French School Presentation and Au Revoir!

We awake in the dark and we’re on the road in an instant—barely time to eat some porridge, pack, play some hip hop songs for Jordan, and say au revoir to Montoleo. Kristin connected me with her friend who is an English teacher in Carcassonne and she arranges to have me come and be a guest speaker in her class of 14-15 year olds. Kristin and I get to speak to the class for almost an hour. I ask the kids what words come to mind when they think about America. They say “BIG” and “rich” and “Bush” who is “a little crazy.” I talk about CODEPINK and how we started and what we’re all about and why it is important for women to speak about politics and to learn how to be strong leaders, and I show them our slideshow of creative actions and projects. I congratulate the French on not engaging in the Iraq War and I answer their myriad of questions. When I show the slide show, they all lean in and squeeze together and climb on the desks to get a better look at my small laptop screen. I look up at them and they are such a beautiful group of young people—all bright and interested and vibrant and trying to understand my English and excited to learn. The presentation goes by very fast and at the end the kids stay to sign up their email addresses and to get info about CODEPINK, including my last business cards. A group of seven young women are the last to leave and they tell me that they want to start a CODEPINK at their school and have pink buttons and wear pink. I get the idea that it would be great to connect these students with a French class at a school in the US. We part with the Rise Up song in call and response. Kristin and I leave the labyrinthine school and go out into the rain (of course it is raining a few hours before my departure).

Kristin and I weave a wondrous path through the city: into the vintage store and through the corner patisserie and all around the home decorations store which has so so so much pink and fuchsia and we reach the plaza and see the ice skating rink and the farmer’s market and all the very bright orange carrots and creamy ginger roots and bins of green leafy bundles. Then we are meeting up with the teacher once more and we are zooming back to Montoleo because I have forgotten my essential notebook with all my notes from the Donne di Pace tour at Kristin’s house. We make a vegetable stir-fry for lunch and Kristin and I get some more real time to talk so even though I feel bad about forgetting my notebook and making us have to drive all the way back, I am grateful for this time and the quiet of the house and nourishing food and the opportunity to listen to Krishna Das and Deva Premal and feel as if for a moment time has stood still and Kristin and I can talk about all the politics of life at home—in Tucson and San Francisco—and savor every bite and every last moment. I leave with my notebook and a heap of gratitude. The good thing about gratitude is that when you acquire more, it actually makes you lighter; it defies the laws of nature that way. The teacher drops me off at the tiny airport in Carcassonne and in no time I am on the airplane again. Ryan Air is great because I get three seats to myself and I meet a really sweet Norwegian medical student and the flight attendant hand writes me all the ways to get from the Stanstead airport to London Heathrow. It is weird because they charge for non-alcoholic drinks and they sell scratch tickets to win prizes as a benefit for charity.

I land at London Stanstead airport and take the train into the city center--Liverpool Street. There I spend some time talking with Ravi, the man who works at the bag check desk, and then outside with the British Red Cross canvassers, who give me great ideas about what to do with my limited time in London. Because my plane is delayed, I have enough time to eat a good Indian meal on Brick Lane and walk around the city, watching as all the Christmas decorations go up. I make it to Heathrow by around 11 p.m. and am home by midday Friday. Chris greets me at the airport and we go straight to the office. A little work and then home to face jetlag full on and begin the alluring game of catch up... o me, o life.

Tanque Verde in France

We sleep in and awake to the chimes of church bells, which ring on the hour and half hour here. I awake congested and nauseated with a very painful headache, the kind that portends the moon cycle. Kristin makes rice oatmeal with cooked apples and more ginger tea and we lounge about the house until midday when we decide to go for a walk. Once sufficiently bundled with many, many layers, Jordan and I swordfight on the porch and then we all three depart and wind our way through the town. We go into the big town church and the saints and large Jesus paintings stare down at us ominously. The place is quiet, but not entirely somber, it is grand but not grandiose, it id decrepit in some places—the sagging staircase, the faded altar, the chipping paint and the bent candelabra—and modern in others—the community announcement bulletin board, the gas space heaters adjacent to every few pews. I am reminded of how overpowering the architecture and the imagery in churches can be when I glance over and see how Jordan wants nothing more than to leave this place. To me, this place is relatively non-threatening, for a church. Worn floors of stone and soon we are outside again in the fresh crisp air. We walk up and up and up passing the little houses and their shuttered windows. I see the beautiful garden that Kristin planted and the rushing stream and the funny art installation pieces, like a petrol station built into the rocks. We walk so far up and out of town that we emerge into farmland, from which we can see a beautiful view of the snow covered Pyrenees mountains. The photo I did not take is a portrait of Kristin and Jordan against this stunning background. Since I didn’t make the picture, it is firmly framed inside my heart. Then we are walking into a big forest—strange to be tromping through a forest which reminds me so much of California with it’s pines, or New England with the crimson fall foliage, with this pair of friends who I know of only through the climatic lens of the desert. Some things don’t change: Jordan and I are still on the hunt for beautiful crystals and quartz, digging them out of the ground with sticks; prickly pear cacti dot the landscape with their purpling fruits; we go into a canyon with rushing, rambling water and a big yoni pool; Jordan climbs the rocks. We play hide and go seek but I stick out like a sore thumb with my big pink coat and hat, and Kristin is easy to spot in her white jacket. Jordan hides in a pile of leaves and sticks and is very hard to find. We see an ATV and also a horse-drawn carriage on the trail. We gather branches and pine cones for kindling and pick fresh rosemary.

