A Brief Rest For Travelers
You really can send love and hope.
It's 7 am and I've been up for an hour. We have had the busiest time at Al Sorat Farm this Eid and it has been wonderful watching families coming to let their kids let off steam on our grass playing with dogs, visiting goats and sheep, riding horses, and being introduced to the neighbourhood on the donkey cart. In a few hours we have roughly 30 people coming to the farm for a special visit. Most of them are refugees from Gaza, and the farm will be closed to everyone other than them for the day. They have been living in hell for the last few years, but hell has gotten much hotter over the last 6 months. We are hoping to cool things off for them today under the trees. They are by no means at a point of real rest because people who manage to get as far as Egypt still have to travel on.
Egypt is a country in the midst of economic collapse that is already housing about 10 million refugees who have come here from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and other places over the past ten or fifteen years...and there are millions looking to try to come to our relative peace to rest before moving on. Egypt might look big on a map, but our usable space is very small because most of the country has no water, no cities, no roads, no trees, no farms. It is the true meaning of desert. People get stuck here in their travels quite frequently, and there are the odd individuals like myself who come here and find that this is where we are supposed to be for some reason, but it isn't a place where most people dream of ending up, even for many who are born here.
In a couple of days I have someone meeting a woman, a doctor, at the airport here to bring her to the farm to accomplish a task. She is coming to buy the freedom of two adults and three children from Gaza. She has a large family outside Gaza who have been gathering the money needed (17,500 USD) to pay to a middleman agency to do the paper work to get this family out of Gaza. That doesn't mean that the people waiting to leave will be safe while they wait. During the month or so that they will be waiting, they still have the strong possibility of being bombed, shot, starved, or bulldozed before they make it out, and there are no refunds if this happens. But speed is of the essence for these families, so they are working as fast as they can. That people have to buy their families freedom through a third party with no guarantees that once the freedom in bought, they will in fact arrive in a safe haven even for a while, is something that makes me want to scream. The fact that they will be traveling with just a small bag of possessions, that they will NEVER be able to return to the home in which they grew up, that they are leaving behind family that they are likely never to see again, gives me physical pain even as I do whatever I can to help them in their journey. No one should have to do this.
The last year has been tough for those of us who feel others, who know that energy is what we are in essence and who try to support others with the energy surrounding us. I grew up in a space that was dedicated to this belief, which is supported by many religions and philosophies, in a beautiful small valley in California called Ojai that is gradually being taken over by wealthy migrants from Los Angeles and other cities. My friends from childhood can no longer afford to live in our childhood home. I know that I can not. So many things are changing, and not for the better. This year has been one in which I have been learning to accept my place in this chaotic world and to develop skills that will enable me to manage while I try to help others survive and hopefully thrive. I have found out what I am when I grow up, and the discovery has been difficult and, at times, painful.
I have a request of my friends now. If you have a moment today to rest quietly, please send love in the direction of my farm so that the farm can pass it on to the weary families who will be here today. You don't need to send it to me...I live here and can regenerate in its peace. Anything coming in this direction will be passed from the farm to those coming here looking for strength and solace. This isn't a religious endeavour. This is support among beings, and the animals here at the farm do as much work as the humans. My pack of therapy dogs here are going to be out cold by sunset.
Thank you.