The First Tenant of Bearing Witness: Not Knowing

Author's Note: 
I meant to post this before going to Auschwitz, but I didn't have the heart/courage at that point. Posting retroactively and hope you will read. It is probably going to take me a while to write about the next parts of the trip--there is much to process, so I am going to it work out in my journal a bit until I feel inspired to share. Until then, enjoy:

~~~

Why am I here? Why am I going? And for that matter, where am I going? What am I doing? How am I going to pay for it? Is now the right time? Where are you going to stay? What language should I learn? How long should I go for? How do I get this Visa? "Why would anyone choose to go to Auschwitz?" Or to a grief retreat? Over and over again? What if you did something fun? Something light? Something relaxing instead?
Why How Where
When Who
What If But And
Why
Why
Why
Why?

What if it is actually dishonoring of my personal grief and healing process to move back into the grief of the collective too soon? What if I am going too fast?
But what if they are actually the same thing like they were at the grief ritual?
Or what if I am totally going to fuck up my whole psyche and undo all the work I've done to heal?
What if What if What if?

How the fuck am I supposed to know?!

I don't know.

I haven't known.

And maybe I won't ever fucking know.

I don't even remember the question now.

~~~

I do remember being a teenager, raging against humanity over the destruction of the planet, the desecration of beautiful for efficiency, for selfishness, ignorance, indifference. But had family, home, safety, security. Engaging with heavy dark things was hard, but I had enough resources, support, security, privilege, that I had the spaciousness in myself to engage with harsh global realities.

I do remember then being a young adult sobbing and sobbing at my altar after watching the documentary Black Fish. The agonizing cry the mother orca made from the aquarium tank when her baby was taken away from her echoed endlessly through my head like a memory of the ocean. I remember thinking I would break. I remember thinking the world would break. But I was even more resourced then, and I could face it.

I do remember being a college student in my last quarter and being blindsided by the longevity of the toxicity of nuclear particles and waste in the aftermath of Fukushima. I remember the horror and my frantic searching for resources, hope, direction. And I found them and I could continue to look.

And then something happened. Well, a bunch of things on top of one big one--something I'm not ready to share with the whole world--and suddenly my foundation, my security, my resources, my history, my sense of self, my sense of safety, my sense of place, my sense of "knowing" had all crumbled.

So the outside world got put on hold. No more crying over whales. No more being horrified about nuclear waste. No more politics. No more fighting against everything. I averted my gaze from external pain. For once. I had to. I had to surrender. I had to turn back to myself and begin a long journey home. I did not know where to start or where to go. I did not know how. I didn't know anything anymore.

~~~

This morning I slept in. When I woke up in my Royal Hotel room in Krakow, I felt bolstered by all the love shared by my community over social media, over the phone, and from my new friends here. I threw on the same clothes I've been wearing for a week, packed my day bag, and headed out. I don't use buses or trams in this city. My hotel is right between the main old town square to the north and Kazimierz (the Jewish District) to the south, so I can walk to everything I've wanted to see in a matter of minutes.

Today I walk north, through the thick of tourist town. I grew up in tourist towns: Sunriver, Oregon; North Bend, Washington; and now Port Townsend. It is always interesting to be on the other side. In Peru the tourism bothered me more than it does here, just because the economy in some of the towns in the Sacred Valley were so absolutely reliant on selling cheap inauthentic goods and tickets to previously sacred sites that I felt a little sick being there. Maybe that is true here too.

I look like a tourist, despite some effort to the contrary. But I guess I am one. I find a little café in an adorable tiny courtyard and am greeted cheerfully by a golden retriever. The loving greetings don't end. The couple who runs the place are incredibly kind and smile at me, which to be honest has been quite rare here. And the heather plants on the table make me feel right at home. Even the music is familiar, ticking down some of my all-time favorites. I sip a latte and eat "toast" which is like a delicious open-faced sandwich. This is a short and welcome reprieve from the unfamiliar, the hasty, the harsh, the un-delicious, and all the not knowing.

But yes, it is short. I am heading to a museum with more fervor and anticipation than I ever have before. This museum is not a place I would normal be interested in, except maybe in college when I was super stoked on city planning. This is the Rynek Underground--the historical remnants of the old old city, as I understand it. I don't really know what it's about, nor do I have too much interest in learning a lot of detail about that part of history. Yet part of me is very interested and almost desperate to go there. Why? Because I have been there before, in a dream.

~~~

Yesterday was the hardest day on the trip so far. I attended the Zen Peacemakers, "Tenants of Bearing Witness" Workshop. The day before I'd gone to a powerful Council Workshop where I met the first arrivals for the Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz. More people attended this second workshop, giving me a better sense of the energy that is gathering as we approach our departure for Auschwitz on Monday.

