Three Poems
Three Poems
Editor’s note | I met Lee in the waning summer of 2013 on Martha’s Vineyard. Over dinner, we discussed life things, including our love of dogs and Lee’s experience as a cancer survivor. I was moved then, and now, by Lee’s softness and grace. At this time, he is facing a terminal diagnosis with the same deep quality of equanimity.
He says, “cancer is a spiritual disease, because it forces one to shed much of the garbage we bury our spirits under in our day-to-day lives, and return to what is really important — friends, family, love, forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance. I must admit, I am not in a hurry to get there, but I am looking forward to the transition and journey into another dimension. And I have been fortunate to have had a life lived in one of the best of times.”
Drawing on his love of art and poetry, spiritual teachings of the East, and Christian mystics, including Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross, Lee has shared the hope that his acceptance of the cancer and final diagnosis without anxiety or fear might benefit others who face a similar trial. I’d like him to know that it does. And will continue to do so.
His prolific outpouring of words, as Martha’s Vineyard’s Poet Laureate Emeritus can be found here.
Statement by the poet
As a spirit traveling through matter on a journey towards an unknown event horizon, poetry has been a record and exploration of the inner experience, thoughts, and feelings of this human voyage in a world that is beautiful, mysterious, radiant, and at times terrifying. I learned early that language is a living animal that must be ridden naked and bareback, allowed to go where it wants without forcing it in another direction. Then writing becomes a state of meditation, prayer, revelation, channelling, and exploration of the unsayable that lies behind our daily lives. Over time I learned enough craft to get myself out of the way, and let the poem carry me and inform me. Most of the poems come as gifts, for which I am grateful, and I often find myself surprised I am allowed to be the vessel through which they pass into this world like wayward children.
The Day the World Ends
The day the world ends insects will sing psalms and hymns,
extinct animals will forgive the sins that killed them,
and broken dreams instead of shovels will fill the palms
of gravediggers whose secret philosophies stay unspoken
until theatrical sacrificial scenes are reenacted on boot hill.
Mountains will move imperceptibly towards the sea,
convicts escaping barren plains into horizons
free of constraint or restriction, and boulders tumbled to shore
will become petrified saints crucified by cormorants
drying their wings in whispering prayers of a dying sun.
On the day the world ends we will lie together beneath
the orchards of senses and stare and tremble and breathe
pale dusk air as petals and leaves of moonlight’s white orchids
fall on our lips and eyes, and all we wished but never said,
those things we knew but couldn’t name, will rise
from the Earth around us, a swarming beatitude of bees
sweeping us towards what life remains after the day the world ends.
Attestation
Despite unwanted endings and disasters
we have created, today I will attend
the ceremony of my life with compassion
in a ritual of love for a dying world.
In devotion I will not cry for any except
the innocent — the poor, the children, the animals —
who no longer have gods or myths to save them.
I will bend willingly before the altar light
that emanates from those to come, who will know
the catastrophe of our apathy, greed, and technology;
and I will praise the ones who suffer pain and hunger,
yet still resist; who bind their hardships brightly
with tears and songs and laughter, despite
the wounds and scars mapping all life that exists.
I will bleed internally with the joy of living,
with the memory of those who helped me
make it through the wilderness, a journey of
radiance, terror, and love, as the road bleeds
distances and vistas in a thousand footsteps home.
I will bleed the language of lilacs and orchids,
nettles and burrs, for everyone who shares a dark unknown,
and I will graze like a gazelle on each heartbeat
and breath my body takes, on the vibrating green veldt
of shimmering summer light left in imagination,
and the deep blue-gray sea light in the chill of autumn,
and the amorphous winter animals of prowling snow,
and this energy that flows with compassionate grace
through everything we experience, are, touch, and see.
Song
There is a song animals sing when they are threatened,
frightened, hurt, or wounded; and another
when they are left alone,
a song of gratitude for simple things
that brings forth all the songs their young will sing
in midnight haunts to the other side
of the Mountains of the Moon,
as they roam over earth filled with twilight
until dawn’s silver ladders of light
bleed through the
veined, blue mist of distant foothills.
And without grievance, a song of grace
for form, the skin and bones they bear
through life without complaint;
and for shelter, food and water, and every
hidden haven safe from slaughter;
and for the very air they breathe in singing
that emanates without restraint
through all the world’s hardships and sorrow,
as they disappear from our lives leaving
only these echoing Kyries their bodies sang
in sadness, radiant, even in the dying.
Kito Mbiango | The Power of Art to Drive Action
Kito Mbiango | The Power of Art to Drive Action
Kito Mbiango’s work speaks nostalgically to our primal intelligence, engaging us in a conscious reflection about our collective evolution. His Climate Change Collection is a response to the accelerating environmental degradation we are facing and have imposed upon nature and all wildlife. The artist’s goal with this collection is to shift the traditional climate change narrative of impending doom to a more positive one of reverence and deeper reflection through ‘embodied cognition.’ In this series, he invites viewers to experience these awe-inspiring feelings of interconnectedness with nature through his vivid, interposed imagery. In doing so, he seeks to spark conversations across generations and geographies to spur collective action and draw attention to the dire need for restoring balance with nature.
It is said that we are experiencing ‘climate grief’ or ‘ecological grief’ which captures the feelings of loss, anger, hopelessness, despair, and distress caused by climate change and ecological decline. This feeling of loss is impacting our psyches and mental health, but also making many realize that this means we will all need to make changes in our lifestyles and eating habits, which can lead to further denial and paralysis.
In turbulent times, we often turn to the artists and creatives to nurture our inner selves and help us construct and imagine new realities. As Leonardo DaVinci said, “Art is the queen of all sciences, communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.” Art and culture thus have an immense role to play in educating and mobilising civil society towards climate action. “When we look around our cities,” observes Mbiango, “we are bombarded with ads for consumer and luxury products. This push to consume is what has created this climate disaster to begin with.” In his view, we need to use similar tools and thinking to reverse this trend, impelling people to collective action.
“We are missing the visual and cultural language needed to communicate about the climate, which can empower families, communities and influencers to demand change and resources from their policymakers and governments,” says Mbiango. “At its core, it is about reminding us of our organic unity–and about respect, reverence and love.”
Kito Mbiango finds inspiration in esoteric concepts, vintage photographs, and scientific illustrations. He transforms this material into a new language in which colors, textures, and geometry are used to reflect the eternal dance between man, woman, and nature. He implicitly understands the importance of finding a visual voice or resonance. He does so by a focused meditation on a particular theme. He then transfers and blends symbols and images onto fabric, canvas, wood, and recycled materials. Each medium he uses involves meticulous studies of layering and light, evoking ancestral spirits and voyages through time.
Rooted in Social Justice
The sensitivity of his work stems from Mbiango’s African roots—his father was President of the Supreme Court of Congo and his mother was a nurse. His grandmother, a master in ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging was a major influence. They shared a passion for geology and collecting minerals together when he was young. This rich cultural exposure led to a deep veneration for the land, indigenous wisdom, and how it should inform our collective future. He pays tribute to timelessness—where imagination and reality intersect.
Mbiango divides his time among Brussels, New York, and Miami. He has mastered his own technique utilizing multiple production methods, including image transfer and mixed media assemblage, applied meticulously by hand. His body of work explores themes encompassing memory, history, and socio-political realities. Ultimately, they reflect a collective yearning for transcendence.
The Artist as Futurist – Towards a Collective Consciousness
Mbiango’s work is informed by a deep passion for innovative thinking and the work of futurists like Elon Musk, Buckminster Fuller, and theologist Teilhard de Chardin who set down the philosophical framework for planetary, net-based consciousness over 50 years ago. Chardin foresaw the development of the internet, but described it as a noosphere—literally, “mind-sphere,” or a thinking layer containing the collective consciousness of humanity which will envelop the earth. He realized that everything around him was beautifully connected in one vast, pulsating web of divine life. He likened this global infrastructure to “a generalized nervous system” that was giving the human species an “organic unity.” Mbiango’s artistic practice reflects these rich notions of human connection emerging. He intuitively incorporates elements of ancient knowledge, through imagery and symbols, which form part of his vast archives. This organic weaving of ideas, materials, and processes creates indefinable works that are emotive and thought-provoking because they deliberately transcend recognized classifications.
