although Palestinians call themselves Arab, I feel this is more the nature of the language than the people. Entering the West Bank of Palestine opens one to a pulchritudinous culture that can be addictive to a western bred soul. One can be awakened by the generosity of strangers in the street, smiling at you and perhaps asking you in for coffee if the conversation lasts even but a few minutes. Of course, one must overlook the trash in the streets of Qalandia, sometimes burning tires, insanely trafficked no rules apply roads, and the ever present Israeli wall, complete with sniper towers, surveillance cameras, and razor wire. I travelled through Qalandia refugee camp into Ramallah, moving deeper still into the small villages that were born among the holy landscapes. In spite of the invasive , soldier ridden, wall building, olive tree stealing and burning Zionist settlements that empty their untreated waste into Palestinian villagers’ backyards, ( Do I have attitude? Hmm, is telling a first hand witnessing true experiences attitude? ) the gorgeous cultural invitation of hospitality continues on. I have yet to be ‘granted permission’ to visit Gaza. So much in the media diverts from the beauteous realm of the West Bank. From Palestine. It is from here that I resonate. Being here where I feel home. I have for years called my daughter my Palestinian Princess. And so she still is. I still get to call her that. She is still with me as so many Princes and Princesses of Palestine have disappeared under their bombed or bulldozed homes while their parents are left holding the immortal memory of their royalty.

Love doesn’t always supersede certain failings, human and otherwise. We are all familiar with this in our daily lives, via loss of friendships, family feuding, divorce, and so on. We are easily led to love, but without any fortitude of faith, personal grounding, self love, or commitment, the reality of the full spectrum of the love affair can diminish or be destroyed completely. Sometimes it is the safest and best route to abandon a dangerous or destructive love. Sometimes a relationship ends but the love carries forth. Sometimes, the sticking with it is the road to….damn, what is the word? Fulfillment? Enlightenment? Illumination…I like this one. Because in this Palestinian love affair, I have stayed. I have stayed through being taken advantage of, being naive and handing too much money to the wrong person, being misrepresented, saying the wrong things, and feeling like I didn’t know anything. I stayed through realizing that Palestinians in Palestine have their own daily dramas to live through, and sometimes I am not a welcome part of some of their lives . In simple terms, the experience of being the exotic traveler coming back only lasts for so long. The grit of the daily life sinks in. The reality of how many parents still must fear for their children every day for simply going to school, going on a picnic, or foraging for wild plants is harsh. But my illumination to the steadfast beauty of a culture that, enduring a cruel and systematically oppressive military occupation, is even more staggeringly and bountifully breathtaking than it was in the beginning.

“The grit of daily life”….in Palestine, this is something to reckon with. The word normalization has become cliche. Watching two Israeli soldiers pointing their loaded weapons at two Palestinian boys running in a field, and then keeping on driving and talking with the taxi driver is not normal. It is survival. Stopping the taxi and interfering could mean death for the taxi driver. It would change nothing for the boys. Those boys might have lived. They may have disappeared. I don’t know what happened. You certainly will not read about it in the Jerusalem Post. The soldiers certainly lived, and not until much later or not at all, might they end up like the 27 year old ex IDF woman I met in Jerusalem. Without looking at me she told me, “They brainwash us our entire lives. When we are 18 years old we go into the military. And later, we cannot live with ourselves for what we’ve done.” Her illumination differs from mine.

While in the ICU with Kima, one of her night nurses, Teri, paid particular attention to her. She made sure to give Kima the protein drinks we had brought for her. I loved Teri for her care and compassion. One night I asked her a bit about herself as I was thanking her for her kindness. She then told me that she had lost her son a few years ago in a traffic accident. He had been riding shotgun while his girlfriend drove. She reached for something and the vehicle swerved and flipped, killing him. The driver had no injuries. I stared at this nurse, close to my age, as she stood there, both of us tearing up. I said, “You care so much for my daughter when you lost your son.” “Yes” she replied. “It is healing for me to care for her”. In these small monumental moments, we recognize hope for humanity.

My oldest son and his wife are expecting a baby any minute. I have explained to them that even as much as they are joyfully in love with one another, the love of their baby will surpass the depth of love they have ever dreamed possible. They are carrying on my parents, her parents, backward and forward onward. Every child born from rubble or affluence holds a thread, a possibility that love overrides the brutality of evil that has sought to darken humanity from time immemorial. Of course, the care of what they are taught is what begins the weave of the thread.

