In For quite a number of years Jerusalem had been on my list of places to visit for a variety of reasons, ranging from experiencing the biblical sites that were so familiar to me in my childhood, over wanting to expose myself with my German upbringing to the present country of Israel and its inhabitants to getting a deeper understanding of this place, so mythical and so real, which is of utmost relevance to three major world religions. I postponed my journey over and over again, always due to insecurity because of the political situation. The final impulse to go was the result of a practice during the Astroshamanic New Year's Retreat that Franco held at the Findhorn Foundation this year. We were working on Intents for the year to come and, while walking up to the Power Point at Cluny Hill College by myself, the term 'pilgrimage' came up very strongly and simultaneously the knowledge that this would mean going to Jerusalem this year. I started to do some research and a couple of weeks later I booked, compromising by joining a tour, which is by far my least favourite way of travelling.
The week I spent in Israel in April was complex, confusing, multi-layered, at times deeply disturbing and shocking, not altogether unexpected, but knowledge gained from books could prepare me only to a certain extent for the real experience, which in the outer reality one was one of extreme separation: shortly after the fall of the wall in Germany a wall twice as high being erected between Israel and the West Bank, airport-like security checks to access the Western Wall (the Wailing Wall) in the Old Town of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rocks, a most sacred site for the Christian, the Jewish and the Muslim religion, open to Muslims only, Christian religions commemorating the same biblical event in different sites and being in territorial disputes if they have to share the same space like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity.
I remember my bewilderment upon approaching Nazareth full of naive expectations of a peaceful pastoral setting based on childhood images and Renaissance paintings to find a modern town of high-rise buildings, filling stations, supermarkets and a major down-town road leading to the Basilica of the Annunciation being called Barcley's
An enormous amount of pilgrims from all over the world fill the streets and sacred sites, most of the time far too many for me to have quiet time and space to experience these places more deeply and connect energetically. Yet I remember scenes that touched me in the midst of these crowds: a group of African Christians that, each person in his/her own way, prayed to God in front of an altar as if he were a real living presence, a Spanish group I followed down the Mount of Olives joyfully singing devotional chants and, of course, the numerous groups that unerringly find their way through the narrow, incredibly buzzing streets of the oriental bazaar in the Old Town of Jerusalem, walking the Stations of the Cross, chanting and singing, two people in front literally carrying the cross.
In spite of a very busy schedule I managed to have two deeper encounters: two men of about the same age, one a Jewish Israeli, the other a Christian Palestinian, part of the 2% minority on the West Bank, both men with a lot of pain in their personal and collective history, yet a very open heart, love for people and for God, hoping and praying for a better future for humanity - but separated by the wall, their belief-systems, religion and politics.
Jerusalem, the Holy City, the site of so many wars since ancient times carries its wounds openly and, when going through the pictures I took, my perception found its nearest expression in the mosaic of the Church of All Nations, also called the Basilica of the Agony, which depicts Jesus assuming the suffering of the world. And, as we know, after the crucifixion, comes the resurrection and the ascension to the light.
Upon coming back to Scotland I was at first a disappointed, having experienced this journey as very rich on an outer level, yet rather shallow on the inner, no magical, transformative encounters, definitely more sight-seeing than I would have chosen to do on my own, not enough time to be present and go really deep. Yet the soul has its own pace: in a Trance Dance last week I merged quite intensely with Mary, whose image I had seen in so many forms in the Basilica of the Annunciation and whose tomb I had visited, and I moved through some of the stages of the crucifixion with the final stage of redemption. Again: for the time being
Image: Dome of the Rock and
For a virtual tour of
7 Km from
This is a touching Italian movie by Claudio Malaponti, which I saw while Astrid was in
The movie drew public attention for a controversial scene in which Alessandro offers Jesus a can of Coca-Cola, and, seeing Jesus accepting and drinking it, says: “What a testimonial!” Read more…
One of the most hilarious scenes in this movie is when Alessandro and Jesus drive through a village and see a friar hitchhiking. They stop the car and invite him in. The friar gets on the back seat, and he greets them by saying the traditional: “The Lord be with you”. At that point Jesus turns back and smiles at him. The friar becomes hysteric and dashes out of the car.
[i] God in PAN is always meant as Core Multidimensional Identity, Undivided Self and Unconditional Love, and does not denote identification with a specific creed or gender. What counts here is the experience of God, rather than the term we employ. Hence if the term God causes grievances, please feel free to substitute it with another word. Yet here I wish to stress that astroshamanism and any deep spiritual work, as I see it, will however confront us with all grievances we hold towards the term God with the aim of healing them.
