Advice to Israeli pacifists

It was another decade, the 1960s.

The United States was napalming the Vietnamese.

In 1967,the things that this country was doing

Remind me of what Israel is doing to Palestine / Gaza.

But we couldn't stop the juggernaut

Of righteous cruelty and terror that was

Raining down on Vietnam in the name of democracy.

Democracy?!

Now we all know it was all a lie and a deception.

It was about wiping out anything

That stood in the way of creeping corporate power.

It was horrible, when I began to open my adult eyes.

There are forces that are almost omnipotent

That dictate the justification for genocides

All kinds of atrocities,

And obedience to the command, "Take no prisoners."

In 1967, I was only 16-17 years old,

But boy(!) Was I pissed.

I was so pissed that when I got my drivers license

I drove my car on the sidewalks

Of the UConn Campus because I wanted to test my hypothesis

That I was invisible,

Not just in my little 1957 Morris Minor,

But as a poet / artist / pacifist,

My birth-culture ghosted me!

No one ever stopped me.

When I read Don Juan I found out why.

Invisibility is a shamanic art,

If you aren't a player, and you aren't doing harm,

Sometimes Spirit just, what is that football term,

Runs interference for you and obstacles melt away.

I guess for that to happen,

Spirit has to like what you are doing.

What was I doing?

I was thumbing my nose at my government,

Broadcasting my attitude that

I could do ten times better by pulling out of the game.

For a few years I thought that meant becoming an anarchist

But, that wasn't it.

It was becoming responsible for my shadow!

So at 22 I was doing serious shadow work.

When you assimilate your personal shadow

You experience an influx of personal power,

And you qualify yourself to take on the collective shadow,

And that work never ends, but rounding each switch back

In climbing that mountain,

Is accompanied by a sense of exhilaration,

And the view is breathtaking.

The mountain has been called many things,

But really it is all about enlightenment,

It is about gaining perspective

Without sacrificing your grounding.

Now, as I have just written about (last week),

I am about to summit,

And descend into a valley of my choice, called Tao.

This is a depiction (in metaphor) of my life.

What does it feel like to wake up in Israel

As a young Jew who condemns the war

That is destroying Gaza and obliterating countless innocent lives?

I wonder.

Is there anything I can say to help that person?

I only wish there was.

I guess I would say, step out of the game,

So you can be invisible,

Just long enough to remember who are are,

And then ask Spirit to help you.

Maybe Spirit will run interference for you

Just like Spirit helped clear my way forward.

Don't play politics!

Don't talk at all.

Just think and feel for yourself

And start doing your shadow work,

And see where it leads you.

And good luck my brother.

Good luck my sister.