Baby ………….Beardo Weaver Lill Bister Dahlstrom Amash , you will soon appear into the light and night of human existence. May you be able to stand in who you are grounded, kind, charismatic,( you will be ) joyful, and free. That your known blood of English, Swiss, German, Swedish, Dutch, Palestinian, and every other drop of ancestry you carry also carries you as you intertwine with this life. Every parent in every war shattered place loves the child/children they have lost as much as I love my own, as much as my children will love their children, and as much as you love or will love yours. I am blessed to have a daughter alive when others came to the end of the line with their loved ones. I pray for a just world that ceases its dialogue of imposed racism and ethnic divisiveness. Baby Amash has a cousin somewhere in Palestine. May they dance wildly together one day.

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Screaming

Screaming Sanity Into Another Dimension

Unite!!!!

Who is being united from which divide divider division divisory…what?

fucking mess.

In WhatWhich dimensions do  fearless brave united diversified societies co-exist?

How can any statement  action  thought  of creating a bland culture

Of only people like me  us  our race

Our economic equals  our religion our our ways our our

our my my my mine mine not your

Be anything interesting

A scholar said unification exists best in diversity.

well said but not done.  ouroboros

ouroboros uroborus  youroboros  ouroboros and all is one.

RRRAAAHHH  RAAHH RAAAHHH I screamed.

I really did scream. On Zoom with people watching Screamed out hard again

long, again RRRAAAAHHHH eyes closed, fingers fisted bending my knees

For my grandmothers I screamed. For my parents, I screamed. For my children

For Myself.

I wonder if Tata ever screamed like that. !948  Palestine home and then  kicked Her out with 8 children and told Her country never existed

Miles in the July desert heat She walked with them  survived with them and my Sido.

Ramallah refugees. Her kitchen in British mandated what a pathetic statement for ownership Lydda never again saw spinach pies lemon sumac fatayer z’atar rolled cabbage malfouf rolled grape leaves dawali hummus baklawa tabouleh mulukhia with lamb okra  bamia fiiiinely diced and minted cucumbers and tomatoes fatoush  olives and oil and swift hands laboring in love

unless a foreigner did it before Her home was torn down for the

Apartments that stand there now filled with people not related to Her cooking Her food

There’s a chance She wailed to the sky to the desert and I bet

it was not enough.

My British Grandmother Mabel was silent.

My mom said so.  She had had a full music scholarship to Oxford for classical piano.

She accidentally chopped off Her own finger while cutting firewood.

She was sent to America to be a Nanny.

She married a Pennsylvania farmer and bore 5 children.

She never played piano.

And I bet She never screamed.

If I was Her now I’d be

rolled up in a little ball in a nursing home unknowing of any of my children.

I screamed for She , Her, I. My screams were heard by the  compassionate ears of God

and  a zoomful of adult human seedlings  deeming me sane

Heard by Me and by You.  All of You and all before You and I will scream again and again to recover all of Our sanity.

God in that dimension the English Grandmother and Palestinian Grandmother and their mothers  and husbands and fathers of course as well are dancing together now that the screaming is being taken care of.

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Coffee

You want coffee? Words spoken like a song. The last syllable stretched out  and rising an octave to the upward lilt of the question mark. A phrase so often heard in Palestine. You want coffee? B flat A flat  E  to the next octave A flat with the lilt. However asked, always the melody, the lilt, the welcoming warmth that implies the question is also an offer.

Palestine. How I have loved walking the concrete sidewalks of cities, the stone streets of the old towns, through the intricate stone archways connecting centuries of hand hewn stone homes to one another. They rise straight from the edges of the narrow smooth stone streets and alleyways. An archway may suddenly lead you into an airy courtyard laid with the same stone. The stone moves into stairways, passageways, patios, flower boxes, flowing seamlessly from structure to structure. The flow represents the culture. Streets, homes, businesses, a flow of life with fluid stone. The stairs behind the cashier of this tiny store in this tiny village near Bethlehem lead to her niece and family’s apartment, and her apartment. They flow above the store into dwellings with balconies hung with laundry and freshly mopped tile kitchen floors. That fruit and vegetable market around the corner,  customers shop under reclaimed stone arches that support  layers of family above. I was invited up for storytelling there one afternoon with Grandmother. The stairs lead 3 stories high, to where Great Grandmother once lived, Grandmother still lives, Mother , father, sisters, married, unmarried, children, they are here. A door on each floor. Soaring arched ceilings as if building a cathedral was the first intention.

And coffee. To sit in these sacred spaces and be invariably served the strong cardamon Arabic coffee. Lucy, the proprietress of the first mentioned store, has a platter of small porcelain cups and a silver coffee urn brought to her every day around 4 by her neighbor. It is a small afternoon social event located on and around the low counter of her check out station perpendicular to the entrance . She sits in her swivel chair and pours the coffee for those who sit on the 2 other unfolded chairs, and whoever sits on those 3 steps behind the counter. If I happened by, coffee was always poured for me. And if it was before six o’clock, Lucy might read my dregs. One day she told me (in Arabic, her niece translating)) about my children and the quality of my very soul, all quite nonchalantly amidst the conversations going on among the other afternoon partakers.

