#13.5.2022

[phototagebuch]

13.5.2022

[prosy-days]

May 13, 2022 - Day 328

Cocktail and crostini evening.

[godsnameisjoy]

ONE STEP BACK

Date: 13 May 2022

Duration: 59 minutes at 11:27 PM

Depth:

The duration logged on Insight Timer app is 80 minutes. That’s wrong because I fell asleep while affirming for harmony. When I chose to close this meditation session, I opened my eyes to find 2 minutes remaining on a 61 minutes preset timer. In those 2 minutes, I lay down, I affirmed once while on my side, fell asleep and woke up only after about 15 minutes.

Last night’s meditation wasn’t of a great quality. I trembled a bit harder than the two or three nights before last night. Spinal energies were unable to reach the head last night. That’s why excess free energy dissipated from the spine, causing trembles as they got off before their destination.

Depth of concentration is what I use as a yardstick to measure quality of meditation. Again, my attention fell short by a notch in arriving at its deepest best. I was back in the zone of a restless part of intuition.

I seem to be having sessions in three different parts of intuition these days. There is the restless part of intuition, like last night. Then there is a relatively calm yet directionless part of intuition that is best described by the word ‘wilderness’. Lastly, unfortunately rarely, are glimpses of Patanjali’s step 6 of his 8-fold path of yoga called Dharana.

Dharana, as I have experienced it so far, is ‘wilderness’ kind of thick Peace coupled with some kind of direction of mind. Whatever little I have experienced of this stage of meditation, I find beautiful. So beautiful that I am missing it right now. I am missing my attention’s deepest best on the morning after a nightly session that didn’t even come as far wilderness.

I am well aware that I am, this morning, in a meditation position far better than a year back. Yet, I miss not having glimpsed what’s beyond a well directed wilderness. I have mild regret about last night’s session. And that’s ok. I know I can’t control the outcome of any given session. All meditational results are blessings that are sought eagerly and patiently.

[puregrief]

Ok, so I listened to Dance Fever at dawn -witchy, I know- and ummm, uhhhh, how do I say this? It's really similar to HAH which is my least favorite album. The sound of the album is great, and her voice is sublime, but the lyrics, oh god I can't relate! They're too personal and I just don't feel connected at all. I was trying to put together bits and pieces of the words in the hope of feeling a connection or anything, but it just wasn't there. Florence herself said that she starts writing the records as if they'd stay private forever and as a self monologue, but then it's time to release it and it's out there. I'm kinda disappointed, but it's not fair to keep expecting her to make another HBHBHB, she's changing and I'm happy for her. It might not be what I relate to the most anymore, and that's breaking my heart. Also, the album is all over the place, there's no theme, like it's not that witchy or that powerful or really just about dancing, but I might need to get into it a bit more and let it grow on me.

Favorites so far other than the already released singles (fav are King and Free):

Dream Girl Evil

Cassandra

Daffodil

The Bomb

[nataliesnews]

demonstration against the demolition of eight Palestinian villages. 13.5.2022

I went today to the demonstration against the demolition of eight Palestinian villages. The same day that the court gave the go ahead for the building of 1000s of settler homes……I am trying to think of the word to describe this….ironic? sarcastic……I just can’t think of the word.   I nearly did not go as it was very hot and I do not have good memories of the time I landed up in hospital after going with Arik. Also we were told that there would be a long walk and that anyone who had trouble with that should not come. But every time that I have gone to a demo where this has happened there have always been people who came with four by fours and took those who had trouble walking and this was the case here too.

 We were only Jerusalemites as the other buses which came from all over the country were stopped by the army. We were also stopped but not delayed and managed to get near the settlement of Yatir. I met up with Muhammed, our driver, whom I know from when I used to go to Hebron and he took me the first part of the walk which was very long but on a path. I then continued and was picked up by another car so I did not have to walk very much. But as I started to walk to the first group Noa came up and told me not to go there as there were settlers who were throwing stones at the demonstrators. Tear gas was thrown and even though I was quite a distance away I breathed it in and my throat felt as if it was on fire.

 This is Arik Aschermann near the settlement. For once he was not attacked.

  There were only about 5 demonstrators from the right but they were very violent. In this case the soldiers did try to stop them but with little success. One of them also threw a stone at me but luckily did not aim too well. Another screamed at me, “Fuck you” but I told him he did not appeal to me. But though I say that the soldiers tried to stop them they still succeeded in breaking two windshields of cars

 And throwing stones at others to dent the doors, etc. They also managed to break through the soldiers and a few times punched demonstrators in the face. But when I say that the soldiers tried to stop them it is also noteworthy that they did not arrest any of the settlers. They have orders not to. But can you imagine what would happen had a demonstrator smashed the window of a settler car or if a demonstrator, especially an Arab, punched a settler? Their arrogance is frustrating as they know that they can get away with murder. I could not get near enough to photograph them but I gave the picture to the Palestinian reporter. Of course they come masked…not that the army or the police in any case make any effort to find out who they are or arrest them

  On the way back a Palestinian ambulance also gave me a lift

 This is the “policewoman” who I have known since Balfour and who is always present. The children loved the fact that she gives them stars