Mbiango has been recognized for his pioneering work by The Institute for the Future, Palo Alto and his work has served to support global advocacy across the private and public sectors including with BNP Parisbas, Women Deliver, The World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund (CIF), UNICEF, UN Women, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation the David Lynch Foundation and the World Economic Forum.
He recently took his activism to the streets on digital screens across New York City and in the iconic Oculus in the World Trade Centre. He hopes to incite waves of change by getting others of all ages and backgrounds to bring their creativity and passion in support of the climate movement.
Artist's Statement
Art in a Time of Catastrophe
Art in a Time of Catastrophe
Featured image | Sketchbook drawing, Sarah Gillespie
“What can poetry say in a time of catastrophe?” asks the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, referring to the catastrophe of Palestinian exile, the Nakba. His question inspires us to ask the same question about the place of creative art at this time of ecological catastrophe: climate change, the destruction of ecosystems, the sixth extinction of non-human species.
We borrow Darwish’s word ‘catastrophe’ with care. We might have used ‘crisis,’ but a crisis is a turning point, often used to refer to that point in illness when the patient may recover or not. There cannot, however, be a simple ‘recovery’ of planetary health; the changes that have been wrought to Earth’s systems are too extensive. A catastrophe, in contrast, is an overturning, a reversal. Whatever we do, the oil has been burned, the carbon is in the atmosphere, the living world is impoverished. We are at the end of the civilization as we have known it; things are not going to stop falling apart. Human—Western—culture is overwhelming the great forces of nature and, in turn, nature will overwhelm culture.
At such a time, are the arts irrelevant, a luxury? To the contrary, they have an essential place both in grieving for what is lost and in imagining new human possibilities. Facts and figures don’t influence people directly—all science has told us about climate change has had little impact. It is the stories we tell ourselves, the metaphors we draw on, that create our world. The mess we are in reflects the stories that have dominated Western culture: stories of human supremacy, stories that separate humans from Nature, that emphasize economic growth at the expense of human and ecological wellbeing. Stories that we ‘rational’ creatures no longer need stories. Whoever can change these pervasive narratives can change our core beliefs—for better or for worse. Visual art, prose, poetry, music, drama can all help provide space and imagination for new stories to emerge and artful means to express them.
And yet, we don’t know what new stories we might tell. We modern humans do not know how to respond to the catastrophe of our times. The old stories have lost their power; there is a shared, yet scarcely articulated, sense of profound unease. As Leonard Cohen puts it, “The blizzard, the blizzard of the world | Has crossed the threshold | And it has overturned | The order of the soul.”
Then, there is art as beauty. Beauty can rip the fabric of the taken-for-granted world, create an opening to a different experience. And art may also offer us a place of beauty that can sustain us through darkness, even make beauty out of that darkness. This is what the poet John Keats was pointing to when he celebrated ‘negative capability’: “being in uncertainties, Mysteries and doubts, without any irritable reaching for fact & reason.”
In our own art and writing, we seek to experience and communicate a particular story—a story which restores a sense of the living presence of Earth and ourselves as a part. How do we learn to listen, to hear the voices of the river and the trees once again? How do we move away from the conceit that humans are special, separate, and learn to take our place within the community of life? And as we learn how to do this for ourselves, how do we draw on our creative practices to communicate this possibility to our fellow humans?
Sarah describes working outside with a sketchbook: “After a period of settling, several hours into the drawing, I find myself becoming absent. In quieting myself, something shifts. Now less full of my ‘self,’ I sit still, looking, breathing, drawing. On a really good day, the presence of the tree, or the nest, or the light on the water, whatever it is I am making a study of, comes up and towards me. There’s nothing metaphysical or theoretical about this; it is a physical feeling of empathy, of absolute sameness. I find this an enormous relief. It is my way in. Having some sense that we are not separate, that is our biggest hope.”
Peter’s writing practice is similar. “I sit for long periods in my orchard. I listen to the wind high in the trees, watch the way it spins eddies across the meadow grass, follow the local jackdaws as they flock noisily across the sky. Sometimes, I am captured by something so simple that it draws me in—a dewdrop on a twig one misty morning, the pattern of light and shadow cast on the wall, the profound silence that appears to lie behind all sounds. Watching, listening, scribbling notes: if I am patient, I may find that my sense of self has become diffuse and uncertain, with no clear boundaries between in here and out there.”
Working in a studio is different, says Sarah. “I am inside, with doors, with learned skills and familiar materials. I can’t just put my sketchbooks out in the world and hope that they will do the same for others as they did for me sitting there. Work in the studio is the art of transformation: to make something with all the skill and years and hours that I have mustered to speak about non-separateness.” Peter adds, “Notes made outside, maybe written in the dark or on a notebook soaked in salt water, must be crafted into a narrative the speaks to a reader.”
So why, Sarah asks herself, do this in such an inefficient way, taking hours and days to make drawings, one tiny mark at a time? Surely the story could be better told with a video blog, and Instagram account. “But the materiality and the slowness of the work is more appropriate. I make gesso with bone ash and use rabbit skin size; draw with silver or burned wood; engrave on copper. I don’t use acrylics to paint or plastic to engrave. Partly because they just mean more plastic that gets washed down the drain. But, more importantly, these natural materials speak to me deeply and handling them everyday has an effect on me. It is a practice of preparation, like the Zen discipline of giving full attention to sweeping the floor.”
Peter’s process is equally slow: “I set out on two long ecological pilgrimages sailing around the western coasts of the British Isles, travelling at walking pace across the sea. Long, slow travel takes me out of the taken-for-granted structures and habits of everyday life: work, family, relationships, play, news, entertainment, all of which shape the story I play in my head and draw me into a conformity conducive to modern life. It is not easy to move across the boundaries between worlds when locked in everyday familiarity: the practical challenges of pilgrimage spin the human heart and mind into new realizations.”
So, what place art in a time of catastrophe? For us both, it is about making openings, like putting your fingers into a knot and teasing it apart, making enough space so others might share with us this precious and tenuous truth that we sometimes glimpse: that we are not separate. For if we know we are not separate, we are, perhaps, less willing to harm.
We see these as practices of humility, learning slowly—so very slowly—to take our proper place on Earth. And to offer glimpses of this to others.
This original essay can be found at the author’s blog, On Presence: Essays | Drawings available from the authors.
A Cry for Help
A Cry for Help
“It is remarkable that in a society like ours, with so many advantages and such valuable resources available to it, that the rate of suicide continues to increase. . . . Clearly, we face serious dysfunction as a society—with little evidence that our situation is going to improve. But this is not a moment to despair. Instead, we could understand it’s a call to arms—or a cry for help.” – Caring, Tarthang Tulku
I like to consider myself a helper, but when our son, Jon, took his life on Easter weekend of 2019, I could no longer think of myself as a successful helper. In my own eyes, I instantly became a failed one. The truth the Buddhists speak of—that everything is impermanent—has now swept into my life. The truth of this is so palpable that it feels strange that I am still living in comfort in a heated house with a roof over my head, and that I have whole days when I forget I was unable to save my son.
And yet, in an unfamiliar way I am still trying to grapple with, I am still evolving. It is difficult to articulate, but I took a giant step closer to being able to understand the experience of parents who are separated from their children at the border. I began to feel a kinship with those who wander rootless with no land to call home, or who live in constant risk of being hurt or killed.
I am gradually learning that when you join the ranks of people who have not been able to control the most important events in their lives, any lingering indifference to the fate of others starts to drop away—like the skin of a snake that has become too tight to allow caring to grow.
Our private losses open us to the plight of others; but even in that, there are differences. A parent who has their child torn from their arms, or a person who is imprisoned and tortured, suffer untold torments. Yet there is still the hope they will see their children again. But when your son commits suicide, there is no cause for hope. The sense of finality is so unbearable that you find yourself denying what has happened, blaming yourself for it, or trying to flee into the old life you led in your comfortable house with your freedom to drive to the store whenever you feel hungry, or to schedule a date to meet a friend for coffee. (Just for the record, none of these strategies work.)