We introduced ourselves by sharing names and why each of us is here. When it was my turn I recalled that the only strand of "yes I am going on this trip" that didn't break along the way was a dream I had--a dream that invited me to come here to Krakow. A dream I couldn't ignore. In the dream I escaped from a concentration camp. I was recaptured and made prisoner in a nearby underground place with a very specific/vivid look and feel. Months later, when I was researching this retreat I came across a picture of that same underground place on a link from the Zen Peacemakers' website for The Rynek Underground Tour. Needless to say this spooked me right out of my chair. Seeing a place that I remember in a city I have never been to... I couldn't deny the power of that. Every other reason I wanted to come could have been set aside, but that image wouldn't let go of me. And so, here I am. That is the clearest reason I have, if it is any "reason" at all.

After introductions in the workshop we began to unpack the Three Tenants of Bearing Witness: 1) Not Knowing. 2) Bearing Witness 3) Taking Action. Shortly we were led outside for our first activity which was meant to be an experiential practice in the first tenant: Not Knowing. One participant was to blindfold another and lead them around the city for 20 minutes. I got paired with one of the workshop leaders--someone with whom I've feel a resonance with. She was blindfolded first.

Leading was astonishing. Barbara is short and moved slowly in her blindfolded state so I had to rein myself in. I had been powerwalking Warsaw for a week and suddenly I was moving at the pace of the pigeons searching for breadcrumbs between the cracks of Krakow's stone streets. In this slowness everything opened up: the light, the sounds, the shadows, coolness, warmth, space, air, the feel of varied surfaces beneath my feet. My eyes were open, but moving slowly and extending my care to include another body expanded my awareness enormously. Being aware of her lack of sight made me think of ways I could enhance her sensual experiences--what does the air and sound feel like in this alley way? Where might there be interesting smells? I felt unusually alert and awake.

~~~

Entering the underground is breathtaking at first. The sense of having been here before hits me hard and fills me. But it fades sooner than I would expect. At first, I run around trying to find the particular section from my dream. A security guard notices and scolds me for going too quickly through the exhibit--"just my opinion," he says, shrugging. I ignore him at first, but then remember the experience of slowing down on the street. I realize I might as well open my senses to this place and absorb as much as I can. So I slow down again, and start at the beginning.

What is see and feel is compelling in some ways for sure, but my capacity for remembering history is limited. I love looking at the hundreds of tiny artifacts they dug up: fishing hooks, knives, jewelry, coins, toys, and remnants of clothing. And the larger things too: a salt block, blacksmithing tools, scales, large slabs of raw material. I am struck particularly that the many layers of earth and cobble stone and dirt and fill (labeled with time period and material type) are called, of all things, "Witness Columns."

Halfway through I finally come across what I am looking for. It is a hallway of stone with metal detailing and railings, dim colored lights, and cells along the length of it. In the dream this is where I was held captive. The picture I had seen online didn't show into the cells, but the hallway was definitely from my dream. I have been wanting to peer around the corners of these stones for months now and here I am, finally. But when I look it is not the same as my dream. I am slightly disappointed, but decide there is more to look for here, I just don't know what it is yet. So I look at everything. I read all the plaques. I watch the videos. I look at the artifacts. I read again. I take pictures. And then I just spend time there.

But when I leave it is definitely with sadness. I have no more insight or knowing into the meaning of the dream synchronicity than I did before.

~~~

In Warsaw my dreams were out of control. They flew at my like ghosts. They were tiny and wild and often terrifying. I wasn't sleeping well. I was sleeping odd hours, and I found myself writing my dreams in the dark at various points throughout the night. Among a lot of chaos in my subconscious, I had one dream that was peaceful: I was encountered by a pregnant woman with an amazing presence. She wore a patterned top that revealed her belly, and a matching bottom. He face was chiseled and proud--her hair short and covered. The next day when I was looking for the Bridge of Lights, the Warsaw Bridge memorial, I found "her," enormous, on a billboard. By my map she was on the same block the bridge should have been. I never found the bridge, but in looking for it, I found her.

