The following video is part of a live call on the online program I host alongside my former wife Patsy, called the Sanity Project. It is a very direct and uncompromising statement about what we must do to end the cycle that produces events like those unfolding in Israel / Palestine. Patsy starts us off with a little story and reference to Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ll add a lightly edited transcript beneath, but I suggest you watch instead. When I speak directly to people I don’t always speak in publishable sentences, and besides, voice conveys a lot of information that words cannot.
Thank you for this excellent post/transcript, Charles and Patsy. I just watched the first 20 minutes of an interview that Bret Weinstein conducts with Israeli journalist Efrat Fenigson (who lives in Israel) on October 10, and so far I am riveted because both of them obviously care deeply about both the Israelis and the Palestinians and are interested in “Going beyond the obvious,” as the episode is titled. I have already learned so much and plan to watch the rest of it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IAH7PnS_E
I am sorry you feel that way. Do you feel the same way about Charles’s post? If so, I am genuinely curious why you are reading a site like this. Where are you coming from? Is there something we could agree on?
Probably not false equivalence shitlib bullshit equals enabling Jew murder bombing of 2 million imprisoned in an area a little bigger than a metro airport.
Thank you for responding. In the video, they are not trying to find equivalence but instead are seeking to look at the whole picture, the history of what has happened to all the people in that part of the world and why it is such a tinderbox. I am finding it enlightening in a way that is causing me to open both my mind and my heart. That is the biggest reason I wanted to share it, in case it might do the same for others.
Thank you! Yes, it is really hard to be sucked down into the energy of hate; there really is a much more powerful and effective way that shines a light on all of it and brings new (and often unexpected) solutions into view even when things seem impossible. As Einstein(?) or someone similar pointed out, you cannot solve problems from the same consciousness that created them. Hate will never solve hate.
It is impossible to defeat any enemy by lowering yourself to their standards. The minute you become what you are fighting is the minute the fight is lost. Regardless of who is left standing at the end.
Never make the mistake of confusing the outcome of this all-encompassing conflict with the struggle to win it—it is the struggle itself that holds all of the meaning, and that is where your true personal victory lies. Nothing in your life has ever been about whether you win or lose, it has only ever been about how you conduct yourself the during these trials and tribulations. ―https://tritorch.substack.com/p/dancing-doctors-unclean-lies-unchained
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"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." ―Ghandi
"When you seek revenge, be sure to dig two graves" ―Christopher Eccleston
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools." ―MKL Jr
"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.”
Yes. In my view, the path forward is not in political arrangemnts (that's also important but secondary) but rather it lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew), as well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the immense and profound trauma that each "side" has caused the other. And in finding ways to heal together.
All of this requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that they may hear each other, each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is currently prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides.
As someone who was assigned at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature, and so have shed these labels) I am noticing that one of the main things that allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but it has been going on for more than a century) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism/sectarianism, to separate people) so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience and trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see and feel, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls terrorists or invaders/occupiers) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of evil actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm our side..
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself , it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And I can't help but notice that all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism/sectarianism, there is an almost complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters" (who in the eyes of the "The other side" are murderous terrorists/invaders/oppresors).
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that almost all the residents of the region undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!! (In a moment I will say why it does the exact opposite).
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label (this label equals me. This is me, This label is where safety and security is to be found), which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that might disrupt this identity/label.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity, therefore anything that questions or does not identify with this national-religious system of ideas is immediately perceived as a threat to my very existence, because I am this identity/the nationalist-religious label, this is me, this is where safety and secur8ty is at..
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose nationalism/tribalism also involves divisive and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion and a sense of uniqueness from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label of "Jewish" is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and everyone who was not born into the correct national-religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common worldview in the extremely nationalist, ethnocentric, fascistic and exclucivist Israeli society (which is much more fanatically tribalstic and nationalist than Jews outside israel), and I think it plays a huge huge part in what brought this conflict about in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian zionist nationalism.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, only for a part of the whole (through division, exclusion, separation from the whole and working to secure the narrow interests of only one nationalist-religious identity), such an attempt - of trying to create security ONLY for the part and ignore what this does to the whole - such an attempt not only can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our naiveté we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
I agree. The root of the evil devouring both sides, is the divertion from the deep knowing that each and every one of us merely reflects the original Face in a different way. The only way to rediscover that knowing is by contacting, touching each others faces, feeling every speck and every wrinkle with the sensitive fingers of the blinded humans we've been for such a long time.
He also said "Two swords is enough." when he was telling his disciples what to bring in preparation for his arrest, and then he yelled at one of his disciples to stop after they had caused just a single injury with the sword that he told them to bring, an injury which he promptly healed. Jesus was an interesting fellow.
Hello Mr Raven. I feel your hatred. You are bludgeoning me with it. I am trying to return an open heart that feels compassion for your torment. We are both valid. We are both here. Let's tolerate each other with respect. Please?