I used to be able to tell myself that I was doing enough when I was involved with a nonprofit called Friends in Time, that I cofounded with a friend who has ALS. We helped hundreds of people with MS and ALS over the two decades we were in operation. We thought of ourselves as “friends” offering help in a “timely” manner to people feeling overwhelmed by their life situations. It was clear that we were helping, making a difference, and that the recipients appreciated it. And I don’t remember ever feeling then that the suffering was so great we couldn’t help alleviate some of it. I felt I was helping; that was part of my identity.
But I also notice that I do a good job of turning the other way when confronted with the kind of suffering I feel incapable of doing anything about. For example, the growing ranks of casualties of global momentums that show no sign of slowing down. Watching the unfair advantage some wield over those who cannot protect themselves leaves me deploring my own helplessness—and I turn away. And, in the aftermath of Jon’s death, I turn away even from awareness.
I am in the grips of ignorance, one of the three poisons of Buddhism, along with grasping and aversion, which are said to propel the Wheel of Life along the difficult thoroughfares of Samsara. Looking back, I see that I ignored how much suffering Jon was experiencing. And now I am in the grips of another kind of forgetfulness. I can hardly remember how much he was in my heart during the 27 years we shared together. It’s as if a moat has appeared between the past and the present—as I imagine will happen again when each of us dies. My memories of Jon seem to be hovering out of reach, too dangerous to approach.
I am not alone in this experience. Attending Survivors of Suicide (SOS) meetings, as my wife and I have done for the past seven months, I get to see directly how survivors—when our defenses slip—carry regret, guilt, and the threadbare cloak of “what ifs” as our new companions in time.
Then, there are those who push themselves even deeper into the issue or problem. But this can give rise to an ongoing sense that we are failing to do enough. It can be a recipe for exhaustion.
I, the helper, now need help. And now I know why caring matters.
This, I think, is the third place from which to view the world’s suffering: as one who also suffers. For years, maybe I only knew how to dole out help to others, like a Pez dispenser, but now I am suddenly in need of help.
If we can only let our private suffering sink into our hearts, we are in a unique and sacred position to empathize with those who are experiencing the same or similar pain.
There are many in the same boat, especially here in the USA. In many other parts of the world, suicide rates have declined between 2000 and 2012, but the USA has seen an increase of 24 percent. For young people between the ages of 10 and 34, suicide has become an epidemic: it is now the second leading cause of death for boys and girls and for young women and men—with only accidental death claiming more lives.
Why is suicide on the rise? Is it because our planet is being treated like a carcass to be chewed upon by the boldest scavengers? No wonder a new generation feels there is little purpose to their lives, little reward for trying to connect livelihood with honorable intentions.
Jon took his own life in part because he cared so much, and he despaired that his caring mattered.
Franz Kafka may have seen this epidemic coming when he wrote: “He ate the crumbs that fell from his own table and with time he forgot how to eat at the table; then even the crumbs ceased to fall.”
As individual consciousness shrinks to preoccupation with getting our own share of the common good—without much concern for how that ‘good’ is flowing from Mother Earth, and even less concern for the illumination that makes our consciousness possible—Kafka’s vision of scrambling after crumbs is coming to pass before our eyes. As children who may not have eaten for days look on, we see container ships with their holds full of crumbs setting sail for parts unknown.
I am a writer, and so I am attracted to poetic metaphors. But of what value are they, really? Can they help bridge the chasm between those who have and those who don’t; between the desire to help and our sense that we are powerless to do much in the face of momentums that ensnare the human mind and put the least generous among us in the control room? Do they help bridge the efforts of those who act bravely in the face of injustice?
Can metaphor give us strength, or poetry help us heal? Kafka also said, “Let the face full of hatred fall on its own breast.” I take this not as an invitation for us to hate ourselves, but as a source of insight:
Unless we introduce our judgmental minds to our own suffering hearts, we will never influence the momentums that are spawning such suffering in our world; we will not be able to add the ballast of our presence to the sacred task of protecting the common good which Mother Earth is still struggling to provide to all living beings.
I’ve lost my chance to help our son see that his caring matters. And life has not yet brought into my orbit others of a new generation whom I could encourage to feel hopeful about a future we all share. But I am trying to look more closely at the people who are in my life and to see the suffering and confusion that I know is there, because so many have their own losses and must be mourning them. I am starting with myself, the one whom I have not yet learned to treat with enough kindness. Then I hope I can learn to be kind to others, guided by a deeper understanding of how it feels to receive my own kindness.
I dream of one day having something that is truly worth sharing with others, my full-hearted helpfulness. Because I know that the capacity to be truly helpful is the greatest gift that life can bestow upon us.
Healing the Wounded Mind
Healing the Wounded Mind
Images | Gerd Altmann
The Future Now
We are on the cusp of a different world coming into being, and at its centre shall be the human heart and soul. There can be no genuine, lasting future if it is based solely on the exterior life—it must be driven by the values that come from the interior of the human being.
Our technologies have given us the means to communicate across the globe in every moment—yet they have not taught us how to cultivate intuitive thought. Our smart machines and artificial intelligences may continue to advance the means of communication, yet the responsibility is on us to supply the meaningful conversation. As philosopher-mystic Paul Brunton said,
“A change in thinking is the first way to ensure a change in the world’s condition. In changing himself, man [sic] takes the first step to changing his environment and in changing his environment he takes the second step towards changing himself. For the first step of self-change must be a mental, not a physical one.”[1]
If our attention is focused externally upon the objects of our experience rather than the consciousness of the experience, then our minds will exist in separation. So, too, will our place in the world feel one of separation.
The ‘future now’ requires of us that we recognize unity over division. Much of what we witness in the world today are these divisions, dualisms, and conflicts that keep the game of life in play. The dualisms and the distinctions—such as good and bad, and ‘I’m right but you are wrong’—are not essentials (although we often mistake them to be). The world is full of angels and devils (to use a worn analogy), where the angels are winning but have not yet won, and the devils are losing but have not yet lost. And so, the constant interplay keeps the game active and dynamic, and not static. Yet we often lose ourselves by becoming attached only to these secondary aspects and missing the unity that underlies all. When we adhere to definitions or labels, then we have already created a boundary. By labelling, we are creating categories and comparisons that, by their nature, limit us. True things are beyond such defining categorizations. Truth is not a relative position—only human truths are. No wonder so many sages and prophets spoke in parables and riddles. It is the most useful mechanism to deliver the unspeakable.
If we ascribe to a life lived as islands of separation, then inevitably we learn (or are conditioned) to place our trust externally upon a range of institutions; these may range from religious, work/career, social, educational, etc. And if these institutions fail us, then we naturally feel vulnerable, or even betrayed. Yet the truth of the matter is that we betrayed ourselves in the first place by outsourcing our trust. If we live a life relying upon external systems, then we must be prepared to feel distraught should those external systems break down. In times of great transition, such as now, these social institutions are themselves very fragile.
It is important that we recognize that much of our everyday life is negotiated between these ‘belongings’ and similar attachments that we pull and wrap around us, like a protective overcoat. At the same time, we need to recognize that our world of ‘belongings’ is changing. We have ‘belonged’ to our nations, our cultures, our religions and belief systems, to our politics, to our teams, our communities, etc. We were largely brought up within our collective belongings that gave us some semblance of a fixed environment. And now, many of these collective belongings are breaking apart; they are unravelling. In the face of all these challenges, we may ask ourselves: what can I do about this? To this question, the remarkable Carl Gustav Jung answered:
“To the constantly reiterated question ‘What can I do?’ I know no other answer except ‘Become what you have always been,’ namely, the wholeness which we have lost in the midst of our civilized, conscious existence, a wholeness which we always were without knowing it.”[2]
As long as the majority of people expect all problems to be solved outside of themselves, then our societies will continue to be dominated by unruly forces. Our human freedom from these forces depends upon people willing to assume the responsibility of consciousness, and to project this inner reality outward upon an external environment. Whatever the question, being human is the answer.
Soulful Freedom
In a world full of work, family, and personal commitments, it may seem difficult—and, for some, almost impossible—to focus upon the notion of one’s soul and self-development. Yet it is very necessary that we do so. This focus upon our internal development has also been termed as self-actualization. This is a fairly academic term; maybe a more appropriate term would be self-activation, for the truth is that we do need to get activated.
