I turn toward Injustice with a lion-hearted love. I roar at it. I roar so powerfully, with intention:
We are kin! You must remember what we are! Put down your weapons! There is another way! Breathe! Remember! You are strong in love, stronger than this hate! Love! Love! Love!
My roar is so loud that Injustice stammers for a moment in their malevolence. They can’t hear all the words: they’re too possessed. But some leak through, one of the loves does and it rattles them into a brief glimmer of presence. An opening.
I clutch them with my big paws, my touch is warm yet strong as I give them a gentle shake and look them into their eyes, piercing the warring fog.
MY BROTHER, MY SISTER, YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS! THEY TOO ARE YOUR BROTHER AND SISTER, NO MATTER WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. REMEMBER!
They waver back to their nightmare and scream, push away my paws but I will not relent. I wait for them to release their cry of anguish. Wait again for them to breathe in…NOW.
This Injustice isn’t Jewish nor Arab—it is the child of them both. This is what I realize as they start to pour inward in presence, following their feelings to the bitter end, not staying in the tension above that turns them brutal with the pain of resistance. Here, they sink into the softness of soul beneath, and feel the burning of their own fury charring its shining skin.
As they go within, they exude a different field of info—that is where my realization comes of what they are, allowing me to name them and, thus, gain power, as demonology asserts (by naming the demon, one gains power over it—this is the boon of awareness, the beginning of the salve called wisdom). As they moan and scream and writhe, I pick up more info: They both want the same thing—that is the essence of this child. They want to live in peace, in love. They don’t understand why so many have been killed, their families, their children. They have seen the blown open heads of infants and the horror was impossible to integrate—it stayed as a haunting, a merciless torment, that made them lose touch with their own humanity and, thus, all humanity….
They are panting. They are tired. Anger cannot be held when it explodes like this. It is too powerful and will eventually spurt all of its rage and for a moment leave a glimpse to what lies beneath: sadness is the root of all anger. So say the Taoists, truth-sayers indeed. What sadness?
It is the sadness of seeing such cruel things in a beautiful world. How can they understand, how can anyone understand? The hatred, the warring, is a reasonable response—it reveals the beautiful sensitivity of human nature—it feels so much, too much at times it seems. The horror tortures them, killing their willingness to be good. So the war within them unleashes outside. Where did it begin? It matters not, only that it began. We must know this so deeply: that one act of abuse, one murder, can set forth a pattern that leads to the decimation of thousands upon thousands. If we knew, would we stop our hand from that first strike?
(I spy an apparition emerge in the near distance of ancient Arab and Jew, then known by different names, the first ones who conflict, and each time they strike, lines of dying brethren rise up behind them. They do not notice at first but over time they stop their striking to see all the dead, horrified. They fall to their knees, inconsolably sorrowful!)
I sense another opening and go to them again. They are hunched over, taking long breaths to regain themselves from keeling over. I place a hand on their back, over their heart, and immediately stream the vibration of love through as the signal of my touch.
Let us cry together, my friend. Let us cry together.
And I begin to draw in now from my hand and the flower of the heart that is the palm. I taste their hate, their pain, all the trauma, and immediately begin to moan too, to cry, to release. I do so with great power, singing the sadness. They stare up at me aghast, confused at my frantic cries. I meet their eyes, piercing them again, and urge them to join me, that it is acceptable. I get down on my knees and gently encourage their body to do the same. They do. I huddle an arm around them and hold them close. I sing again my cry, wildly, desperately. They rumble with my rumbling body. They begin, meekly at first, to cry too. We sing for many moments, releasing, tears exploding like rockets from our eyes, bombing the ground with our grief.
They are spent now, muffled sobbing. I help them to lay down.
