Topic #9: On Fear, Pain & Transformation

Detained, alone, afraid
On lands that were not my own
My face covered in shadows
In a remote prison
Screams punctuated the heavy air
Beads of sweat clung to my body like tears
Suddenly I  became hysterically blind
thinking of my own pending torture
covering my mind In cobwebs of horror
My captors shining a light on me
My release from captivity a blur of emotions
A soul full of sorrow – A shadow inside my eye,
To remind me of my ordeal.

MP

Going too far in the right direction was not new to me. Through many years of traveling in Africa I was drawn to visit a fascinating and unique ruined old spiritual center in a country in Africa where I was clearly unwelcomed. Needless to say I was drawn to this destination, or better said driven and compelled to get there. This drive was definitely not new, it drove me throughout my life to ignore obvious obstacles, to dismiss basic rules, and deny extreme dangers.

Perhaps the most terrifying was the expected of being arrested and detained on some unclear grounds in a foreign land with no language or knowledge of the culture or the terrain. My passport, at that time was definitely not helpful, and probably put me at high risk. I was detained in a remote prison, not knowing the language, left to wander around only wearing underwear, with hundreds of men around me but with no common language or familiar culture. At night I was housed in a 6ft x 6ft cement cell, sitting on the floor with my back to the walls with three more prisoners with no way to comment, hearing the horrible, extremely loud, painful screams of tortured prisoners in the next building neither facilitated a restful night sleep nor peace of
mind.

Read the full story: https://drzur.com/being-hysterically-blind-in-the-face-of-torture/

Finding my grandmothers still warm, dead body…..and following the crisis workers voice filling the room through the phone, directing me to place my mouth over her dead lips to start artificial respiration. Her toothless, sunken mouth was disgusting to me but it was pure love that kept my own mouth moving toward hers. I was only seconds away from feeling the meeting of our lips when I felt the strong hand of a peace officer on my shoulder pulling me back…her voice saying “let me take care of that.” It was only my mind, directed and fueled by a pure love that got me that close in the first place. 🙏

"What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."
Don Miguel Ruiz

Before and After

A time before and a time after:

Before, I fell into your loving arms.
Before, I was held by your charms.
Before, I conceived your sons.
Before, I became consumed by your needs.
Before, I grew up in your world.
Before, I gave up me to be loved by you.

After your death,
I faced my loss,
My pain,
My fears,
My aloneness,
My own emptiness,
The depth of my own unmet dreams.

After you,
Slowly, gently,
Emerged me.

I turned 80 in May.
Now, more than before,
Every day means one day more
Every day means one day less.

The anxiety disorders listed in psychiatry’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual can be summed up as each one being a “fear of (________).” Fill in the blank, you've got the diagnosis. One element they have in common is: avoidance. In one way or another, they avoid their fear...desperately. Because of this, they never experience the fact that panic naturally comes to an end. The result is that their fear controls them and limits their potential.

“Normal” people do this, too. Every day. All the time. Fear is supposed to keep us safe. But, when does “safe” become a problem? The truth is, to make a change in your life, if you want to make a difference, fear is the price of admission. It’s not just a question of facing your fear. You must *do* something about it...step forward and pass through it. Own your fear. Otherwise, it will own you. When you do this, though, typically someone will rise up to stop you. I mean really rise up and make "death threats." It might be another person or a group, or it might be you. Who knows what will happen if you do that? Don't be an idiot! Well, who does know? But, if you don’t do it, nothing will change in your life. You won’t change. No difference will be made. All that will be left is you and your fear, which you will desperately avoid.

Once again, we see that "normal" people and psychiatric patients really aren't all that different, after all. Stop fooling yourself on that point. And *do* something about your fear. It's entirely your choice.

Incest
Rootbound love
Love so small
You can die
A day at a time

I was with my uncle, Ofer, (all the way) with his piranha's adventure

During my visit to Israel in 2022 during memorial-day for the fallen soldiers I joined my best friend to his military units annual memorial-day ceremony on the Golan Hight where his small unit was surprised attacked in the 1973 war and found itself surrounded by hundreds of Syrian’s tanks and soldiers. I chose to walk into one of the dark underground tunnels in the old military base in an attempt to remember and re-live my battle experience in the 73 war in the Egyptian front across the Suez Canal. As expected, walking into the dark, long and narrow tunnel, I encountered strong bodily memories of tunnel fighting, of keeping the non-stop the intense fire upfront/ahead while stepping on enemy soldiers’ dead bodies. These memories were intense, fortunately they did not activated any of my PTSD, on which I ‘worked’ for many years, after I finally realizes the stupidity of the belief I was indoctrinated with, that “Israeli paratroopers do not get PTSD”

I listened to the answering machine
message so many times
Just to hear your voice again
A single phrase repeated in my mind
Living in my soul
And then it was deleted, and so were you
Memories of baseball games and late night barbecues
Fade from vivid colors to charcoal gray
I now see your name printed on marble at a lonely cemetery
And your face delights, yet haunts, my dreams.