Based upon the theories of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, a self-actualized person is supposed to embody the following characteristics: they embrace the unknown and the ambiguous; they accept themselves, with all their flaws; they enjoy the journey, and not just the destination; they may be unconventional, but they do not seek to shock; they are motivated by growth rather than the satisfaction of needs; they feel themselves to have purpose; they are not troubled by the small things; they express gratitude; they share deep relationships with a few, yet feel connected with the whole human race; they are humble; they resist conditioning; and they recognize that they are not perfect.
The inner essence of the individual—our soul—is timeless. It understands stability and aims for harmony and cohesion. In truth, we long deeply for harmony, not conflict. Within the material world of shadows and mass psychosis, we need to exercise a great deal of patience, tolerance, and empathy whilst preserving the integrity of our soul. The ageless, perennial striving for mystery, majesty, creativity, and conscious development is anathema to those who wish to preserve the power of the abusive mental pathogen that twists and manipulates our human lives. The survival tiger within us has, for far too long, lived within an environment of separation, struggle, suppression, and segregation. This mode of living has fed our egos until we have come to the point of priding ourselves only on our own ‘tiger instincts’ and our ability to get to the top. Yet contact with the transcendental elements within life embody compassionate relations, empathy, and connectedness.
The ancient, perennial wisdom traditions recognized that our morality depends upon our state of consciousness. An unconscious person, or a partially conscious person, is not able to express the same level of morality as a more conscious, realized person. What this tells us is that the moral state of our societies depends upon our internal states. Each one of us is a carrier and transmitter of consciousness. This factor has been abused by the Wounded Mind to spread its contagion. Thus, an unconscious humanity is less capable of making good choices, and is more susceptible to social conditioning, propaganda, and manipulations of the mass-mind.
Soul growth, or inner knowledge, is not an accidental emergence, but something that first must originate, consciously, within each one of us. It’s not a question of ‘should’ we work to become more conscious as individuals, but rather that we must. When it dawns on people that the transformation of the self is more than an interesting idea—that it is an actual inherent potential and living reality—then real change can begin. Perhaps our greatest ignorance is our unawareness of the potential of our soulful freedom and its power to create outward change. We have lived for a long time in ignorance; worst of all, in ignorance of ourselves. There is more to life than just living in the survival mode of the Wounded Mind. It is time to leave the tiger behind us.
Adapted from Healing the Wounded Mind, by Kingsley L. Dennis / Clearview Books / 2019. Reprinted with permission of publisher.
Notes
1. Paul Brunton, The Spiritual Crisis of Man, 1974 ed. (London: Rider & Company, 1952), 64.
2. Stephan A. Hoeller, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2014), 215.
Holding a Seed for the Future
Holding a Seed for the Future
Just to the north of us, the fire rages inland. It has already destroyed almost 100 homes. Here, we wait, just out of the mandatory evacuation zone, with our go-bags packed, already the fourth day without electricity. Even the dawn air seems strangely quiet, with the sun unnaturally red from the smoke-filled air. Fires, storms, floods have arrived, like the outriders of climate collapse, while in cities around the world—from Santiago, Chile, to Beirut, Lebanon—there are sudden riots, sparks of unrest, and social collapse. The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are raising their voices, rushing toward us, even as the voices of politicians argue and the corporations continue their ravages of the land, caring only for profit and greed.
When I first saw images of the future, of a new era, it was not like this. It carried visions of a civilization based upon oneness, awareness of a unified living Earth and Her inhabitants, of the song of creation reawakening within the heart of humanity. And in these visions there were new technologies promised to us—nonpolluting sources of energy, the wisdom of the scientist and the shaman coming together to bring new ways of healing and a deeper understanding of the ways of the Earth, the forces within nature and our own bodies. I had those visions 20 years ago, and they still hold their promise in my heart—a new story waiting to be lived, a seed of something true that belongs to our real nature and the sacred purpose of creation.
But now, around us is a different story. We can hear the voices of young people calling out for their future, for climate justice and the living Earth. And there is also climate catastrophe and social collapse—no longer just a warning, but a reality that makes the dawn sun frighteningly red. The future we are facing has already begun to arrive—a time of darkening and danger, of increasing insecurity, instability, even chaos. Yes, hopefully within a week our power will be restored, the shops will again be open, our way of life will appear to return to what we call normal. Those whose houses were not burned will call themselves lucky and continue with their lives, just as the politicians will continue to argue, the corporations continue to pollute and make profit. We are the lucky ones. We are not facing climate starvation in Africa. We are not refugees with our few possessions in a bag, fleeing poverty and violence, facing human traffickers and hostility at the border, walls, barbed wire, or a leaking boat. And yet, we are all of these people, just as we are the Earth suffering, crying out. We are all the story of humanity and the land.
How can we hold together our dream for the future and this reality of a dying Earth? How can we support the truth of social and environmental unity in diversity—recognizing how all of our racial and cultural differences belong together as part of humanity’s living tapestry, just as nature’s biodiversity coexists and supports each other as an interdependent whole—even as we become surrounded by more voices of tribalism, isolationism, divisiveness, and increasingly authoritarian regimes? How? We can envision a future based upon these primal principles, the “Original Instructions” given to the first peoples and their wisdom keepers: that we have to get along together with all of creation. We are the lucky ones because we can keep in our consciousness an awareness of the sacred that runs through all of life—the rivers and the trees and the stones and the stars. And as social and environmental collapse come closer, we know the work that needs to be done: the simple work of cooperation rather than competition, loving kindness and generosity, and supporting communities held together by these values. We carry the seeds of a future that we know is waiting, a dawn no longer red from burning fires.
This is the work of resilience that will support us through the breakdown of the coming decades. We can no longer naïvely hope that through greening the economy or spiritual awakening we will all suddenly emerge into a different world. Real social and environmental work, like real spiritual work, involves facing the darkness with our feet on the ground, accepting the truth that the journey will be hard and long, as well as full of unexpected miracles and unexplained magic. We look seven generations into the future even as we live in this present moment, mindful to what is happening around us.
There are three simple aspects to this work. There is the immediate need to help humanity wake up to this accelerating crisis and reduce carbon emissions, to stop clear-cutting the ancient forests, polluting the oceans with plastic, and begin the work of rewilding and restoring wetlands. Can we limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, or are we facing 2 or even 4 more degrees? And what would this mean? Here, science and technology can help us, even if it is not the answer. As I have often said, “The Earth is not a problem to be solved, but a living being in distress.”
The second aspect is to learn how to live in a time of transition, of social unrest, even collapse. What are the tools of resilience to support us as the sea levels rise and the fires burn? Yes, we need to learn to live more simply, no longer caught in consumerism and its environmental and soul-destroying values. We have to accept the basic premise that our way of life, founded on the false promises of material prosperity, is over. Our civilization is past its sell-by date and is becoming pathologically self-destructive. As we live in a time of radical uncertainty as nature becomes more and more out of balance, we need to understand what this means to us individually and as a community, to face our fears, our grief, and take necessary steps of how to transition. But we also can look deeper at the spiritual and moral values that sustain us and our communities, like love and care for each other and for the Earth. As the crisis deepens, these values may be more important than any new technology.
And finally, those of us who hold a vision for a future that is truly sustainable for the Earth and all of Her inhabitants need to hold this seed close to our hearts. The future will not be as we have planned—our world is already too far out of balance. But this may be our most important gift to future generations—a belief in the living oneness, the unity of being that belongs to the essence of life and to the patterns of nature. Then we will not be caught in the fragmentation of the coming decades, whose signs we can already see in present social and economic divisiveness. But we will carry the light of a new consciousness, a new civilization that is humanity and the Earth’s deepest promise. And we can plant this seed in our daily life, in simple acts of generosity and loving kindness, in recognizing that we are not separate from each other or from the Earth. In small communities, we can tend the land waiting for springtime, even as we are more and more surrounded by the storms of winter.
A Story Still Unfolding
A Story Still Unfolding
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
The creek behind my house seldom freezes. Her flowing waters can be seen from my back porch this time of year through the naked trees. Ridley Creek’s source is about 15 miles upstream from here and she pours out into the tidal Delaware River about 15 miles southeast. Yet, her journey is much longer than mere miles, for she has been a cloud, the tears of a child, and a rainstorm in some of her previous lives and her future is a story still unfolding.
