Healing the Root to Free Palestine

The sap begins rising from the roots of trees at this time. In the dark underground. It’s not perceivable to our human eyes.

This Tu b'Shvat (the Jewish holiday and new year of the trees that begins tonight), the thousand year old spruce and hemlocks washed up onto the smooth stoned shore of Quileute land, are most present for me. My partner and I spent the weekend at what feels like the edge of the world. The wildness of the ocean, foam spurring over rocks that from afar look black but when you look down, hold vast colors my eyes may never have seen before. All together the stones along that small bit of shore, hold the story of the whole earth. 

I imagine the life of one of those thousand year old trees, worn by sea air and massive rainfall, roots facing the breaking waves. A heavy, thick dead tree, who had lived on land nearby, endured hundreds of storms and finally let go during a big one, and took to the grand sea. After traveling among sea life and sea plants, whales and octopi, the ocean understood the trees longing to rest on land and carried the tree to the shore. 

I often turn to living trees for strength and reminders of the depth of my connection. These big dead trees helped me understand the depth of time, beyond life and because of life on earth. 

It’s hard in this time of genocide to perceive the sweetness that may emerge from this moment. Unlike the sweet sap rising up through a tree, humans have dared to uproot materials (coal, cobalt, uranium, petroleum…) non consensually from under the earth (earth did not give us a clear yes here!) that lead to violent acts on humans. We live in a culture where consent is not the norm and we are often forced into choices we don’t morally align with. The level of moral injury we are living with is incomprehensible. The amount of pushing against systems of oppression, just to survive that most people have to do is the opposite of life giving. 

Why is it important to let the mystery under the earth be? Ancient Jews believed ancestors lived in the waters under the earth. Under the earth, let the ancestors be. Let the mystery be. Being. We seem to have such difficulty just being in our society. 

In a recent interview, Layla K Feghali, an author, cultural worker, and plantcestral medicine practitioner said "we're really just in full responsiveness to the needs of this moment and we haven't had the privilege to really, truly grieve.” She then goes on to talk about the “deeply fundamental, life-affirming feeling” of rage and “the rage is a call to action.” I’m struck by Layla’s call for us to metabolize our rage and “be” in action. The deep healing happening through this collective moment of rage invites us to change and act as a collective of human beings.

I know in my soul the only way for Jews to truly heal from centuries of anti semitism in Europe and the holocaust is through participating in the work to Free Palestine. I don’t mean to stuff your feelings but to transmute your grief. Doing Palestinian solidarity work in the community heals a deep wound for all people. Palestine links all systems of oppression (see the QMP panels for more on this). Collective movements stir the soul. I feel the world changing in these moments.

There is an energy being produced, from our uprising, our saying no to these systems dependent on raping the earth for energy. The hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes are the earth's blatant messages to humans of rage- the minerals, rocks, waters do not consent. We see the animals joining us, saying no- orca whales sinking yachts, an eagle attacking a drone. This collective no is cultivating a new energy. We are transmuting oppression into liberation. We strengthen our souls by doing this work. We build the world to come through this work. We let ourselves somatically feel our collective power doing this work. We challenge the media’s manipulation of our trauma doing this work. We let ourselves know we belong through doing this work. We get more tolerant of discomfort throughout this work. We build skills we didn’t know we had through this work. We empower others through this work. All of this builds energy. I believe we are on some level learning to cultivate this energy as a literal alternative energy source so we won’t need petrol or uranium or cobalt or even electricity. 

But we won’t get there until the violence stops and we heal the root. 

Ancestral healing for the Jewish people from hundreds of years of oppression is possible through binding ourselves to the struggle to Free Palestine. 

As Jews we know intimately what it is to live through genocide. We also know what it is to have our trauma manipulated by colonialism and white supremacy.

As Jews our challenge as a religion, a spirituality, a culture is to wholly embrace Palestine; for our hearts to love so deeply, that fear of not belonging and colonizer mind begin to melt away. 

Telling the truth, you succumb yourself to hatred and wrath. Living in denial is a precious comfort. But the truth reveals the exquisite gift of life. Witnessing horror and pain, letting people know they aren’t alone, being with them, that heals ignorance and deceit and ultimately gives way to liberation. Liberation is freedom from living under the thumb of colonialism. A lie that humans can own or dominate the earth. The earth will always rise up and heal from within. We are the earth. Whether our physical bodies let go or not, we have been earth dwellers and our essence remains. 

A thousand year old tree, washed up on shore holds the essence of life, teaching us time is precious and time is nothing. 

Happy Tu’b’Shvat. Free Palestine.