One Nation
In the high mountains of Turkey, there was a gathering that some would call miraculous and unbelievable, but seemed for everyone that was there so natural, as if it couldn't have been any other way.
In those mountains we sat around a campfire, Israelis, Turks, and Persians, about one hundred men and women, young and old. We sang, cooked, ate and laughed, played and danced like best friends, as if we were one nation with no state borders, a nation at peace.
How I Got There
My good friend Gabriel suddenly arrived at my weekly Kabala lesson. Gabriel has a sense for locating places in which our society can grow. Therefore, I pay close attention to his suggestions. "Are you coming to Turkey? It's one of the most important things going on right now. We're meeting with people from Iran, with our Persian brothers. Come!" he tells me. And so a few days later my wife and I find ourselves making our way through a small remote village in the mountains west of Anatolia.
Hours of travel bring us to a small Turkish village so rural that the paths beyond it can only be navigated with a tractor. A villager communicates with us using hand gestures, and takes ten Israelis at a time, crowded into a cart with their camping gear by tractor up the mountain. We climb higher and higher. With each new turn we are sure we have arrived, but who ever chose this place opted for a truly remote location.
Rainbow
The Rainbow Tribe began in the 1960's in the United States. Rainbow gatherings don't have a defined structure or leadership. Everything is done for free, and out of good will. People hear about gatherings by word of mouth and arrive from every corner of the world. And, in every Rainbow Gathering that you come to you will be greeted with "Welcome home."
At gatherings, volunteers build a communal kitchen in the outdoors. They also collect money into a magic hat in which every person contributes what he wants and can, and then supplies are purchased at the nearest town. One day there might be a lot of money in the magic hat and the meal will be especially lavish, and another day there might be little money and the entire circle will feel it in his or her belly, but the food is divided equally, everyone eating what there is.
During a Rainbow you learn how to be in nature, how to be part of a circle, respect the space of others, and how to sing prayers before meals. You also learn that the work that needs to be done can only be accomplished through good will and joy, and that part of the "work" is also about creating a positive atmosphere. Therefore, if for example you are a musician, you are likely to find yourself making music for people peeling potatoes in the kitchen and this may be your contribution to the community effort.
A few years ago there was an International Rainbow Gathering in Turkey where Israeli friends were surprised to meet Rainbow friends from Iran that challenged all their preconceptions about Persians.
There was a definite feeling that this was a gathering that should be repeated. And that is how we found ourselves having many conversations with new Persian friends and discovering some sophisticated and open minded people with a wonderful sense of humor.
Revelations About Iran
One evening we had a conversation with Istahar. Istahar told us about the place she grew up in. Her parents used to read Osho to her in Persian, and sometimes translated and published Osho's materials in Iran. She grew up in a house of spiritual people who aspires to create an Osho-style ashram in Iran. According to Istahar, books and other materials pertaining to the spiritual world, yoga and meditation classes, avant-garde theater performances - a whole world of open life reminiscent of the Western spiritual world - exists underground in Iran.
Ishatar told us that it is illegal for a woman in Tehran to wear make-up in public. If a woman is caught wearing make-up she will be arrested by the police and thrown into jail, but many women do it anyway. They will not surrender their right to wear makeup; they go to jail and meet other women who were arrested for the same crime, and then are released after a day or two. The Iran prisons, in her words, have revolving doors - people come and go.
"I've been living with my boyfriend for two years now, even though it's technically forbidden. We have learned how to deceive the government and play the game in order to live the way we want and believe," she adds.
I have met with peace activist Muslims many times before, but meeting these people from Iran was a pleasant surprise. Unlike other occasions, I felt almost no cultural gap. To my surprise I didn't meet any supressed women or chauvinistic men that spoke about peace between nations without knowing how to have peace in their own homes.
Rather I met men that allow the women to be themselves, and spoke to us as friends, without victim or inferiority complexes. It seems to me that these people that live under extreme Islamic occupation passionately desire equality.
Peace Begins Within
Also these Rainbow people know peace is not a political slogan, but something that lives within, something that you project outwardly when you truly seek to live in awareness, without letting fear draw the map of your world.
Next year, 'inshAllah' we will met again in Turkey, the only county that both Israelis and Persians can easily visit without too much fuss.
Next year the gathering will be dedicated to deepening our connection. And, maybe we will even be blessed with a few Palestinians, and rainbow sisters and brothers from Kuwait or Qatar will join the Middle East peace celebrations...People that want to come together to live and be peace. Because, as one of the Persian woman said, "We are the Peace."