"Sacred Heartivism"
Conversation with Sabine Lichtenfels co-founder of Tamera Peace Research ecovillage
Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 as one of the "1000 Women for Peace".
More about Tamera: www.tamera.org
Website Sabine Lichtenfels: https://sabine-lichtenfels.com/en/welcome/
Dear Ones,
The world as beautiful as it is, is turning increasingly violent, in more ways than we can absorb. We are an integral part of it, so our insides feel it too and are triggered to react sometimes in the wrong situations and with undesired effects.
For the past three months, I have been challenged with my nervous system, pains, tingling, and numbness in my arm, which directly affected my guitar playing and my irritation levels. Throughout, I remind myself that beauty and joy always abound and are possible while we still can breathe. And it is all improving considerably. Getting back to playing and in 15 days mini-touring the west coast of Canada, if you have some peeps - info below.
Some Personal news in the action and doing dimensions:
My Book: The front and back cover design is being decided this week. I’m finishing editing my audiobook in the coming week.
Pre-Order Sales: Dec 15
Publishing date: March 3
Sacred Activism: We’re currently manifesting our seventh annual gathering as “Defend the Sacred” www.defendthesacred.org A global alliance of sacred activists inspired by Standing Rock and incubated at Tamera Peace Research Village in Portugal. It is a journey to Colombia bearing witness and in support to both our hosts and members at the Comunidad de Paz in San Jose de Apartado, and Ati Quigua and her Arhuaco Indigenous people at the “Heart of the World” in the Sierra Nevada Santa Marta. For being a contributing partner, widening the circle, and becoming part of our community: https://shorturl.at/jjszH
Canadian Tour
SEPT 17: Victoria “PrayerFormance”
Venue: Church of Truth
FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/1693830054705512/
Tickets: https://reculture-north.tickit.ca/events/25810
SEPT 18: Possible Salt Spring Show - to be confirmed
SEPT 20: Duncan “Prayerformance”
Venue: Lila Music School
FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/516292200898670/
Tickets: https://reculture-north.tickit.ca/events/25657-gabriel-meyer-halevy-duncan
SEPT 21: Duncan “Sacred Playshop”
Venue: Lila Music School
FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/516292200898670/
Tickets: https://reculture-north.tickit.ca/events/25657-gabriel-meyer-halevy-duncan
Story
After 4 years of writing, editing, reflecting, deleting, dreaming, and reading, it is time to tell the story of how my book was conceived and is about to be born.
Those were the times of the pandemic, and I still lived in Galilee. My usual unusual life was peaking. As most people felt lost with the lack of structure in their lives, I was blooming in action. I sold my 11-year-old beautiful home, created two new songs and a video clip, and decided to write a book.
The road to birthing the book began as a way of getting rid of my old bag of stories to make space for new ones. It first took shape as a solo theatre show in Hebrew. Challenged by my ambivalence about going back to the theater, and my low level of writing Hebrew skills, I thought that a book in my “native” Spanish would be better. However, before I began getting used to the idea, I realized, in view of my long hiatus since writing in Spanish — my two books of poetry (self-published way back in 1990 and 1995) — I eventually decided to risk it in English with the added benefit of a wider audience.
At the outset, I wrote all my stories down and titled them according to their year and city. When I was done, I found myself struggling to find a way of linking them in an organic way. I was troubled thinking of a book just being about me. Then, I got the idea from a friend to tell the stories while climbing Mt Sinai. I liked the idea of my beloved Sinai being a part of my project. I already had the written down the story of the Sinai Gathering of 1984 and the Sinai aerial art ceremony in 2018 commemorating peace at the 100th anniversary of the armistice of the First World War. Both those stories eventually became my Chapter 1.
While feeling the encroaching war all around me in the Middle East, the fiction thread of my prose begot an adventure of a like-minded intergenerational and global tribe on its way to create and manifest a massive surprise acupressure event at the crux of the culture of war: Jerusalem. Digging deeper into the roots of the archetypal conflict, the journey incorporated a healing vigil ceremony at the grave of our common ancestor Abraham in Hebron-El Chalil.
The like-minded tribe and my co-adventurers were recognized and recruited while my hopscotch travels meandered through Portugal, Sinai, Crete, Galilee, Rome, Bethlehem, and eventually Jerusalem.
The writing itself usually took place in the silence of dawn, before anyone but mountains, rivers, trees or animals were awake, or could distract me. The first draft happened before I sold my home in the Galilee. After I left my home and became a nomad, first in Israel and Bethlehem and then in Crete, NYC, and Portugal, I followed geographically the locations I talked about in my book and filled in their specific descriptions. The chapters of my book designed my itinerary. I remember writing in Jerusalem, and then on a friend’s farm in central Portugal. My research kept deepening through the subsequent layers of my journeys.
At some point, already at my mom’s in NYC, I realized I needed help with my English, so I found my first editor, the book was a bit more readable by the third draft, but still felt very messy. Throughout I kept reaching out to a few publishers, but none of them were saying a definite yes. Until I found my second editor. This time the work became deeper. Finally, by draft seven, I sent it again to one of the publishers that was interested but said they could not provide the heavy editing it needed. I insisted and the publisher finally told me they had a hybrid on-demand department, and that if I brought them a finished manuscript they would go for it. And so it was that they provided the final copy editing and the designer. As I write this story, they are finishing the cover and back cover.
Soon after the audiobook began as well, narrated by me. At first, I thought I could record it myself and clean the sound with AI - but as I took a trip upstate on the Hudson, and rented a little cottage in the forest to record - I realized I was underqualified for this monumental task. And so I began recording with a musician friend… and now we are at the last stage of edits, hopefully done by next week.
The next step involves you, pre-ordering and then reading and caring for my new baby, my first book of English prose, loosely described as an autobiographical fiction of prophetic sorts.