Back at home I rest, feeling my body’s exhaustion, and I sleep through the afternoon, awaking after dark. Jordan and I greet the evening with hangman and attempts at fire building. Kristin gives me an acupuncture treatment while Jordan makes monkey noises to distract me from the pain. Jordan goes to sleep and I curl up next to the fire watching the flames until they die out and only glowing embers remain. If love is like this, then I love the part with the glowing embers—I think it is the most beautiful to see the flames fall into these wooden gems, bright fuchsia and soft pinks, and when they break apart into smaller coals, they glow more brightly. Kristin prepares the hot water bottle and I hold it on my belly and we talk until we fall asleep.

Torino to Carcassonne, France

Less than three hours after successfully printing copies of the Donne di Pace contact sheet and working online for an hour, I am awake again (read: went to sleep at 3 am and woke up at 5:45 am). I can hear Dena’s chiding. I know this is not good for my health. I pack quickly and go downstairs for the goodbye/see you laters—we all pile into the van for one last spin around Italy to get each woman to an airport or a train. My ride is short—three blocks to the Torino train station. A quick departure in the still dark morning, Ciao, Dobreutra, Goodbye. I arrived in Italy with little idea about the women I would meet; I leave with a new Italian father and eight new mothers!

I board the train and promptly fall asleep. I wake up intermittently, each waking is a still frame of an 8 mm film: Dark desolate train station stop; pink smear in an aqua sky quivering over a field of snow-dusted grass and wine vines and inside the train a gaggle of high school boys en route to school; tall, jagged snow-covered peaks; rock walls; piercing sun that burns through my sleep; then the French conductor is asking for the ticket and everything has changed—the little cobblestone houses, the scrambling rocks and the Mediterranean scrub forest, the language and the demeanor of the people. I remember all the reasons why I love Italy so much, a place that is becoming a new home, and all the ways that the French terrain is still so foreign, with its plump distribution of vowels, glittering sunshine, and neatly arranged harbors. But the next snapshot is desert-like: prickly pear cacti, red rocks like Sedona, sage-colored brush and Spanish-style houses, and to the left the sea. Home is always a relative term.

I arrive after dark in Carcassonne and as I crest the top of a flight of stairs, I see Kristin and Jordan and a friend who has driven them to the train station. They are bright and glowing and it feels as if I am in a dream-- having planned this journey for the past two weeks--that is at once surreal and tangible. We pack into the car and zoom towards Montoleou—a small village further inland. We wind our way through the little streets of this castle-like village and then pull into the street of Krsitin’s house. We go up the white staircase and into a house that is made of the most beautiful wood I have ever seen. The floors and sidewalls are all finished with a light oak, and in random places old stones or planks of dark wood jut out. We eat together—the most warming squash and coconut milk soup and chicken and fresh ginger tea—and then we make a fire and we sit by the fire talking. Jordan curls up and falls asleep on the corduroy beanbag chair and Kristin and I talk into the night.

Poems from Italy

Poesia di Italia



On Activism

When they ask you why you do this you will tell them…
It is because I suffered greatly, and responded with peace.

When they ask you why you do this, you will tell them…
It is because I could not bear to see the suffering of others any longer.

When they ask you why you do this, you will tell them…
It is because I realized that their suffering was my suffering.

When they ask you why you do this, you will tell them…
There was never a why, only duty.

This is a choice that bears no resemblance to choice.



Whirling Dervishes

One day I will wear all white
And I will spin and spin and spin
Until I know not whether it is from my chest
Or between my legs
That my sex overflows,
Dangles.
I will know not the intention
Of my outstretched arm—
A violent stroke,
A slap in the face of the wind,
Or a caress,
Stroking the air like a new lover.
Is the gasp first taken after resurfacing
From a turn with the seafloor
An aggressive attack
Against death,
Or an ecstatic swallowing?

One day I will wear all white
And I will spin and spin and spin
Until I know not whether I am body or breeze,
Or both—
Lovers reunited.



The Game of Telephone

How are you?

How are you? Come va?

Come va? Cac di lam?

Harasho.

Harasho. Benne.

Benne. Good.

Good. Spacibo.



Shadow Light

There are many spokes of the sun
The moon has only one shadow
Of bright light on the ground.
Imagine a house with all the lights on as if evening
But it is bright and clear outside—
A Magritte painting—
Do not sit as a dark vessel in the sunshine.
Light up your being so that your shadow can dance on the earth.



Udine at Night

The heater is snoring intermittently,
An occasional motorist outside,
One neon meringue light burns
A hole through my window.
Otherwise, darkness.
In several hours:
The jagged mountain ridge appears
Like a child’s first handmade paper snowflake;
Above it strips of indigo, cobalt—
Oceanic air.
A splash of pink and the night is gone.



