April 2024 | Part I: Interview with Saul Herrera, Vineyard Worker and Gardener + Middle East Peace

I came here undocumented in 1999 as a 15-year-old.

I’m 40 years old. I work and live on a small vineyard and also work for three or four different people more as a gardener, chain-sawing dead trees, weed-wacking, pruning, and fixing and taking care of things around the property. I’m licensed to spray chemicals on the vineyard, such as, copper and fungicides. The vineyard is organic and all the chemicals are extracted from plants.

When I’m not working, I like to play music. I play keyboard and am learning to play electric bass. I have a 4-piece band and we play quinceañera, parties and weddings, and another band that plays in a Catholic church in Santa Rosa twice a month. I also like to trade money on the market.

I came here undocumented in 1999 as a 15-year-old. I have one sister and one brother who live in Santa Rosa. We meet every two weeks or sometimes monthly for dinner and a get-together. My sister has two boys and a girl, and my brother has two girls and they’re expecting a baby boy. My sister likes to cook for us tamales and pozole.

Although I have a rich life here, I’m not really happy because most of my family is in Mexico and I am alone in this country. I have three sisters and my mother in Oaxaca, Mexico. I miss them and I worry about my mother. She has arthritis and lives alone because my sisters moved to Putla, the local city to work. I asked my mother to come here. She has cows and goats and doesn’t want to leave. I feel that I will have to go to Mexico soon to look after her. The city, Putla, is a half-hour away in dry weather down dirt roads. When it’s raining the road floods and it’s very difficult to travel.

I hold a work permit because I’m DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals announced by President Barrack Obama on June 15, 2012) which is renewed every two years. There are no permits being issued for new “Dreamers.”

It’s hard to travel because to go to Mexico, I need a letter from a doctor there stating that my family needs me to visit my mother, and then I only have 60 days. In 2016, when my mother got sick, I went to Charloco, Oaxaca. When I got back to San Francisco, I was taken to a separate office and spent two hours while immigration checked my records.

After I got my work permit in 2014, I got a social security number and applied for a driver’s license. In California, undocumented people can get a driver’s license since the passing of AB 60 (at the beginning of 2015.)

I drove without a license for many, many years. Every time we see a police car behind us, we’re nervous and shaking. I started driving in 2000 so I could get to work. In 2001, a car hit me. I didn’t speak English. The police came and took my car and gave me a ticket for $300. It was a really bad day! The police had to find someone to translate for me. 

In court, I pleaded guilty and the judge cut my bill to $150 and told me that I could not drive. After that, I decided to go to school to learn English. When I came here in 1999, people in the stores were speaking just English. There were maybe one or two Mexican stores in Santa Rosa. Today there are many. I was living in Windsor and had to go to Safeway and Riley’s. If I had a question, it was hard for me because I didn’t know how to explain it.

I started school in 2002. When I lost my car, I moved to a ranch on Westside Road, Healdsburg, and they gave me a home there. I got rides for lunch and for laundry. I didn’t drive for one or two years.

I saw English classes were being offered nearby every Tuesday from 6 to 8 pm. It took me many years because I worked with Mexican people and never got to practice my English. So, in a week, I’d forget everything! I spent six years going to classes.

Then I started driving and went to classes twice a week, and began to learn more. I took computer classes, too. I even entered an online competition to write about your life, and my essay won second prize in 2008.

I decided to look at other jobs and applied to a winery and got hired. I had a chance to drive tractors. After a year, they decided to place me in the wine-making room which was better paid. I was in charge of the machine pressing the grapes, checking the temperature, and filling the tanks. I was happy because it was all new to me. My English got better and better. A year later, in 2009, they had to lay me off because I didn’t have a social security number. I was sad because I saw that job as my opportunity. I’ve been paying taxes since 2001/2002 because the IRS will give anyone a number to pay taxes.

