.jpg)
Features
Journey to Jerusalem
by Charlie Compuesto
What would you do for love? Would you cross the desert? Climb the mountains? Enter a hostile land? Would you sleep in the homes of your enemies? Face your fears and attempt the unimaginable? For a group of international travelers, the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”
On March 1, 2009 in Israel’s Eilat Desert there began a walkabout, A Walk About Love to be accurate, and this walkabout invited people from all over the earth to take a little walk—about 1000 kilometers through Israel’s National Trail—all in the name of love. Walking, however, was just the beginning of what would happen in this journey. The walkers explored historic parks and forests, visited Bedouin villages, Jewish settlements, major cities and ancient ruins. A small group of courageous individuals broke from the walkabout to venture into the West Bank, an area known for violence and intolerance, and risked tearing the Walk About Love apart. All this and more to spread the message of love in a land, some would say, that needs love the most.
Who are these travelers? They are gypsies, musicians, artists, hippies, students, teachers and lovers. They are people united under one flag, with love in their hearts and fire in their souls. They are passionate about life and they are on a mission.
When I joined the Walk About, the group was already one month into a three-month journey and hard at work at the Children’s Democratic School in the southern city of Arad. Here they taught the local children the value of art, music, and environmental responsibility. They were also teaching each other dance, holistic healing, Qigong and other art forms.
As I entered the gates of the school, I was greeted by smiles and hugs and there I began my own journey. It was understood that this would be a special time for many people in the walk, so I took a deep breath and let it go. I could feel the energy around me and it was good. Music was in the air and it played through the night and into the early morning.
The morning came quickly and breakfast of oats, fruit and bread was served. We packed up our gear, formed a circle of over 100 walkers, sang songs of love and under a raining sky and a rainbow, we began our trek out of the city and into the desert.
The day-long hike offered moments for personal reflection and time to get acquainted with each other. Getting past the judgments and freely accepting and giving love were new experiences for me. I found that the more I allowed myself to give, the easier it was to receive. Soon the love began to flow.
The hike also offered time to experience the weather that changed from moment to moment. At any given time there would be hot sun, cool rain, gusty wind and finally, cold starlit nights.
By nightfall, we had crossed a desert, met with Bedouin shepherds and their livestock of sheep and camel, and we finally arrived at our destination: a little Arab village called Durigat. This night the village head not only shared his space, but shared his story of how he and his family, which included eight siblings, once lived in a cave with their donkey and other animals. He told us of how the village struggled against bureaucracy to modernize and how they were able to finally gain ground.
We, in turn, shared our mission of love and sang songs around the fire, just as it was done for hundreds of years under the same night sky.
The next morning as we were leaving, we were invited to the village school where the children would perform traditional Arab dances in our honor. Our next stop would be the Yatir Forest, where we would meet a Rainbow Gathering, a community of iconoclasts, bohemians and hippies whose ideals of peace and love are freely expressed.
The travelers I met at the Walk About and at the Rainbow Gathering had stories that would boggle my mind. Some had tales of leaving their homes with only their passports. Some had stories of how they’d left home as teenagers, while others told of how they’d decided to leave the nine-to-five workday that so many people choose. All have been traveling for several months and many have been traveling for several years.
They shared stories of the love they have for each other, for life and nature and for the people they’ve met along the way, in spite of the many struggles they’ve each endured.
We stayed with the Rainbow for a few nights and on the last night of the Gathering, there was serious talk of a small group of people planning to break from the Walk About to travel into the West Bank to extend the hand of peace and love to Israel’s Palestinian neighbors. Tempers flared and threats were made. Fears grew and were voiced. It was painful for me to see just how frightened our Israeli friends were of the people who lived not 40 kilometers from our present position.
Still, as the next morning came, we all walked out of the Yatir Forest to our next destination and shared an evening together. As the Walk About continued on its route, the group that was determined to move into Palestinian lands, now without a name, offered best wishes and said goodbyes, staying behind to plan the journey across the manmade borders separating two people.
The eve of the journey brought many questions to light. Where would we stay? Who would come to meet us? Where would we go for help? Each question was valid but bore no definite answers. Ultimately, we each knew we had to go, and so we did.
As a foreigner, it could be easy to say that the dangers for me weren’t real. For the Israelis, on the other hand, years of negative media and tales of death and violence were real enough to cause some to shake at the thought of continuing the mission. Love, courage and faith held the group together as we walked past the armed checkpoint into the West Bank.
