My trip to Palestine planting Olive Trees and visiting Holy Sights

For the Future

Planting trees early in spring

we make a place for birds to sing

in time to come.  How do we know?

They are singing here now.

There is no other guarantee

that singing will ever be.

Wendell Berry

Thank you to all the people who made this trip possible. Thank you for all the travel companions that were on this journey with me and all those who sent love and light along with me even if not present. This here are the words I wrote as things came to my heart. They are not censored or edited.

As you know I am not a political person in any way nor am I a religious person, please know that I mention names of saints and religions with respect and honor.

All lands are holy to me, all people are equal, all voices must be heard.
Please join me on this journey where I met Jesus, Ibrahim, Mary, the Bedouin girls, the Old man carrying Grace and others.

As you get to Land Day and see a picture of me upon a rock, you can also LISTEN to me reciting the words I wrote upon the Rock I sat. You will see the link when you get to planting day: )

I carry back with me no olives, no rosaries, all I carry back is the “noor in my eyes and holy dust on my feet” as mentioned by a brother on this journey of life.

My Trip To Palestine

 

March 27,2013

Etihad Airlines to Amman to Palestine 9:30 am 

 I place my hands on the hard cover of the blank pages

of the book to become and all I see are images of light

I start hearing voices of the messengers past, present and future

I start feeling the vibrations of the footsteps of the sheep, the ants and the Christ our Lord

Khadijah and Ibrahim and

You and I

 

This land has memory

This land can speak

This land understands who to give to and who to call…

I am coning home to a place of prayer and sacrament

to a place of tears and joy

to a land shared by religions and divided by people

to a land of trees olives seeds and beginnings

 

March 28^th Jureuselum Checkpoint 10:30 am

We just walked through the checkpoint…

An Iranian-American holding an American passport

We or I should say I walked through the barriers, the fence, the wall

Yes actually walked through the wall

As an invisible person would walk through a space I have now been transported to here now

I start to wonder among the olive trees

I seek

Damascus Gate 11:30 am

I am told a story by my travel companion

about this space…

about this place…

Damascus Square…

Damascus Gate

It used to be a place of retreat where families would picnic

kids would want balloons

Apparently a place for Muslims to rejoice

I am told of the occupation

I see more people in black and white

men with curls and beards

This source of dispute

confuses me

God the same

God- no more balloons

Birds singing soldiers walking with big guns

 

Sweet Shop in Bazaar

I am beginning to understand why a brother who was born in this land to this land

told me to be his eyes and ears…

He holds the key to the home of his ancestors where his grandparents were born

but he can not enter the walls

He unlike me does not hold an invisible passport

I am here today for my brothers and sisters who cannot enter this land

their home

 

The call to prayer came and gone

The hour of noon celebrated in the filled bazaar with the church bells

Walking toward the Wailing Wall

The holy space for those wearing stars around their necks

Close by the church where Jesus was buried

The cobblestones set along the way to the holy spaces dividing brother from brother

Land from child

Sitting in a small old beautiful chapel

People come and go holding cameras phones and things

Candles are lit from broken hearts

hearts mending and those seeking light

I hear the silence within as day becomes night and stars start to appear on my eyes

Stars of light- not stars of David

Stars of truth- not stars of segregations

Stars of eternal freedom in every land

Every land that is yours and mine simply because we are the child of this Universe

One sky

One Land

One light

I sat outside looking in looking through what feels like a cage

but one I know I can walk out of at any time

What about those…

those who are inside and they cannot walk out

Everyday they see the space

Everyday others strangers to their space to their home come and go

Bu those who truly belong are restrained refrained

I sit seeking understanding

I sat in the square where Jesus was crucified…

Where a drop of his blood was shed onto the head of Adam

and all sins of all people were washed away

A travel companion of mine said

This would be a good space and time to say Astagforelah 99 times

But I sat and took out my soul and laid it on the cobble stones way where Jesus walked

I let my soul sit in the sun and get light and shed light

 