It was a hard time. I spent six months without full-time work. I just worked with one guy in Santa Rosa. It built up to three days a week of gardening. I planted olive trees. Now he has a big ranch of olive trees producing olive oil. I still work for him one day a week. It’s been almost twenty years. He explained my situation to his friends, and one of them hired me too.

A friend of mine saw a vacancy on the internet for two days a week in a small vineyard. I called and came to interview and got the job. This is where I live and work now. After April, it’s three to four days a week. After the harvest, it’s only one day a week. 

I work seven days a week.  I play at the church either for the 7 am service or on Saturday night so it doesn’t interfere with my work. If I have a big job, I can get help from friends. I don’t like to take a day off, so when it’s raining heavily, I have no worries about rent and food.

I cook my own food and often make extra so I don’t have to cook every day. When I came here, I didn’t have friends. I don’t like to go outside much. I prefer to stay in my home and play music.

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Middle East Awareness

“Our greatest gift is love, and our greatest tool awareness.” Anon

My teacher, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, outlined a four-point plan in relation to the Earth some ten years ago. I’ve been looking at it concerning the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and find it very relevant.the first two points quite relevant. The first point is witnessing.

The first point is “Witnessing—an awareness of what is happening in the inner and outer worlds. It means a state of awareness that sees without judgment, without expectation, without wanting anything, and in particular without wanting anything to change.”

This, in a way, is the toughest one for me. But, as Llewellyn explains, “It is actually a very important step “on the spiritual path not to want anything, not to try to change, but just to be aware.” This gradually creates a quality of consciousness, or awareness, separate from the ego and its patterns, desires, and fears—and is the beginning of bringing the consciousness of the Self into your life…
Although as a culture we only value action—doing—there is a power in witnessing that can stop something getting worse in a particular way, the light of consciousness can hold back the darkness.

The second point is Grief. There is the enormous grief over what we are doing to this beautiful planet, and there are places in the world where it is like an open wound…
Grief draws us towards love, opening us to our love for the world. And nothing is more potent or vital at this time than our love for the Earth. Love for the Earth, the most fundamental connection of our heart and soul with our planet, has to be the foundation for ecological work, in both the inner and outer worlds…

This is our Earth, which has given us so much, and this is where our children and our grandchildren will grow up—and what we are doing is almost unspeakable. It is a betrayal of life itself. And we need to feel this, to grieve and to love…

From this grief comes the third stage, Prayer. Prayer is the soul’s most basic response. It is our cry to God, to our Beloved, in times of distress. And my sense is that this primal cry from the soul is also the Earth’s prayer—the Earth is crying to God through us—our prayer is the voice, the calling of the Earth…
I feel very strongly that grace and the power of God are needed to heal and transform our suffering planet. Too much has been destroyed, too much darkness is present for humanity alone to redeem the wasteland we have created, the light we have lost. Only through love and the presence of the Beloved can our world be healed…

We have forgotten that the world belongs to God—in our hubris we think that we are the masters of creation, the lords of the world. But I don’t think that with all our effort we can heal the world—the destruction has been too great. We don’t have the understanding, nor do we have the power. Only through grace can the necessary healing be given…

And we should never underestimate the power of prayer, the power of this primal connection and communion with the Creator, with the Power that is behind all that exists. In the moment of real despair our cry can be heard and real help and healing be given, the miracle of rebirth can happen…

And from this prayer we can also discover the action that needs to be done. Action is the fourth stage. We live in a world that needs us to act, to respond outwardly just as our prayers are an inner response…

The problem with most action at this time is that it comes from the same mind-set that created the problem, the same conditioning and values that are destroying our world. This is why first we need to pray, so that we are aligned with a different set of values, a consciousness that is not conditioned. First prayer, then action…

Through prayer our hearts and minds can become aligned with the real need of the Earth and its wisdom which is deeper and older than our surface solutions…

Personally, I do not feel now is the time for big projects. I don’t think there is yet the power, the energy or knowledge to support them. I think they will too easily get caught in the ideologies of the past, the mechanisms and framework of how our present civilization is constructed…

To counter the darkening caused by the global corporations we need to return to what is most essential, the simple acts of care and loving kindness towards the ecosystem and each other. This is where healing will be born…a return to simple human values that are not based upon greed…

To act in our communities with care and concern—caring for a sick friend, cooking a meal with real love and attention—living with right action, mindfulness and common sense, and not being caught in the monster of consumerism that devours so much of our energy and light.