Likewise, here we are at a singular moment. If we could freeze the river of Time, we might skate ahead and learn our fate. We can’t. However, we do know that in this moment the future and past are also present. We hold the past and future within us. Upstream…downstream. Therefore, we can’t explore the theme of our winter edition, Possible Futures, without looking deeply at the past.
I asked author Jeremy Lent, who has spent a lot of time studying human civilizations, where we lost our way as a species that shares. His insights bear reflection if we want to understand where our present trajectory may take us. Read our conversation in The Next Civilization.
We also look back to look forward at the works of Thomas Berry and Rudolf Steiner. The Rights of Nature movement, that Berry so strongly endorsed, is informing new perspectives about our living Earth, and Steiner’s ‘biodynamic agriculture’, among other economic insights, are amazingly fresh today with regenerative culture on the rise. Rob Hopkins, a cofounder of the global Transition Town movement, looks back at how his community transformed Totnes in the UK, to become a model for current and future transitioners worldwide. The fundamental ingredient is imagination, he says, as we move from What Is to What If.
Personal tragedy also shapes our perspective on the future and there are important, albeit painful, insights to be gained when sorrow strikes close to home. What does it mean when all possibility of ‘a future’ seemingly ends? Kosmos contributor Michael Gray courageously expresses the grief of losing his son to suicide last spring. And our dear poet-friend, Lee McCormack, receives a terminal diagnosis with inspiring grace and strength. How do we live into such experiences of finality? The Unexpected Journey of Caring, by Donna Thomson and Zachary White, offers some transformational guidance.
There is much more to share—wonderful galleries of art by Aboriginal artists and by Flemish-Congolese artist/activist Kito Mbiango, and music from prisons, Pros and Cons, a social justice program founded by Hugh Christopher Brown. Kosmos music editor Kari Auerbach has also assembled a sacred season gift for all of us—a collection of inspiring recordings from her two years with Kosmos. Play it here, while you enjoy this edition.
A strong current of hope runs through thoughtful essays by our readers, and a spotlight on Global Social Witnessing, our capacity to mindfully attend to global events with an embodied awareness. Or as Otto Scharmer says, “collapsing the boundary between me and the other more and more. And really putting myself into the service and support of the evolution of another and the evolution of the collective.”
Putting ourselves into service—like the creek behind my house which supplies 40,000 of my neighbors with about two and a half million gallons of clean drinking water per day. This spiritual quality of givingness is not separate from the creek’s physical existence, and yet it is transcendent. We, too, are this way. The phenomenon of human existence on planet Earth may be imperiled, yet our journey is much longer than mere miles. We are Spirit manifest in a web of Life and meaning, and our future is a story still unfolding.
Enjoy this edition. We have ambitious plans for 2020, and we are so happy to share the journey with you.
In Loving Service,
Rhonda Fabian
About Our Cover | ‘Witchetty Grub Dreaming’
Jennifer Napaljarri Lewis has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs, since 2009. Jennifer belongs to the Pitjantjatjara people and her traditional land is Mutitjula at the eastern end of Uluru. She has a close connection with the Mutitjula Community and it was there that her family taught her to paint. She loves painting and uses an unrestricted palette with traditional patterns and design integrated with a modern individualistic style to depict her traditional Jukurrpa stories. To see more of Jennifer’s work or to contact her, go to warlu.com.
Vision for a City of Hope Near Auschwitz
Vision for a City of Hope Near Auschwitz
From a quiet meadow in Cambodia to the twin fountains of Manhattan, humanity’s worst moments have left scars across our landscapes and our psyches. They appear in the shape of long concrete slabs in Kigali, Rwanda, or a crooked, skeletonized dome atop Hiroshima. Reminders of past tragedies, they remain in a constant state of slow and imperceptible healing throughout history.
The Holocaust is undoubtedly the largest and longest scar in modern Western history. You can trace it as one would trace a railroad track in a desolate field, leading, inevitably, through the brick archway of Auschwitz. Since liberation and the subsequent forming of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 1947, the public has willingly entered such archways. Now a UN World Heritage site, an annual 2 million people from all walks of life across the world come to mourn, find names, to see and feel and know what was once the world’s darkest secret.
I first visited Auschwitz in 2015. This came at a time when I was slowing down Children of the Earth, a UN NGO that I founded and directed for over 30 years that worked and reached into 90 countries. Never did I imagine that I would have anything to do with Auschwitz.
I was invited there by a small group of women who were doing a project in Berlin based on their work in peace and sustainability. Walking through the camp, I came to the large Book of Names: a list of every murdered prisoner. Browsing through the list, I discovered not only my maternal grandmother’s name but 20 other family members who also had been murdered. During my life, I have traveled to various war-torn countries. I’ve encountered all manner of suffering and misery, but seeing these names haunted me to the core. I knew then that part of my legacy would need to include future projects to honor those 20 names (and millions of others), and also make a difference for the world’s future generations. After meeting Domen Kocevar, a social activist with a background in theology and sociology, I realized that Auschwitz was the impact point for the final landing site that fused all of my previous work. It was then that Domen fostered the idea of One Humanity.
Science and spirituality have come to the same conclusion: all people are intrinsically similar; the human genome project has proven that we are genetically 99.9 percent alike, with only one tenth of one percent that makes us different. When we realize that “I am you and you are me,” only then will right action and thought be supported by the universal laws of nature. When we can concentrate on what makes us the same instead of what makes us different, only then can we deal with the challenges ahead. The overarching goal for this vision is to lay the groundwork for global solidarity that gives rise to what it means to be One Humanity.
There needs to be a housing for all of these ideas, something concrete and anchored in the real world. A physical place that manifests the theoretical, where ideas become actions. The need is clear for a One Humanity Institute.
The One Humanity Institute (OHI) is a nonprofit charitable foundation co-founded in 2017 by me and Domen. It embraces peace that goes beyond the mere absence of conflict and war, to bring about a change of heart that embraces our common humanity. Peace in this sense is a dynamic concept that facilitates the full development of the human potential. Our intention is to create a transformative campus for mutual cultural understanding next to Auschwitz, named “City of Hope,” which provides a visionary, experiential, and tangible place to actualize this vision.
City of Hope will offer structured learning opportunities in a variety of forms for all ages, through both formal and non-formal education. Such opportunities will focus on the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals, conflict resolution, responsible stewardship of our planet, and the promotion of religious and spiritual pluralism. By promoting new methods of governance, innovative finance, and transformative education systems, OHI aspires to encourage a new narrative for humanity that not only honors the sacredness of every human, but proposes new approaches and new systems to nurture this into reality.
The size and scope of the project have expanded remarkably from its humble beginning: a park bench. Domen and I first wanted to address the need at Auschwitz for a quiet place of reflection after touring the camp—a space that could allow the impact of Auschwitz to become a lesson in itself for needing change. Then we considered the idea of a student exchange program with a local school as an avenue of furthering multicultural and interreligious understanding. These small projects only fed our desire to expand the concept of OHI, and as our aspirations grew, so did the roadblocks in our way. But as one door closed, another opened.
The project, as it stands today, was made possible by one fateful, fortuitous event—the day we learned about the 11 unused barracks adjacent to the Auschwitz Museum. These structures originally were occupied by the German army during the war. Now they sit dormant. Our plan is to purchase the land that houses these barracks, then transform the unique and symbolic space into a City of Hope. The area will contain an NGO hub, library, EnVisionarium, learning and research center, peace gardens, and hotel.
The EnVisionarium is an interactive, innovative museum of the future, designed to integrate the understanding of sustainability with that of human connectedness. Visitors will be exposed to revolving exhibits, innovative experiences, and living, experiential structures for mind-shifting. Guests will access practical tools: innovative, state-of-the-art, and virtual models that provide breakthroughs for resolving both personal and global issues.
The OHI Learning and Research Center provides transformative learning programs and experiences in peace and sustainability for all ages that foster a structural shift in human interconnectedness. It will involve a global community of scholars and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to address urgent social, political, and ecological problems. With official ties to renowned universities around the world, the Center will host courses, global youth exchanges, workshops, training programs, think tank meetings, and more. The Center also will contain a digital Peace Library.
