After the Invasion
My son was fine. However, a young woman was killed on that bloody Saturday. She was just jogging. No arm, no gun, a real threat to these people. She was 20 years old. The two paramedics, who came to rescue her got shot, lost their lives as well. Then, one of the soldiers who came to defend us. Four deaths at the gate of my small village. A few stones were piled up at the sight of the bloodshed to commemorate the day and the victims of a war of hatred. Simple and deep seated hatred. It was then that I realized that nothing could be done with the Muslims fundamentalists. They swore the end of Israel. They will not stop till the last Jew is killed in Israel. It was not only a religious and political conflict, but also a question of pride. These extremists could not accept that the Jews would give them back the land on a silver platter. They had to regain their pride in the process. This meant to kill as many Jews as possible, which also meant, to their disturbed minds, a sure path to heaven.
This mentality is so foreign to the West that we can not even come close to comprehend it. Therefore, it is pointless to attribute our system of values when it comes to deal with them. (We have to understand their own set of values so we can fight them on their own ground.) That was the reason for the increase of Kazams (bombs) showered upon us, after Sharon spoke of giving back the territories. (It seems that the West have forgotten, too easily, that it was they, who attacked us, first. The territories were meant as protection for the Jewish nation. Who in their right mind would fight an enemy who swore the total annihilation of your nation, and upon victory, would send its fallen enemy with only a slap on the hands? Meanwhile, the international community keeps pushing Israel into a corner on this issue. Today all the border of the Southern part of Israel is constantly under fire. Our own village is used as a launching point, The settlers knew this because we dealt with them on a daily basis. The rest of Israel was under denial.
The Muslims extremists needed to feel that we were running away from them, to recover that irrational pride which is one of their main values (well, maybe not only them...). However, by that time I refused to run and decided to stay till the end. So I slept, every night, with a M-16 on my side. Many times, I was awaken by the sound of the dogs barking in my yard. Adrenaline was rushing through my body. Breathing the fear of the night, listening intently as to hear if other Muslims extremists got onto the village to slash my throat and the one of my children. And then, go on dancing and celebrating. How can we celebrate the death of children?
One prayer: God let me know in advance if anything is going to happen. If anyone of us is in danger, let me know so I can protect my family.
I dreamed of a hawk flying above the dunes, surveying the land. The last image, I received at dawn, just before I woke up, was of the bird standing on the fence behind my house. Watching. The sun sparkled of orange hues spread its color over the sand dunes, creating a magnificent carpet of deep orange and golden hues. I knew deep down that the feeling of security, I derived from that recurrent dream was probably only an illusion. However, it allowed me to sleep more peacefully. So I welcomed the image.
Another dream, I received a few days after the invasion. I dreamed of a giant statue of a Goddess. She was 3 to 4 meters tall and made of red earth. She was extremely massive and strong. She was laying down on the sand by my left side. All the sudden, I saw her rising and walking toward Gaza. As she walked, I could hear the earth shaking under her feet. She got to the line of grey buildings rising at the horizon against the Mediterranean sky: this was Gaza. (I could see the buildings from my house and could hear the Call to Prayer every night, which sent goose bumps into my spine). As she got near the buildings, she rose her hand above them. In my anger, at the Palestinians, I thought that she would smash them. Instead a golden stardust came from her hand to spread onto the people. They too were her children, I heard. It was a dream, which kept reminding me to be careful not to generalize, and not to allow hatred to enter into my heart, even in the face of my enemies.
One night, while I was sitting in my living room, I heard a deep resonant voice coming from the depth of my being. It was loud, deep and insistent. I knew that this was different from the small inner voice one might hear at times. Some of us call it our consciousness. This voice was different. It felt deep and had a more masculine resonance. So I hurries to write down the words it was dictating:
When the sword of Israel
Meets the moon
Light will pour out from the land of Egypt
The Sphinx riddle will be resolved
The locks on the doors of the pyramids
Will be opened --
And their secrets will be revealed.
