Yesterday still resonates and lives in me. I am trying to find the words to describe ... I grew up in a religious kibbutz. In short, a bubble. And another bubble...But with cultured, artistic parents, connected to the big world.
A very left-wing father who was connected to what was happening, to the news. A sensitive father who was very sad when unequal, inhuman things happened...and I absorbed, and absorbed. But what, we never really got out to meet, get to know, act for the benefit of a shared life, of doing, communicating, or even human encounters of getting to know our brothers who live with us on this land.
It always burned within me the desire to connect , and the times I got the chance to do so were mostly on walks, when on the roads there I would see ruins, piles of stones, houses and villages destroyed, and immediately history awakes and great pain arises, deep and frustrating helplessness. How was life then, and where are they now? I went around G for years with the frustration of pain and helplessness and without any answer to all of these.
A few years ago I participated for the first time in a workshop of Jews and Arabs which bent and shook me so deeply that I finally met face to face the realities of life here in the country. I heard from Arab women and felt the variety of emotions ... that's it! The connection happened. From that moment I realized that until they live a life at least as worthy as mine I will not have peace. It's like a part of an injured body that until it gets an answer and healing I can't feel whole and full and be at my best.
I could not go on as usual (although my life is never really as normal). A deep restlessness of disagreement, anger, frustration motivated me to move and do more…
After a period of more workshops and a more practical search, I came to Eyal Shani through a mutual friend (thanks to Orit Alkabetz, a beloved sister for the successful matchmaking). I have come to the man who does the thing that for me most significantly brings about change within life in the human web itself.
He instills a sense of peace, of togetherness of deep true listening with all who meet. For 13 years he entered the southern areas of the Hebron Mountains, moving between settlers (and not afraid to try and communicate with the most extremists) and Falachi (farmers) in caves, in Bedouin villages, forming years of friendships and connections with families of parents and children. There is no one who does not receive attentive and loving care. He comes with an open heart full of good intention and a desire to give and learn without judgment and without guilt without a one-sided feeling.
This is heroism to me, because it is so easy within this reality that people live in it in an ugly and aggressive occupation to enter unilaterally into anger and despair. And he is simply not giving up the human heart to believe in the good and that it is possible otherwise.
Eyal creates connections between settlers and Palestinians, develops channels of encounter and dialogue, forgiveness and solutions from a higher human place, through connections with the authorities, but especially with the people themselves. Eyal produces, weaves, week by week a new human network. A unifying new consciousness that fills me with great hope.
The days I join him get full of inspiration from him and also get the perfect support to bring myself just the way I am.
And wonders happen to me, connections with women and children, crafting time together movement, touch, dance .. I get time to be at the Land of Genesis which is totally the home of my soul, at the Sinai desert’s pace (south of Mount Hebron) which is really my pace.
Leaving early in the morning and returning at night. We meet in one day both "settlers" and "Palestinians" and within this day we feel that we are weaving connections that dissolve walls, perceptions, and most of all bring our hearts, bring human presence and togetherness.
To be together with everything that happens. To be with a family whose house was destroyed. To be with Ibrahim who got beaten up by settlers a few years ago and still has a damaged kidney from the beatings and of course his complaint file was closed without proof that there is no one to talk to. And now he can not work either because he is an Arab and may be bitten by extremist Jews from Beit Shemesh at his place of work .. and he is calm and hosts us in peace and love...So much inequality is enraging and painful!
To be together, to be together ... not to try to run away and hide the pain. The conquerors that we are. Yes! Us!!! The good majority that wants peace. We are an occupier with a great power in our hands. We have rights while they do not get a quarter of what we have. And we can make and move to a new reality! it is within us. There is nothing to wait for, no one from above will do it for us. It's in our hands. I wish each of us would devote a regular amount of time in his /her life moving in a way that will create a new reality.
Although this post is long and full of words, what I mean is accomplished through practical action in life itself. Without many words, talks, excuses, excuses ...This is something we have to give them: the creative momentum of creation and change, a motivating initiative .. So go ahead!
We have so much to gain from them and they have so much to gain from us.
I wish we had a simple connection to the earth.
I wish we had the quiet.
I wish we had the feeling of the time they have.
I return so charged and nourished from all those from which I receive.
In the picture: an elderly, the family head, beside him all the kids drawing and dancing with me. I also put a page and chalks for him, an invitation … A man who does not remember when he last held chalk and painted. A man working his farm and watching the sheep and goats, supporting a large family, sitting down to paint with us.
And in the second photo Soar (from another family in another place) who after a long time of shyly standing next to me as I painted, not allowing herself to take part, started taking a place on the page, bringing more and more and more of her colors ...so moving!!
Every time I arrive here is another rapprochement, another desire, another opening... beautiful and exciting connections are forged. Relationships that are healing in themselves. Many seeds of good were planted yesterday in the hearts of the parents and children while creating love together in the heart of us all .. Togetherness helps me contain all the pain and helplessness and anger that arise and are present there, and here.
If you have a desire to join and help me make a change, let's talk.
There is a lot to do here!
Melia
0502209800