The OHI Hub focuses on a number of issues, including entrepreneurship, social innovations, and 21st-century technology, particularly for youth. By providing shared offices and working space for NGOs, the OHI Hub will provide an environment for unprecedented, unified, and collective impact. The Hub also will offer space to organizations that share common values as a means to cross-pollinate skills and expertise.
Upon the advice of numerous well-informed Polish citizens and leaders, we made an investigative trip to Israel to learn more about its perspective. While there, we met a second-generation Jewish survivor whose family had lived in their bakery in the old city center in Oswiecim. He has donated his family home to OHI in order to connect the past with the present, and to create a better future. This building, once renovated, will be our headquarters and a pilot prototype. Not only will the home serve as a bakery as it did 80 years ago, but it will provide co-working space for youth and other social innovators, local organizations similar to OHI, and volunteers. It will be known as Bakery2030 (Piekarnia2030), a reference to the year on which the UN Sustainable Development Goals are to be accomplished.
Since 2015, Domen and I have had many visits to the town of Oswiecim, as well as meetings with the town governor, mayor of the city, and representatives of local NGOs and educational institutions. We also have engaged 40 experts to work with us—a diverse group of thought-leaders, change agents, and individuals from across the globe with vast experience and broad backgrounds. We currently are forming a global Youth Council of formidable young leaders.
By learning from the lessons of the past, we can create bridges to a future of One Humanity values. After five years of this work, I realize the enormity of the OHI vision and undertaking. The present world needs a recalibration to create a better future. It is now necessary for our survival as a species to go beyond personal greed and the false separation of identities fostered by religions, genders, cultures, and ethnic groups. Our lives are hanging on a shoestring, floundering. Many from the generations to follow already recognize these ills. They need us to be a bridge in order to understand that we must experience ourselves as one humanity. Only together can we resolve the global issues we face. We are walking into a state of emergency where “Never Again” seems distant in the past, yet more than ever we need this phrase as an essential reminder. OHI is more than a project; it is a call to make visible the possibilities of how we may live together in a positive manner that serves humanity as a whole.
The time has come for us to commit to stewarding a better future—one that works for everyone. A world of One Humanity. We have bold goals for OHI, indeed, but the feedback we are getting across the globe tells us that our idea is one whose time has come.
Re-member Humanity.
Gaza on My Mind
Gaza on My Mind
Talking about Gaza can be scary. I have expressed my horror about the savage Hamas attack on Israelis, and the heartbreaking plight of the hostages, but when I criticize Israeli policies and the bombing of Gaza, some of my Jewish friends have called me antisemitic. This is hurtful. To say this is a controversial subject is an understatement. I am not a scholar or historian. I am not Muslim or Jewish. So why do I feel compelled to discuss this?
Though I do not identify with any organized religion, I do identify as an American. Not the nationalistic “my country right or wrong” American, but rather a Langston Hughes style American who sees our country as “the land that never has been yet — and yet must be — a land where every man is free.” I am ashamed of American’s sordid history – the genocide of Native Americans, the slavery of Africans, the unjust treatment of African Americans since emancipation, and other ongoing violations of our principles. l am an American who, like the poet Hughes, has sworn that someday America will be the country where our ideals of liberty and justice for all people will be achieved. It is vital to me that US foreign policy confirms and reflects these ideals. As I once opposed the bombing of the Vietnamese and then the Iraqis, I now oppose the US financed bombing of Gaza and uphold the right of Palestinians to self-determination.
This article explains how I came to oppose US military support of Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as its occupation of the Palestinian territories. My story begins twenty years ago, in September 2003, when I traveled to Gaza to honor the life and death of a twenty-three-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie. She was a volunteer human rights observer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group founded by Israeli and Palestinian activists, who were committed to resisting the Israeli occupation by using Gandhian nonviolent practices and protest. When I learned that Rachel had been crushed to death on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli-owned bulldozer as she stood before the home of a Palestinian physician and his family to defend it from demolition, I felt compelled to go there and to understand why.
I called my activist friend Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink, to ask if she would come with me to Gaza. Though she had been avoiding involvement in the conflict in deference to her Jewish parents, Medea was now ready to go. I recruited a delegation of seven women, including two Jewish and one Muslim, and Global Exchange organized our itinerary to meet with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
The purpose of our 2003 trip was to gain insight into the conflict between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. My mission was also to establish relationships with a Jewish-owned restaurant in Israel and an Arab-owned restaurant in the occupied Palestinian territories as part of the White Dog Cafe’s International Sister Restaurant program, “Table for Five Billion.” Beginning in 1987 the program had brought delegations of our customers and staff to Nicaragua, Cuba, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union to experience the impact of US foreign policy and work toward a world where everyone (five billion then, and even more now) has a place at the table.
When we arrived in Gaza in September of 2003, our group of travelers sat sipping coffee in a busy outdoor café, much like any European café, in Gaza City. When we heard the hum of an airplane in the distance, I saw alarm on the faces of our Palestinian hosts. On the way to the café, we had seen the burned- out carcass of a car blocking a narrow street in a busy marketplace and been told that it had been hit by an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) missile, killing many innocent bystanders. Even in this peaceful café setting, I saw how people lived in fear in Gaza — called by many “an open-air prison,” from which there was little escape.
Twenty years later, fear has consumed all of Gaza night and day as Israeli fighters unleash the most destructive bombing campaign in modern history, already having used more than twice the firepower of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. As many as 27,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 12,000 children and 66,000 wounded. No hospitals are fully functional. There is no anesthesia for surgeries. No antibiotics to stave of deadly infections. Families and orphans of those killed are sleeping in tents and on the street. One toilet is available for every 500 people, according to the World Health Organization. Since October 7, over 400 doctors and medical staff have been killed. The UN has lost 142 personnel, the largest number lost in any conflict in history. More than one hundred and twenty journalists have been killed, and the International Federation of Journalists in NYC has accused the IDF of ‘deliberately targeting’ media professionals working in Gaza
One of the most moving experiences for me on our 2003 trip was meeting Rami Elhannan, an Israeli whose 14-year-old daughter had been killed by a Hamas suicide bomber on her way home from school in 1997. After a year of struggling with anger and despair, Rami joined Bereaved Families Supporting Reconciliation and Peace, a group of Israeli and Palestinian families who had each lost loved ones to the conflict. He told us that his life had taken on new meaning as he worked in partnership with Palestinians to stop violence and end the occupation.
Now twenty years later, Hamas has only gained in strength. Their murderous attack on October 7, killing 1200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages is the tragic result of what they have become. What gives me hope is that Rami, even after this outrage, continues his work to end the violence and co-exist peacefully with Palestinians. The reconciliation and peace organization, now called Parents Circle, is co-directed by Rami and his Palestinian counterpart, Bassam Aramin, whose 10-year-old daughter was killed in 2007 by an IDF soldier using a US issued M-16 rifle, as she stood outside of her school.
In a 2023 interview, Rami explained that twenty-five years ago, he had never seen a Palestinian as a human being. But through the Parents Circle he had learned the music, the culture, and the stories of the Palestinians, which he explained had been deliberately hidden from him by the Israeli education system. When asked how to end the conflict, Rami said that the most important word is “respect” and to see Palestinians as equal partners in building a peaceful future.
In 2003, when we arrived in Rafah, a Palestinian city in the southernmost part of Gaza, near the Israeli-controlled border with Egypt, we visited the home of a Palestinian school headmaster Khalil Bashir. We were horrified to find that Israeli soldiers had not only destroyed his groves of date and olive trees and two acres of greenhouses, but the soldiers had also taken over the upper floors of his three-story home as an army base to protect the newly erected homes of Israeli settlers nearby. Despite this unimaginable disrespect, Khalil continued to teach non-violence and peaceful coexistence to his children and students.
In a letter to her mother in February 2003, Rachel Corrie wrote about the people of Gaza:
“I am amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity – laughter, generosity, family-time – against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death. I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances. I think the word is dignity.”