Later on on top of bazaar for city view

I hear the rooster calling

What morning is it

It is so close to Passover

Is the rooster calling the arrival of the resurrected Christ

Or simply the fact that another morning of my life has gone by

I saw the young boy in black pants and white shirt

Curls on the side of his face

Holding a book… perhaps a Torah

This early morning I walked the streets of city close by

A girl-covered hair was reciting from the Koran

I walked from the site from which Jesus’ blood touched the head of Adam

and all sin was gone

The purity of children in my eyes somehow disturbed

and even perhaps at times corrupted by books and words that are meant to mend

I sit in the sun

The rooster crows

 

Inside the Mosque

 I sit on the red rug inside the Mosque

I just gave 2 rakaat of prayers for my soul

My right arm bears the red thread a rabbi gave me with blessings

The candle I lit in the church rose

The clarification I get with Light and enlightenment

The confusion that arrives with the barriers walls and lies

I touched the Wailing Wall and I caressed the earth on which Abraham prayed

Saints and Us

 

Asr Call to Prayer

I sit with my core to the building that holds the Rock of the Dome

I listen to the call to prayer

I feel the breeze on my shadow that moves with the movement of my words on the page

My feet steady on the marble seat at the wall

Without a wail

Without a sigh

With all my core

I breathe in this space

I breathe out you

Your blessed child I am

I can eat on my own

I can see with my eyes and my heart

My soul hears the soul of the ants the crows and the whales

The imam is entering the mosque

I sit in the sun with my left foot in my hand

The same foot that Muhammad laid upon the space in  this mosque

The dome under construction

I put my pen down and seek guidance

 

Sitting in the mosque where Mohammad (PBUH) ascended visited and prayed

The birds are singing the songs of morning prayer

There are a group of young boys in one corner discussing

what I gather must be a talk of his life

On the other side of the mosque a croup of ladies congregating in search of flight

All around men women young old

In search in awe of

You

 

The stained glass window of the mosque reminder of the colors and rays of light

The stained glass window a reminder of many cathedrals past

We are introduced to a sheikh a holy man

I don’t speak the language and so I just continue to listen to the birds

I sit in front of the sheikh to receive messages

Somehow though

I realize that the divine resides

solely within

I ask my travel companion to ask the sheikh for a message

but she continues on her own path and on her own quest

That is when I realize

that it is not a person that is going to send me messages

Messages are in every syllable not spoken

and every ray of light from which chrysalis turns to butterfly

 

The question was asked and the answer was so simple

An answer I have heard billions of times with every wink

The message as simple as La illaha illAllah

Some how though as much as I know this truth

It is the rules of the game I do not follow

I wait to hear call to prayer within and not just in the mosque

I yawn

 

March 29^th Shephard’s Village

Abandoned land

Settlements

Palestinians

Israelis

Shepherds Angles Caves

Occupying powers

Ottoman authorities

Confiscating land

The Wall

Dogs barking

Sheep Sleeping

Shadow Speaking

Angels flight

Tears turning

to blood

 

The cross I bear each and every day

The cross we bear each and every day

This cross is the cross Jesus bore on a day like today

I wear not a crown of thorns and yet somehow I feel the thorns of others

Speaking of land and settlements

Speaking of olive trees and

Angel wings

Bait Sahur

Here

Now

Over Looking the Wall

The Olive tree teaches patience and generosity…

The Olive trees here in this valley are 600 to 800 years old…

The bulldozer takes one minute to run over it

The patience and generosity

The love and understanding

The sun and the loss

The here

Now

 

At the Wall

“We are all God’s children”

“how many layers of paint will it take to tear this wall down”

“Bethlehem 31 42’ N 35 12’ “

“The whole world is watching”

Walking on the wall

 

Bethlehem

Door of humility

Eye of Needle

The oldest Church in the world and in function

The other oldest church is in Ethiopia

Queen Sheba

The wise King Solomon

 

March 30. 2013 8:00 am before planting day

I sit in the middle of the cross roads a at a circle

connecting roads to roads

lives to lives brother to land

brother to brother

I realize if I follow this road I will be hit in the face by a wall

That wall separates brother from brother and he from land

He from his own land

Such simple necessities of life such as grazing one’s own Pasteur of life

for food for truth for answers for waster for air

All one can do is to hear the bird singing beyond the olive tree beyond the wall

 

On this blessed day

I ask for gifts from this land

I ask for gifts of virtue

I beg for gifts of patience

I hope for gifts of humility

The soil fertile with blessings from Messiahs and Saints for centuries and centuries

All I seek is that as I plant

my tears while planting olive trees

My tears join that of Adam, Jesus, Ibrahim and all the saints not yet alive

I hear the church bells sing

I have slept through the call for Morning Prayer

The owl cooing

The birds singing

The holy sun on my back

Messiah

 

On the bus to Planting  March 30,2013  8:30 am

I learn that March 21 1976….