One morning walk took me to an edge of this small village. Because the topography is steeply hilly, a simple walk can quickly become arduous. This walk took me on a  horizontal route, as my apartment was already near the village peak, right next to a church and a mosque.

 A few minutes, a few multi family courtyards later, stone streets become paved and dusty.  Homes become separated dwellings with small yards. Olive as well as a few pomegranate trees line the terraced hillsides. Trash lies on the ground. Blue plastic bags, paper cups, plastic bottles, empty cigarette packs. Trash is a sore reminder of lack of certain infrastructures. An old empty dwelling has a yard of tall weeds, trash lying among bright arrays of some of the immense diversities of wildflowers of Palestine. Beautiful day, perfect weather.  Round the curve, up to the end of the street where it melts into some weeds. And there it is. I stop short. At the bottom of this hill where the street ends, there is a tall, never ending metal fence. It is a barricade Olive trees grow on this side, mostly they grow on the other side, all the way up to the top of the opposite hill, right to just below the watch tower where armed IDF soldiers do rounds of duty. There is barbed wire. An Israeli settlement has been built up there. Most of the olive trees on the other side once belonged to this village. Now they don’t.

How much staring in shock ( this was my first trip to Palestine) can one do? How do I grasp what it means to live every day with the possibility that this village could wake up and find that fence moved closer, the next row of olive trees taken with no warning, no explanation, no nothing. That climbing that fence to harvest any fruits that have been in your family for generations might mean death? I slowly turn to go back. Right then, I just wanted a cup of coffee, a moment to have something familiar as to absorb this unnatural imposition. The last house on this street is an elegant, 3 storied home. A twenty something year old man is sweeping the driveway. He calls” Hello” to me. “Hello” I call back. Then ” How are you?” This question, the last consonant always goes down, like C C A, with the ‘you’ being drawn out.” Fine” from me, then a “Can I help you” from him. I laughingly say I am going to go find coffee. Then it comes. Bflat  Aflat  E  octave up Aflat

“Wait.” he commands. Out comes his cell phone, then a brief conversation. “5 minutes” he says. back to me. “OK”. I stand , he smiles. “Where you from”..”America”…”How you like Palestine”….

Many Palestinians speak English well enough for basic communication. Then he points to another hillside to our right  where yet another neighborhood  has been ingeniously engineered to organically grow from the slopes. “My home there,” he says. “My mother making you coffee. My brother will bring it.”

Now I am smiling in surprise and so curious. Really? He made a phone call to bring me coffee? Sure enough, within 7 minutes a white SUV pulls up. The driver rolls down his window, says to me  Bflat  Aflat  E  Aflat-? and hands me a paper cup of fresh hot, Arabic cardamon coffee, complete with the layer of dark silt at the bottom. Made for me by his mom, at his brother’s request, coffee and delivery, no charge. .

I sip, look at pictures of the driver’s fiancee, politely receive an invitation to their engagement party. After a few minutes, he takes my empty cup, we shake hands all around and say goodbyes. He drives away, his brother goes back to sweeping, I head back to my apartment. This is Palestine. Now I just wanted to dance with happiness in spite of that fence, the walls, the stolen trees, the razor wire. The joyful culture of hospitality had just happened right there within the sights of a machine gun. Graciousness lives.
This is Palestine. 
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Another Labor into Love

Hello Readers, it has been a couple months. Sometimes this happens. I begin a project I feel heart and soul, and then the fear of putting myself fully forth happens. The first real time I ever had a project I knew I could not turn my back on was on September 19, 1985. I was in labor for my first child. Labor is a universal female initiation into going beyond what one ever imagines possible. A woman can never fully comprehend the experience of labor until she is in it.  Such a strange thing. Your body feels as if it is being ripped open more than it actually IS being ripped open.  Some women have painless labors. I assure you, most do not. There was a vivid moment during this first labor, smack in the middle of my forehead. Sudden lucidity between contractions. Oh My God, I can’t turn back.

Turning back is a clever elf. Buy a dress, never wear it. Start a relationship, no time to listen. Start a family, Friday night poker is far more important than quality kid time. Start a blog, be too busy to write. Commit to world peace, get caught up in the details of social media, government forms, and fear.

Fear? Oh yes, the justifiable cleverness of turning back.  We all know what it is. It hurts us. It is the part of us that can’t acknowledge that we posses the greatness to persevere. That we have the strength to do this THING that is so out of the normal realm. After giving birth, the intensity of the contractions were gone. The pain was gone. The overwhelming , unexpected volume of love that sprang forth from this agony was a 6 lb 1 oz  bundle of vulnerability and power placed on my belly, in my care, and forever in my  consciousness.  The best thing life had ever offered me was this new tiny life. Good thing I couldn’t turn back in the middle of all that contraction mess, or I just might’ve.

