29.10.
A walk through the city for last errands and preparations for San José de Apartado.
Many beggars are on the road. We meet a beggar, whom you can see that he has retained a certain lively vitality, it is as if you meet in his eyes Vasudeva – the living life. Others are aggressive and demanding. It is a high exercise to keep the heart open and yet not to be torn away from it. We are warned not to give money to anyone on the street. We still follow our inner guidance.
A huge demonstration passes through the main street. It is a demonstration against the president, Gustavo Petro.
It reminds me of how we traveled to Moscow many years ago, moved by perestroika, and were greeted first by a raging crowd against Gorbachev, hysterically shouting for Yeltsin. One has the feeling that the collective unconscious is moving through the streets, following the hypnosis of a powerful system: we want everything to remain as it is! We want the downfall!
To be highlighted from this day: A wonderful breakfast and very lively conversation with our host Margarida. She takes care of her garden in the courtyard with great devotion. She belongs to the group of people who are looking for transformation only on a spiritual way. There is no more political faith, no more strength for political action. And yet she believes that we are in the midst of a transformation that will radically change humanity. She lives in a calmness and attention to the small things and so she hosts us lovingly and gratefully!
The highlight is a moving conversation with Gloria Cuartas, who has recently become the Director of Unity for Peace Agreement Compliance. In this position, she is jointly responsible for curbing violence against leaders and former combatants.
Gloria talks engagingly about her new role. She believes that the new government under Gustavo Petro is, for the first time in decades, a government that truly seeks a humane way of life and is determined to do everything possible to end the violence, not just on paper. They want to do everything they can to end corruption and violence and also to stop exploiting the country. She is very aware of the great challenge and seeks and keeps contact with Tamera because she knows that the changing force on this earth will only come about through decentralized models that try to find out on all levels what humanity and non-violence mean. It is a question of the spiritual readiness for self-transformation, and at the same time it is a question: how do we create structures that are able to make inner and outer peace possible.
It is moving to see this woman. Rather rejuvenated, alive and so engaged. She has the task of simultaneously getting to know, bringing together and supporting all the peace engaged groups. She describes the pain of the many people who felt betrayed by the last government and live a life in the most difficult conditions. Over 340 leaders alone have been killed in recent years. While the world believed that Colombia was exemplary in implementing a peace agreement, the misery, the violence, the poverty increased more and more. Now a new wind is blowing out of the government, and they will do everything they can in the four years they have to chart a new course.
Gloria describes with heartfelt dedication how many committed people she meets, especially women from the former guerrilla movement, she describes working with indigenous people, and with people who are committed to finding ways to cooperate with nature, also in the field of technology. From 1995 -1997 she was mayor of Apartadó, through her we in Tamera became aware of the peace community. She does not close her heart to the misery of this world, she grows with it.
She is aware that the new government will encounter a lot of resistance. But the people who have worked for a long time in the armed resistance have matured, they know that violence is not an answer to the urgent questions of the time. They are concerned with a deep willingness to actually gather within themselves those forces that are capable of initiating a nonviolent revolution.
Basically, Gloria sets an example for me of what we are also looking for in the “Defend the sacred Alliance”: to combine spiritual research and political action, to recognize the earth with its many visible and invisible beings as a cooperating partner. It is no longer about isms, but giving the power of life a chance.
I love her for that. Like many resistance fighters before her, such as Jaques Lusseyran or Etti Hilesum, she does not give up! She goes her way in devoted sympathy! Thank you for that.
28.10
Finally. We have arrived in Colombia.
In a small pension, Anandamayi with a beautiful courtyard. Everything is filled with memories. Here we met many committed peace workers! In the meantime the pension has closed. Corona has left its mark. That we can be here is an exception. Margarida, who runs this place with much love, loves us and our work so much that she opened her doors for us.
So we live in a small room – watch the hummingbirds and prepare ourselves mentally, physically and also quite factually for everything to come.
The most challenging thing so far has been to do everything we can to be online at all times.
I mean both the mental “online” and the Internet.
Yesterday, trying to get on the internet was blocked everywhere – it didn’t work in the whole house. The internet is very unstable all over Colombia right now.
When it doesn’t work, you can feel how much it has already become a habit to send messages anywhere in the world at any time.
As inside so outside! Sometime we will be dependent perhaps completely on the spiritual inner WEB. But still I would like to connect these two levels. I have always the picture before my eyes that microcosm and macrocosm change together. I pray that also here the levels unite and that we also here see through unconscious enemy images or wrong attachments and let go. Besides all the critical aspects of the Internet, it helps information to come into the world that might not otherwise go into the world so easily. There are so many people around the world that I hold in my heart – sometimes it’s great to be able to express it through the Internet. So I am looking forward to the upcoming webinars and also the Global Grace Day.
I am in a learning process to use this level more and more consciously as well!