Zalina (Sublimation)

Your eyes cry out to me,
Yet your figure remains solid—
You defy the laws of matter:
Your heart is not burned in the wake of explosion;
You do not shrink and yet you have lost so much.
Like crème brule
You do not break on impact.
But your eyes give everything away in their liquid.
Sorrow, a vapor that hovers around you.
This bittersweet sublimation.



Postage stamp of a land that we used to live on

The reservation.

RaeSpeak: Presentations in Italy

During the first week of December I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Italy to take part in the 2005 Donne di Pace (Women of Peace) tour. What follows is an account of my own presentations, and then short bios of the women of peace written from my perspective, as well as a chronological narrative about the trip. For the full text blog, please visit http://ravenjournal.blogspot.com.

As the youngest Donne di Pace, my talks are always prefaced by my age and an emphasis on my youth. People repeatedly want to know why I do this work at such a young age, so I have become quickly accustomed to speaking about my personal experience—a bit about my life story—domestic violence, contemplation of military service, college scholarship, environmental justice work, travels, etc.—and how I can see the universality of peace from the individual to the galaxy, and also how this work is a choice that does not resemble a choice (see the poems entry), in that I feel it is my duty to do this work.

In every lecture, I describe CODEPINK (Codice Rosa: Donne di Pace), detailing our mission statement as follows: CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, prevent future wars, and redirect our resources into education, healthcare, and life-affirming activities. I also speak about how CODEPINK includes men, while primarily aiming to build capacity and confidence in women to take action politically, because we have been disenfranchised from the political process. I speak about how Costanzo is a model CODEPINK Man for Peace: he has dedicated his life to documenting women’s stories and conflicts through film and by coordinating of speaking tours; and he has mastered the art of “stepping up and stepping back,” creating spaces for women to speak their truth without an authoritarian or guiding demeanor; he lifts up those around him while not compromising his own personal strength.

I speak about CODEPINK’s campaigns, namely counter-recruitment, the local cost of war, legislative actions, dogging public officials, and raising our voices against the war in creative ways on the grassroots level (through our over 250 local groups) at vigils, demonstrations, in classrooms, with overpass banner drops, etc. I talk about how these methods and others are helping to chip away at the pillar of war and corrupt power that we are up against, and how we are seeing more and more victories as time passes (the military not meeting recruiting goals, public opinion favoring a pull out of Iraq, legislative bills such as McGovern and Murtha’s work, the weakening of the “coalition of the coerced,” the turning point at Crawford, Texas with Cindy Sheehan last summer, for example). I list some of the elements of a real exit strategy, including no permanent bases in Iraq, the intervention of international peacekeeping forces, and real rebuilding strategies not based on corporate profit.

I speak from the heart about my personal experience, the violence within my family, the divorce process that left my mother and I with little money and pushed me to think about joining the military to get college, my experience speaking out against domestic violence in high school and the empowerment and confidence this gave me, my scholarship award and college experience, and my subsequent environmental activism and social justice work, with the understanding that violence between people and the earth, or between two cultures or countries, is no different really from the violence between two people, within a family. (How is that for a run-on sentence?) Luckily, most of the speaking engagements were translated, so I had time to breathe and really feel out what I wanted to say between each phrase or idea.

At the speaking event in Aosta on Sunday, I included in my personal story the account of my experience in El Salvador, the lifting of my deep depression caused by my experience of the joy and light of the families I worked with and dually my awareness of the immense suffering—loss of people to the civil war, the hurricane, and the earthquake—of the people there. I talked about the Western anti-depressant pop-a-pill culture and the way in which solidarity work that is done with compassion and in an interfaith way can open the heart and clear the mind. I then bridged this

At the University of Udine, I asked the packed classroom of conference attendees several questions: How many of you are high school students? About 30! How many are college students? The majority. I spoke a lot about student activism and the power of the individual to make a difference. I get the sense from the Italian youth that I speak with that they are wholly aware of what is going on politically, specifically with reference to the Berlusconi administration, Berlusconi’s control (i.e. ownership) of the media, the war in Iraq, the US imperialism. However, my Italian peers seem to feel unable to affect change with regard to these issues. Because colleges don’t have “campuses” the way we do in the US, it is harder to have clubs, associations, and school publications, such as a daily newspaper or journal, virtually don’t exist. I do learn that there is a Women in Black group in Udine, and there was a project called the Peace Tent for a while, which was set up at the weekly market in the plaza, the center of town, and featured info about the war. Because the war has dragged on for so long, this project is no longer in existence.