Here I am again. Hello there. This time I am laboring again to put forth a peace effort in the Middle East. Oh My God. Am I crazy? The little clever turn back elf made an appearance.  Then clarity revealed itself in the nick of time.

Although an individual event, as women we labor alongside every mother in every country since however you believe it began. Atoms or Eve, we are united. We all felt the impossibility of our uterus in sync to the effacing of our cervix, the opening of our vagina, the woosh of water, blood, and baby. Sometimes it was a cutting through the abdomen.  Sometimes we and or baby died. More often, we lived.

As lonely and impossible as it feels to start a peace project, I am in sync with you. We are in sync with every peace project on the planet. We are the majority. We are the Mothers and Fathers together birthing a new reality through all the madness of a shared labor. Every news report of violence sends us gasping into contractual disbelief over and over again. And then….we remember something. Something makes us go. Here I some things I remember from the recent past.

I had arrived in Israel eleven days prior. This morning, I awaken in Beit Sahour, West Bank. The night had been stormy, wondrous. The winds speak as I prepare to go outside to the balcony. GO Pro in hand, I am ready to capture this gusty sound and clear light. From the balcony, I point myself to the horizon, to witness a giant rainbow arching from East to West. My hostess, the beautiful Samar joins me, and points out that one end of the rainbow is in Israel, the other in Palestine. Samar and family, Thank you.

I am back in Israel. I have just had juice in a cafe with Yuval, an Israeli man who greeted me with sparkling eyes and complete support and enthusiasm for my project. He is making phone calls on my behalf to friends who may help, including the press. Mind you, this Jewish man is supporting planting trees in Gaza, and willing to be a part of it. Yuval, thank you. Leaving Yuval and the cafe, I am trying to find the bus station. Upon entering the mall across the street and obviously looking confused, a beautiful Israeli woman with long dark hair asks if she can help me. Yes, please. She points the direction of the station, then walks with me. She asks why am I here? I tell her about Gaza, the trees. I tell her it is a peace project, and she says Yes! I can see this! She loves it. I ask her may I hug you? Yes, yes, she says. We hug, I thank her, I ask may I write you a letter in my book?  ( the book I will write about this) Yes, of course , yes. The bus has arrived and I must run. That was all in 3 minutes. Ya’el, thank you.

In Palestine, coming through the shock of a checkpoint from the easy direction, I am met by a Palestinian man I have only spoken with by telephone, a stranger by all definition.  I am welcomed into his home. I stay with them, his wife, their baby. They feed me, they treat me like family. I fall in love with their baby girl. I think and feel to myself, I want her to grow up free.  They invite me back whenever I need,  their home is my home. Thank you.

I am in a small village. In the old stone grocery store, the owner, speaking perfect English, randomly tells me, a total stranger, that the previous Tuesday Israeli soldiers had entered their village and thrown the poison gas bombs. Her daughter in law had breathed the gas. This gas is specifically used to cause unborn babies to die. Within hours, she had gone into labor, and finally birthed her stillborn child. A child who had been squirming and kicking into the ninth month of pregnancy. I was shocked and did not know how to respond. Days later, I went back to this store to interview this family. A son, brother to the man whose wife had been forced into spontaneous deadly abortion, spoke with me. He was quiet and intelligent. He spoke leaning against the check out counter, his arms crossed.  He described this life, this life of occupation, frequent poison gas, how another relative in Bethlehem had lost her five month fetus, and another. Yet, the attitude was this. ” We must live our best life. We must do our best every single day, to try our hardest to do the right thing. ” This from a young Palestinian man whose Grandparents had fled through the burning fires of Jerusalem in 1948,  with many more stories then the ones I write here. Thank you.

Let the news role. There is more good in hearts of people then the violence that frightens us every day.

I have booted out the turn back elf.  Laboring with all of you is a distinct honor and pleasure. I am convinced , certain, that peace makers are the majority. However, it seems that we are not the reigning power. Here is where the loss of momentum or discouragement lies. What if we actually are, if we dare believe it. A journal entry from my first Palestine trip says this:

Your most powerful tool is your own vision.

Our most powerful tool is our collective vision.

Here is our power friends. In our visions that defy sanity, that seem extreme, beyond reach. Who ever believed a baby would squeeze between our legs must have been hallucinating? I do know that I see small rewards frequently already in this current labor. I am also willing to know that the ultimate goal we all seek may be something we may laboring for into the next life. Onward we go.

Two things as I end. To remind you to dance wildly as you create and vision. To dance wildly when you doubt. Dancing your own wild dance will transform your doubt back to your powerful vision.

I write this on the Monday eve before Giving Tuesday. If you are able, please consider giving even a few dollars to The TreeWater Initiative. Cultivating a million seeds of possibility for economic sovereignty, cultural solidarity, peace building, and environmental stewardship using tree planting as an entry point.