I take some Earth in my hand, suffuse with the ashes of destruction, and I sprinkle it on their body. I begin to do a healing with my hands ushering light beams from universal sources to connect to their inner-webbing of radiances. When an appropriate alignment is reached, I sit back and let them drink and refuel of the source. I sing then, healing sounds buoyed by healing intentions. Songs come from cosmic lines to nourish with love and eternal wisdom. And then, I sit and meditate beside them, holding a field of peace for them and their dreaming…
…
It is much later and they are rousing slowly. They are as delicate as a babe. They come to a seat and look innocently into my eyes. I move to them and embrace them. They fall into me, their arms clutching me, and I hold them for a long time.
They finally unclasp and sit before me. They begin to speak:
I am so tired of this. So tired. How will it stop? I cannot bear to see anymore killing. It is making me mad. I am not who I used to be. I feel no joy, only this consuming rage. I feel no goodness, only the bitter taste of vengeance.
They look up to the vastness of the sky, searching for something ultimate:
Pleeeease, pleeeease, please, please, make this stop, make it all stop….please….
They look then from above to the ground, wedding them as they slump to the Earth quietly in grounding.
I speak: The end of war is the beginning of love.
They look up at me, awoken by my words. I say it again: The end of war is the beginning of love.Say it with me, even just once. Please, my friend.
And together: the end of war is the beginning of love.
I go on: It will not be easy. But this we must do. We must leave behind, even but for moments at first, all the pain, all the madness, all the ones murdered and the hatred for those perpetrators, both now and then. We must drive through all the fog of suffering. And in that moment, you have to willfully believe, you have to create the belief that there is another way, a possibility for the war to end. It may seem impossible. It may seem insane but you must boldly rise beyond all such rationale. You must imagine it and by imagining you begin to make it true. Give birth to a feeling and thought of love for each other. You must follow that vibration. You must begin to do good to each other, even in the face of rejection and abuse or worse. We must begin to attend to creating ideas of how to create love and peace until it becomes so loud that it drowns everything else. The war will only stop when love is cultivating in its place, in the face of it, constantly, leading it away, inviting it to join…
They respond: But what will love do?
We must embrace the unknowing for we will not know until we love. Love will lead and tell us, moment to moment that we connect and begin to cherish it as the only way. It will urge us in many ways, little acts of kindness, compassion, for self and other, righting our speech. We will veer back into hatred at times. It will seek to usurp and we must continue to assert love. We will be astounded then in these inner-battles to see that the true war was always inside.
It is fundamentally this simple act of attention on love instead of hate, over and over again, growing the seed of peace and compassion. It must grow in a deadened field, seemingly infertile, the sun blocked by clouds of exploding bombs, in the midst of the war. It asks of us to become something heroic, a warrior of love greater than the power of bombs; a creativity that will usurp the destruction. In time, it will change us and make us into something incredibly noble, an indomitable force of virtue. It will make us more beautiful and powerful than we can imagine.
Injustice looks on at this potential power of love with awe. Suddenly, in their arms appears the dead corpse of one of their children. They cradle them in their arms and begin to weep terribly. The hatred and desire for revenge boils in their blood, mixing with the grief of their loss. They howl vehemently.
You know if you seek their vengeance that it will continue on and on. As a great sage once portended, hatred never ceases by hating but by not hating. Wisdom is simple in expression yet so difficult in embodiment. And yet this is the salve: you must cease your hatred but like all energy it cannot merely stop but must be directed elsewhere. The direction is love.
I pause to let the medicine of the words sink in. They howl more as they consider it. They howl until they are exhausted and with that release they sink deeper into their sorrow, looking now tenderly down upon the burnt visage of their child. They brush the charred hair.
Think now that in this moment you could choose to believe, no matter how difficult it may seem, to make this the last child that will die. More perhaps will die but you have vowed to do everything in your power of life to cease this kind of death. And that is much more than enough. Look on at this child and see all of your children that have perished….
Suddenly, around them begin to appear all the children who have perished in this conflict. Hills as far as the eye can see arise.
No more please! No more please! I cannot bear it!
But you must!!! You must bear it!!! You must allow all of them, all of their death, all of that suffering into your heart, to be a bomb of pain that explodes your soul, destroying all of your old patterns!!!