Is the actual day Israel confiscates land from Palestinians

March 30 1976 is the day Palestinians unify…

This is called

Land Day

 A few hours into planting I hear a call from a hilltop

Upon the hilltop rocks of milk and a tree longing life

Upon this space I arrive my eyes blurred with visions of peace and reconciliation

In the fields I hear children full of hope

I hear the old man carrying grace and with each tree he releases to the earth

He says Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

LaillahaillAllah

I take this not as a religious call

I take it as an echo to the universe to awaken to truths otherwise forgotten

The breeze remembers the echoes

Upon the hill that I sit

I see a settlement

of brothers and sisters born to the same mother universe as I

The only thing that separates us

is the star worn by she around her neck and the crescent I do not wear

This land that is pregnant with love and light

As we plant the seeds of olives to come in the years ahead

I pray that a wall is not built upon the trees

which will soon bear fruit and give shade to the truths of life

Let us build walls of love around us

Let us cross bridges of rainbows with no colors

Let me put my ears to the earth and hear the calls

I bow my head

I take a breath and sip the beautiful scent of this earth

The color of the soil

The texture of the clouds

The flight of bees carrying harvest to their nest

The red poppy

The ants building homes for tomorrow

Even the donkey carrying too much weight for his back

The cross the crescent the star all vibrate the name Palestine

Freedom to Plant

Freedom to Reap

Freedom to grow and fly

I raise my head to the whisper of the sun

I listen

I long to hear the hidden message carried by this land

I remain planted from the core to the soil

I laid down on the soil holding centuries of tears from the sky

The sun warm on my eyelids

My heart completely open for flight

All I seek is light

All I bear is light

As the fly sitting on my hand

I too sit at times and fly other times

I let out a sigh to the world to this land and I

recall

Listen to my Tale of Planting on Sound Cloud Click HERE

Later in a Refuge Camp

The walls of the Refuge Camp are like the magazines or newspapers

that tell the stories of lives

The lives of martyrs gone

The lives of the no living

but only shadows of memories recalled

I stand at a small window from which the world talks to me about fairness

I hear my old mother wail all nigh for lack of milk for the young twins

The cobwebs on the ceiling tell the stories never told

Listen

 

I sit upon the terrace of an old man’s mansion in the Refuge Camp

He along with his family welcomed us into their home

They treated us with kindness and love

Fed our soul and served sweet tea without any expectations at all

We are treated better than we would be at any Palace across the universe

The blood of Palestinians lost in this camp speaks of truth but not justice

For what justice prevails when king is thrown out of his own kingdom

away from his on land

where the olive trees grow

unattended thirsty for

love

 

I sit on the side of an alley

water tanks upon rooftops holding rains perhaps even tears of hope

People walking about on the street on the alley

as if it’s just another day in the life of these refugees displaced from their homes

The old lady with no teeth bears a smile that feeds my soul

She sits at the doorstep of her now Palace waiting for her invitation to death

She has bore her children in this alley

and from this alley they will take her horizontally to her eternal resting place

I wonder if an olive tree will give shade and witness to her life

 

UN Resolution 194

Written on the wall of the Refugee camp as we were walking out

“Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible. Instructs the conciliation commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation and maintain close relations with director of UN Relief for Palestinian Refugees.