Our first project of tree planting  will be soon under way in Gaza. Thank you to all those who gave for this pilot project. I can’t wait to share pictures!!!

Here is the link for anyone to give now, or at any time. For more info, visit Facebook:  The TreeWater Initiative.

The link is on the facebook page as as of this moment the button here is not working.

The TreeWater Initiative: Cultivating a million seeds of possibility……

Thanks,Much Love, Dance Wildly, , Labor Fearlessly, Vision Immeasurably, Jeannie

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For A Few Minutes

It was a slow sunset over Palestine.

Descent of fire and rising of shadows.

Red as red. The Orange. Floating riveting calm fiery expansive

Orange keeps away  evil spirits…for a little while

It will melt away into magenta grey blue black and stars  and moonlight

Why can we stare at the sun when it seems so close and big?

What tames our fire at dusk?

Why is it that only before the darkness we can look directly in to the source?

I’d rather ponder the metaphors than know the science

Villages appear as light  pinholes poked  into the mystery

One  now two now many.

West  the light muted color show rapidly and slowly evolves into extinction

Olive Green hills on the North fading

Brown rocky wisdom spikes to the South soften

Maybe seven layers of slope converge

The beauty of ruggedness deepens at dusk.

And this land is rugged

As are her people rugged and deep

This western valley as viewed from this Eastern crest

Is the most perfect canvas for this daily world wide display

That brings perfection of solitude

Yes. The beauty of ruggedness deepens at dusk.

I close my eyes to better attenuate to the wind’s touch and song.

The gift  Blindness brings.  Is understood.

But even a blind person need open their heart and mind.

And look.

Friends that brought me hear are but a breath away

Also alone, silently gazing, feeling, being full, and being together.

They come every day and I know why.

Each of them has been beaten, or tortured,  jailed, or seen ugly  death.

Once, twice, or many

Unexpectedly, unnecessarily, innocent yet accused

Tear gassed. Shot. Crumbled.  And gotten back up.

They come here. To this hilltop. This vantage. This stillness.

This timelessness. This totality in a whisper.

For a few minutes the entirety of life is lived.

For a few minutes every sense is grateful for this life.

For a few minutes our solitude is our greatest solace and companion.

For a few minutes our joy surpasses our grief.

For a few minutes we see the wonder and awe of God unscathed.

We know we are all chosen.

For a few minutes we believe and live in peace.

For a few minutes.

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A quick little aside about Charlottesville

Charlottesville White Supremacists: We are not racist! We just don’t want to be replaced. We, white, able -bodied, “Christian” Americans,  who replaced all native cultures on this land of USA, hereby decree our right to not be replaced. Alongside our deeply seated guilt that not only did we replace, we are deeply fearful that someone will now replace us.  Never mind that we are completely confused about who we fear that might be. But whoever they may be, they are obviously vastly more powerful then we are, or they would not pose a threat. And as far as being racist toward blacks, we are not, thank God. After all. It was on the backs of the black people our white southern culture was built.  Heaven forbid we would call ourselves racist as we fight to keep our rightful place on this land.  Please world, listen to our innocence. Please omnipotent God listen to us as we unwittingly display our impotence. We have civil rights too. The right to proclaim our right to be here as a right just like the right of everyone else who has rights but just not as much as our right to be right. Or else we are in deep shit to take a little responsibility for our history.

Charlottesville,  thank you(?) for helping peel back the festering wounds of our heritage. We are incredibly sorry more deaths occurred in this process. Thank you for helping us realize that to move forward as a nation, we must confront, acknowledge, and reconcile the sins of our past. We can and must end a cycle of guilt, fear, and confusion that erupts in fearful public displays of hate disguised as innocent acts of self defense or revelries of superiority that kill. That it is now necessary to recognize the violent nature of our birth. Thank you for exposing the debt of gratitude we owe those who were here before us. The native cultures we fought, and still fight, to dehumanize. To those we forcibly brought here to do the work we did not want to do ourselves. That yes, even though our founding fathers held slaves, it was not humane or right for them to do so. We are caught in the midst of our own evolution. We consciously opt for the tipping point of courage and acknowledgement. We all participate every day in small decisions that make our collective whole. What we read, who we listen to, including the small voices of prejudice in each of our heads, matters. We confront our own prejudices now, knowing that many of us, in our desire to be good people, have pretended that they don’t speak. But they do. About anyone “different” than “us”. So now we listen. We stop fearing our own selves. We stop and think. Who taught me this? What is my truth? What do I honestly stand for without the pretense or burden of having to be “good”?  Am I holding a light or eclipsing one? We all love to pretend in our own innocence. But only children have innocence, and they are in the care of those of us making the decisions. Watching our every move. MOVE MOVE MOVE!!! WE ARE MOVING FORWARD TO GREATER LIGHT. LET OUR SHADOWS BECOME COOL PLACES OF REST.