  One man went aside to pray apart from the others

  A picture of the demonstrators…some of the young people who walked with me when they saw I was falling behind

  As always I don’t know how much effect we have but the Palestinians with whom we demonstrated said that there is a saying in Arabic that not all your  fingers are the same and they know from seeing us that not all Israelis are the same

 Natalie

  Please help us spread this urgent call to stop the expulsion of Palestinian communities from Masafer Yatta:

            On May 4, 2022, the eve of Israel’s Independence Day, the Israeli Supreme Court, in session as the High Court of Justice, issued a ruling allowing the State to destroy eight Palestinian villages in the area of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron hills, and to expel their inhabitants permanently. This ruling is a travesty of justice, an act of extreme judicial cruelty, and a severe blow to basic, universal human values and human rights. It also contravenes international law, including the laws of belligerent occupation as enshrined in the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Rome Statue of 1998 defining crimes against humanity and war crimes. Israel is a signatory to both these treaties.

             Some 1500 Palestinians (and possibly many more) in Masafer Yatta are now in imminent danger of dispossession. The ruling also has severe implications for the survival of another five villages situated in military training zone  918. Here are the names of the villages:  Jinbah, Markaz, Fakhit,, Sfayi, Halawah, Khalat al-Dab’a, Taban, Majaz, Rakiz, Simri, Magha’ir al-‘Abid, Tuba, Mufagara-Sarura. These are real places where real families live, as their ancestors did in these same villages, for centuries. To eradicate them is to efface an entire traditional culture and a unique, historic way of life.

             The training zone was arbitrarily established by the army in 1981, and the present High Court ruling reconfirms its legality. For over 20 years the Palestinian residents of this area have been struggling against eviction. The ruling of May 4th may mark the end of this legal process and thus the end of hope for these people. For the last many decades, the Israeli authorities have been systematically demolishing their homes, destroying the roads and wells, and confiscating their meager agricultural implements. During this same period, Israeli settlers were building and expanding illegal outposts within the same training zone, usually with the open support of the army; such settlements enjoy immunity from any threat of destruction, while the settlers engage in daily harassment and violence against their Palestinian neighbors.

             We know them well, from years of human rights activism in the South Hebron hills. Many of them are close friends. These are peace-loving people who wish only to live on their own lands, to graze their flocks, to plant and harvest wheat and barley, to celebrate their festivals, weddings, the birth of children and grandchildren, to educate these children—all this in the face of continuous encroachment on their lands by Israeli settlers and constant harassment by the army and police. In simple words, they have been living for the last several decades in a regime of ever more intense state terror. Not only their homes and way of life but their very lives are threatened by daily violent attacks by Israeli settlers, usually backed up by the army.

             The judges, dismissing hard evidence submitted by the Palestinian plaintiffs, ruled that there were no permanent residences in these villages before 1981, when the firing zone was declared. There is ample evidence going back at least to the first half of the nineteenth century that the Palestinians were in residence in the villages of Masafer Yatta for at least eight to ten months each year (some families throughout the entire year). In the hot summer months, they would sometimes move with their herds to the cooler highlands, returning before the autumn rains. Most of the families lived in caves—a unique population in the Middle East—which explains the absence of stone houses or other homes in the aerial photographs of the area from the mid-twentieth century. Many of the caves have been destroyed, over the years, by the government; today, the families mainly live in simple stand-alone buildings. It is clear that the judges failed to take seriously the documented proof that these villages were long-standing sites of continuous residence, as is also confirmed beyond doubt by reliable oral histories from older members of the communities of Masafer Yatta.

             All this may seem to outsiders to be a relatively minor, local problem. It is not. What is at stake is not only the survival of the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta. Humanity stands today at a historic point of crisis, in which the relatively few humane restrictions on brute military force—that is, the international laws of war anchored in the Geneva Convention and its more recent supplements—are in acute danger of being cast aside and forgotten, as we see at the present moment in Ukraine, among other places. The forcible expulsion of the Palestinian communities of Masafer Yatta will have implications for the whole of humanity. Israel’s Supreme Court has now brazenly claimed, in its ruling, that international laws of war and, specifically, the laws of belligerent occupation, are not binding on the State of Israel and can be overruled by legislation and the orders of senior military officers. This ruling is shameful and cannot be defended. Reputed experts on international law say that the court’s ruling on Masafer Yatta may well expose the State of Israel, and all those connected to implementing this decision, to investigation and possible prosecution in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

             But there is worse to come. The court’s ruling is another milestone in the process of remorseless annexation—that is, outright robbery—of Palestinian lands and the expulsion of the rightful owners of those lands. As Haaretz, Israel’s premier newspaper, has said in its editorial of May 8th, the court’s decision effectively confirms the charge that Israel’s rule in the occupied territories is a version of apartheid, based on domination by one privileged ethnic group over another population that is deprived of all elementary human rights. We are facing an ethnocratic hyper-nationalism that seeks to achieve its messianic goals (or profitable expansion) at the cost of Palestinian lives, language, culture, and history.

             We are doing whatever we can to stop this inhuman crime, but the support of the international community is crucial to our struggle. You can help. You can make a real difference. Please make your voices heard, call your representatives and elected officials, spread the word, urgently--for the sake of the innocent people of Masafer Yatta.