It all starts with a name
Friday 16 Nov 2018 marks my second entry into a field space. I had not realized it prior, what I carried out held in it layers of my learnings, systemic constellation playing no small part.
A concrete space, floor to wall. an expanse of space. grey cubic bean bags placed in an oval holding the sanctity of the central piece: a white cloth of 2.5 meters by close to 1 meters. and a second layer of seating in the outer oval. one held spot in the north, one held spot in the south. Ola Dajani facing me.
Welcoming ppl in my regular clothing.
Fading.
Reappearing in role. a garment, long, floor length. in fact extending to meet the concrete floor. layered. like to paintings barely held at the meeting point of my shoulders. what is worn is key, it is the backdrop of those two facades, strangely loudly red and because of its redness it blends. bringing those two facades to hold their full vibrancy.
I stand tall. at the northern tip of the oval. I invite quieting of the body and quieting of the collective. the space is held. It is now time for voice to come in. and for storytelling to begin.
This is a space of silence. You are here to be immersed. Words, questions, have a different time and space. If there is something you do not understand, stay with that and trust that it may come clear or that it may not. That you may give me feedback and I will welcome it, after the experience. This is the experience of the collective and any disturbance disrupt what may be a deep experience by someone present. I invite you to go come with me while I journey you through that experience.
In the southern most part of this earth, the souther most tip of where humans survive, southern Argentina, is a community called the Yaghan. The Yaghan language holds one word that has caught particular attention: mamihlapinatapai. Interpreters, linguists, explorers attempted to spell out the meaning of that word, of those, while perhaps not the most accurate, the one I picked up was this: it is that moment when two human beings become aware of a connection so subtle that neither of them dares speak it. That language is becoming extinct. That word is only found in that language. That human emotional awareness will become nameless with the extinction of that language.
I was lucky enough to be in a space with a woman, a french woman, a 20 or so other ppl from 20 countries. That woman had lost her child and she pleaded: you are each of a language, will you let me know if your language has a word to describe me. French and English do not have a word to describe a woman who has lost her child. That woman was orphaned by her language. and indeed it is only in Arabic and in Hebrew that a word exists to describe her. ثكلا
Peeling the first layer off my shoulders to place it on the sacred white space, Ola holding South, I holding North.
On a specific date in a specific land, that is a massive number of ppl who moved. This speaks their story.
The piece of the floor held no words.
Peeling off the second layer, flowing the Northern edge far, to Ola’s reach, and holding the Northern tip, we place it on top of the first one on the sacred white space. In alternating voices one word from the North, the second from the South, till we collapse in the center.
صفد
Safad
غزة
Gaza
عكا
Akka
بئر السبع
Beersheba
طبرية
Tabariyya
الخليل
Galile (Khalil)
حيفا
Haifa
رملة
Ramleh
ناصرة
Nasra
القدس
Al Quds
يافا
Jaffa (Yafa)
طولكرم
Tulkarm
بيسان
Beesan
جنين
Jenin
I carefully carry the two faces pinned at my shoulder, lifting them up, holding the two points and sending the South off to Ola. That last peel lies carefully on top of the two preceding it.
This is the story of 530+ villages depopulated in 1948.
pause.
You have each been given two cards and a pen. I will guide you through it, I ask patience of you to listen to what is being said and to then write. You will be able to fit what is needed into the card if you hold that patience.
On the first card, on one of the two sides, write down where you currently live, the city.
Turn that card and now, before writing, listen to this:
What you will write on the second side is multiples,
At your same age today, where your mother was, what city.
At your same age today, where your father was,
At your same age where each of your maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather was,
At your same age where each of your paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather was.
You might end up with 6 locations on that side of the card.
I would like to share a story,
A woman, a dr in genetics, stated something that inspired me and that I relay in the most basic way so pls do not carry it forward as scientific precision,
That who we are today, as human beings sitting in this space, the starting point of who we are is carried as far back by our maternal grandmother. That our maternal grandmother, in her young age, held in her body an aspect of our distinct person in her, that she carried over to her daughter who then with your father makes you who you are today.
Carrying that thread through, I ask you to take out your second card, and on one side write down where you maternal grandmother was in 1947 whether unborn, born or deceased.
On the other side, write down where your maternal grandmother was in 1949 whether unborn, born or deceased.
In sequence, starting with the inner oval, and flipping your card to the 1947 side, place your card within the space in this way: if it belongs to any of the 530+ villages in the center, place it closest to where it belongs. If it does not belong to any, place it outside of that within the white space, anywhere and site back.
The next group would do the same.
Now for those to whom this applies, pls step in to make the following change: for those of you whose card hold a different city on the 1949 side, pls step in to turn the card over and place it in its related location.
A dozen got up.
When all were seated.
The next few minutes will be in silence after I share those few words with you. And when you see me lifting that rice bunch and hear it crackle the session will have come to close, and feel free to move speak while maintain that a few might choose silence. In that silence, if any of you chooses to move their card after I would have shared what I shared pls do.
Andri Magnason, an Icelandic poet, stated a way of seeing one’s lifespan that inspired me,
that our age is not bound by birth and death, rather, by birth of the oldest person we meet in our life, for me it would be around 1919, and the youngest person we connect to, to me it would be at this point, my niece and nephew, who one may project would live on to 2080 or other, this makes the span of my life, from 1920 or so to 1980, that’s 160 years. give or take a few years of consciousness on both ends, I would have lived a span of 140 year and more.
Silence.
Ola Dajani moved her card, from white space to villages.
Silence.
Dima Srouji moved her card, from villages to villages.
Silence.
Yosra Gazzar moved her card, from white space to villages.
Silence.
Long silence.
Labiba Laith, takes off her footwear, steps on the white space, holds her card from the white space, searches the villages, places her card on the village.
Silence.
My hand dips into a dune of rice in a glass box with a golden metal frame, lifts a bunch of rice up, rainfalls it down to touch the metal to softly announce that the silence held, the names uttered, the villages named where now in us to carry outside that concrete floor-walled space of a 40 ppl present.
Honouring our abilities to make shifts ever so subtle with ever so large an impact.
“Thank you for telling me about today.. great experimentation.. to make us realize the importance of roots.. of bonding with ancestors.. of the relationship of all of that with displacement.. and how hard this must be for the palestinian people..“ Woman, Lebanese, 30-40 of age.
Dima Srouji, Palestinian, , 30-40 of age
