Meditation at the Wall between Israel and Palestine
On 09th November 2005
Introduction
On the 9th of November 2005 the Pilgrimage Group GRACE – a group of Internationals together with Israelis and Palestinians – will hold a vigil at the Israeli Wall. We start in the early morning (ca. 5 a.m. CET + 1) in the Arabic town Baqa al Garbya, in the North of Israel.
A wall of 8 metres high, which goes right through a Palestinian house, divides the the town here into two halves. A mixture of wall and high security fence is planned on the length of
600 km around and in the Westbank and is already realized in many places. It is supposed to ultimately separate the Israeli and Palestinian people. It destroys many Palestinian areas. Villages and cities will be divided, neighbours seperated from each other, fertile fields no longer accessible.
We are doing this also in memory of the so called Reichs Crystal Night on the 9th of November 1938, which was followed by the torture and cruel extinction of millions of Jews and opponents of the Nazi Regime in Germany. At the same time we are doing it in memory of the falling of the Berlin Wall in Germany on the 9th November 1989, which was the success of the East-German revolutionary movement. From one day to the next the miracle happened. The Wall that had seperated East and West Germans for decades was transformed into a symbol of reunion.
Could a miracle like this not also take place in this country, Israel/Palestine?
We invite you to participate in our meditation and vigil worldwide on the 9th of November also in many other places and to spread our meditiation text for this event in many networks.
We must not allow that, as a consequence of the cruel history, suffering and injustice continues in Israel/Palestine now. One thing we have learned from the past: We must not stay silent whenever we face human injustice. The construction of the wall brings with it immeasurable human and economic suffering to the Palestinian and Israeli people. Further suicide bombings, bombardements and a chain of violence without any end in sight will be the consequence. Shall we continue to silently witness how one innocent victim follows the next? If the construction of the wall will be continued, this will certainly be the consequence. We refuse to be enemies. We focus all our attention to the overcoming of the wall.
Declaration
We come with the intention of peace. We come in the name of GRACE.
We come with the unconditional wish to overcome all walls that cause seperation, fear and animosity in ourselves and our environment.
Sequence
The first hour we will stay silently at the wall. People on both sides of the wall will participate in the meditation. Via loudspeaker, accompanied with music, we will then read the full meditation text. Then we will sit down at a distance of about 1 meter from each other silently, everybody with a lit candle and also with the cosmogramm in front of us that Marko Pogacnik designed especially for the Israeli wall. It stands for the forces of reconnection.
Each participant is then asked to visualize and strengthen those images from the text that create the most resonance in him/her. We will stay with each picture for 3 minutes in silence. After that (around 7.30 a.m.) we will start the more active part with the peace song “Hevenu shalom alehem” (Peace for all) as well as music, painting and banners. We will paint and project the cosmogramm and selected peace pictures as well as messages onto the wall and distribute leaflets.
All those, who feel inspired, are invited to participate in our meditation in their places, either at exactly the same time or some time during the 9th of November and also to create their own artistic actions.
Meditationtext
1. See on the one side the Palestinian people with their pain, their longing for freedom and their cultural heritage. See on the other side the Israeli people with their culture, their wounds and their century-old longing for protection and home.
See the old story, the roots of the conflict. Abraham, ancestor of both people, had the son Ismael together with Hagar. Then Abraham and his jealous wife Sarah sent Hagar and Ismael to the desert later. It started with a love conflict. Imagine that Abraham and Sarah find a new and solidaric solution in respect for Hagar and Ismael. They know now: A God of Peace and Love would never agree that they fight against each other. Together they take care for their sons and their education. They overcome the Wall.
2. Imagine that representatives of both people walk slowly towards the wall, accompanied by friends from all over the world. Their intention is to overome the wall of seperation. Mothers from both sides extend their hands to each other with the strong decision to not let their children become victims of violence and war any longer.
Men come from both sides, silently sit in a circle, with the strong decision, not to participate any longer in war and animosity. From now on they will take over together the responsibility for their country. Imagine that there, where now the Wall is, Israeli and Palestinian farmers create gardens together – with Olive trees as a symbol for long lasting peace. Doing this together they get to know and respect each other in their humanity.
3. Imagine that the construction of the wall stops and the already built parts will disappear again. Imagine that peace workers from all over the world together with Israelis and Palestinians start the action with a lot of artistic esprit: We sell the wall.
Knowing that nobody has the right to possess this wall, that it violates peoples right and human rights and that its construction consumed huge amounts of money, now selling it shall serve humanitarian needs. The Wall will be taken down piece by piece and at some places will be transformed into art or memorials for the history of war and seperation. With the profit hospitals are implanted where Israeli and Palestinian doctors work together in the spirit of healing. Universities and peace schools are built up. Here the foundations of peaceful cultures are studied. The money will be invested into common ecological projects, research on water supply, reforrestation and solar technology pilot models.
4. Imagine that in Mosques and Synagogues, in Christian Churches and in Schools the memory of the original sources of peace is regained. People return back to the source that overcomes all hatred and animosity. Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Sufis, Jews and Pagans build together the new spiritual temple of our time. Also the old Nomad Gods and Goddesses are inivited in this new covenent.
The daughters and sons of Abraham recognize each other again and reconnect with the purpose to make their land a Holy Land. They carry this decision into their human relationships, into their contacts with animals, with nature. They carry now the common responsibility for the promised land as a place of peace. When peace can be realized here, it can be realized anywhere in the world.
5. Also in governments and in leading positions of the economic and scientific world they start to remember their responsibility for the destiny of the whole country – not only for one people. They know: There can not be a free Israel without a free Palestine, and there can not be a free Palestine without a free Israel. New leading forces turn up, new ideas for solution arise. They take part in the destiny of the whole Middle East. They take care that refugees can return to their country or that they find a dignified place for a new home. Nobody will any longer be considered as an unworthy being.
Imagine that the arms industry will no longer provides weapons but instead will deliver humane technology that brings fertility to the country for all its inhabitants. ‘Swords become ploughshares’.
The international world supports the reconciliation with all means, as they know their responsibility. They also do not deliver tanks any more, but instead they come with the unwavering will to cooperate for peaceful solutions.
6. The terror of facism begins to heal as the souls of the former victimizers – of dead ones as well as of the ones still alive – deeply see their mistakes and their guilt. They genuinely ask their victims for forgiveness. Imagine that all the ancestors recognize their wrong doing and their fanatism. They realize through tears, what they did to each other, not knowing that those, whom they considered to be enemies, are, in reality, members of their own cosmic family. They acted in the belief that they found the one and only truth. Now they extend their hands for reconciliation.
7. Imagine you are given the seed for future peace cultures into your hand – a cosmogramm, a letter of life for the process of reconciliation. Imagine that you plant this seed now here at the Wall into the earth. You take care for it, you send light and you water it. Imagine how from this seed a new power grows, how the knowledge for a free, sensitive and peaceful world is generated. Imagine how the seed opens up and start to blossom at different places on earth. Switch on your light, make yourself into a force that will not rest before peace is realized on earth. We take on the responsibility to overcome the walls of seperation in ourselves in order to make peace on earth possible.
8. Imagine how rejoicing people on both sides welcome the dismantling of the wall. They see each other as friends. Their differences do not create animosity any more but interest instead. Together they have started to create a new culture.
May it become true that we all find our own way to celebrate and live the One source of life and love. May we all rediscover in our own manner the sacred core of life and celebrate it. In this sense we light up the light for peace in the Holy Land, peace on earth and peace between all beings.
Blessed be this process