My dreams on this trip continue to lead me, or find me like this--like nothing I have never experienced before. Maybe I never get to know what it is about, but so far, for some

reason, I am trusting that more than anything else. 

~~~

After the vivid sense-meditation of leading Barbara around the cobbled streets of Krakow, it was my turn to be led. I assumed this was going to be even more relaxing. When I was leading I noticed the subtleties of hand motion that could change her direction. It reminded me of my beloved fusion partner dance and realizing this I danced her, blindfolded in the plaza. Dancing, even briefly, felt great. But in partner dance following is my preference. I don't have to think, just feel. I love it. I love surrendering in that way in a container that feels safe. Partner dance has been a huge ally in helping me find my way home.

So when it is my turn, I am looking forward to being led. But once the blindfold is on and we start walking my whole body reacts. I am tense. I start tearing up. I am almost stopped in my tracks. I can't see. I don't trust. This person is going to take advantage of me. I am not in control. I am completely in someone else's hands. They could push me in front of a bus. I will lose everything. It has happened before. My mind goes wild.

I have a flash of knowing about what I need--communication and checking in--but that is not part of the exercise, we were explicitly told not to talk. And besides, so often when I have asked for what I need in the past I have not been met. So instead I shut down. My senses aren't enlivened, they are dead. I might as well be as zombie. I am triggered.

But I am more aware of when I get triggered these days, and I have tools. So I do my best to focus on senses. This is one of the ways I've learned to come back to myself. I try to do math to get out of my animal body and into my head so I don't act out in a way that isn't necessary. And then I try to pay attention to the feel of the objects my guide presses my hand against--stone, tree, plastic, metal. I touch them but I am not really feeling them. I am not relaxed enough. Leaves beneath my feet. Soft ground. Stone. Different kind of stone. Shade. Light. Warmth. Coolness. I try to name them as they come. But it is a practice of survival, not of enjoyment or immersion.

When I almost can't take it anymore we finally stop. We are asked to wait with our blindfolds until everyone is back. It is then I realize the tension I am holding. I breathe out hard and I start to cry. I realize that even though I have had a crash course in "not knowing" these past few years, and even though I feel I am navigating blindly through the dark all the time, and even though I actually literally walk through the woods without a flashlight all the time, and even though I have gotten pretty friendly with the unknown, I have been doing all of that by trusting myself.

It hits me hard. Trusting another, or trusting a container outside of myself to facilitate an experience as intense as Auschwitz when I can't even trust a loving being to lead my down the sidewalk--that is a level of not knowing that terrifies me. I am not sure I can do it.

~~~

My adrenal system has calmed down. I am sitting at dinner with Donna who is not afraid of going to Auschwitz. She, like me, has been diving in already--going to museums, watching documentaries, crying. She feels she is prepared. I have felt that way at times, but right now I am not sure.

Her personality reminds me of someone connected to my losses from a few years ago and I had immediately felt drawn to her in the council workshop. There was a safety and familiarity with her. Then she invited me out to dinner after the workshop was over, after I had cried in front of everyone and admitted I wanted to run away, after I had called in support of any kind. Support came in the form of Donna.

She and I wandered Kazimierz until we found a beautiful Israeli restaurant called Hamsa, with the
lettering "Hummus and Happiness" illuminated against the brick. The staff wear shirts that say "Make Hummus, Not War" and on the paper placemats there is a picture of The Hand of Fatima--a symbol that has meaning in Judaism and in Islam. It is thought to bring good luck and ward off evil. When we are waiting for our food I rip the picture off and tuck it in my journal as one more later of protection.

We order tabbouleh and two hummus plates with falafel. We are delightedly eating my favorite meal of the trip so far while she asks me questions that I can actually answer, about my past, about my ancestry, about my hopes for this trip, my fears, about grief work, about dreams. We talk about everything I love and it is easy. Throughout this conversation she offers me three things based on what I've said--things that would make me feel supported and stronger in going to Auschwitz. One is a physical and emotional comfort--a teddy bear that has been passed to her from another person at the retreat. The second is an opportunity to bring my gifts forward while we are there--teaching her how to scream. And the third is a possibility for greater personal refuge at the retreat--her single person bedroom. She offers with no strings, no expectation, no pressure. I don't have to know anything.

~~~

I can't believe these questions are still resounding. I thought they would stop when I got on the plane. I had reprieve and clarity. But yesterday I got thrown. I've been feeling better over the course of today, but am nervous, and the museum didn't give me the answers I was looking for.

The bus to Auschwitz leaves early in the morning.

Are you going?
Are you staying?
How long will you be gone?
Why are you chasing your literal dreams across the world?
Shouldn't I be focusing on my own healing?
Do I really have the resources for this?
What's the urgency? Can't you wait a few years?
And who in their right mind would spend a week at Auschwitz anyway?
What is going to happen?
Am I even going?
What about after?
Is it even gonna be worth it all?
Can I trust this person? This place? These people? This container?
Or am I it--my only reliable container?

Am I still dishonoring some part of myself by being here?
Am I actually listening to all the voices of me speaking?
Do I love myself enough? Really?

Guess what?

I STILL DONT FUCKING KNOW.



Tenant One: Check.