Dear Mr. Raven, i can see your deep and deeply infested wounds. They prohibit you to soar over the battlefield, from where you would once again know that all the corpses down there taste alike. I wish you would heal your wounds, since it is the perspective from the flying bird's eye which is needed to end division.
Reject tribalism. Embrace humanity. Turn away from insanity.
Yes, the people on one side of the fence are the same as those on the other side. They are all human beings … living, breathing, feeling, suffering beings. They all started out as innocent, accepting, loving children but tribalism and conflicting religious ideologies drove them apart. See the ‘others’ faces as reflections of your own.
Questions I have… Why would they do something that would inevitably lead to nothing but massive retribution? Was there really no surveillance? It took 6 hours to respond?
These sort of questions are not unlike the questions I had after my hate simmered down months after the 911 attacks. Years later and it is clear that 911 is not what we were lead to believe it was.
Beautiful post. We all need this other perspective repeated because yes the noise of the world is all consuming and devastating to our hearts and souls. Each wide-angle lens adds some light to the darkness; meanwhile we all help tug eachother along on the path of light.
my mind state leaves no room for "othering". i don't know how to feel "otherness" any more!!!!!
I'll tell you one thing that would and that's banning dual loyalty Jews from holding U.S. government positions so we don't get in nuclear WWII on behalf of the apartheid state of Israel that literally has roads that are barred to Arab people.
"Love" and a well sighted in 30-06 might stop the evil Jews from committing genocide in Gaza. I wish Hamas snipers the best of luck. Head shots boys and courage!
No, it isn't, though I wouldn't call it crap, I would just call it "liberal Kumbaya thinking". I don't think Charles has the deepest possible understanding here, and his solution is probably naive. Forgiveness is insufficient to deal with the root causes either of the horrible conditions in Gaza, the nature of Jihadist behaviors, or the nature of rightist Israeli behaviors.
Brillinant!!! Thank you very much for this Charles!! In my view, the path forward is not in political arrangemnts (that's also important but secondary) but rather it lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew), as well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the immense and profound trauma that each "side" has caused the other. And in finding ways to heal together.
All of this requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that they may hear each other, each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is currently prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides.
As someone who was assigned at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning and divisive nature, and so have shed them) I am noticing that one of the main things that allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but it has been going on for more than a century) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism/sectarianism, to separate people) so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience and trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see and feel, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls terrorists or occupiers) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of evil actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm our side..
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself , it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And I can't help but notice that all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism/sectarianism, there is an almost complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything aboit theor pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters" (who in the eyes of the "The other side" are murderous terrorists/invaders/oppresors).
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that almost all the residents of the region undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!! (In a moment I will say why it does the exact opposite).
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than juat mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label (this label equals me. This is me, This label is where safety and security is to be found), which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that might disrupt this identity/label.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I are, that I am this national-religious identity, therefore anything that questions or does not identify with this national-religious system of ideas is immediately perceived as a threat to my very existence, because I am this identity/the nationalist-religious label, this is me, this is where safety and securoty is at..
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose nationalism/tribalism also involves divisive and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion and a sense of uniqueness from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label of "Jewish" is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and everyone who was not born into the correct national-religious label, can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common worldview in the extremely nationalist, ethnocentric and exclucivist Israeli society (which is much more fanatically tribalstic and nationalist than Jews outside israel), and I think it plays a huge huge part in what brought this conflict about in the first place, since the very early days of sectatian zionist nationalism.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, only for a part of the whole (through division, exclusion, separation from the whole and working to secure the narrow interests of only one nationalist-religious identity), such an attempt - of trying to create security ONLY for the part and ignore what this does to the whole - such an attempt not only can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY - SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP - IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our naiveté we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
The Law of Three operates in the universe. Affirming Denying Arising. There cannot be a solution to this very serious issue for the entire world that is Israel-Palestine without the third, Arising.
“Just as it takes three independent strands of hair to make a braid, so it takes three individual lines of force to make a new arising. Until this third force enters, the other two forces remain at impasse. These three lines of action are free of moral judgment and they are neither “good” or “bad” (Cynthia Bourgeault, 2013, p. 26).
Cynthia also says:
“Denying (second force) is never an obstacle to be overcome but always a legitimate and essential component of the new manifestation… The “enemy” is never the enemy but a necessary part of the “givens” in any situation, and solutions will never work that have as their goal the elimination of second force” (p. 29).
My brother died completely unexpectedly of a heart attack at 6am Jerusalem time on Saturday October 7 (in France). He was 57, hyper-sensitive. You Charles woke up sick.
I wonder if this is any related. We are all one, and as you mentioned, the holly land is one ultra-potent power place on the planet, and what happens there radiates globally.