  Later in afternoon

At the pools which have held water and rain since the crusades…

We are walking as if taking a walk in the park…

Then we hear a shot

Then we hear someone say someone is injured

It seems as if this shot is not the sound of those celebrating Land Day

but it is the shot of those taking land from those whose land this is

shots with no purpose

blood with no cause

Land day

Please save us all

 

5:30 pm Resting in Room

As I close my eyes for minutes to the song of the birds

welcoming the moon to take over Land Day

I begin to doze off as if a soul having flight

I begin to wonder what if the thousands and thousands of refuges

dislocated from their own land could take flight each night

What if they could have an out of body experience

and go to the fields where the trees bear their fathers names

What if they could plow and weed the soil then what…

Would their land take them back…

Oh but what of the new settlers

that have built homes on the tomb stones of ancestors long gone

Ancestors whose soul cries but whose hands do not come out of the grave

I wonder if the people in the settlements ever listen to the land

I wonder if they ever sleep at night or do they just simply close their eyes

close their hearts

close the sun

 

March 31^, 2013 around noon Hebron

In the old city of Hebron I arrive a heart open a soul accepting to all

Here I go to the mosque to the Tomb of Ibrahim

Imagine if a tomb even can be divided in half

I wonder what the savior the Messiah the Messenger thinks of such divisions in humanity

On the Muslim side I offered 2 rakaat of Dua asking for light

On the Hebrew side I lit a candle shedding light on the atrocity around

Some how I felt this was a very important candle for me to light

I did not feel like a traitor

I felt like a healer of hearts

The air felt suffocating in this space which took over half the blessed mosque

I felt even the candle gasping for light

I walked out blurred eyes but

vision

 

 

April 1 Juresleum

I sit in the breeze and the song of people passing by

Moments ago I tried to casually walk back to a gate

to a gate of a mosque where my sisters of blood soul

and not religion stood waiting for me

A man tall perhaps even handsome in a way holding machine gun

and lots of other tools to disgrace a body and even soul

stopped me- said its closed- only Muslim

I said I am Muslim from Iran

He asked for my passport

I asked if my religion is recorded in my passport

He asked me if I know the Fatihah

I asked if he knew the Fatihah

I felt somehow imprisoned in the walls of the old city

carrying all faith but no faith at all

He kept my identity my citizenship in his hand I kept my belief

We walked to the gate where I said hello to the sisters…

he released my passport

but my faith not restored

 

Around 1:30 settlement

We enter a settlement to find an ancient Olive Tree that is now over 1,000 years old

The tree a symbol of Peace

After driving through the near Perfect Utopian settlement

with no garbage anywhere in sight

nor any sense of welcome or hospitality from the few people we saw

we drove over the hill and down the valley and there our bus stopped

We were told we were visiting a Bedouin family-

which means I found a number of families living in yet another settlement

but this one made of tents, no doors, no barriers, no safety, no hope

In this Bedouin town we are welcomed we are comforted

We are given high tea in the afternoon

The children walk bare feet

The only thing similar between where I live and the settlements and the Bedouin village is the walk of the ants over the rocks

The goats walking about the flies flying around

The young 20-year-old bride to be cooking on the mud floor with wood burning

The winds of the night took over the valley

Wondering if tonight tanks will arrive shooting off to seemingly nowhere

Nowhere which is here

No one but Eide and his clan

 

Our guide is showing map after map

and talking about territories settlements green zones tunnels under ground

The cats have their eyes on the chicken on the fire which is to feed the clan

The goats have their feet tied to the tree- that is the baby goats

I see the grown goats on the mountains across the way

A small shepherd herding sheep

The small girls their names Iman, Khaidjah and a few others

with names but their feet bare on the ground

One china vase on the not mantle

I walk to the newly rebuild 5 room school made of tires after once being demolished

I say good-bye to the father of the clan

He tells me I am welcome each and every day

I walk down to the tent by the road

sit on a rock waiting for our luxury Mercedes Benz bus

I’m reminded that the father said they were promised a bus

for their kids to go to the neighboring school years ago

Sarcastically gently he said

The bus must still be in the making in Germany a Mercedes Benz

I wonder if we left ours behind

would the kids ever ever be welcomed to the neighboring school

 

As we leave the sun looks more like the moon

I see goat droppings close to the rock where I sit

A small boy rides a bicycle with no tires

I look over the beautifully paved highway

with lights all along barriers that not even a giraffe with long legs could get across

