By Pat Crosby
Free Forgiveness Audio at this site, too.
DALRY'S STORY
MOTHERS and GRANDMOTHERS ........ The seen and unseen aspects of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem 2002..and 6 YEARS LATER
This is the story as Dalry sent it to me. I have left it to be told in her own words.
I asked her to supply a brief biography so that you can get a sense of the Divine Feminine energy of the Grandmother "warrior" as she tells her story. Thank You...Dalry".
I think of myself as a common run of the mill Australian grandmother.....something of a 'Trail Blazer' perhaps.....never quite one of the mob ..... always ahead of the times (without ever intending it). Born with a congenital kidney defect... which I had no intention of passing on... so in my forties I became determined to change my DNA. Married divorced married widowed. 4 great kids. 8 grandies. Having recently passed my 70th year I find that I have come full circle like the serpent biting its tale. And not just me. The whole of HUMANITY ON EARTH would appear to be currently rounding out an epoch. Those who have made the shift into the HOLOGRAPHIC DIMENSION.......the 'Eternal Here and Now' ... will have realized just as I have done that WE REALLY ARE ALL ONE IN SPIRIT!! My 'Impossible Dream' is that we should reach out to each other NOW and ask and answer these burning questions. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What do I hope to accomplish in this lifetime in order to fulfil my total potential?
Although I taught at university in Padang West Sumatra for 3 years 1990-1993..... 'Life' has been my own university. 'My campus'? ... as much of the world as I can get under my belt while I'm still in a body. At the age of 24 as a mother of 3 young children I became an executive with H.J. Heinz (soups and baby foods) with a sizable staff scattered throughout Queensland. That was way back in the sixties. Later I opened a Charm School Model and Demonstration Agency. The business objectives were to train and provide personnel for promotions and public relations. This business aspect put me in touch with the corporate world and taught me a great deal about how the 'movers and shakers' of humanity function. However my prime objective has always been to provide the means for ALL THE NATURE KINGDOMS plus men women children ........and in particular those who are deprived or handicapped ....of all ages and from different backgrounds... to develop their fullest potential as human beings. The Charm School evolved into a School of Self Development with the motto KNOW YOURSELF...ACCEPT YOURSELF ....BE YOURSELF....LEARN HOW TO LIVE IN HARMONY.... WITH YOURSELF AND THE WORLD AROUND YOU. This over many years morphed into an ongoing series of free workshops and free life enrichment activities. Now 40 years later as a grandmother of 8 I stilll adhere to the philosophy of inner exploration of self ..... and outer exploration of 'absolutely everything there is'.
So what about Israel? Over a period of years I gave everything away and reduced my belongings to a small suitcase. My sole income is the Australian age pension. No insurance or back up. Trust in myself and the universe. Left Australia in March 1999. Travelled 10 countries alone. Met many many wonderful people! Arrived in Israel April 2002. Wanted to walk with a donkey. I did! A rickety grey old grannie just like me. Slept under the stars for 24 days from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. This is truly an awesome planet and humanity is nothing short of magnificent!
love and light
Dalry
THIS IS FOR THE GRANDMOTHERS AND MOTHERS OF ISRAEL .....AND IN PARTICULAR THOSE WHO HAVE LOST LOVED ONES TO THE CONFLICT.
I left Israel in October 2005......having stayed there for almost 3 years (the last 2 illegally) because IN THE WAKE OF THE SUICIDE BOMBING I had to come to some understanding of the historical and personal context of the conflict. Besides which although I'm neither Jewish or Arab I had a desperate urge to DO something. Although I met many wonderful people and threw myself into various attempts to 'find a way'..... one hope was to mobilize the Grannies of the world to use their influence......nothing I attempted seemed to work out. Everything would seem to be coming together and then at the crucial moment it would all crash. .broke my spirit...broke my heart....
Now you are all at it again!!!!!! Well this time maybe there is a force mobilizing AGAINST THE USE OF VIOLENCE.........a force that neither Israeli or Palestinian or any other human agency can prevail against........THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES TO VIOLENCE HAVE BEGUN TO TAKE A HAND IN THIS. May we all trust in God that their will to forgiveness and freedom may prevail.
Although I’m one of the participants the following story is told on behalf of MANY OTHERS……more than I can say. In the events related to the suicide bombing I was essentially a WITNESS. ........ AN AN0NYMOUS WITNESS.......A PERSON OF NO CONSEQUENCE AND SUCH I SHOULD REMAIN.
Come Monday, June 30, 2008……I’m asleep in my apartment in Malaysia.
They come to me ...the dead people who had been blown up in the suicide bombing I’d been witness to in Jerusalem. They surge into my consciousness on the crest of a cleansing wave. When they have my attention they speak as one. 'We're so pleased that you've finally got it right ….what you've written to yourself about the bombing. Now at last we can move!