In Milan at the Peace House, I open with a particular thank you to the Peace House organizers who have launched the campaign for clemency for Stan Tookie Williams. I speak about my personal experience and about CODEPINK, and then I note that during a previous woman’s presentation, the CODEPINK Women for Peace banner half fell down so that only the “Women for” part was visible. I talked about how sometimes in our activism it is easy to be anti-Bush, anti-corporate America, anti-war, but we can lose sight of what we are for—peace, environmental justice, equality, joy, the celebration of diversity and unity. During Zalina’s presentation, she apologized for being so emotional. During my talk, I spoke about how I believe that it is this emotional vulnerability that our world so desperately needs, that this warming energy is what women can often offer, since it may still be more socially acceptable for us to emanate our emotions. I also spoke about the universal language of peace, which transcends our issues of communication between Italia, Russian, English, and also, at this event sign language—a couple with a baby came who were hearing impaired. I sat with them throughout the event and wrote down what was being said in mixed English, Italian, and pictograms. I discovered that they had come from far away to see Habiba, because she helped them when they were having difficulty getting pregnant, and now, after two years, they wanted her to meet their two-year-old child, Lapo.

At the Aosta event, I spoke at first about gratitude. Grandmother Sarah had said that Gratitude leads to Knowledge, and one of the government officials said that Knowledge leads to the absence of doubt or fear, which leads to no violence (it sounds a bit awkward because I am reversing what the latter said—rather than saying “without knowledge”…). I suggested that in our modern world our society has forgotten the importance of gratitude; in our rushing, our consumption of fast food affords no time for blessing; we rarely pay enough gratitude to our mothers, to our ancestors, to the earth that feeds and holds us. I then talk about the lack of gratitude that we—the US—must have to continue to fight a war based on lies on the very soil that was the cradle of life, fertile Mesopotamia, where the currently political borders of Iraq are now situated. Then I add that from gratitude we arrive at inspiration, and inspiration leads us to dream, to hope, and to work for change. I talk about how peace is not only the absence of violence, but is the cultivation of compassion, kindness, friendship, and respect. This is why it was not enough for me to escape the suffering I experienced as a child; I needed to engage in activities affecting compassion and kindness outward (and inward). During this talk, I incorporated into my personal story my work in El Salvador, my depression during college, and a conversation about how even amidst all the suffering I witnessed in the families I had worked with in Salvador—loss of life from the 12 year civil war, the hurricane, the earthquake, and damaging development initiatives from foreign superpowers—there was a pervasive joy and a celebration of life that was astounding. I said that it is this quality of joy that we must cultivate in our activism, so that we know what we are fighting for, and we embody the spirit of peace. I talked about how this spirit of humor and celebration was what enticed me to want to work with CODEPINK, and then I went through my CODEPINK spiel, including the pillars of war and how we are working to chip away at the foundation and build a new paradigm. I said that we must all be midwives of peace, assisting our loved ones, and our enemies, in the spiritual and practical birthing or manifestation of peace. This means also helping those in power—men, presidents, terrorists, etc.—find peace. I brought up my concern that often people go to conferences and lectures and become intrigued and inspired, but leave and go back to their lives, business as usual. I held up the sign up sheet and encouraged folks to sign up and also to put down a new year’s resolution for peace in the notes section. At the beginning of the event the regional senator spoke about how the Aosta region is known for its mountains, mountains which carry a deep mystic nature, and also hold the history of warfare, as they were a strategic battle staging ground. I added to this description the metaphor of a mountain as a power hierarchy, and I talked about how what we so desperately need are not more powerful solitary leaders, but rather a new paradigm in which people work together and feel empowered to affect change in their everyday lives. I reminisced about the Peter Pan fable in which the children are asked to clap if they believe in fairies, and told that every time a child stops believing in fairies, a fairy dies. I asked the audience to clap if they believed in peace, and I talked about how if we stop believing that a world without war is possible, then indeed more innocent people will continue to die. And then I reasserted that it is not enough to believe, we must act. I held up the day’s local newspaper and showed the audience an article about Alice Walker and then read the last paragraph from her essay in our book, which talks about making peace with joy. After this event many people had questions and wanted to sign up for CODEPINK. The local government gave us each a big, colorful book with photos of Aosta and a history (with English!) of the region. I was intrigued to learn that Aosta is an independent region within Italy and has been independent since after WWII. As an independently governed region, they are financially autonomous, using their own discretion to spend collected tax income, and they make their own local laws, school systems, and healthcare facilities. If only we could do that in California…

On the last day we speak in Torino at a high school built in a building that used to be a bomb manufacturing facility—talk about transformation! I have a short amount of time to speak so I focus on the young women in the audience and talk about having self-confidence and courage. Then I ask the whole group to raise a hand if they are activists; of course, there are almost no hands in the air. So I ask if anyone has helped their parents during a difficult time, then if they’ve helped a friend in need, if they’ve done something to make the earth a more beautiful place, to protect the environment—recycling, etc., and finally if they’ve spoken out when they saw something unjust happening. By the end of all these questions, every hand has gone up at least once. So then everyone is an activist, I tell them. I talk about how being an activist is looking out for the common good for your community, and how one person can become an activist by transforming individual acts for the family or for friends into acts for the larger town or country or the world. I talk about the way that military recruitment works in the US and why we think that while the US is fighting offensive wars based on lies, the military is not a real job opportunity.

Finally, at the end of every event, I encourage the participants to take action, and I list some of the actions from our 10 things to do to stop the next war now essay by Medea in the book.