Across all the lanes

I see another Bedouin settlement

I wonder what is for dinner there tonight

I don’t see a pedestrian overpass

I wonder if the children coming to this side tomorrow to go to school fear the cars

but what am I thinking

These children have seen tanks guns

and eyes looking over their older brothers pieced body

writing a report with no blurry eyes

The injustice of this tea party leaves me stuck to this rock

 

5:45 Bait Sahur Outside Hotel

We leave the settlement

The bicycle with no tires

The bare feet of the kids which were in the Bedouin village

We return to what is truly a luxury life

Still aware that there are not 5 stars on the walls of the hotel

Awake that I live a life of a fairy tale

Reality with no machine guns

Reality with food on the table and not one hundred flies around

A fairy tale while living alive

 

After dinner the clarinet plays the song of the birth of Christ

I begin to wonder if Christ and Mary are turning in their tombs

as they witness the divisions borders and restrictions all around this land

The child holding the clarinet born decades ago in this land

his beard tired from the stories he has told over and over again

Will these stories ever sound like fairy tales or nightmares to his children

I hope he plays a song for his child telling the story of freedom of this land

May he go and come

into Jerusalem Bethlehem Germany US and Japan with no borders at all

April 2, 2013

We are in a the town that a friend grew up in

We visit the beautiful family home

No sound of many young ones born to mother and father

No grand children running around

A travel companion says

“if Sadness had a smell, it would smell like this”

A home all set up with no one around

As if a table set with no one to eat

The flowers in the garden joyous but unsure

The olive trees ancient and bearing

The Bedouins homeless this house sits breathless

We continue our journey onward and away

 

Just around noon prayer actually with the call to prayer

I sit upon a cement block… not a rock

I look over some cars with no windows others no tires and no doors

A few I notice with no steering wheel at all

I have had a small something in my throat today

Not sure what

I feel homesick even though I am at home in a blessed land

Not sure if I miss my family of origin or my nuclear family or children I bore

I see someone in the junkyard going from car to car looking for something

Me I look for my steering wheel for my headlights

Perhaps my compass misplaced in the olive grove by the desert by the sea

Should I find a rock and sit for a while for the next call to prayer

and here in light a candle and listen to the sound of happiness

following the smell of sadness

 

At Mahmoud Darwich Museum walking up the steps

into the pages of the great poet’s life

I arrive on a horizon

a horizon of words living eternally

The breath of one man that touches a non-nation

for eternity upon every map that no longer recognizes Palestine

His words spoken read heard

His messages

Alive

 

When I hear Mahmoud Darwich speak of the wise donkey

I find a walnut in my throat remembering the donkey on the olive grove

He has carried more seedlings on his back than we could ever know

And the 3 year old trees he brought to the readily dug soil

to be planted by a volunteer or Palestinian

Being a donkey and not speaking can teach many lessons

I wonder if I can learn from this wisdom and at times be one myself

 

10:30 pm writing poetry with a journalist Prompt: All I want is a window…

After this trip all I want is a window…

Through which I can see men with beard naked

I do not want to think of them as Jew Muslim or Christian

I do not want to see them on a cross crucified

Nor wearing thorns instead of Black hats and Turbans

All I want is a window through which I will see Bedouin girls soaking their feet

in goat’s milk and settlements carrying cross star and crescent in every round about

All women cooking for the clan

No walls

No fences

No guns

Only smiles

Poppies and

Olives giving flavor to 3 meals of each and every day

 

April 3 6:30 am Hotel Sahara Going home today

Sitting at the window of my hotel which has been a home for me for last 8 days

Sitting at the window of what could possibly be my own coffin

or if I were to be buried in a Muslim country no coffin but shroud

I sit with a lock in my hand

The key I already have found

With this realization

I arrive

 

April 7, 2013 4:pm Home 

This is the hour I was supposed to have returned from Palestine

I am not sure why I went

I know I followed my heart

My early return was also my following my heart

The musicians at play

The olive trees in the ground

It rained last night here in the desert

I hope all our dreams and hopes are touched by the mercy of tears from the sky

I arrive here at home to the song of the no birds singing but something found

Had I lost something

Not sure

The land of Messiah’s and messengers has given me a wisdom

A sight perhaps

I continue to look for the next rock to sit upon

For now I know my job in the world is to share the beauties of poetry as healer

With this I hear the call to prayer and a validation in my heart