Peace Cairns

I wake up in the West Bank on October 7th, 2024. It is suggested that there will be an increase in violence, especially by settler colonists who have no regard for the Palestinian people or anyone who supports them.

When confronted by Israeli soldiers, I look into their eyes, as friendly as I can. I want to look within them to see the part of them that still has humanity. Some of them actually gaze back at me. Most of them deflect their eyes away and do not want to spend any time looking at me.

I am beginning to get a sense of what nonviolent accompaniment is all about. For me, it is transforming the decades upon decades of rage and anger I have towards the killing machine, and finding my deeper inner power.

I have started what many may see as a silly project; I am creating stone cairns where I can in Palestine. I consider my stacks of rocks as way-markers on the path to peace. I attempt to infuse them with the sense of a “one state solution” where people live together in relative peace.

I am trying to hold that energy rather than succumb to the fear of the reality that I see before me. I do not reject what I see, I choose to see beyond.