I read the poem. It did not make any sense. I had no interest in Egypt. I was living in Israel for the last four years, and with the constant acts of terrorism happening in the country, I had enough. I stayed away from any other countries who could harbor Muslims fundamentalists. So I raised my shoulders and put the poem aside. Shortly, after receiving this poem, I started drawings. In each of these drawing pyramids appeared. Even at one point my son asked me: "what are these pyramids about?" "I do not know. I just feel to draw them", I answered. The first drawing depicted a hawk settling onto the top of a pyramid.
For the following months, I kept drawing. Archetypes of ancient Egypt kept showing into the drawings, such as the goddess Isis, or the god Thoth. I was aware that the images were coming to me during my meditation, like flashes so quickly that I did not even pay attention to them. However, they were coming out in the drawings The whole thing puzzled me. I had never studied ancient Egypt. So why were these archetypes showing up?
I let it be. I had done art therapy for a few years, long before, after the loss of one of my children. I knew that the creative process was healthy, so I went along. But it took another 6 months before I started to put some of the pieces together, and began to understand the meaning of these drawings.
During the evacuation, my village had decided to sit, as long as it could i.e. till the army removed us forcibly but peacefully. My family and I decided to stay to protest against the government; the exchange offered to us, by the government, was a bad joke. The government offered us land sitting on highways or on the side of railroads tracks. It was ugly. The money offered as exchange, was so little that we could not afford buying another house in Israel, unless we decided to pay high mortgage, which was nearly impossible for us to afford at the time. In addition, I knew that no peace would derive from the process, so why should we leave? So on the last 10 days of our stay (we remained another 3 weeks on the land, before the army stormed the village), I told my kids: "How many times are we going to be able, in our lives, to draw on our walls, and create as many drawings and murals as we would like? So we picked up markers and paint and decided to have fun (well we were cut off from electricity and phone lines so I had to keep the kids busy!). As I was waiting for my children, one hot and humid afternoon to start the project (the children were outside playing and seemed not in a hurry to come in), I felt this incredible surge of energy rising in my solar plexus, a bit like the butterflies one might feel in a state of great excitement. No longer able to resist, I stood up and started drawing- and I did not stop till the last day of our stay. At times, I woke up in the middle of the night, and kept going. I could not stop. Each drawing was succeeded by another one, and then another, like pearls one add to another to create a necklace. At first, I had no idea what I was doing. However, it did not take too long before I realized that all the drawings were connected somehow. A story was being drawn onto my walls. In two specific drawings in particular, my arm started to move on its own. It moved so quickly, designing sharp lines in all directions. Again, I had no idea what I was doing. I was watching my hand, moving on its own at an incredible speed. I knew I could stop it anytime, but decided to remove myself from the process and let it be. It was almost funny. What resulted from these two specific drawings was simply amazing. I knew I could not have done them on my own. I did not have the skill to draw such sketches or murals, and surely not at the speed that they had been done. Another amazing thing happened during the process. I also started to receive, right from the start, words which accompanied the drawings. The words came as a riddle, like the previous poem I had received perhaps 6 months earlier. I knew by the 5th day of the process, that what I was going to finish the project on the last day of our stay, and I did. By the 10th day, I was totally amazed, confused, and was not sure if I had not turned mad. It took me more than 2 years to recover: a message had been written and drawn onto my walls: a warning, dark and terrifying about what was to come. It scared the hell out of me. What was the Source I had connected too? Till then, I never hold an Apocalyptic mentality. I knew many of the religious spoke of the giving back of the territories as the destruction of the 3rd Temple, which forewarned of the end of days. But I never considered such folly as part of reality. It was ridiculous. So what was it? Did I connect to the Collective Unconscious of these religious people and express through my drawings, their despair at the evacuation? Or was it something else? The message was urgent, gloomy and terrifying. The albums titled, The Evacuation/The Prophecy: 1 and 2 tell the story of what happened during these amazing 10 days. It simply changed my life.