These are my favorite passages from the CODEPINK Stop the Next War Now book to quote during the speaking events:

"We were women and children who loved ourselves in the form of Iraqi women and children because we knew that to love ourselves as humans meant to love ourselves as all humans. We understood that whatever we did to stop war, we did it not for the 'other' but for a collective us. The heart enjoys experiencing the liberating feeling of compassion; it actually expands and glows, as if beaming its own sun upon the world. That is the warmth our cooling emotional world so desperately needs to preserve its humanity. It is the savoring of the ecstatic nature of impersonal love that lets the peacemakers of the world do our job. It is this love whose inevitable companion is not only peace, but happiness and... joy." --Alice Walker

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." --Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

"The new paradigm will not be about conquering people, but about collaborating with people. It will not be invading people, it will be inviting people. Not occupying, but offering, inspiring, and serving people. In the new paradigm, there will be time to feel, to heal, to grieve. Unexpressed grief often becomes violence. Expressed grief becomes wisdom. As a nation, instead of grieving over September 11, we retaliated. We bombed." --Eve Ensler

"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." --Eleanor Roosevelt

"Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age." --Gloria Steinem

"We, the women of one country, will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." --Julia Ward Howe, 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation

"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. It is vital to mourn for the victims of this government but not at the expense of losing our sense of humor. Our ability to laugh coincides directly with our ability to fight. If we can make fun of it, we can transcend it." --Margaret Cho

"You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don't.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly."
--Rumi, 13th century

Zalina Tauchelova

Zalina lost her two daughters, 8 and 15 years old, in the terrorist attack of a school in Beslan, Chechnya, one year ago. On the first day of school, terrorists seized the school and held the children and teachers hostage before detonating bombs. In only four days after the attack (Sept. 1-4, 2004), the mothers of these children had organized themselves to find the truth about the attack and to see justice done. The Mothers of Beslan is a group that epitomizes political activism from personal suffering. Zalina tells us that she wants to bring mothers from all over the world together to make their voices heard so that tragedies such as this will not be forgotten or repeated. The Mothers of Beslan met with Putin, but Putin has yet to fulfill his promise to find the truth about the terrorism. Zalina said that one of the most difficult things was to see the mother of the terrorist who bombed the school bless her son before he went off to do this terrible act. Costanzo made a film called Don’t Forget Beslan that documents the tragedy.

Throughout the trip I parallel Zalina’s story with Cindy Sheehan’s suffering and activism. Yet somehow I cannot get past the fact that Zalina’s children were so young. I know that suffering is suffering and a child is not supposed to die before her mother, no matter how old, but coping with the loss of such young people is infinitely more challenging to me.

On the last night of the trip, I asked Anna to help me talk with Zalina, and we sat on the lime green plastic couches in the lobby of the hotel and I held up a magnifying lens to my heart so that Zalina could see inside and her brightness shone through the glass and burned a spot into my heart and I will never forget her. I could see the painful comparison in Zalina’s eyes when she looked at me, most painfully when I was laughing and she wistfully glanced sideways at me, looking up from a bite of food or peering over the car seat. That last night Zalina confirmed my suspicions—she told me that my smile reminded her of her older daughter, and that she believes that if her older daughter had the chance to grow up, she would be a lot like me. She gave me her daughter’s favorite candy and told me that when I come to Moscow she will show me a photo of her daughters at Christmas time. Since their death, Zalina does not celebrate Christmas or New Years the same way. She and Olga also do not sing because they are in mourning. I tell Zalina about my depression and suicidality, and how my saving grace was the image of how sad my mom would be if I took my own life, if I were no longer with her. I told Zalina that now I believe that it was not only for my mom that I saved myself, but also for her, and that I look forward to continuing to work for peace with her in the future.

One day I will go to Moscow, and maybe I will find the remains of my father’s family’s piano store and maybe before I go I will really make peace with my father because peace is inseparable from our internal lives, and then I will work to bring all these mothers together, and also the daughters of the struggle. I will meet the Mothers of Beslan and the Committee of Mothers of Soldiers. I will listen to Russian punk rock and wear a big jacket with fake fur. I will bring the message of peace and solidarity from the US.

And maybe someday Zalina and I will sing together.

Habiba

Habiba is an expression and a sound and not containable in a written summary. Habiba is a woman overflowing with love and compassion and jokes and very very powerful healing. Habiba is at once both mystical and grandmother-esque. She is the ultimate babushka. Habiba is clear, she is a channel and a vessel of light and so there is not chit chatter and time is truly intentional. Habiba is a large woman who wears long velvet mumus that are embroidered with silver and gold string. She has two gold necklaces: Madonna and the Yin Yang symbol, emblematic of her understanding that the divine is one—Allah, Muhammad, Jesus, Adonai, Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, all one. Habiba has a magnetic bracelet that helps her mind and body be aligned. She has two big gold rings with large, shimmering stones, and she has hair that is black like an Arabian horse’s mane. She paints her face with thick black eyeliner and crimson lip liner and when she laughs I think the whole world is going to quiver with joy. Her light tickles even the most shaded areas. Every day Habiba carries a mala, or rosary, and she has a variety of different strings of beads. Many are evil eye protectors, and one, my favorite, has white beads with black Arabic lettering describing different Muslim prayers on each bead. I ask Habiba if women are ever whirling dervishes, because I love to spin and dream of learning the art of Sufi whirling. Habiba tells me that women only dance in this way when a child dies; they dance so that the spirit of the child can go up to the sky safely. Habiba says, “The important thing is not how to use the word or silence, but the way we use the word or silence.” I can feel Habiba and I communicating even in the silence. To do her healing work, Habiba whistles on people’s heads, uses cupping on the back, hypnotizes, and much more. Habiba usually sees up to 100 people a day at her home for healing. Habiba says that people come for the healing and leave her with a greater sense of faith and love for the divine. We see a documentary that Costanzo made about Habiba’s work.

