Last night I went to a candlelight vigil put on by BC Health Workers to honour the more than 400 health care workers and medical students who have been massacred in Palestine since Israel amped up their military actions in October. Interestingly, I recently watched John Oliver's report on the situation (from several months ago) and he explored the corruption within the governmental systems of both Palestine and so-called Israel, and Netanyahu was actually encouraging Hamas to continue radicalizing and was covertly funding them, knowing that they would act out at some point. And that this could be used to justify further acts of extremism on the part of Israel. I’ve seen footage of people in so-called Israel gathering together and screaming excitedly about the prospect of fully inhabiting the lands that they feel entitled to wholly inhabit.

Israel’s government knew that the Oct. 7 attacks were coming and did nothing to stop them, putting their own people at risk and willfully antagonizing an already dire and tense situation into a full blown war/genocide. They have even killed their own people who were taken as hostages. The brutality of what’s happening in beyond horrific, and you can see for yourself by following some of the accounts listed here:

It’s not so simple, however, to say that Israelis are European. And being that I have a lot of Germanic ancestry I have to keep reminding myself that antisemitism, the Holocaust and the dispossession of Jewish people is the root cause of this conflict. This also brings up a lot of questions about what is means to be Jewish and that's a very complex topic, one that I’ve been exploring myself, as I recently found out that we have some Ashkenazi Jewish DNA in our family - though I have yet to find any cultural or kin connections. Nonetheless, many people who identify as Jewish are ethnically European yet culturally Jewish. And some people who identify as Jewish are mostly Sheppardic Jews and have genetic ties to the lands now known as Palestine. Yet modern day Palestinians have ties to those lands that go back to Neolithic times, and modern day Jewish people have very little connection to the ecosystems of the desert, and have operated like colonizers during their 75 year reign of terror and displacement.

I have a renewed sense of responsibility, and even though it feels like I’m doing nothing, I’m realizing that all of the phone calls, emails, petitions, social media messages etc. are having an impact, because the global consciousness is shifting. People are becoming more aware of what’s happening, and the deeply embedded systems of oppression that are engineering this and other terrible massacres, are starting to disintegrate.

I would never ask this of anyone who has been directly impacted, yet for myself I’m holding the space of understanding the pain that is driving Zionists to behave the way that they’re behaving. That understanding in in my blood, and the responsibility of healing and accountability is also in my blood. I don’t know how to carry all of that and I fear that I’ll be a witness to a lot more pain and suffering before there’s a chance to explore the nuances of a healed and reconciled world. Yet as I get deeper into activism, and also following the words of a Palestinian man who spoke at the vigil last night, I’m realizing that being in a place of privilege I’m not meant to stay in the gutter with those who are suffering. I’m meant to engage with the power systems that I live under and support those people “like a lawyer” as the man put it. This will be a big shift for me, and I know that I won’t be able to fully inhabit that space, as I’ll always have spiritual and emotional realities that need to be tended to. But I’m refocusing and maturing myself in some big ways, because a lot of how I’ve been responding to the world around me has been reactive and a little bit bratty, like screaming at cops on the front lines, or doing things for shock value.

I’m starting to see the world through a wider lense and I’m connecting to an energy field that is bigger than all of the corruption. I’ve been watching interviews with the Siberian shaman SnowRaven and listening to other podcasts about shamanism, and learning how I can stay grounded and connected to the forces of nature rather than the technological matrix.

The old worlds will fall, the power systems that hold it in place will be dismantled, and a new world will rise.

Threads are being cast out from the spider belly of this new web of life. If you feel lost in the dark hold out your hand and start weaving a new reality. Hold those who are suffering the most in this new belly and make space for them to live.