I rouse myself to ask the question that’s been on my mind for 6 years “What about the bomber? What happened to the bomber?”
In one voice they reply “The young woman who fate chose as the instrument?
She’s here with us……she’s one of us… she has forgiven and been forgiven. She has taken responsibility for her life….and for her death. Now she is free! That’s why we’ve come. To let the world know…..not just humans but the WHOLE WORLD and EVERYTHING ON IT….. that if WE can forgive THEY CAN FORGIVE!
The day in question is Friday the 12 th of April 2002. I arrived in Israel on the 4th. For the past week, my exploration of this fabled city has taken me far afield on foot. Everything in Israel closes early on Friday afternoon so that the Jewish people living here can prepare for Shabbat, which I’ve heard mention of but not yet had explained to me. From what I’ve learnt so far, Friday night is their holiest night of the week. Everyone visits their family for a special dinner.
Earlier on this balmy spring afternoon I munched on a shwarma of lamb and salad rolled in flat bread...very tasty and surprisingly filling. Since then I’ve been resting in the shade of a tree with a book. The food, the warmth of the sun, and a sense of wonder that I’m actually in Jerusalem, have left me feeling deliciously content, sort of snoozy and relaxed.
Because I've been travelling alone through a dozen or so different countries for the past few years I'm not up with current events, so a loud boom catches me completely off guard! The book falls from my hands. I let out an involuntary gasp. Give a little giggle. Could that be an explosion? Here! In the heart of Jerusalem one of the most sacred cities in the world? I shake my head. Can't be! For what seems an age I sit paralysed while the reverberations echo in my bones!
I reach for the book. Good grief my hand is shaking. I pick up the book intending to resume reading, but in less than 10 heartbeats the sirens begin. The sound of sirens echoes eerily in the empty streets. Lots of sirens. They’re coming closer. Off to the left, then round to the other end of the nearby market. Here in my little island of calm I detect no outward change yet the sirens go on and on... I think “My God that must have been one hell of a pile up!”
The sirens stop. I stare into space waiting. Waiting for what? A voice breaks the silence. My own voice. Quite matter of factly I comment. 'No question! That sort of racket could only have been caused by a traffic pile up. Not far away either.' By now I've realized that the accident must have been very close by indeed. And it must have involved a great number of people to warrant so many ambulances.
Since my peace has been shattered I decide to call it a day and begin my trek back to the hostel. As I'm a stranger I have no idea where I am, but start out in the general direction. This takes me through the deserted market area. In contrast to the earlier hustle and bustle of a busy Friday morning the market broods, silent and empty. As I walk between the abandoned stalls everything seems normal. End of day rubbish and discards litter the floor. Display tables stand askew. On some, neglected cartons hold a few pieces of unsold produce. An old lady forages for choice left overs. A man in a torn sweater scrabbles among the discards, slipping a few pieces of fruit into a cloth bag. He ducks his head in greeting as I pass and holds out a couple of oranges, an apple and a pear for my inspection. We exchange a conspiratorial smile. I send him love.
Why is the far end of the market blocked? A solid plug of people, less than a dozen are blocking passage out to the main road. As my feet are drawn irresistibly to that beckoning far end, someone barks a command. The group ahead breaks up in disorder enabling me to move forward into the space vacated, and I see. Dear God, I see! Some unknown person has just blown themself and many others to bits. Quite literally to bits! Big bits, small bits, tiny bits! Less than twenty minutes ago these bits and pieces were people. Alive! Breathing!
I stand rooted. Someone behind me erects a makeshift barrier. Somehow I'm incorporated into the barrier. If any one tried to move me I would shatter. As a mirror of events I’ve already shattered.
Death does have a smell. Death by explosion has a distinctive smell. A smell that catches you up in a noxious embrace! Metallic! Cloying! Claustrophobic! Enclosed in my shroud of stillness I’m faintly aware of movement on the ground ahead of me. People sitting, lying, bending, lifting! Some of the people on the ground are quite small. Children!
Ah! I perceive now who these oddly assorted people are. Medical officers are sorting out the dead from the wounded. Some of these ‘people’ are actually dead bodies. The wounded are being attended to first. I watch as ambulances load and leave. A constant stream ...... not just ambulances either. Other vehicles stand by too! Ah! And I perceive who THESE people are. They're Emergency Services personnel and Police.
There are other people as well, dressed in white. They wear gloves and carry plastic bags. They are picking up stuff with big tweezers, I'm not sure what, and putting it into the bags. Can this be evidence? What sort of evidence??
They sweep around before me in a frenetic mass, all these different categories of people. A man in a boiler suit firmly ushers me aside. He speaks in Hebrew. I don't respond immediately so someone takes me gently by the shoulders and shifts me back a pace or two so that they can sling a rope across to confine this area. I cry quietly on and off. Seems silly really; nobody else is crying.