The lands of the West Bank weren’t much different from the lands we walked through on the “friendly” side of the border. The sun was still hot, the winds chilly and the ground rocky and difficult to cross.
The Palestinians we met along the way offered tea, food, shelter and luck. As night fell, we made our way to a Jewish settlement were we had friends. To our surprise, we were turned away into the darkness. This challenged my own power and even my willingness to forgive the settlers, but with the love and support of the group, I realized that I had to let go of judgments, and so I learned to forgive.
The following morning brought the promise of hope as we headed toward Samoa, our first Palestinian village. Along with a handful of Palestinian friends we’d made along the way, we paraded into the village center. We brought with us music, dance and love and in return we received smiles, laughter, and a curious following of cheering children and some young adults. On this day, we overcame the stereotypes and fears we each had as we continued on with our journey.
By this time, Holy Week was upon us and I decided to leave the group to go on my own quest, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the city that had been calling me for several years. So I, along with my friends JK and Mohammed, went ahead. We were invited to have dinner and stay the evening with Mohammed’s family at his home in Beit Omar, a Palestinian town that rests between the cities of Hebron and Bethlehem. Here I finally had the chance to ask an Arab family about their thoughts on love. They told me that love is the only thing that matters. They said that they only want to live their lives in peace and that they wish peace for all people. This sounded much like the thoughts of the people I’d met on the trail and it was beautiful.
In the morning, we had breakfast, thanked Mohammed and his family, and JK and I left for Bethlehem. We briefly explored Bethlehem and decided to walk to Jerusalem like the pilgrims of ancient times.
JK and I had met in Arad when I joined the Walk About, and now we were traveling to Jerusalem where we spent Passover, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. While here, we met travelers from Europe, stayed with a local family, and spoke with many people about their thoughts on love, all of whom agreed that love and forgiveness is the answer to the many problems in Israel and with the world.
On Easter Sunday, after the morning celebrations, my pilgrimage was complete. JK and I left the Holy City for a southern beach along the Mediterranean Sea where the rest of the Walk About was engaged in a cleanup effort after a week-long festival. The water was a welcome sight and I enjoyed a day in the sun and many hours by myself as I mentally prepared myself for the journey with Walk About Love that would last several more weeks.
It seems that this journey, a voyage out of the United States, out of my home, out of my comfort zone, had instead become a journey inward. I still don’t know what brought me to this land but I do that know it borders on cliché, or perhaps even crazy, when I tell people that I feel I was called here. I knew that I would strain the relationships I had with many friends, business associates and family members who just wouldn’t or couldn’t understand how I, in spite of my obligations at home and at work, felt that I really didn’t have a choice in coming here. I knew that I would have to prepare myself physically and mentally for the challenges before me. I knew that my lifelong beliefs of what is right or wrong, what is conventional or unconventional, what I want and what I need, would all go out the window.
I was faced with questioning many things that are usually left to philosophers and great leaders. I am neither. Not then and definitely not now. I am just a man who hopes for the best for his brothers and sisters. I am a man who reflects on the teachings of Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Dr. King and others with more faith than doubt. I am a man who wonders if the needless suffering, the oppression of compassion and forgiveness, the spilling of tears and the spilling of blood in this land of so many gifts will ever end.
And so the thoughts continued to churn in my mind as the day passed. The sun began her descent and a thin marine layer began to move in over the sea. I noticed that two children had come to play on the beach in front of me and I was amused at the sight of them running to and from the waves. I remember being suddenly saddened to know that only a few kilometers away was the Gaza Strip and that these children that now held toys in their hands might someday be holding guns if things do not change for the better. I struggled to put those thoughts aside.
Evening eventually came and as we were leaving, I asked my friend Ben, a teenaged traveler from the United Kingdom, what he thought it would take to bring peace to this land. “A miracle,” he replied with a cool British accent and a chuckle, “but I believe in miracles.”
So do I, I thought to myself after a long pause. So do I.
To learn more about Walk About Love, please visit www.walkaboutlove.com. Charlie Compuesto is an explorer, writer and co-founder of The Love Company, an apparel company whose mission is to help the world come closer to peace through simple but bold statements of love. To learn more, please visit www.thelovecompanyusa.com.