Dance Wildly. Pray Wildly. Listen Wildly.  Oh My God, we must.

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Whose side are you on?

” After all the suffering, all the losses. I choose to forgive. I choose to forgive because I am not weak.”

This quote is scribbled at the top of the last page of one of  the journals I kept while in the Palestinian Occupied Territories this winter. I am not certain who said it, but as it is 3 am Middle East time as I write this, I will find out tomorrow.  That quote inspires this post.

Coming back to the USA has been difficult.  At first I thought I was just worn out, especially since I had been so sick my last two weeks  with a cough that had me in bed for nearly a week. I slept for eight days upon my arrival to my native soil.  However, it is clear that it is more than recovery from a physical wearing down from illness. There is a shock that settles in after you get back from a place where you see suffering.  The experiences begin to permeate the conscious, subconscious.  This is no news to any veteran .  I experienced no personal attacks, nor made any. I saw no bloodshed. Yet here it is. A struggle to return to “normal life”.

I stayed in Israel first. I toured gorgeous ancient churches.  I  zoomed around in a souped up Subaru through the 2 a m streets of Haifa with my friend’s nephew, Dire Straits beating from the stereo, me practically screaming in laughter and surprise.  Arabs and Jews seemed to live peacefully,  though my time was mainly spent with Christian Arabs.  And Jerusalem. I loved it. It seemed so westernized, as so much of Israel is.  I could enjoy my mocha lattes in the open sidewalk cafes, tour the Old City and buy Kanafee and souvenirs. Ok, yea, so there were armed  soldiers all over the place. On the train that travels up Jaffa Street, they sat texting away, loaded weapons laying across their laps.  What was the problem?  My hosts told me how good Israel was.  How Israel never kills Arabs unless on the defensive, and then, with much regret. This included the West Bank. And certainly, I could not see any differently from there.  Not yet.

A  bus ride through a checkpoint is all it takes to cross from one reality  to another.

Palestinian Occupied Territories Take a deep breath.

It is ruggedly beautiful.

You have to get the bus to Ramallah.  Watch the landscape of hills dropping off into cliffs.  You wind around hairpin turns, up roads so steep you become grateful there is not snow or ice.   The city greets you with dust and trash  and piles of rubble.  In the city proper the main bus stop is like a big gravel parking lot with buses and taxis lined up, leaving, pulling in,  people waiting to board and arriving. I took a left out of the lot and walked down the sidewalks. Stores open on to the street with stacks of merchandise outside. Wagons parked by the street with loads of  strawberries meticulously arranged in pyramids. . I learned most of these strawberries came from Gaza. Vendors with little carts selling corn in paper cups, coffee, fava beans, falafel, and sweets.  This is Palestine!!  The energy has shifted in to overdrive!  It gets denser as you walk deeper in. ASHARA ASHARA ASHARA merchants yell out from their stands of vegetables, fruits, Oh my God. I still want to cry. It is so authentic.

I am spotted immediately as a foreigner . ” Where you from?” over and over I am asked.  “America! ”  “Welcome.”  Every single time.

A reality so well hidden from my friends in Israel slowly began to be revealed. A reality so well hidden from the United States  came to grab me like a fierce vice grips. How can we not know these things I began to see?. I began to really look. I became a listener. I sat at many dinner tables.  I walked the streets for hours, invited in nearly every single time for coffee by a stranger who I would happen to engage in conversation.   The Occupation unfolded itself to me  as a witness to the stories of the ordinary people on the street.

From the Occupied Territories  I have stories of babies in utero dying from poison gas attacks  by Israeli Soldiers . Of children being killed by settlers. I saw soldiers in the streets of my friend’s neighborhood, watched as a young man was up against a wall at night, spotlight on him, armed soldiers making him lift his shirt, pull down his socks, for no apparent reason. I  was temporarily detained at a checkpoint a couple hours after a 20 year old Palestinian woman had been shot because she walked too close to the where the cars came through the checkpoint, instead of near the walking gate.  Mothers in different towns all told me the same thing, of how they were always afraid when they sent their children off to school. The wall, the graffiti, the razor wire, the watch towers dotting the roads and the hillsides, the traffic, the trash… soldiers looking at the old woman on the bus sharing my seat, who could have been my grandmother, as if she was nothing.

And the kindness. The hospitality of those who invited me to stay with them, even as I was a stranger to them as they were to me.  The plates of hummus, lebany, makloubeh, tabouli, za’atar, tomatoes and cucumbers, the native and freshly pressed olive oil, cups of sweet,sweet, and sweeter hot tea with sage leaves, thick cardamon coffee, and endless pita bread.