I agree with 100% of what you say here. But in addition to not taking side (I have none), is it at the same time possible to observe, in a neutral way, the logic of things? Because only by seeing things as they are (which is different from judgment), we can be liberated. The truth frees. And our intuition is valid too to access that truth, not only what is “proven”.
We may wonder who is benefiting politically and economically from those horrible events. If a government or part of a government (not a country) wants to invade another country with the support of the nation and the international opinion, one very good strategy would be to make this country an aggressor, through a spectacular shocking event (that is possible to achieve with secret services, or using all sorts of manipulation, or with some other help). In the commotion that results, people are so visually impacted by the obviousness of what they see that what is staged becomes the uncontested only possible truth.
I am NOT saying that this is what happened (how could I know), only that often in such brutal circumstances things are different from what they look like at first, that war politics are manipulative by nature, and that this has been seen many times in history. So, it is a possibility.
My experience is that people all over the world and in this region are mostly family people, fathers, husbands, brothers. It would be very crazy to do an attack like this, knowing the predictable immediate consequences on your own family and people. I do not believe in craziness. I rather believe the world is led by a thirst for power and calculated political and financial interests. Also, those rockets aimed small villages but surprisingly do not seem to have intended to hit strategic locations in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. What was the clear purpose of those (very organized) attacks?
Those are disturbing questions I am asking myself.
How could things possibly change by continuing to lean on the same old stories that have created the same old circumstances, over and over and over again?
Hate is not overcome through hate.
Violence does not end through violence.
Wounds do not heal through further injury.
Hearts do not mend by being broken, again and again and again.
Safety is not created through destruction.
Trust is not developed through blame.
Peace is not established through war.
Love is not grown through fear.
And love is not always easy.
We wouldn't need love if it only arose with ease.
It is the times when love feels most difficult that it holds the most power. To choose love even when it feels far away is a truly radical act. It is a choice to re-member the truth: Love is that which unites.
Demonizing the 'other' can only lead to a demonization of the Self. Casting out anything or anyone is an act of casting out aspects of Who We Are beyond what we may know ourselves to be.
We do not remain whole when we look to see the 'other' as unworthy of love. We do not remain integral when we look to see the 'other' as unworthy of forgiveness. We do not remain true to Creation when we look through eyes clouded by our judgments and our longings and our fears.
We must rise for what we know is true in our own hearts, but we must also bow with that same breath in humble servitude to a force far greater than we can comprehend.
Of course, we cannot know what is to come if we remain truly humble and in love. However, it may just be that whatever comes is far greater than what we could have ever imagined.
One thing is certain: it will not be more hatred, violence, demonization, destruction, and separation.
It may just be the opposite.
The only way to find out is to turn away from the old stories and try the impossible.
🕊Peace Prayer from my dear friend Dave Markowitz 🙏💖
Can we imagine a world where people don’t need to prove anything—where communication replaces violence?
Let us picture and manifest a planet that is cared for by its inhabitants, where no one abuses another because of their own pain, but more so works to heal it from the inside out—permanently, while preventing the cycle from repeating itself.
Let us teach peaceful conflict resolution skills in school in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic. Let us teach tolerance and respect in the curriculum along with history and science. Let us meet the people we were taught to hate and fear, so we can see for ourselves that we all want the same things out of life.
Let parents, authority figures, heroes and heroines, authors and playwrights, CEO’s, judges, governmental officials, presidents, and dictators all see that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” leaves the world blind, hungry, vengeful, or worse.
While I appreciate the high mindedness of forgiveness as a healing path and of course see the repeating cycles of fear -defense - violence in the Middle East, I think the discussion would be served by a deeper understanding of the multi-generational trauma which is reverberating in the bodies of everyone in Israel/Palestine and which is not about words but about feelings sensations memories. It lives in the amygdala - our autonomic nervous system, our “lower brain” which does not respond to words or stories or ideas - and is responsible for the fight flight dissociate pattern we see happening over and over again. It can’t be shifted by words or thoughts or even by mindfulness because it’s a body state and it keeps happening over and over again in what the Israeli/Palestinian body recognizes as a survival/safety strategy. So yes let’s flood the region with witnesses and workers for peace but let them be trained in tending to the brutal somatic re-enactment we witness over and over again in this flash point on the planet. And let’s learn to breathe together. And to work with the horror and the grief and rage and terror that lives in all these bodies on every side of the situation. Cause words and even “understanding” are not the languages of trauma cannot touch the state of reactivity we keep witnessing and participating in.
Blessings on the open heart that feels itself breaking to witness and participate in this ancient story agai
Thank you Charles and Patsy. I have grown somewhat numb over the many decades of pain in the Middle East and the first Nakba. There are no innocents, we have at many different levels done similar. What I may do to other living beings, ants etc. because I am in my mind so much better than they.