In a surprisingly short time crises resolves into orderly hurry and bustle, as dead and injured are examined, treated, and carried away. Officialdom swiftly cordons off the rest of the decimated area. The first wave of media arrives! Too late! There’s nothing left of the carnage but small remnants. Even the smell has dissipated.
Function is beginning to return to my limbs but I’m still not capable of intentional movement. In any case there is no passage. I watch the men in white bring over a ladder and stand it against the blackened wooden post of the blasted awning. One man climbs the ladder while another holds it steady. Tatters of canvas flutter from the rim of the awning all the way around 3 sides. The man in white is delicately removing them with his tweezers. THIS WAS THE LAST PIECE OF THE JIGSAW ….. UNTIL NOW 6 YEARS LATER I HAD BEEN UNABLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THESE TATTERS WERE HUMAN FLESH. …… shredded human flesh after an explosion looks just like tattered canvas.
I stand there, my faculties busy recording the scene in all its horror and fascination – missing nothing! My eyes – my ears – all my senses, all my feelings, every last sub atomic particle of me are on full alert! But I’m not there! I’m not anywhere any more. Fractured bits of me have gone away somewhere into blank untenanted areas of myself that I didn’t know existed before. The animal part of me has curled up in a corner, confused and hiding. The child is frightened but curious. The teenager is on a high....excited by the horror. The daughter in me is stoking up righteous anger not only at my own parents but at all parents everywhere. The mother is building up hatred of mother hood. The very act of conceiving a child seems like a desecration in the face of the carnage I’m witnessing – that children can grow up to do this to each other!
Eventually I find my way out on to the footpath. Lean against a lamp post. Watch. Camera men and reporters rush around seeking....! What ARE they seeking? Gruesome remains? An interview with a survivor? What about me? What am I seeking? It seems I was called here as a witness. So WHO is the witness, the woman in me? But there IS no woman, the essential 'I'no longer exists. ….THE ESSENCE OF ME HAS BEEN SHATTERED. The fractured pieces, the animal..child...mother... still retain some of my me-ness….. fragments of me that I can still identify…….but what of the shattered bits and pieces out there mingling with all the other shattered bits and pieces? What is happening to their identity?
I watch myself from near by….and I ponder. In time I perceive/experience the emergence of one remaining fragment of identity. A granny! A common run of the mill granny, one of millions. Ah! It was SHE who was called here as a witness! But why? Why HER? What could be the point? She's not special. She has no authority. She’s not even particularly knowledgeable. She certainly has no influence! Just a common run of the mill grandmother. Maybe it’s because she’s been tempered by life to be ….to be what....Compassionate? Impartial? Resolute? Formidable? ….NO! No! No! No! She was called here for no other reason than that she is JUST a common run of the mill grandmother…ONE grandmother with millions of faces.
A few young Jewish men dressed in black trousers and white shirts, with little black caps on their heads, make brief but voluble protest. Cameramen gather to film them momentarily while they chant. Then the police come over and move them further away. Several reporters swoop on a man who has recently arrived. He is a 'somebody' and he speaks English. Because I'm nearby I overhear what he says. My heart tells me that silence would perhaps be more appropriate. Will his banal words conclusively address the cause, conclusively alleviate the effect? Silence! Better to opt for silence. ALTHOUGH I HAD NO IDEA AT THE TIME THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN COLIN POWELL
One of the wounded limps by in the care of friends or family! He is barefoot and wearing shorts. The white bandages seem grotesquely out of place against the tanned skin, grubby bare feet, and bloodstained torso. Strange! It's he who is trying to jolly his friends along. To reassure them. Shouldn’t they be reassuring him?
To one who is observing, everything seems to move very slowly, like watching the ocean and waiting for the seventh wave. Someone gets in the bus. Starts it up. Although the body of the bus is burnt out, mangled and contorted, quite illogically the motor still works. Laboriously the tortured shell of steel and rubber, kerthump kerthumps its way down the road a little. Now the final remnants of human flesh and other evidence can be collected into the plastic bags. In a dream I trail behind the bus doing a wide detour around the block to avoid the flimsy barricade. Why has it become so imperative that I get close to the bus? I approach timidly. Already the wreck has been cordoned off in its new location by a band of orange tape. I stand and pay homage to the contorted steel, like soldiers do when they play the last post.
Returned to the scene of the desecration I watch fascinated until the last ambulance sighs its retreat. Until the burnt remains of the awning are removed. Until the crowd disperses! Until the media leave! Until the last scrap of flesh has been scooped up! Until the barriers are removed enabling traffic to resume! Until everyone has gone and the desecrated bus stop is restored to a semblance of normality! Only then, when the area is completely empty am I drawn to the mystifying space left by the bus. Are they still there? The people who died? What about my bits? Are my bits still there? I'm struck by a nagging thought, “How will the men in white know which of those bits of flesh they collected belonged to the bomber?”