Going back in to Israel with a new understanding, I began talking to Jewish Israelis.  I made friends with a Zionist who felt that that Israel could do and has done no wrong.  He invited me to his home and was gracious, knowing I had a project in Gaza. A ex-soldier in her mid-twenties said this: “They brainwash us until we are 18 years old, and then put us in the military.  When we get out, we can’t live with ourselves after what we have done.” She advised me to watch the film  Breaking The Silence.   A young woman from Australia told me about how her grandfather had lost 12 family members in the Holocaust. To this day, she told me, he let no one in the family drive or even get in a German car. She also told me how she had been teased in school for being Jewish. Yet she was studying Islam and the Koran because she wanted peace.  I was told that because I spoke English and no Hebrew, I would mostly be talking to less conservative Jews, and they wanted peace. Non english speakers were the conservatives who had voted in Netanyahu. Not a single Jew I spoke with about peace believed their government wanted it. But every single one of them did. Some are now my advocates, going to bat for me as I move ahead with my mission.

So whose side am I on?

It is hard. It is so hard. I see the injustice in Palestine, the grace in which people live under direct oppression. I read the ignorant comments on various pro-Israel news sites and blogs from Americans who have never been there calling Palestinians less than human. I know Palestinians who have been jailed, tortured, lost children, been threatened and humiliated with no recourse whatsoever tell me they just want  to be free.  I know mainstream media in Israel and the USA do not carry the stories of these people. The media carries stories of suicide bombers, stabbings, and missiles fired all against Israel.  True enough, tragedy lies on both sides of the checkpoints.

But I also see that as soon as one takes sides in this situation, there is no chance of peace for anyone. Every time someone makes a racist comment about Jews, an ethnic “joke” or slur, the cause to have an exclusive Jewish homeland is strengthened. Every person who says Israel can do as she pleases, the Jews are God’s chosen, condones an insidious violence that they don’t even know exists. And if they do, they should be careful about playing God and judging which humans are worthy. This wreaks of the same supremacy that caused the Holocaust. I hope you see why the quote that started this post is so impressive.

I personally know what it is like to recover from paralyzing illness. My recovery was the result of a miracle.The two years prior to this healing had been particularly painful. I tried my best to hide my desperation from the outside world, but I was on the verge of giving up. I had almost  stopped trying. After all, my my diagnosis had no cure.  I took an online course with Jean Houston, and I was literally following one of the exercises in  it to a tee, dancing wildly with joy in every cell of my body when I experienced a spontaneous healing. True story.  But I found that even though the symptoms are gone, my body still  has to recover from the damage that was incurred. And that life and death go on mercilessly and mercifully. But I know that miracles in seemingly impossible circumstances can happen.

If peace happens today, spontaneously and miraculously, the wounds will still be there. Deep work on healing trauma, forgiving, economic restructuring, what a list.  Life and death will still go on mercilessly, and mercifully.

But there are peace advocates everywhere, doing this work now.  People working to heal generations of wounding. People stepping in with all their courage and talents to do the right and humane actions even as the weapons machinery industry profits magnificently and peace seems hopelessly doomed for all the greed  and stupidity associated with war.

Those are who I stand with. Scholars, artists, taxi drivers, homemakers, psychotherapists, agronomists, lawyers, etc. etc. we are a collective. A collection of people that believe in the possibility of a world that is inclusive and united with every strand of DNA.  With you. Dance Wildly my friend. Even the soaring and still wings of a seagull riding the wind currents are dancing wildly with the air. Dance in your stillness, dance as you stand painting, or sit writing, or teach yoga. Dance naked in the moonlight in your bedroom. Dance Wildly. Invoke Humanity. Illuminate Possibility. Believe the Miracle.

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Dance Wildly, Invoke Humanity

Dance Wildly is a blog searching for humanity, and how to find ways to invoke it beyond conventional thinking.

Yes, Dance Wildly. As only you can. Do it alone. Do it with friends. Do it as the spirit moves you, and even when it doesn’t. Dance, and the spirit will come.

We cannot solve old problems unless we invoke new paradigms. But what are they?  I propose dancing wildly as a new paradigm of  problem solving. Not my original idea. I learned it from Jean Houston. She is a wonder of a human being. Yes, Einstein did make the comment that problems cannot be solved with the same mindset as created them. So Jean has suggested dancing as a way of shifting your mindset, evoking within yourself new energies.  She calls them “latent potentialities”. And then, invoking the universe to respond in as of yet unimagined ways.

Do I actually believe this?

Yes. I have done it. So can you.

When I was a dance teacher, my daughter would tease me that I thought every one was a dancer. I still believe it. It is better said that everyone is a mover. As long as the blood flows through your veins, the air enters and exits your lungs, you ARE movement. Even as we strive for stillness and quiet, clear thinking,  the swirling oceans of our inner waters and breath are moving, interacting, exchanging.  Always dancing.  it is the commonality we have with every other living organism.