How can we live simply and mindfully, with reverence for all of life? How can we once again learn to listen to life, the Earth, to our hearts, so we act in harmony with the real forces that underlie creation? How can we return to the values that sustain our souls as well as our bodies? What do we really need, rather than what we want? And how can we contribute, how can we help others and the Earth? How can we live the generosity that the Earth continues to teach us?
From this awareness, and the actions to which it gives birth, life can regenerate, organically, holistically.”

Each of us may choose different actions, unique to who we are, our given situation, and how we respond from our depths. For example, you can read, Bruce Garrard’s interview on how he responded to this 4-point plan and became inspired to write a book and take action concerning on behalf of his local river.

In the present Middle East situation, I have chosen to take certain actions, based on my perceptions, feelings, and intuition. One commonsense action is to give money to organizations working with the people of Gaza to bring in food and medical aid. World Central Kitchen is one such organization valiantly shipping in food and distributing it. Doctors Without Borders is another.

It seems to me that a central cause of Israel’s Government and military actions is a continuous re-enactment of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation post-holocaust trauma which is described below. My response is to firstly, work on my own trauma. My father was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany and, not unusually, the family never talked about it. I was born on a kibbutz that my parents helped found in 1950 when they emigrated to Israel. 

So, I’m currently involved with two projects. “Healing German and Jewish Wounds,” an international lab of 16 Jewish and German people, co-led by an American Jewish therapist and a German therapist. And a 4-week workshop being offered by three of us to a local Jewish Community, “Beyond Holocaust Trauma—Living Peace.”

Remaining silent in the face of this situation is not an option for me.

The Role of Trauma in the Present Crisis

Thanks to Rabbi Tirzah’s research and her book, Wounds into Wisdom, first published in 2019 and revised in 2022, I have been given a stronger sense of the role of trauma in the present crisis in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and in particular its toll on many Israelis, and the tragedy we see today.

“The four hallmarks of trauma—dissociation, hyperarousal, isolation, and repetition—that affect the individual human body also affect the body politic…These four trauma characteristics describe an inner landscape that is shared in varying degrees by trauma survivors the world over. It’s important to remember that extreme trauma not only reshapes the lives of those who actually live through overwhelming events. It is a train that rumbles through history, depositing its load into the lives of new generations as well.”

How did the victims of the Holocaust and thousands of years of persecution become perpetrators? I don’t want to oversimplify the situation. There are many courageous Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to allow their humanity to be diminished. And everything here can also be applied to our current situation in the States and UK. Yes, to our very own lives! But, I would like to share just a few excerpts from Rabbi Tirzah’s book. As well as being a Jungian psychotherapist and having a Ph.D., she interviewed many Israelis and other Jewish people for this book. Her chapter, Resisting the Call to Fear, Blame, and Dehumanize opens with this quote by an Auschwitz survivor, Helena,

I saw this for myself in the camps…The body has its own will,
its own fears, its own desire for revenge. But the souls has eyes
that can be awakened. Then one sees that while hate
goes on and on forever, there is another path.
One can choose.

Here are some quotes from this chapter under the subtitle, “Life Under Siege.”

When you grow up as the other…you will “other” others. I took Tamara’s words to mean that we distance ourselves from those who are unlike us, when we make them into the faceless objects of our distrust and fear, we are only one step away from denying their humanity. And so, the cycle of violence and trauma is set in motion once again.