We later learned that in 2004 Khalil’s 15-year-old son, Yousef Bashir, had been shot in the back by an IDF soldier. Because three UN officials witnessed this, he was sent to an Israeli hospital where he slowly recovered. Since then, Yousef moved to the US and wrote a book about his father’s dedication to non-violence. In a 2019 New York Times op-ed, he said this about the soldier who shot him: “I wish we could talk. I would tell him that I want to do my part to make peace between our peoples more possible, the way my father taught me. I would tell him that I have forgiven him.”In Rafah, our delegation next went to the place where Rachael Corrie was killed. We stood solemnly before the pile of rubble that marked where she had been crushed under an armored bulldozer driven by an IDF soldier. Prior to her death, over six hundred houses had been destroyed in Rafah, along with Palestinian businesses, including 25 greenhouses, the source of income for three hundred people. In her last email to her father written less than two weeks before her death, 23-year-old Rachel wrote:
“Coming here is one of the better things I’ve ever done. So when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible.”
I understand that some readers who identify with Israel may not agree with Rachel’s analysis of the situation, but it’s important to know how she saw it and to admire her willingness to stand up to the powerful forces she viewed as oppressors, as we hope someone would do for us and our families if we were in such danger. Twenty years later, in 2023, I still picture the pile of rubble marking the spot where Rachel tragically lost her life amid the destruction of Palestinian homes and businesses. I am deeply saddened to know that today the rubble has grown to encompass much of Gaza, with over 70% of housing demolished by Israeli bombs, displacing 90% of the population. Untold thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, over a third children and infants, have been crushed to death in their own homes.
In 2003, we saw so many Palestinian children, often dressed in neat school uniforms, their eyes bright and faces curious to meet strangers. They pointed out the bullet holes in their houses and showed us shell casings they had collected during the IDF incursions, and they pointed to the place where Tom Hurtnell, a young English volunteer, was shot in the head as he ran to grab a child who was caught in gunfire. In Hebron, a Palestinian town in the West Bank where four hundred Jewish settlers from Russia had illegally taken residence, we met with Chris Brown from Christian Peacekeepers Team. He explained how his group escorted children to school through army barricades, where the IDF soldiers point guns at them, and past hostile settlers who hurl abuse, and sometimes spit on and physically attack the children. By 2003, over six hundred Palestinian children had died in the conflict at the hands of the IDF or the settlers. We visited a school where the children sang to welcome us, and as we looked at their promising young faces, it was hard not to despair over the sheer hopelessness of their future.
Palestinian school children passing through an IDF checkpoint on their way to school, Hebron, West Bank, 2003. I never imagined that twenty years later, against international law, there would be over 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem occupying 40% of Palestinian land against international law. Just since October, 739 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 309 children, have been displaced, following the destruction of 115 homes. The IDF has armed settlers in the West Bank, giving them impunity to violently force Palestinians from their homes, increasing acts of violence from an average of three a day to seven. Recently, a Palestinian-American teenager visiting his cousins was shot in the head. He is one of 369 killed in the West Bank since October, including ninety-five children.As our 2003 delegation traveled through the West Bank, we saw how the yards of the settlers’ homes were lush and green with well-watered grass, in sharp contrast to the arid, brown, and lifeless Palestinian areas. At a large Jewish settlement near Jerusalem, we even saw people enjoying an Olympic size swimming pool, while the Palestinians were forced to survive on 20% of the available water, even though their population is far greater, and did not have enough water to grow their crops to feed their people.
Though this seemed so unfair back in 2003, it would have been unimaginable to think that, in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, the Israelis would cut off ALL water supply to the entire population of Gaza, as well as all food, fuel and medical supplies, leaving Palestinians to die of starvation, dehydration, and disease. Over 70% of the population is drinking contaminated or salty water, according to the UN. Recently, the World Food Program reported, “In Gaza at this moment, literally the whole population is in crisis level of hunger or worse. And of those people, about 26%, meaning one-quarter of the population is literally starving – about 577,000 people.” According to the UN, famine is now “inevitable” following the news that the US and some other Western countries have suspended funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) because Israel has accused 12 of its 13,000 employees to have been involved in the October 7 attack. Though nine of the accused have been fired, one has died, and two are under investigation, funding needed to combat the famine that endangers millions of Palestinians has been denied.While our delegation was in Tel Aviv, we told a group of Israeli youth that we were staying with a Palestinian family. Their eyes widened with fear and surprise, as they warned us that we would be raped and murdered because Palestinians were dangerous terrorists. Though I heard Israelis claim that Palestinian youth are taught to hate Jews, this experience made me wonder if Israeli youth had been taught that all Palestinians are terrorists.
When I watched the 2023 film Israelism, produced by courageous young Jewish filmmakers, I finally understood the racist remarks of the Israeli youth we had met 20 years before. According to the documentary, Israeli students, as well as visiting American students, are subject to racist and militaristic indoctrination that teaches them to fear, loathe, and dehumanize Palestinians. On both sides, it is hatred of “the other” that underlies and inflames the conflict.
The Israeli policy of demolishing homes had led to Rachel’s death, and so in 2003 we met with Angela Godfrey-Goldstein from the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition, where we learned how the IDF was, in violation of international law, demolishing Palestinian homes, their means of income and their cultural institutions, and replacing them with Jewish settlements. One of the most surprising and horrifying parts of our 2023 trip was seeing the frequent IDF checkpoints on roadways where Palestinians were stopped, searched, delayed, and humiliated while waiting for hours in the hot sun or rain. As a result, travel that should take minutes takes hours and even days, separating people from their jobs, schools, friends, and family. An Israeli peace group, Bat Shalom, told us that over sixty Palestinian newborns, unable to get to the hospital, had died at checkpoints. In contrast, modern highways connecting Jewish settlements were “Jews Only,” which reminded me of the “Whites Only” drinking fountains I had been shocked to see as a young girl visiting the US South.
Lately, I have been hearing the term “settler colonialism” in relation to the war in Gaza. I was not exactly sure what it meant, so I checked back in with the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition and read an October 2023 article by its founder, American Israeli Jeff Halper. In reading this article, I came to understand why Rachel and many thousands of Palestinians have been tragically killed. As I write, the rightwing leadership in Israel is publicly advocating for the permanent displacement of Palestinians and the building of Jewish settlements in Gaza. For me, Halper’s description of “settler colonialism” rings true to what I have witnessed in Palestine, and to what happened in the founding of the US. I want to believe that, lost in our own shameful colonial past, there may have been non-violent settlers in the US who sought peaceful coexistence with the Native Americans, and stood up courageously as Rachel did. Halper wrote:
“Settler colonialism is a deliberate, structured, and prolonged process in which one people not only takes over the country of another – violently by necessity – but seeks to transform it from what it was at the time of invasion into an entirely new entity, a new country reflecting the settlers’ presence, entirely erasing the natives’ presence and history. It is not a “conflict”. There are no “sides”, no symmetry of “violence”. The settler project is a unilateral one which must deny the indigenous population’s existence as a people endowed with rights to their land and identities if it is to claim the country exclusively for itself. Following from that is the need to move the indigenous off their land, killing them, driving them out of the country or confining them to tiny enclaves, so as to settle the land with the settler population itself. Then comes the process of erasure: erasing the physical and cultural presence of the indigenous from the landscape and replacing it with the settlers’ own manufactured history, heritage, national narrative and national identity. After a prolonged process of violent displacement and the pacification of those amongst the indigenous who remain, the settler project concludes quietly. Now the world is presented with a normal, peace-loving, democratic country remade in the settler’s image, and the settler colony fosters a popular perception that it is the “real” country. (Try buying a plane ticket to Palestine.) The process of normalization is complete; any further resistance on the part of the native population is criminalized as “terrorism” and, as such, is effectively de-politicized and delegitimized.”
On February 15, 2003, a month before Rachel Corrie’s death, 25 million people in over 100 countries around the world took to the streets saying NO to George Bush’s war in Iraq. It was the largest peace demonstration in world history. On February 28, Rachel wrote:
“I look forward to more moments like February 15 when civil society wakes up en masse and issues massive and resonant evidence of its conscience, it’s unwillingness to be repressed, and it’s compassion for the suffering of others.”
Twenty years later, as Rachel Corrie hoped, global consciousness is growing. Millions of people around the world are holding massive demonstrations — in London, Tokyo, New York, Rome, Athens, Sydney, Jakarta, Istanbul, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Bucharest, Paris, Berlin, and Johannesburg — calling for a ceasefire and the liberation of the long oppressed Palestinian people. Many of these protests are organized by Jewish organizations who stand squarely for peace and human rights for all. Israelis, in partnership with Palestinians, have formed groups such as A Land for All and Standing Together and are working on plans for a future of peaceful coexistence in two neighboring states. The current crisis makes them even more determined to achieve their vision.