Grandmother Sarah

Grandmother Sarah opens the conference in Udine with a ceremony. Since her luggage has been lost in Paris, she is unable to set up her altar and sage us. She is deeply distraught, but also calls on each of to find the altar inside ourselves, which I find to be what is most needed for me in that moment.

In every one of Grandmother Sarah’s ceremonies/talks, she expresses a great amount of gratitude, nyaweh, which she often linked to thanks for the sun and also the sun that shines from within us. I find that the Italian culture is also very fond of expressing gratitude—a large amount of time at the beginning of each event is devoted to thanking everyone from the individuals behind the logistics to the state of Italy. Grandmother Sarah spoke about how we each must take the initiative to speak to our ancestors, to contact our grandparents. She described how life is embodied in the figure of the turtle—the tail is the beginning of conception, 0-7 are the formative years, and up and up to the head, the spiritual realm.

Maria Fedulova

Russia is a country that has compulsory military service for young men, but has no Veteran’s Administration, the way we do in the US, so that vets get little, if any, assistance. Eleven years after the war in Chechnya began, in 1989, mothers of soldiers gathered in Moscow to discuss what to do about their children who would surely be sent to Afghanistan to fight. Maria Fedulova helped to start the Mothers of Soldiers organization to help veterans and to prevent young people from going to war. The organization effectively stopped 600 young people from going to Chechnya to fight. The government does not help soldiers find jobs, and many become addicts. In 1996, the Mothers of Soldiers began a campaign for a voluntary, rather than compulsory, military service. They have successfully gained legal support so that boys who go to study in the university don’t have to go into the military. Maria described how all wars start with men and finish with women; it is women that often do the clean up work and take care of the wounded. Maria said that her group tried to stay away from politics, but considering what they had been through, it became very difficult to stay away, so they engage in the political struggle to affect change. They have now helped start a political party to campaign against military recruitment. Mothers of Soldiers is funded by Soros in the US and often the organization is helped by journalists who look for sponsors for the young vets who need surgery and other resources.

Maria has lived in hell—she goes into Chechnya and negotiates with the combatants for the release of prisoners or dead bodies. While I never really got her full story, I did understand that in one situation, she was involved in the negotiation process for the trade of prisoners for dead bodies. Chechen culture requires that the dead be buried within one day of their death, a cultural law to which the Russian soldiers paid no heed. In this case, the Russians crushed the bodies with tanks, so the Chechen combatants murdered the hostage POWs. This is hell—where hate is matched by hate.

Maria is one of the strongest women I have ever encountered. Even with the language barrier, I understand that she is a force to be reckoned with; she is powerful beyond measure and I believe that she is both persuasive and stubborn. She is weathered by a thousand images of torture and risky situations—you can see in the lines on her face, in her darting eyes, in her shoulders. But you can also see that she has absolutely not given up, that she is hopeful beyond belief and wholly determined to change the military situation in Russia. On the last night at the fancy Christmas dinner I get to sit next to Maria. Maria gets Tinkerbell sparkles in her eyes when she watches me laugh and eat strange new candies and foreign vegetables. It is like she is awestruck by my youthfulness. I am grateful for the way that I have been able to add such a lively presence to this group, though it feels a little funny to constantly be like the bambino of all these materi.

I discuss the CODEPINK plans for international protests on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2006, to ask US Embassies to help stop the war in Iraq. We come up with the idea of having women in the US protest at the Russian embassy asking for answers and reparations for the Beslan terrorism and women in Russia protesting at the US embassy against the war in Iraq… both in solidarity with each other and for peace. We also talk about having a reality tour to Russia, and about meeting again to continue this work.

Liz Rivera-Goldstein

Liz called me about two weeks before the Donne di Pace trip to invite me to come on the tour. I have known Liz for almost a year through the counter-recruitment movement. Throughout this time I have been inspired by her dedication to working for peace, and she and I have had meaningful conversations about our challenges in finding a balance between work and self-care. Granted I did reconnaissance work before coming on this tour, but I still consider my decision to go on the trip to be partially a leap of faith based on my trust in Liz. Every moment I spent with Liz in Italy confirmed in me the sense that she is one of the trustworthiest, strong, and inspiring people I have ever met.