No please I can’t, I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’t!!! I let them sob uncontrollably in their paroxysm of grief. A playful music begins to arise from somewhere, everywhere—a childlike melody, innocent, tender, magical. Injustice takes their hands away from their face in hiding and beholds the changed scene—around them the dead have turned to those alive and there are children dancing, playing, laughing in glee all around. Injustice smiles brightly, spinning around to look at them all, beginning to chuckle with them. Two children, an Israeli boy and a Palestian girl, skip hand-in-hand toward him.
I’m scared, poppa, the sounds are so loud. People are crying in the street. What’s happening, poppa? Can you make it stop?
Injustice looks at their wide-wonderful eyes and is sullen. He can barely meet their gaze.
Please, poppa, make it stop. I’m scared poppa.
I…can’t…I can’t my children.
Yes you can, says the boy smiling and he pulls a flower from his pocket and hands it to them.
It’s just like growing a flower. You have to plant a seed and then take care of it, helping it grow, with the right sun and water and care. And then it can grow and become as beautiful as this flower.
Injustice takes the lovely flower with a trembling hand, beginning to laugh nervously, in awe of this child’s incredibly simple wisdom.
Yes, yes. I can do that. Yes. And the children smile, bend down to kiss each of their cheeks, and skip off into the playground of other children abounding.
The vision disappears and in its place arises a great meadow, surrounded by rolling hills, galloping into a perfect sunny horizon. Flowers of many different variety sway fully bloomed in a warm wind. The beauty of raw nature cascades into each glance. Injustice sits more serenely, taking in the exquisite environment around them.
Go now to your touched heart, I encourage. And Injustice closes their eyes and descends their awareness down into their heart energetic centre. They go right inside and behold a little world of events, happenings and reveries. They see Israeli’s and Palestinians playing music together, sharing their songs, and making new ones together. They see them knocking on the door of each other’s homes bearing gifts and food. They see them coming to mourn each other’s dead, offering condolences and hopes of forgiveness. They see the children of both playing without a care for any conflict.
The heart is always creating love, infinitely so, urging a constancy of little acts that can be done to strengthen the power of love, bringing it out from in. This is all the heart is doing, always. Its power is eternal and indomitable. But we must connect there or else we forget its universal religion of love and unity. The art of heart is constantly returning us its sanctuary, to be cleansed by hatred, to know of a world beyond all the death and destruction that is always existing, even if in the finer realms of ideas and visions. These visions are the seeds that you can plant in your actions in the world. The seeds are always infinite. You will not have to do this alone for others are too realizing this incredible power of the heart, of love, and realizing it is the only way through the madness. You will all begin to plant these gardens of love with your deeds. It will start small at first but you will help each other take care of them, to nurture their growth. And in time, the seeds will grow, burst through the land, for all to see, as they bloom in great beauty. That beauty will begin to captivate people, people so tired of death and hatred. They will turn away from their vices to behold them, to sit in the fields of loveliness exuded by these flowers of love, and the flowers will begin to heal them by their beauty, their fragrance of love. They will slowly begin to forget the horrendous past and, instead, be compelled to help the future of this peace and love.
Injustice closes its eyes and rustles into a tall seat. It begins to breathe, deeply, gently, opening all of its body and soul. It breathes into its heart. It takes time for the armouring around it to begin to melt but Injustice stays with it. Not before long, they are sitting serenely, pooling into the wisdom of their heart. They remain so for quite some time.
I join them: I sit and breathe into my heart, sinking my awareness into its sacredness and enter into visioning wisdom. Much time passes…
I hear a strange rustling and I open my eyes. Injustice has morphed into a bomb, a big bomb. Perhaps a nuclear bomb. I am terrified for an instance as I notice a digital counter, counting down from one minute. I wonder if I have failed, if my words were too inauthentic, too weak to have reached their heart.
What are you doing?! This is not the way. You will annihilate everything! Both sides! All sides!