Having gained the world’s attention, could the tragedy of Gaza possibly provide the opportunity for a turning point in human civilization when the people of the world give birth to a new world order built on the idea that we are all one, with no them and us, and that war is obsolete? On February 28, just a couple weeks before her death, Rachel wrote to her mother:
“I think I could see a Palestinian state or a democratic Israeli-Palestinian state within my lifetime. I think freedom for Palestine could be an incredible source of hope to people struggling all over the world. I think it could also be an incredible inspiration to Arab people in the Middle East, who are struggling under undemocratic regimes, which the US supports. I look forward to increasing numbers of middle-class privileged people like you and me becoming aware of these structures that support our privilege and beginning to support the work of those who aren’t privileged to dismantle those structures.”
In 1995, White Dog Café began holding a Freedom Seder, a celebration of the exodus of the Jewish people from bondage as slaves in Egypt, which we continued every Passover, until I retired and sold the business in 2009. A rabbi would preside, and each year we created a booklet, a Haggadah, to accompany the service, tell the story, and share the ‘ten plagues’ of our time. Often a member of another community that was fighting oppression would also speak. Our purpose was to spread the Jewish message of freedom from oppression for all people — that all people are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
I can understand that for many Jews the actions of the Israeli government are at odds with what they believe are at the heart of Judaism and its wise teachings —hence the protest signs, “Not in My Name.” Young American Jews, who have organized to reclaim Judaism in the spirit of seeing God in all people, embody Rachel’s dream for peace and justice:
Jewish Voice for Peace says, “We imagine Jewish Israelis joining Palestinians to build a just society, rooted in equality rather than supremacy, dignity rather than domination, democracy rather than dispossession. A society where every life is precious.”
If Not Now, a movement led by young Jews, says, “We call on our community to imagine a future beyond “us or them” — where Israelis and Palestinians are both safe: A future of equality, where everyone from the river to the sea has individual and collective rights to safety, the resources they need to live, freedom of movement, and political representation.”
My hope for peace in Israel and Palestine, and for a world where everyone has a place at the table, lies largely with these young people who stand as beacons of light in the darkness. As was Rachel, they are courageous to oppose racism and militarism and call for Israel to be a model of coexistence that the world so desperately needs. If not now, when?
Judy and the delegation of American women joined 200 Palestinian women and 250 Israeli women on September 6, 2003, in Talkarem, West Bank, to protest the Apartheid Wall that separated the villagers from 7000 acres of their agricultural land and 26 wells. The Israeli women brought school supplies to the gate as a gift to the Palestinians. The IDF teargassed those of us on the Palestinian side of the wall. Photographer unknown.
Return to Strength in Openness Contents Page
The Teachings in a Time of Intense World Crisis
The Teachings in a Time of Intense World Crisis
Cover image | Meandering wadis combine to form dense, branching networks across the stark, arid landscape of southeastern Jordan.
How interesting to be devoting an issue of Kosmos to the Ageless Spirit, honoring both the vast body of wisdom teachings that have been passed down through the centuries AND those many wise elders (including some who are young in years) who are today bringing fresh insight to these teachings as they apply to the mind and heart of our age.
And what an age it is! The world right now, in all its intensity, can seem to be a chaotic complex of contradictions, conflicts, stresses and tensions. And as time goes on it only seems as if this intensity is mounting. As we become increasingly aware of how interdependent we are as a species, crises in the body politic are, not surprisingly, coalescing – mirroring that interdependence. As Oxfam International Executive Director, Amitabh Behar, recently declared while speaking at the UN, we are facing “a poly-crisis: a climate emergency, a cost-of-living crisis, an inequality crisis, a crisis of democracy back-sliding”. Readers of Kosmos recognize that the coalescing crises in society and international relations are also reflected in every profession, in science and technology and, most importantly, they reach into the depths of the psyche of our most private and intimate lives. As communities, nations, peoples and as individuals we are in crisis.
So, what’s going on? How does this chaos in the world affect our relationship with the great Wisdom Teachings that have played such a critical role throughout human history? Is the Ageless Spirit simply a way of escaping from the ‘real world’ and turning our backs on all the gritty questions of our age, as some might suggest? While of course the inherited wisdom of the ages can be approached in a whole variety of ways, some of which may be disempowering and escapist, I think that something different is at play here. If there is one thing that most teachings agree on it is: what’s wrong with crisis? Crisis transforms. Bearing in mind the oft quoted thought ‘never waste a good crisis’ – this is a time to welcome and appreciate breakdown as a sign that some sort of existential change is on the way. It’s a time to shift our focus and direct our attention to signs of breakthrough.
More than anything else, the intensity of these times challenges us to deepen our own orientation to the Real – and to our intelligent appreciation of future evolutionary possibilities that are being worked out in our lives and through our lives. And that is why the Wisdom Teachings are so important right now. We are being called to really think – and to explore what it means to think for ourselves, rather than be molded in our thinking by either the fears and insecurities of those around us, or by loud voices seeking to persuade us of one ‘right’ way of responding to these times. The Teachings give us a new map of Reality, and a way of seeing that spirit is alive and at work in all the matter and substance of our lives. It is then down to us how we interpret these teachings in the face of today’s realities.
Evolution, as I understand it, is pushing us all to think and feel in fresh and quite new ways. A reorientation to the Real (with its limitless dimensions of Joy and Beauty, Love and Purpose) is about going deeper so that our intelligence, creativity, and instinctual behaviors can be more oriented around and inspired by depths of wisdom that lie within us and can drive the emergence of an entirely new culture where science, religion and spirituality can become whole again and mystery, spirit and myth re-emerge in all the professions and social organisms.
Ancient wisdom that has been passed down through the ages has the power to lift modern thought into a new fascination with time-honored qualities like selflessness, healthy self-forgetfulness, sacrifice, service – all the ways in which the love of the soul truly breathes in and through our lives and our cultures. Only a serious, deep encounter with the ancient wisdom teachings (in their diversity) has the power to do this.
There is a purpose that lives in our soul or Essential Self, our own unique Buddha Nature. And in this moment of crisis that deep purpose is pushing itself, at times quite forcefully, through into the awareness of more and more of us – as individual units as well as into the shared thinking of groups and networks. That pushing into awareness can be a source of disorientation as everything we thought was real and true and substantial begins to be seen in a new light. To counter this, visions, goals, and disciplines must be re-discovered and re-envisioned.
It is here, as we rediscover what it is to be human in a world in transformation that the Wisdom Teachings of the ages can be seen to be so vitally important. For the teachings, considered as a whole body of thought – a perennial wisdom with a wealth of myths and stories and insights into the Real – are what give our minds and our hearts access to the new consciousness that is coming in. We need these maps and guides to help us navigate afresh our way out of materialism and into some new and as yet undefined culture of synthesis where the material world and the spiritual world sit together in a more creative and enriching way.
This sort of process of realignment can inspire a quiet persistence and an almost timeless sense that everything (absolutely everything) is about unfolding qualities of relationship: between personality and soul or vision, identity, thought and emotions; between individual and group; between groups; between kingdoms of nature; between the Earth and the Cosmos.
While the notion of Emotional Intelligence is now well established in thoughtful conversations we are still not so familiar with what Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall refer to as Spiritual Intelligence: the “intelligence with which we access our deepest meanings, values, purposes, and highest motivations. It is how we use these in our thinking processes, in the decisions that we make, and things that we think it is worthwhile to do …. Spiritual intelligence is our moral intelligence.”1 It is here that the Wisdom Teachings become our guides and protectors. They provide us with an understanding of how, through individuals and groups around the world, the mind and soul and spirit are again coalescing in ways that are already shaping a new world.
As Ian McGilchrist reminds us “attention is a moral act”. As more and more of us develop a long-term encounter with the wise teachings of the ages we are developing the muscles and discernment needed to navigate our own authentic ways of attending to the world and to the relationships within the world. And, I suspect, that many of us are doing so in response to the intensity of the crises of this time.
Return to Ageless Spirit Contents Page
1. Daana Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By. San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler. p.
Earth, Our Eldest Teacher
All images | US Geological Survey