Thirteen Days in Israel -- Part 1
From March 7 through March 19, 2011, I traveled in Israel and Palestine doing Radical Aliveness group healing and coexistence work with Jewish, Arab Christian, Druse, Muslim, and Bedouin men and women. My workshop itinerary was organized by the Beyond Words organization, a group of multiethnic women working to bring about peace in Israel and the occupied territories. I’ve had the privilege to train these women in Radical Aliveness work at Esalen Institute here in California and also in Israel.
Over the course of working with eight different groups arranged by Beyond Words, there were giant feasts put on in my honor with more food than I could possibly eat. There was a Jewish man who cried for the first time in 20 years, and a Bedouin woman who had never shared with anyone her heartbreaking story of being ostracized by her tribe, standing up to her husband, and struggling to survive without any help. People from diverse religions, cultures, and political backgrounds screamed at, sobbed with, and ultimately embraced one another. During the last days of my trip, the kibbutz where we were working was hit by mortar fire. As I huddled in the bomb shelter, Layla, one of the Bedouin women we had been working with before the bombing, came into the shelter and said, “What are you so afraid of? If today is your day to die, then so be it. Come on!” I started laughing and left the bomb shelter with Layla to finish our work. As we drove off to meet the other Bedouin women who were waiting for us, I realized Layla was right. We’re not finished with our work yet -- but we are getting closer.
March 1, 2011—Noha's College in Mgrar
"There was an Arab man who lit up the room -- a big juicy man."
My colleague and fellow Radical Aliveness facilitator on this trip was Anna Timmermans, from Holland. The first place the Beyond Words organization sent us was my friend Noha's college in Mgrar, an Arab village. A lot of Westerners are unaware that there are many pockets of Israel populated almost exclusively by Arabs. They call themselves Palestinians, because Israel was known as Palestine before it was renamed. Noha’s college is a satellite of a Jewish college, and the first college in her village. It trains graduate students who want to be teachers and different types of therapists.
This first workshop group comprised mostly Arabs and a few Jews, all studying drama therapy. Through the coordinating efforts of Beyond Words, Noha invited us to her school to introduce the Radical Aliveness work to these future therapists. Noha was the first woman in her village to drive. Now she's running this amazing college.
Because these workshop participants were already adept at emotional work, it was easy for Anna and me to get them to come alive. The most interesting thing that happened in this group? There was an Arab man who literally lit up the room the second we saw him -- a big juicy man. The Arab culture is incredibly alive and full of passion, but when an individual shows his emotions, it’s looked upon as a weakness. This is especially true for men.
We started with an exercise I often do with new groups, in which we break them into groups of three and they ask each other questions about what messages they got from their family, from their culture, and from the other culture. Then in turn, two partners repeat the answers of the third one back to him or her, and that person is asked to focus on what’s happening in his or her body.
When this large Arab man listened to his own words reflected back, he was aware that he felt the top part of his body a lot, but couldn’t feel the lower parts of his body. We started by getting him hitting The Cube -- a gigantic fabric cube the Beyond Words women had sewn together for me, stuffed with foam. (Throughout this trip, The Cube became a major character, traveling with us all across Israel and Palestine, crammed into back seats, often on top of an unlucky passenger, pulled over by some cops, kicked, beaten, and beloved.) We watched in awe as this man, whose energy filled up the whole room, went wild on The Cube. He was so powerful and full of energy and willing to let it out.
After he had been hitting for a while, I asked him to start kicking The Cube. He was hesitant at first, and we had to encourage him to keep going. What came out was that he said he was afraid of his aggression, and felt that he couldn’t be trustworthy if he were to get in touch with all that trapped energy. He said he feared that he would do things that were against his religion and culture. I explained to him that if we don’t get in touch with our blocked and frozen energy and let it flow, then it will either come out in unconscious ways, or we will have to be in constant control to keep it from coming out -- and that will compromise our aliveness. When we’re afraid of feeling all our energy, we sometimes act inappropriately. This man understood, and then he really came alive. Everyone was encouraging him, especially the women.
Afterwards, the women in the group were crying, "I want my father to do this work, I want my brother to do this, I want my husband to do this!" They were so unbelievably moved and touched that an Arab man would be expressing himself so fully, that he could be so vulnerable, and that he was talking about his feelings and using his energy in such a powerful way.
This experience supported our knowledge that real power comes from the place where we become vulnerable and claim all of our energy fully, without controlling it.
That evening, Noha took Anna, Nitzan (also from Beyond Words), and myself to her house for a feast in our honor. One of the things you discover about Arab culture, and about which they are deeply proud -- and rightly so -- is their incredible hospitality. They welcome you into their home whether they know you or not. They give you all their food. When you are in an Arab culture, you can be sure that you’ll be taken care of and treated as an honored guest wherever you go.
