Visualizing Peace
What a visit in the Middle East taught me about the power of love and our human connection
Exactly six months ago today I had the privilege of visiting both Israel and the Palestinian-occupied West Bank. It was the highlight of our 5-month trip around the world.
My takeaway: the love on both sides of the fence was palpable. So was the tension. Layer upon layer of tensions built up over centuries of enmity.
What we are seeing in the news right now is a heartbreaking, soul-crushing, unspeakable horror. All that pain and suffering and damage is beyond imagining. I have no words.
What I have (below) are a few heartfelt images that tell a different story; photos that reveal the powerful feminine undercurrents that I experienced when I was in the area six months ago. Also below is an invitation for anyone who cares to join me in a simple healing meditation for releasing centuries’ old patterns of conflict and trauma.
And for those of you who need more than visuals to make sense of the senseless, there’s a heartfelt message for humanity by Rabbi Rami below as well.
May today’s offerings help to remind us that no matter how awful, unjust, or hopeless the circumstance — out in the world or at home — there is nothing that love and spaciousness cannot do to bring us closer to healing and lasting peace.
Ahhh 🙏🏼💕
Some images…
Below are four images that capture three remarkable moments — all of which took place in one day, on April 16, 2023:
The women’s side of the Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall). They don’t call it the Wailing Wall for nothing.
Part of a gratitude prayer that I scribbled on a piece of paper and placed into one of the crevices of the Western Wall. It reads: “Thank you for showing the world how to replace fear with LOVE and for changing the paradigm in our lifetime.”
It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the crevices are tiny and jammed full. When my folded-up paper wouldn’t fit anywhere, a woman deep in prayer next to me stopped, found a chair for me to stand on, and held it while I searched for a spot higher up. I was a weeping mess. Her kindness meant the world to me in that moment. Impossible to describe is the feeling of lightness and clarity that I felt as I walked away from that wall. Cleansed is the word that comes to mind.
Sitting in the spot where Jesus was born in Bethlehem was another transporting moment that I did not see coming. When our Palestinian guide led us into spontaneous singing of Silent Night is when I completely lost it.
I caught this photo in a rare moment when the crush of people had suddenly vanished and I found myself alone in this tiny womb-like space.
A moment of peace at the Church of the Holy Spulchre, the site where Jesus was prepared for burial and placed after his death. What moved me more than the church itself was walking the narrow path that Jesus took up to it, along the Via Dolorosa, while hearing the Muslim call to prayer at the same time.
My takeaway, after witnessing three of the largest religious traditions in one day: there is no separation. We are all one.
A message for humanity by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
“I watched a video of an Israeli mother clutching her baby to her chest as she ran for shelter while Hamas bombed her neighborhood in Ashkelon. I watched a video of a Palestinian mother clutching her baby to her chest as she ran for shelter while the IDF bombed her neighborhood in Gaza. If not for the labels on the screen telling me who was who, I could not tell these women and their babies apart…
If you want to choose a side, side with the mothers clutching their babies and running for shelter. If you want to choose a worldview, choose the nonzero world of “all of us together.” Any other choice perpetuates the trauma and brutality we call human civilization.”
—Excerpt of Rabbi Rami Shapiro's Statement on the Israel-Hamas War, Spirituality and Health Magazine
For his full statement, click HERE.
One-minute healing meditation
Note: this visualization can be applied to any area that has suffered or is suffering from centuries of conflict and trauma, be it in the Middle East, Ukraine, or any region that is or has been in crisis. Use this practice to cultivate spaciousness.*
Close your eyes. Take an easy breath in and a slow, emptying breath out. Bring your awareness to your heart space. Allow the compassion and love that radiates from it to infill you. Direct that love outwards to areas and beings affected by war or conflict in____ [fill in the blank]. Imagine this love soaking deep below the root source of the centuries-old layers of discord and polarization. Now imagine this same energy filtering upwards through these layers, inviting it to act as a continuous healing agent and harmonizing balm going forward. Surround the area with more love and golden light. Notice your breathing (has it changed?) Repeat again tomorrow and keep breathing.
In case you missed it…
What is Spaciousness?
Learn more about an expanded state of being which grows bit by bit, day by day, nourished by gentle intention rather than strenuous effort...
This is exactly what I needed. It is so beautiful and wonderful. I am copying it and using it throughout the day—no, years! V. Bailey
I am deeply moved by this piece, Stephanie, and I have long been a fan of your writing. The cumulative effect of this is that I’m going to once again work with your wonderful and deeply meaningful writing to help me overcome my lifelong struggle with ADD, and its attendant affects my living space. I have read what Dr. Gabriel mate test positive about how trauma can trigger latent ADD, and also recall her. My mother said I was an extremely tidy child until they left me, a very young four-year-old, suddenly with an unknown relative out of state for a month while they traveled. Ever since then, I have most painfully struggled to slow down enough to take in your wonderful guidance, as your course was the very first one I purchased from DailyOM, and the one that has remained closest to my heart. I will return to work, also keep your lovely new book in mind, and will write you with any news of progress.
In keeping with your beautiful post about your visit to the Middle East, I will mention the transcendently, beautiful poem called “Kindness” written by Naomi Shihab Nye. Her father, Aziz Shihab, a Palestinian, and American mother attempted to return to Palestine to live until the threat of war forced them to leave. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear Naomi Shihab Nye speak and sing in public, and she personifies the open hardness of which you write.