The work of Dr. Lynn Margulis puts that arrogance in sever question. Gaia is the mother of us all. We are because the other is. Some how we need to learn to respect and co-exist with each other. To realize that the bacteria that have made this planet habitable for approximately 4 billion years are our mother's.
Time and the fact that we have little to no control of our own biology or Gaia should humble us to care for each other and the Earth.
You want to play rough Jew subhuman? 1 billion Muslims could kill literally every Jew on Earth and the world would be a better place. How do you like them apples might makes right guy?
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes. Understanding, forgiveness, restraint. Just imagine if we adapted these words before World War II. We would have joined Charles Lindbergh and the isolationists who would have enabled Hitler to conquer all of Europe. The next step: the fall of the United States.
A few days ago thousands of deluded leftists marched in Manhattan and Brooklyn calling for death to Israel and praising Hamas, the new Nazis. There was no restraint. It is past the time of explanations...for understanding. When you appease murderers you will find them soon knocking at your door.
There was a peace activist who tried to help the Palestinians for years. What was her reward? Murdered by Hamas at one of the kibbutzim she lived at.
Only ugly people on both sides take delight in the death of innocent civilians. But when terrorists embed themselves in civilian populations, who is responsible for the carnage?
The elephant in the room is terrorism. Trying to explain it is useless at this point. If it isn't stopped these massacres will arrive at your door and you will be just like that poor Israeli woman who truly wanted to help the Palestinians.
The first paragraph is correct about naivety. It is the IDF however that is engaging in genocide, they literally just bombed a hospital and murdered 500 people
You could hide a whole Hamas phalanx up in that schnoz of yours lol. Do you live on “investment income” scammed from hard working gentile labor perhaps?
I am retired and never lived off scamming a purported monolithic entity you refer to as "gentile labor." You sound like a leftist playing the perennial victim card.
Charles, you have such a good heart and mind. And I think this one is more complicated than forgiveness. In a way, it is easier to focus on one's individual feelings and actions, than to think of systemic (higher level) solutions, just like, as you correctly point out, it is easier to blame and be angry, than deal with the discomfort of grief and fear.
The root causes here have to do not only with trauma (on both sides) and terrible conditions in Gaza but also with cultural systems that promote status and dominance seeking, that glorify vengeance for honor, sexual repression and unequal access to sex for men (the high status men have several wives, whereas most men get none, except in promises of future wives in heaven), the way women are treated (patriarchy), and having a well defined outgroup to direct hatred towards. Here is a well written best explanation I have found for terrorism in general:https://medium.com/@radoje.cerovic/turning-average-joe-into-suicide-bomber-the-ancestral-secret-sauce-f41da0220ff8 and the Jihadist one in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6VCF_csmDg&t=3s (and, Mr Raven, an explanation of why the Israelis are bombing hospitals).
I would like us to be thinking more out of the box of vengeance or the box of forgiveness. Like a 3 state solution, administered by the UN? And also we need to think about the geopolitical proxy wars of Iran and Russia, complicating the situation further.
The Law of Three operates in the universe. Affirming Denying Arising. There cannot be a solution to this very serious issue for the entire world that is Israel-Palestine without the third, Arising.
“Just as it takes three independent strands of hair to make a braid, so it takes three individual lines of force to make a new arising. Until this third force enters, the other two forces remain at impasse. These three lines of action are free of moral judgment and they are neither “good” or “bad” (Cynthia Bourgeault, 2013, p. 26).
Cynthia also says:
“Denying (second force) is never an obstacle to be overcome but always a legitimate and essential component of the new manifestation… The “enemy” is never the enemy but a necessary part of the “givens” in any situation, and solutions will never work that have as their goal the elimination of second force” (p. 29).
'That they look into their role in creating the conditions where there's so much fury.'
Yeah, in that sense, there's a lot of crucial backstory and history that people really need to become aware of and understand when it comes to these crises and wars, in order to make proper, fairer judgements and decisions.
Thank you for this excellent post/transcript, Charles and Patsy. I just watched the first 20 minutes of an interview that Bret Weinstein conducts with Israeli journalist Efrat Fenigson (who lives in Israel) on October 10, and so far I am riveted because both of them obviously care deeply about both the Israelis and the Palestinians and are interested in “Going beyond the obvious,” as the episode is titled. I have already learned so much and plan to watch the rest of it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IAH7PnS_E
Puke.
I am sorry you feel that way. Do you feel the same way about Charles’s post? If so, I am genuinely curious why you are reading a site like this. Where are you coming from? Is there something we could agree on?
Probably not false equivalence shitlib bullshit equals enabling Jew murder bombing of 2 million imprisoned in an area a little bigger than a metro airport.
Thank you for responding. In the video, they are not trying to find equivalence but instead are seeking to look at the whole picture, the history of what has happened to all the people in that part of the world and why it is such a tinderbox. I am finding it enlightening in a way that is causing me to open both my mind and my heart. That is the biggest reason I wanted to share it, in case it might do the same for others.