In her talks, Liz speaks about the counter-recruitment movement in the US and why it is important that kids know the truth about the military. Liz tells her personal story about her childhood suffering, her journey as a midwife, which led her to realize that peace begins with birthing babies in a non-violent way—at home and not at the hospital, and her work with her children. Liz home-schooled both of her children, and as a school project for them, she helped them start a local group called Teen Peace in their hometown of Port Townsend, Washington. In this group, rather than give her own political opinion, Liz poses provocative questions to the kids and teaches them what it means to be a conscientious objector. Liz speaks about the rift between youth and Vietnam-era activists within the peace movement. Liz says that the future is in the hands of the youth who refuse to fight.

Liz often talks about the role of mothers in the making of global peace. She tells me, “Mothers are amazing; don’t get us mad!” Indeed, Liz is a remarkable woman, a phenomenal spirit, and I look forward to continuing to work with her.

Olga Takaeva

Olga is a rosy, sweet woman who is a member of the Russian Duma and a representative to Italy. She said that you really get to know who your friends are in moments of pain. She is proper, professional and cheery and though I do not get know her well during the trip, I am grateful for her presence.

Natalia Gouzieva

Natalia (called Natasha) is the Russian-Italian translator for the trip. I like her a lot because she puts up with my bad Italian, my stumbling through communication and charade hand gestures. She and I are eager to communicate with each other about everything from the weather to the Russian ballet to our houses and families. I tell her about how I want to go to Moscow to see where my father's family came from. She asks me questions about California. I am forever grateful to Natalia for all her help with translation--indeed if she had not been present I would not have been able to communicate with the other Russian women most of the time. Natalia has a big fur coat and when we were in Venice waiting for Costanzo to get the car Natalia saw me shivering and she wrapped me in her coat and held me close to her until it was time to leave. I cannot remember the last time someone was so attentive to my warmth and wellbeing in that way. Natalia's daughter is a model in Milano, so she is also very familiar with the geography of the area, which is especially helpful when Costanzo and the car's computer automated map system have a falling out... ;-)

Natalia Molebasti

Natalia is a spoken word poet and activist from Johannesburg, South Africa. Natalia was only with the Donne di Pace tour during the 2-day conference at Udine, but in that brief amount of time, her strong character left a lasting impression on me. Natalia performed her poetry to John Coltrane and to a South African female singer’s work. When she performed “In the name of time,” the music was perfectly aligned, the chorus repeating the words “time, time, time,” as Natalia spoke them. During the second day of the Anam Cara conference, Natalia instigated a moment of silence for those suffering from AIDS, particularly in Africa, and Costanzo added also a moment of silence for the death of the children in the terrorist attack in Beslan, for an indigenous poet who recently passed on, and for the innocent civilians and the soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq.

“Even though I pray,” Natalia writes, “I’m going to keep on working.” I was apprehensive about the interfaith aspect of the Donne di Pace tour, and the potential religious under-tone of the whole tour, but these fears were assuaged by the excellent balance of ceremony and clear political agenda in this group of women. These women make politics personal and bring political discourse out of the White House and other lofty, distant, and unreachable places and back into the house and the neighborhood and the heart. Natalia’s line of poetry really addresses this—yes we pray, and also we keep on going with our work in this life. Natalia has another line that I really like: “I would like to hear the children say…that they are bright and colorful…and that above all they want freedom.” Her poems are online at http://web.uniud.it/all/simplegadi/index.html.

Gulia

Gulia is Habiba's daughter-in-law and she is absolutely gorgeous and has a quiet power about her. Because she is the closest to my age on the tour, I feel that we share some unspoken bond. Then again, her children are almost teenagers and she spends most of her time looking after Habiba, so we do not share that much nor are we able to communicate that well with each other, given the language differences. She teaches me how to say "I love" in Uzbek: "Seva man..." and we doodle on the fogged up car windows as we wind our way up to Aosta.

Anna Saudin

Anna is the first new face I meet when I step off the airplane and into Milan. Anna is Costanzo's husband and the co-organizer of the tour. She speaks Italian, Russian, and English, so she is the link between us all. The first thing Anna tells me is that she is grateful for the Donne di Pace convergence because it allows her time to work with women who embody peace, unlike some of the female shamans she has worked with in Siberia and beyond. Anna is bright and fiery--she reminds me of a forest fairy or a tree spirit, with her dark flowing hair and henna highlights and her small frame. Anna coordinates all the logistics and press for the tour and remains impeccably humble about all of her work, though we know she is a goddess and a wonder worker.

Costanzo Allione

Costanzo is a dream worker, a visionary, a person who inspires laughter and greatness in the same breath. As an artist, with yellow circular glasses and a cartoony neck scarf, he is an exceptionally talented documentary filmmaker with an eye for color and a heart of gold. He has dedicated much of his life to the documenting of powerful female figures, mainly shamans and healers. I don't know exactly where Costanzo's love of life and passion for spreading women's voices comes from, but I know that it is going to continue to inspire all that bear witness to him and his work for a long time. Costanzo is a spiritual man, a fiery man, and a real CODEPINK man for peace. He marched with CODEPINK at the September 24th mobilization in Washington D.C. Costanzo and Anna have been organizing the Donne di Pace tour for the past five years, bringing women from the all over the world together to connect with each other and share their stories and work with Italians. Costanzo joked that maybe next year he will organize a Men of Peace tour--Costanzo is a lover of challenges. He is also my new Italian papa and trusted friend. He has all my respect and parting would have been more challenging had I not known that he frequents the US and that his spirit is everywhere.