I have just returned from 3 months in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. I am the daughter of a Palestinian refugee.  He came to this country way back in the early 1950’s. He died here in 2016. All I will say in this blog is that his death propelled me through a grief process that just did not end. How many of you can relate? The deaths kept going. My sweet dog, beloved black kitty, my oldest son’s father, my youngest’s grandmother, and more.

During this 5 months of dying, I attended a seminar that asked me to step up to a vision. To step up to being a human who dares to stand up, create, see possibilities, and take action. I said yes. I declared I would plant a million trees in Gaza. I re-declared that as a million seeds of possibility for peace throughout the region. I have also since been challenged to plant 10 million trees throughout the West Bank .

I don’t have that kind of money.

I don’t speak Arabic.  I had never been to the Middle East.

I was not particularly politically astute. But off I went.

I shut down my business, got a (great) house sitter, went to NYC to learn a few things, and landed in Tel Aviv on January 15.

Israel. Palestinian Occupied Territories. What I saw, learned, and felt disallowed me from ever returning to life as I had been living it. It is one thing to hear about oppression. It is another to be the one sitting at a check point with fully armed military personnel questioning you. It is true that in my community in Ohio there are many threats to our safety. Many of my friends are immersed in local battles that it is insane to think they even have to be fought.  Activists combating fracking and its waste, mining under national forests, food safety,  hidden racial issues that as of late are much more on the forefront of American news media,  international peace activists, all who have inspired me over the years. Athens, Ohio is a vibrant microcosm of environmental and social activism.  We have true local heroes.

I have been politically silent for quite some time.

Not anymore.  I found my niche. The Middle East . Land of intense energy, passion, beauty, turmoil, injustice, and from my perspective, hope. The challenge is how do I express my views, evoke possibilities, create hope,and  be a part of the tipping point that will push us as a planetary species in a  forward direction that incites humanity?

In the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Israel, there are many things to see and feel. There is plenty to be mad about. Sad about. Feel hopeless about.  It is not better or worse than  the Congo, Rwanda, Yemen, Venezuela. East Timor, Standing Rock, oh my God how unfortunate that this list could be so long.  These struggles carry their own distinction and universality, they are all keystone events.

The Holy Land is on a stage most of the world watches. I am calling it a keystone event for this reason.  I coined this from the term keystone species. A keystone species is one that, although sometimes appearing to be small and inconsequential, is an absolute key component to the survival of the ecosystem it inhabits.  If bees disappear, all life will halt on our planet much sooner than later.  Only midge flies pollinate chocolate.  Poison the midge flies and kiss chocolate goodbye. Trying to eradicate prairie dogs contributed to the horrors of the dust bowl and the depression in the USA in the 1930’s. Every species and culture we have lost already  has pushed us closer to the dangerous tipping point where we find ourselves now. Though we can predict some of the results from eradicating keystone species, unfortunately, we ignore the ramifications of eradicating keystone peoples and the events that cause it. Palestinian Occupied Territories and Israel are a keystone area/peoples ( besides the rich cultural reasons) as far as engendering a widespread planetary hope.  Imagine what will happen in the event of  peaceful, humanitarian resolution.  Imagine how much hope will be given to the world when peace happens in a land where all the rhetoric says no way, they have always been fighting. 

Imagine that. And dance it. Dance your own dance, imagining peace. Fill your entire body with it. Really do it.

I don’t pretend it is simple. As I will write in future blogs, there are some powerfully entrenched co-dependencies.  Powerful, though selfish, reasons to propagate war. During my first trip, I met many people of great character on both sides of the wall.  Muslim, Christian, Jewish, many made me aware that true peace and humanitarian resolution  resides in their hearts. Communally, let’s make it real.  Instead of succumbing to the seeming hopelessness of one reality, I am choosing to use dance as an art form to call up  possibilities of a greater reality. And with that energy I take to writing, theater, and as you will see,  planting millions of seeds of possibility.

The usual political rhetoric is out. New Paradigms are in.  I am joining this group of New Paradigm thinkers. There are many of us!! You included. Stick around, I will introduce you to the ones I have been privileged to meet, study under, work with, all in the past year.

And right now, I am asking you to start creating your own new mode of creative hope. A way of shifting energies.

Dance wildly. Go where it takes you. Call down the beauty of spirit you want to see here. Dance, imagining joy in every cell. Do it often.  Ten seconds, ten minutes. Smile. No politician can take that from you.  If you are only able to breathe, then breathe the dance of your lungs and the air.

Come back and continue to be a part of this conversation, this dance, this empowerment.  I am dancing, listening, and tipping forward with you.

Jeannie Amash