Some people haven’t been able to get past the ‘hate’ stage yet. I appreciate your posts 💕
Thank you! Yes, it is really hard to be sucked down into the energy of hate; there really is a much more powerful and effective way that shines a light on all of it and brings new (and often unexpected) solutions into view even when things seem impossible. As Einstein(?) or someone similar pointed out, you cannot solve problems from the same consciousness that created them. Hate will never solve hate.
Equivalency bullshit. There will be no peace until the wandering Jew packs their bags and hits the road again out of Palestine.
It is impossible to defeat any enemy by lowering yourself to their standards. The minute you become what you are fighting is the minute the fight is lost. Regardless of who is left standing at the end.
Never make the mistake of confusing the outcome of this all-encompassing conflict with the struggle to win it—it is the struggle itself that holds all of the meaning, and that is where your true personal victory lies. Nothing in your life has ever been about whether you win or lose, it has only ever been about how you conduct yourself the during these trials and tribulations. ―https://tritorch.substack.com/p/dancing-doctors-unclean-lies-unchained
-----
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." ―Ghandi
"When you seek revenge, be sure to dig two graves" ―Christopher Eccleston
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools." ―MKL Jr
"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.”
―Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Yes. In my view, the path forward is not in political arrangemnts (that's also important but secondary) but rather it lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew), as well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the immense and profound trauma that each "side" has caused the other. And in finding ways to heal together.
All of this requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that they may hear each other, each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is currently prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides.
As someone who was assigned at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature, and so have shed these labels) I am noticing that one of the main things that allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but it has been going on for more than a century) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism/sectarianism, to separate people) so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience and trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see and feel, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls terrorists or invaders/occupiers) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of evil actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm our side..
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself , it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And I can't help but notice that all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism/sectarianism, there is an almost complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters" (who in the eyes of the "The other side" are murderous terrorists/invaders/oppresors).
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that almost all the residents of the region undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!! (In a moment I will say why it does the exact opposite).
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label (this label equals me. This is me, This label is where safety and security is to be found), which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that might disrupt this identity/label.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity, therefore anything that questions or does not identify with this national-religious system of ideas is immediately perceived as a threat to my very existence, because I am this identity/the nationalist-religious label, this is me, this is where safety and secur8ty is at..
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose nationalism/tribalism also involves divisive and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion and a sense of uniqueness from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label of "Jewish" is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and everyone who was not born into the correct national-religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common worldview in the extremely nationalist, ethnocentric, fascistic and exclucivist Israeli society (which is much more fanatically tribalstic and nationalist than Jews outside israel), and I think it plays a huge huge part in what brought this conflict about in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian zionist nationalism.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, only for a part of the whole (through division, exclusion, separation from the whole and working to secure the narrow interests of only one nationalist-religious identity), such an attempt - of trying to create security ONLY for the part and ignore what this does to the whole - such an attempt not only can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our naiveté we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
https://oneworldrenaissance.com/2021/01/23/holism-fragmentation-and-our-endangered-future-a-new-vision-and-a-new-hope/
I agree. The root of the evil devouring both sides, is the divertion from the deep knowing that each and every one of us merely reflects the original Face in a different way. The only way to rediscover that knowing is by contacting, touching each others faces, feeling every speck and every wrinkle with the sensitive fingers of the blinded humans we've been for such a long time.
Beautiful
Thank you !!
The man with a sniper rifle waiting for an IDF scum fuck who murdered his family to show up disagrees with you.
Surprised that a 'Christian mystic' such as yourself finds this kind of language is necessary! What would Paul Kingsnorth say?!
Christ overturned the tables of the Jew traders in the temple he wasn't a hippy! He said I came with a sword.
He also said "Two swords is enough." when he was telling his disciples what to bring in preparation for his arrest, and then he yelled at one of his disciples to stop after they had caused just a single injury with the sword that he told them to bring, an injury which he promptly healed. Jesus was an interesting fellow.
lol he is subscribed to my Substack, is he subscribed to yours?
I know, that's why I mentioned him. Of course he's not. I don't mind though and I don't follow him.
You are a fucking atheist, you have no valid opinion on this subject go away!
Hello Mr Raven. I feel your hatred. You are bludgeoning me with it. I am trying to return an open heart that feels compassion for your torment. We are both valid. We are both here. Let's tolerate each other with respect. Please?
Why?
You are everything that is a making America Great Again. Well done.
Dear Mr. Raven, i can see your deep and deeply infested wounds. They prohibit you to soar over the battlefield, from where you would once again know that all the corpses down there taste alike. I wish you would heal your wounds, since it is the perspective from the flying bird's eye which is needed to end division.
Reject tribalism. Embrace humanity. Turn away from insanity.