Just as individuals can go numb with shock and grief, just as stress hormones can create a continual state of alarm in the body, the same can be true for a society, or for an entire people…unintegrated trauma leaves us in a permanently defensive relationship to life. Our outer world becomes untrustworthy, and we become isolated in our own mental fortress. In a very real sense, the legacy of unhealed trauma is a life under siege…

Consider dissociation, the natural and often lifesaving mechanism by which a person under threat splits off from reality, both emotionally and mentally. In the moment of crisis, this walling-off of awareness may allow us to continue to function. But in the long run, we risk becoming increasingly disconnected from ourselves and others. If we deaden ourselves to our own pain, we also deaden ourselves to the pain of others.

Hyperarousal is a state of intense activation and vigilance, in which the stress hormones that once helped us respond to life-threatening danger, now remain permanently elevated, reshaping both our physiology and our thought processes. We are easily triggered by any perceived threat. We are reactive rather than reflective. Physiologically, we become programmed to see danger rather than opportunities.

Isolation…In the aftermath of overwhelming events, it is natural to pull back from others so that we can dedicate our energy to the work of recovery. But prolonged isolation can perpetuate the sense that we do not need anyone, that no one can understand or help us. Less permeable to new information and the views of others, our traumatic memories become fixed and inflexible. We become more resistant to change, less open to new opportunities for growth.

The final hallmark of trauma is repetition: the paradoxical but well-documented tendency of survivors to find or recreate situations reminiscent of their original trauma. The survivors themselves often struggle to identify the source of such uncanny reiterations of behaviors and even historical events. Trauma has blunted their conscious awareness of the magnitude of their own wounds.

Whether survivors recreate their trauma situation to gain comfort, mastery, or resolution, this pattern remains unconscious and so yields little but further pain.

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WILDERNESS
 
 
Wilderness times,
we all find ourselves there
not remembering the way out or in
there is a strangeness
the unknown asserts itself boldly
and we have no defense
and the beasts are menacing
and have no names
our only response is to stay
for there is no leaving now
and the strength 
in just saying yes 
I will face this thing
begins to move us through
as a faint path appears
recalling a story we once heard
about hope in a hard place
becomes our story 
in our defeat our suffering our grief
we know that love is never 
emptied of love
that Spirit is never 
emptied of Spirit 
that there is a breath
a friend gives
to a friend in need
and the next breath
and the next
until the sails of the soul 
are ripe for sailing 
and the wilderness is far behind us
and we carry its mercy
and blessings away with us
to pass to another.

Gail Onion

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Enraptured with Earth
Two talks by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

“At our Shifting Landscapes retreat held at Sharpham Trust in Devon last summer, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee gave two talks inviting us to fall in love with the Earth again. Feeling strongly that in this time of ecological unraveling, the Earth is asking us to return Her ever-present gaze with our tenderness and care, Emmanuel asks how we can expand our love to embrace Her in every moment, in every landscape?”

*****

Birds in your backyard II: House finches 

A 4-minute podcast by Theadora Block.

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Navigating the Dark Ages

A wonderful talk by Tara Brach at 

How do we process and respond to increasing societal oppression and violence? What helps us transform the energies of fear, hatred and delusion? This talk offers ways we can draw on our spiritual path to steady our heart and engage with presence, wisdom and care. [Originally published 2022-07-06]

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Sebastopol Lit Crawl

On Saturday, April 13th, Sebastopol is hosting its first Lit Crawl sponsored by Sebastopol Center for the Arts featuring over 100 writers who will share their work between 2:00 and 6:00 pm. Poets Sally Churgel, Judith Stone, Pamela Singer, Maureen Hurley, Sherrie Lovler, and Raphael Block have formed a group, “Earth Kindness” and will share their work from 2:00 to 3:00 pm at The Redwood, 234 South Main Street, Sebastopol, 95472.