Dear Readers of ALTE
Last night, in one of the largest actions of civil disobedience in New York City in decades, Jewish groups gathered in Grand Central Station wearing black cease fire t-shirts and calling for an end to fighting in Gaza, and demanding an end to violence.
Posters of kidnapped people are all over the city.
Friends and families fight over what is happening now. The moral high ground is taken by many. An impossible, divisive time, we act in ways we can, and we read.
We need one another to survive.
Love,
Esther
Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up, when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders, teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies, recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:
Another world is possible.
"V'ahavta"
Summons
Last night I dreamed
ten thousand grandmothers
from the twelve hundred corners of the earth
walked out into the gap
one breath deep
between the bullet and the flesh
between the bomb and the family.
They told me we cannot wait for
governments.
There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.
There are no leaders who dare to say
every life is precious, so it will have to be us.
They said we will cup our hands around each
heart.
We will sing the earth’s song, the song of
water,
a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn
to weeping.
The mourners will embrace, and grief replace
every impulse toward harm.
Ten thousand is not enough, they said,
so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of
doves
into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on
your shoes.
You who are reading this, I am bringing
bandages
and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I
think
I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.
Let’s go.
Aurora Levins Morales
So beautiful and so sad.
Thank you! Yes!