Yes, the people on one side of the fence are the same as those on the other side. They are all human beings … living, breathing, feeling, suffering beings. They all started out as innocent, accepting, loving children but tribalism and conflicting religious ideologies drove them apart. See the ‘others’ faces as reflections of your own.
So Nazis are the same as Jews? The people bombing hospitals the same as those doing the bombing? How naive are you really?
Questions I have… Why would they do something that would inevitably lead to nothing but massive retribution? Was there really no surveillance? It took 6 hours to respond?
These sort of questions are not unlike the questions I had after my hate simmered down months after the 911 attacks. Years later and it is clear that 911 is not what we were lead to believe it was.
Things I’m pondering…
Beautiful post. We all need this other perspective repeated because yes the noise of the world is all consuming and devastating to our hearts and souls. Each wide-angle lens adds some light to the darkness; meanwhile we all help tug eachother along on the path of light.
my mind state leaves no room for "othering". i don't know how to feel "otherness" any more!!!!!
Is this flowery crap going to do anything to help the families of the 300 people the IDF just murdered at a hospital they bombed?
what WOULD help, sweet one?
in a sense we are all helpless, and in it together. Add your two cents in the direction of LOVE, because it's the best weapon we have.
We are only "helpless" if we don't stop Jews from creating Armageddon as a self fulfilling prophecy.
I'll tell you one thing that would and that's banning dual loyalty Jews from holding U.S. government positions so we don't get in nuclear WWII on behalf of the apartheid state of Israel that literally has roads that are barred to Arab people.
"Love" and a well sighted in 30-06 might stop the evil Jews from committing genocide in Gaza. I wish Hamas snipers the best of luck. Head shots boys and courage!
No, it isn't, though I wouldn't call it crap, I would just call it "liberal Kumbaya thinking". I don't think Charles has the deepest possible understanding here, and his solution is probably naive. Forgiveness is insufficient to deal with the root causes either of the horrible conditions in Gaza, the nature of Jihadist behaviors, or the nature of rightist Israeli behaviors.
Brillinant!!! Thank you very much for this Charles!! In my view, the path forward is not in political arrangemnts (that's also important but secondary) but rather it lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew), as well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the immense and profound trauma that each "side" has caused the other. And in finding ways to heal together.
All of this requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that they may hear each other, each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is currently prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides.
As someone who was assigned at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning and divisive nature, and so have shed them) I am noticing that one of the main things that allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but it has been going on for more than a century) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism/sectarianism, to separate people) so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience and trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see and feel, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls terrorists or occupiers) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of evil actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm our side..
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself , it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And I can't help but notice that all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism/sectarianism, there is an almost complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything aboit theor pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters" (who in the eyes of the "The other side" are murderous terrorists/invaders/oppresors).
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that almost all the residents of the region undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!! (In a moment I will say why it does the exact opposite).
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than juat mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label (this label equals me. This is me, This label is where safety and security is to be found), which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that might disrupt this identity/label.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I are, that I am this national-religious identity, therefore anything that questions or does not identify with this national-religious system of ideas is immediately perceived as a threat to my very existence, because I am this identity/the nationalist-religious label, this is me, this is where safety and securoty is at..
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose nationalism/tribalism also involves divisive and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion and a sense of uniqueness from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label of "Jewish" is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and everyone who was not born into the correct national-religious label, can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common worldview in the extremely nationalist, ethnocentric and exclucivist Israeli society (which is much more fanatically tribalstic and nationalist than Jews outside israel), and I think it plays a huge huge part in what brought this conflict about in the first place, since the very early days of sectatian zionist nationalism.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, only for a part of the whole (through division, exclusion, separation from the whole and working to secure the narrow interests of only one nationalist-religious identity), such an attempt - of trying to create security ONLY for the part and ignore what this does to the whole - such an attempt not only can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY - SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP - IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our naiveté we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
The Law of Three operates in the universe. Affirming Denying Arising. There cannot be a solution to this very serious issue for the entire world that is Israel-Palestine without the third, Arising.
“Just as it takes three independent strands of hair to make a braid, so it takes three individual lines of force to make a new arising. Until this third force enters, the other two forces remain at impasse. These three lines of action are free of moral judgment and they are neither “good” or “bad” (Cynthia Bourgeault, 2013, p. 26).
Cynthia also says:
“Denying (second force) is never an obstacle to be overcome but always a legitimate and essential component of the new manifestation… The “enemy” is never the enemy but a necessary part of the “givens” in any situation, and solutions will never work that have as their goal the elimination of second force” (p. 29).
Very interesting. Thank yoi!!
I wonder where can I learn more about this?
Cynthia Bourgeault
https://youtu.be/TabOko3W1NY?si=31cpwAeqYumr5o-B
Thank you 🙏
My brother died completely unexpectedly of a heart attack at 6am Jerusalem time on Saturday October 7 (in France). He was 57, hyper-sensitive. You Charles woke up sick.