But the counter keeps ticking down. I go to the bomb and try in utter futility to figure out how to disarm it. It’s no use. Defeated. I sit before it, awaiting the grim destruction, appeasing myself in some final, cynical thoughts that perhaps it was too much to ask, that perhaps this war and all wars is beyond the power of love. A cry of utter anguish erupts from me as the seconds spiral down to nothingness…
3……..2…….1…….
There’s a moment as the one disappears when the counter is simply blank with no explosion. Somewhere, a joyful vibration seeps out from beneath the metallic armouring of this bomb. And then upon the counter appears a simple, pixelled heart.
The explosion is incredible in its power. Only the power is not destruction. True a blinding light explodes and erupts which sends me flying back several feet. But as I land hard on the ground I see falling from the sky not a reign of fire and terror but flowers. Millions upon millions of flowers. All different kinds and colours and shapes of beauty. In fact, it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, come from perhaps the ugliest Injustice I have ever beheld. I smile massively and weep in joy, in love, as roses glide gently by, brush my face with exquisite fragrance. All at once, we are in the real-time of the warzone and all the people, from both sides are beholding these flowers falling. They are confused at first but then, just like children, they innocently begin to be warmed in their soul by this miracle of miracles.
I survey the land, the air it's nectarous with flowery intent. This beauty is truth, I muse to myself. Not before long, a few fogs of smoke begin to silently come through. It’s not enough to bury the majesty before me, but it is enough to temper the ecstasy of my revelation. My smile remains, only now my eyes squinting slightly, as if applying a little duress to hold the vision, unwaveringly. I let the smoke pass around me. I do not close my eyes nor hide my breath. I breathe in the smell of dying things.
I get down on my knees and place my hands on the land, nestling my fingers and palms into the green grass, warm by sun’s dutiful gaze. I close my eyes now and connect to the Earth.
Oh sacred planet, please forgive us. We are but learning still how to live on your paradise. We forget that often, too often, but I am hopeful by the rousing of these adversities that we may remember the peace and serenity you offer in the constancy of your fertility and elements which nourish us unconditional with life. I behold beyond the wars the greater war we wage upon you with neglect and ignorance of your needs, nay, even ignorance of your every presence. And yet, you still give, in perpetual abundance to us, all we need to keep living. You do not seek revenge, though your storms may grow greater and your trembling louder. I know these are but the signs of your pain from the brokenness we have rendered to the currents of your vitality that are too are own currents. I pray that we have the time before much more of you is destroyed to understand how to live upon and with you in harmony, or else it will be our doom.
Perhaps the wars between each other will truly end when we realize this greater war we have waged against you and that we must stop to survive. Perhaps it will be in partnership by the seeds of love, grown from the sweetness of adversity. Whatever may be, I pledge allegiance to you. I burn all my flags of nationalism before the flag of your forests, the anthem of your waters, the peace of your air. I, this simple, humble, beautiful human being and to the humanity which I honour foremost before any god, country or creed. The end of war is the beginning of love…
I settle into silence then for some time. At some point, a stream of wise thoughts come to me, as if Earth itself is responding…
My child, my child, forgiveness is assured. Do not be dismayed by the horrors you wreak upon yourselves and against one another. The human condition is a challenging riddle to solve. This recent warring is yet another rousing of the great human soul to seek a higher unity. It is seemingly always this way: through such adversity, you learn the true ways of peace. Keep dreaming and visioning the paradise that will be, when you all finally drop your weapons, your hatred, your conflicts, to see the possibility, the real, tangible potential to live in harmony with each other and me. The very fact that you can imagine it means it is possible. So possible. It is happening as we speak within your heart. Keep growing and tending to it. Soon, this child of peace will grow strong enough to fly from the nest of your heart out into the world. Paradise will no longer be lost...
I am wrecked by tears of joy and awe before this precious wisdom and bow so low that my forehead touches the grass. So gently, so tenderly, so softly, not upon my skin but the shining sea of my soul, I feel lips motherly kissing my forehead…