Turbulence

"Disgust at the obscenity, compounded with guilt: it is within our power to bring the suffering to an end and allow the Samidin to enjoy the lives of peace and dignity that they deserve." 

- Noam Chomsky on his visit to the Gaza Strip, October 25-30, 2012.

“The Palestinian people want to be free of the occupation”

- Award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy

I wrote a prayer for Palestine on the third day of the recent horrific and unspeakable attacks. Reflecting on the long years of occupation and war, I was compelled by spirit to speak out and use my words and knowledge to share and search for deeper understanding. 

To the people of Palestine

Unrecognized, Occupied and Terrorized

the civilians, the children, the workers, the parents, 

the journalists, the artists, the peacemakers, the healers, 

the freedom fighters,

I sit here in the privilege of never having lived in the fear of bombs and rockets

splintering humanity and community.

I sit here with a pain from my chest

to my heart and stomach

worried with helplessness

of what can I do…

except expand my own awareness

and those of my friends, family, students, online community.

I sit in the stark reality of being an activist far from these front lines 

of the heaviest, most intense battles of our time, extending beyond this time

so far back... but these histories and conflicts still rage beneath and through us.

Sure I have been on the frontlines of other battles – poverty, abuse, lack, despair, healing work in the face of grave suffering – I have worked and lived and survived front lines…  but none like this…  no war… no battles with rockets under terror colonization.

I sit with my pen wanting to craft words, carve an urgent response

calling for peace and praying for change

praying for the children and future of Palestine

praying for a sense of humanity and dignity for a people

being crushed yet and still fighting to live

in the face of our collective blindness and willful ignorance.

I remember June Jordan’s words from the film A Place of Rage –

What are we prepared to do for the people of Palestine?

How her words still resonate 20 years later...

Where is our collective rage?

Prayers and meditations today and everyday for peace and dignity for the people of Palestine. Our humanity depends on how we discuss and respond to this crisis. Some of us may feel unaffected and far away, but we do not live in a vacuum - we affect and are affected - and if one lives in the United States and pays taxes, then we are implicated. And we do have a voice - keep ourselves informed, speak from a place of love, and let us all "think peace and believe in change."

Noam Chomsky said the following about what gives him hope in Gaza after his visit: "people’s resilience. They just don’t give up. Under the worst conditions, horrendous conditions, people still, you know, fight for their rights and don’t just succumb. And, you know, it’s a lesson for people from the West. I mean, you know, we talk about repression, but, you know, undetectable by comparison with what most people in the world face. And if they can struggle on under really harsh and brutal conditions, tells us we ought to be doing a lot more."

Yesterday the United Nations voted overwhelmingly in favor of recognizing the statehood of Palestine. Perhaps this is our collective global first step in doing something.

I continue to trust in the future and that change (the great cosmic shift of our time) is surely coming... and that we can and must create change even with and through the most difficulty of situations and the hardest of addictions. But we are reflections of each other. Bound to histories that don't make sense... and to the present of tumbling into an abyss of climate change, continued wars and occupations, troubled conflicts, control over minds and bodies, mass consumption, excessive greed, extreme poverty, too much extraction, too much violence at greater and greater costs to our bodies and our planet. 

We have little to spare and too much work to do. The time is now to think beyond ourselves and rage more. Change is coming. Resist. Rethink. Rework. Remember. Rememory. Reclaim. Rebuild. Rage Power.

31st October 2012 * reflections at midnight *

Peace and blessings on this last day of October, the day we call halloween or samhain... this is the night that can bring us closer to the spirit world should we so choose... this is the night that reminds us of our connections to the after life, if we want/can see them... This day has been one of my favorite holidays since I was a child growing up in the Bahamas - enjoying the very idea of being able to be anyone and dress up and play...  to escape and become something else. Since my early 20s, it has marked a beginning for me - the day I take stock of self, change, transformation, and spiritual growth.

This year is a tough one... it feels surreal to write on this day just days after the massive superstorm sandy has devastated so many places and people - starting as a strong and strange hurricane last week and moving slowly across the Caribbean - Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. And then up the eastern coast of the United States to grow into what scientists have called the "perfect storm" of a jet stream winter low pulled into a hurricane tropical storm low pressure. We are without a doubt experiencing the drastic effects of climate change because of our relentless use/abuse of fossil fuels. These extreme weather patterns are telling us something. It is time to end the silence and take responsibility for our planet. The time is now to demand the end of silence about climate change and the unnatural disasters happening across the planet. There are too many silences and cover ups. There is too much fear. 

I sit and mediate on this eve and focus my energies on what I can do to hold our leaders, our governments, our communities, and ourselves accountable. How can we create change? How can we build better with each other and with the planet? How can we re-make our relationships with the earth? How will we start over? What will we tell our children and future generations when they ask what happened to the earth, to our communities, to us? How can we use the energies of 2012 - planetary shifts in consciousness - and the power of this day, this time of transformation, to enact, envision, and create the changes we see and imagine? What will you do tomorrow and the next day? What will I do? And what can we do together? 

with peace, love & conscious wibes