Aosta Mountain Summit

On Sunday we go to the Catholic church in the Aosta town center. Sitting in church and looking at the emaciated, bloody Jesus hanging around makes me think of all the times the cross was used to murder and persecute, to oppress and to inflict pain. I wonder about how it is possible to be so austere and rigid in spiritual observance inside such a beautifully grand building with high arches and so much stained glass. If I close my eyes, I can see drums and dancing and so much soulful joy and gratitude to the divine here; when I open my eyes, I see the pulpit, the empty wooden carved seats where royalty must have sat in days past, and I feel my spine against the flat wooden bench and I see all the little old ladies in their Sunday best dresses and big fur coats. There are no children here. But then the service commences and the priest gives a lot of airtime to Donne di Pace, and even comes over to shake each of our hands and give us a saint card and a peace dove necklace during the service. I remind myself that messengers of the divine take all forms.

In the afternoon we speak in Aosta in a large presentation room that is very high-tech and fancy. Each of us gets a name placard while we talk and the videos are shown on a big screen. The government officials who speak talk about how this has been the month celebrating women, so there have been a variety of events honoring women’s work for peace, and our speaking event is the last event in this series. The day before, a female lawyer from Malawi spoke about her struggle in the Congo. She was the woman of the year in 2001.

Milan Morning

The snow covers not only the heap of trash in the side yard, but seems to dust the inside of my room—I wake up chilled and drowsy and stumble downstairs for a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant. I spend the morning emailing and doing work, attempting to debug our local coordinators listserve and writing letters.

At noon we lunch on bouillon and salad and Costanzo and I have a long conversation about genetically modified food, Jewish chicken soup, and healthy eating. Then Grandmother Sarah, Liz, and I talk about indigenous rights, and how white people from the USA should refer to themselves, and the problems with the misuse of land and the void of spirituality (not religion) from politics, and the multiple definitions of politics. I talk about what I see as the real meaning of “politics”: the communication and negotiation between individuals who comprise a community to meet the needs of each and the needs of the whole, with the recognition that these needs are not separate from the perceived “environment,” that as we are the earth, we are living symbiotically with each part of it.

By three we have reached the Milan Peace House, where we will give a 3-hour presentation. The Peace House was built by the city government to house offices, meeting space, and an art gallery for peace endeavors. It is a beautiful building that makes me think about our own Department of Peace movement in the US. Because of the snowy weather conditions, people are slow to arrive, and the group is smaller than expected. I am reminded of our March 8th Activist Training Camp in NYC, especially when Liz speaks about the importance of quality, not quantity. For some reason, after sitting in the overcrowded room in Udine for two days, the small group seems perfect. On each chair there is a postcard talking about Stan Tookie William’s case and on the back is a letter to Schwarzenegger asking for Stan to be pardoned. I am so impressed that Milan has taken on this campaign—I learn that Milan has been a center for the anti-death penalty movement in Italy, so it is natural for them to take interest in this case. I meet Luca, a spiritual progressive from the north. Grandmother Sarah opens the gathering with sage smudging and large eagle feathers. It is a very beautiful and touching experience.

Venice

Today is a day off, so to speak, though the relaxation yields excellent dialogue between the Donne di Pace. We leave Udine and journey to Venizia, Venice. We take a boat through Venice and we visit St. Mark’s Square. I was last here when I was about four years old. I remember standing in the square and feeding the pigeons, who eagerly ate the food and perched on my shoulders. The photo of that day later turned into a Christmas card that my parents sent out. I make many photos of me in the square so I can compare the younger image and the current one when I return to the States. The birds flock around Habiba. I make a photograph of Zalina with a bird perched on her arm and it makes me think about how she is still able to fly, even with the broken wing of her suffering for her children. Zalina later tells me that she feels that even when she is smiling and laughing in this world, in this body, she feels that her spirit is with her daughters somewhere else, above. We drink rich coffee and visit the church. I find a pink gondola and a pink theatrical mask. We eat a delicious lunch of mussels and on the walk back through the Venetian alleyways, I drift between conversations between Costanzo and Liz about punk rock bands, and the incomprehensible chatter of the Russian women, and the hum of this aquatic city, and finally the lapping of the water and the sound of my breath crystallizing on an exhale.

We drive to Milan at night and arrive just in time for dinner at the hostel at the edge of the city. The hostel is brand new and everything is comfortably Ikea-d out. I give up aspirations of going to the discothèque when the snow begins to pour out from somewhere I cannot see through my small window. The snow sticks and covers the heap of discarded furniture and building materials in the yard next to the hotel so that it looks like a beautiful modern sculpture all in white marble has suddenly been erected where trash once lay.

Liz and I stay up very late talking about our experiences in the counter-recruitment movement, and we talk with a group of young men about their stay in Milan and eat pizza. Then we discover how to use the Ethernet connection and download hundreds of emails.