I wonder if this is any related. We are all one, and as you mentioned, the holly land is one ultra-potent power place on the planet, and what happens there radiates globally.
I agree with 100% of what you say here. But in addition to not taking side (I have none), is it at the same time possible to observe, in a neutral way, the logic of things? Because only by seeing things as they are (which is different from judgment), we can be liberated. The truth frees. And our intuition is valid too to access that truth, not only what is “proven”.
We may wonder who is benefiting politically and economically from those horrible events. If a government or part of a government (not a country) wants to invade another country with the support of the nation and the international opinion, one very good strategy would be to make this country an aggressor, through a spectacular shocking event (that is possible to achieve with secret services, or using all sorts of manipulation, or with some other help). In the commotion that results, people are so visually impacted by the obviousness of what they see that what is staged becomes the uncontested only possible truth.
I am NOT saying that this is what happened (how could I know), only that often in such brutal circumstances things are different from what they look like at first, that war politics are manipulative by nature, and that this has been seen many times in history. So, it is a possibility.
My experience is that people all over the world and in this region are mostly family people, fathers, husbands, brothers. It would be very crazy to do an attack like this, knowing the predictable immediate consequences on your own family and people. I do not believe in craziness. I rather believe the world is led by a thirst for power and calculated political and financial interests. Also, those rockets aimed small villages but surprisingly do not seem to have intended to hit strategic locations in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. What was the clear purpose of those (very organized) attacks?
Those are disturbing questions I am asking myself.
How simple it is
to point out
beyond ourselves,
guided by our fears
and our pains,
towards that which
we do not understand,
casting judgement
and condemnation,
hurling righteous indignation,
peddling moral designations.
How much more difficult it is
to look within,
guided by love and gratitude,
towards the Origin of All,
offering curiosity and compassion,
holding Life over imaginary factions,
giving our best through our actions.
•
•
How could things possibly change by continuing to lean on the same old stories that have created the same old circumstances, over and over and over again?
Hate is not overcome through hate.
Violence does not end through violence.
Wounds do not heal through further injury.
Hearts do not mend by being broken, again and again and again.
Safety is not created through destruction.
Trust is not developed through blame.
Peace is not established through war.
Love is not grown through fear.
And love is not always easy.
We wouldn't need love if it only arose with ease.
It is the times when love feels most difficult that it holds the most power. To choose love even when it feels far away is a truly radical act. It is a choice to re-member the truth: Love is that which unites.
Demonizing the 'other' can only lead to a demonization of the Self. Casting out anything or anyone is an act of casting out aspects of Who We Are beyond what we may know ourselves to be.
We do not remain whole when we look to see the 'other' as unworthy of love. We do not remain integral when we look to see the 'other' as unworthy of forgiveness. We do not remain true to Creation when we look through eyes clouded by our judgments and our longings and our fears.
We must rise for what we know is true in our own hearts, but we must also bow with that same breath in humble servitude to a force far greater than we can comprehend.
Of course, we cannot know what is to come if we remain truly humble and in love. However, it may just be that whatever comes is far greater than what we could have ever imagined.
One thing is certain: it will not be more hatred, violence, demonization, destruction, and separation.
It may just be the opposite.
The only way to find out is to turn away from the old stories and try the impossible.
🕊Peace Prayer from my dear friend Dave Markowitz 🙏💖
Can we imagine a world where people don’t need to prove anything—where communication replaces violence?
Let us picture and manifest a planet that is cared for by its inhabitants, where no one abuses another because of their own pain, but more so works to heal it from the inside out—permanently, while preventing the cycle from repeating itself.
Let us teach peaceful conflict resolution skills in school in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic. Let us teach tolerance and respect in the curriculum along with history and science. Let us meet the people we were taught to hate and fear, so we can see for ourselves that we all want the same things out of life.
Let parents, authority figures, heroes and heroines, authors and playwrights, CEO’s, judges, governmental officials, presidents, and dictators all see that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” leaves the world blind, hungry, vengeful, or worse.
Let it be so.
While I appreciate the high mindedness of forgiveness as a healing path and of course see the repeating cycles of fear -defense - violence in the Middle East, I think the discussion would be served by a deeper understanding of the multi-generational trauma which is reverberating in the bodies of everyone in Israel/Palestine and which is not about words but about feelings sensations memories. It lives in the amygdala - our autonomic nervous system, our “lower brain” which does not respond to words or stories or ideas - and is responsible for the fight flight dissociate pattern we see happening over and over again. It can’t be shifted by words or thoughts or even by mindfulness because it’s a body state and it keeps happening over and over again in what the Israeli/Palestinian body recognizes as a survival/safety strategy. So yes let’s flood the region with witnesses and workers for peace but let them be trained in tending to the brutal somatic re-enactment we witness over and over again in this flash point on the planet. And let’s learn to breathe together. And to work with the horror and the grief and rage and terror that lives in all these bodies on every side of the situation. Cause words and even “understanding” are not the languages of trauma cannot touch the state of reactivity we keep witnessing and participating in.