I continue to observe myself from a distance. I feel nothing. At some point my capacity to feel got washed away in a flood of disbelief yet all through the process I’ve been broadcasting love. No! Not just love. Love and light! Filling the bus with the light of love and all the space around. Filling the whole market with love and light. When I’m satisfied that I have done what I can I move on, leaving all the shattered parts of myself behind to comfort the dead.
JUNE 2008
My apartment…..Malacca…...Malaysia!
Now here on the other side of the world the dead have come to comfort me. When I start to shudder and blubber crying and laughing all at the same time with happiness and release….. They offer reassurance, 'Yes! Cry! Cry till you laugh. Tears and laughter unite and strengthen us. NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY! We who were killed in explosions intend to free this planet ….once and for all…from belief in victim hood. We are enough now to make it happen.”
I uncurl and roll on to my back. Open my eyes. Enough????
I look around me. Dear god there are millions……all of them at one time or another blown to pieces. We are all held in a hologram of love and light..
I brush away the tears and sit up in bed…. slightly perplexed now…..somewhat uncertain. Suddenly I have an inkling of why they’re here. Without thinking I say “NO! No! No! No! No!Whatever you people want of me …NO!” How could they do this? Where is the balance ? They are numberless. I am only one! My next words come out as a croak. “PLEASE! PLEASE! NO! I’m weak and old……I’ve long since exhausted my resources…… I have nothing left to offer. I thought I’d finished with all this..........! Truly! I’m not the one you want.”
As one voice they over ride my protest “Call for a FREEDOM WEEK! Freedom from aggression! Freedom from fear! Freedom from want! Freedom from hunger! Freedom from poverty! Freedom to BE YOURSELF!
“A FREEDOM WEEK?”
“Yes! A FREEDOM WEEK! One for all and all for one! This is what you’re to send out: ON BEHALF OF ALL THOSE OF US WHO MET A VIOLENT END…….WE CALL ON YOU THE LIVING TO INITIATE A FREEDOM WEEK to conclude on the 11.11.2011.”
“The eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh! But that’s more than 2 years away!”
“Never mind! It will take that long. In the meantime EACH INDIVIDUAL can have his or her OWN FREEDOM WEEK, maybe one week a month even. KIDS WILL JUST LOVE THE IDEA OF A FREEDOM WEEK………!
EXACTLY! What you need for this is a kid …..not a worn out granny!
“………..THEN BIT BY BIT INDIVIDUALS WILL JOIN UP TO HAVE GROUP FREEDOM WEEKS! AND THEN COMMUNITY FREEDOM WEEKS! AND THEN NATIONAL FREEDOM WEEKS! DON’T WORRY! IT WILL GROW! …..THE SEEDS WILL BE BLOWN TO THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH ON THE WINDS OF FREEDOM TO CREATE A LOVELY GARDEN…A GARDEN OF DREAMS COME TRUE!
From past experience I’m well aware that faced with something like this it’s pointless to try and hide or run away or plead incapacity. ......God help me! I collect myself enough to ask "What do you mean by FREEDOM WEEK...how would it work?"
THAT'S IT EXACTLY! WITH WORKSHOPS! WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS! WORKSHOPS IN THE COMMUNITY! WORKSHOPS EVERYWHERE ABOUT FREEDOM THROUGH FORGIVENESS!
STARTING WITH PERSONAL SOVERIGNTY!
Next! ACKNOWLEDGING PERSONAL SOVERIGNTY WITHIN THE FAMILY… .EXTENDING PERSONAL SOVERIGNTY TO FRIENDS AND WORKMATES ……then FREEDOM WITHIN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD AND COMMUNITY… FREEDOM WITHIN THE NATION…followed by FREEDOM BETWEEN NATIONS ....Finally FREEDOM WITHIN THE COSMOS.
******** It's only recently that I've moved sufficiently beyond self-interest and my personal sense of inadequacy to realize that as well as making a request that night they also made a bestowal ...... THEY RETURNED TO ME THE SHATTERED BITS AND PIECES OF MYSELF THAT I HAD LEFT BEHIND AT THE SUICIDE BOMBING.!
I HONESTLY DON’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN WITH THIS SO I’M BEGINNING NOW AND I'M BEGINNING WITH YOU.
Love and light
Dalry
2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace
2009 Hero of Forgiveness, 
The Alliance pays tribute to Heroes of Forgiveness - people who exemplify the power of forgiveness by overcoming personal tragedies and traumas and moving from anger and revenge to the transformative release of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Alliance also honors Champions of Forgiveness - those who dedicate their lives and work to expanding awareness and knowledge about the regenerative power of forgiveness and reconciliation as well as to help others experience it.