Blessings on the open heart that feels itself breaking to witness and participate in this ancient story agai
Thank you Charles and Patsy. I have grown somewhat numb over the many decades of pain in the Middle East and the first Nakba. There are no innocents, we have at many different levels done similar. What I may do to other living beings, ants etc. because I am in my mind so much better than they.
The work of Dr. Lynn Margulis puts that arrogance in sever question. Gaia is the mother of us all. We are because the other is. Some how we need to learn to respect and co-exist with each other. To realize that the bacteria that have made this planet habitable for approximately 4 billion years are our mother's.
Time and the fact that we have little to no control of our own biology or Gaia should humble us to care for each other and the Earth.
Beautiful. Essential. "Hold the still small place of calm, no matter what". Thank you x
Kudos! Brilliant, Poignant, and universally irrefutable!
You must have a soft 1st world upper middle class life if you think that offered anything other than Hallmark card platitudes.
You want to play rough Jew subhuman? 1 billion Muslims could kill literally every Jew on Earth and the world would be a better place. How do you like them apples might makes right guy?
Platitudes, platitudes, platitudes. Understanding, forgiveness, restraint. Just imagine if we adapted these words before World War II. We would have joined Charles Lindbergh and the isolationists who would have enabled Hitler to conquer all of Europe. The next step: the fall of the United States.
A few days ago thousands of deluded leftists marched in Manhattan and Brooklyn calling for death to Israel and praising Hamas, the new Nazis. There was no restraint. It is past the time of explanations...for understanding. When you appease murderers you will find them soon knocking at your door.
There was a peace activist who tried to help the Palestinians for years. What was her reward? Murdered by Hamas at one of the kibbutzim she lived at.
Only ugly people on both sides take delight in the death of innocent civilians. But when terrorists embed themselves in civilian populations, who is responsible for the carnage?
The elephant in the room is terrorism. Trying to explain it is useless at this point. If it isn't stopped these massacres will arrive at your door and you will be just like that poor Israeli woman who truly wanted to help the Palestinians.
The first paragraph is correct about naivety. It is the IDF however that is engaging in genocide, they literally just bombed a hospital and murdered 500 people
Are you a US citizen? Then give up your home and land as REPARATIONS to the Native Americans we stole it from.
You could hide a whole Hamas phalanx up in that schnoz of yours lol. Do you live on “investment income” scammed from hard working gentile labor perhaps?
I am retired and never lived off scamming a purported monolithic entity you refer to as "gentile labor." You sound like a leftist playing the perennial victim card.
If by leftist you mean National Socialist, Jew, LOL!
Charles, you have such a good heart and mind. And I think this one is more complicated than forgiveness. In a way, it is easier to focus on one's individual feelings and actions, than to think of systemic (higher level) solutions, just like, as you correctly point out, it is easier to blame and be angry, than deal with the discomfort of grief and fear.
The root causes here have to do not only with trauma (on both sides) and terrible conditions in Gaza but also with cultural systems that promote status and dominance seeking, that glorify vengeance for honor, sexual repression and unequal access to sex for men (the high status men have several wives, whereas most men get none, except in promises of future wives in heaven), the way women are treated (patriarchy), and having a well defined outgroup to direct hatred towards. Here is a well written best explanation I have found for terrorism in general:https://medium.com/@radoje.cerovic/turning-average-joe-into-suicide-bomber-the-ancestral-secret-sauce-f41da0220ff8 and the Jihadist one in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6VCF_csmDg&t=3s (and, Mr Raven, an explanation of why the Israelis are bombing hospitals).
I would like us to be thinking more out of the box of vengeance or the box of forgiveness. Like a 3 state solution, administered by the UN? And also we need to think about the geopolitical proxy wars of Iran and Russia, complicating the situation further.
The Law of Three operates in the universe. Affirming Denying Arising. There cannot be a solution to this very serious issue for the entire world that is Israel-Palestine without the third, Arising.
“Just as it takes three independent strands of hair to make a braid, so it takes three individual lines of force to make a new arising. Until this third force enters, the other two forces remain at impasse. These three lines of action are free of moral judgment and they are neither “good” or “bad” (Cynthia Bourgeault, 2013, p. 26).
Cynthia also says:
“Denying (second force) is never an obstacle to be overcome but always a legitimate and essential component of the new manifestation… The “enemy” is never the enemy but a necessary part of the “givens” in any situation, and solutions will never work that have as their goal the elimination of second force” (p. 29).
Well said.
'That they look into their role in creating the conditions where there's so much fury.'
Yeah, in that sense, there's a lot of crucial backstory and history that people really need to become aware of and understand when it comes to these crises and wars, in order to make proper, fairer judgements and decisions.